A MLP Related Memorial Day Thought
Last night I slept safe in my bed and awoke after a good night's sleep. I did not fear that, in the night, the enemies of my country would come and destroy my house and kill myself or my wife or any of my loved ones. I take this for granted, as do most Americans. Even though I know better, having extensively studied both military and social
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Today, once again, another great evil is rising, but now, our cowardly leaders won't even acknowledge its existence, or even speak its name, let alone act decisively to contain it. ISIS is still at this point eminently defeatable. Their numbers are tiny compared to the armies of the West. But we're not doing it. Why? Because the West is now a self-castrated coward, that's why. And it's not just our governments that are to blame. We the People are complicit in all this, too, because we are not demanding that something be done about it, which we absolutely should be doing. But we're too comfy in our air-conditioned homes and amused with our electronic gadgets and hypnotized by the swill on television to give a rat's ass about the humanity that is right this very second being slaughtered on the other side of the world.
Honestly, if we didn't get the message on 9/11 when they flew passenger jets into the very symbols of our civilization and killed thousands of us, I don't know what could wake us up at this point. Truly, what basis is there for any kind of optimism at all now that this great evil will be smashed and annihilated, when our leaders and our people do nothing but turn away in complete and absolute denial of what is happening right before our eyes?
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http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/05/25/al-jazeera-survey-shows-81-percent-support-islamic-state/
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The sad thing is, I don't believe Obama or any Western nation would retaliate if IS or Iran used nukes against us. Israel would, for sure, but not the West. Our response to Islamic nuke attacks would be to just tuck our tails in even further and cower like beaten puppies, and go on appeasing our new Muslim masters. Remember the Obama Doctrine: "The US will never be at war with Islam." That's the one promise he's made that I fully expect him to keep.
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First of all, I think that you underestimate Britain and France. I noticed that the French launched counterattacks against AQ-AP after the Charlie Hebdo attack, for instance. Both countries have large and aggressive Muslim minorities, but I think that both countries are starting to awake to the danger.
Secondly, the leaders of today might not be the leaders after such an attack. Obama, in particular, is very unpopular already, and would be even more unpopular after such an attack occurred on his watch unless retaliation was swift, massive and effective. He's committed numerous impeachable actions, and if the Democrats in Congress turned on him in order to save their own political careers, his exit might be swift.
In any case, Obama won't be the President after January 2017, and most of the Democrats don't have the sentimental attraction to Islam that he does.
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Notably, this is also one of the errors we made in dealing with Adolf Hitler.
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I learned in the 2001-2008 period just why no one stopped Hitler before it was too late. Dubya tried to do the equivalent, and because he was a poor communicator, he was pilloried in the court of public opinion for it. The truth is that the fault for failing to stop World War II was squarely that of the populations of the democracies of the 1930's, who so feared a moderate bloodletting that they let Armageddon occur. And once 1938-1939 rolled around, the war was almost unstoppable.
ISIS is still at this point eminently defeatable.
Oh, they'll still be "defeatable" when they're a Great Power with nuclear weapons. It's just that by then we'll do it by running our own nuclear missile production lines 24/7 and carrying out campaigns of "protracted strategic countervalue depopulation." And the public will cheer them on, just as enthusiastically if not more so than they cheered on the peace activists. The difference is that by then the members of said public will be mourning dead kin, and it will thus be personal.
Our problem is that we are too mesmerized by our own power.
Honestly, if we didn't get the message on 9/11 when they flew passenger jets into the very symbols of our civilization and killed thousands of us, I don't know what could wake us up at this point. Truly, what basis is there for any kind of optimism at all now that this great evil will be smashed and annihilated, when our leaders and our people do nothing but turn away in complete and absolute denial of what is happening right before our eyes?
We managed to convince ourself that 9/11 was a once-and-no-more occurrence, and that our own military campaign against Al Qaeda had nothing to do with the lack of follow-ons. Then we made ourselves feel safe by deliberately ignoring the numerous pinprick attacks which the Terrorists did launch. This started under Dubya, but reached Orwellian levels under Obama, with Terrorist attacks being reclassified as "workplace violence," and repeated claims that the Terrorists weren't "true Muslims."
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I just can't believe how passive people are about this generally and how much denial there is. My new roommate, who is a good guy and not super left wing, was getting it about Radical Islam but then, one day- we watched that video ISIS made of them cutting off the heads of 25 Christians near the ocean. I thought he would be alarmed but he then claimed that it was faked. I was just shocked. Turns out he is a 9/11 truther. I am not sure he still thinks this but probably does. We can talk about it without it being an argument but I don't push it. I wonder why people have to get into that level of denial. I see it as just that. While most people don't think that the beheadings are fake, and that the US government (I presume) trying to get us all terrorized and complacent by somehow faking them, obviously there is still a lot of denial to go around. Starting yes, with the elites. It is just too horrid to believe but the Islamic terror is real. Oh it is!
Sometimes the weight of the horror is just overwhelming.
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I don't fully understand how that all works. But the longer I follow this issue and see this type of response, the more I think that's what it must be. I simply can't think of another reasonable explanation! People are generally not stupid to this extent. And average, sane, law abiding, "normal" people don't support brutality of this sort. So what other options are there to explain it?
I can only think that it's all so frightening and awful to them that they metaphorically put their hands over their ears like a small child and scream to the world, "No, no, no! I WON'T believe it!"
My follow up question is why isn't it all people doing that? There's certainly nothing special about me in that regard. I can't stand blood and gore. But I've watched beheadings (as much as I can stand, anyway) and other atrocities that have been filmed. I don't enjoy it. I don't watch it regularly. But I can acknowledge reality.
And I am sure the rest of us who are able to face reality are not particularly different than the ones who don't. That's where I'm stuck. I can't put a finger on where that dividing line is, and why some react one way while others react differently. I am no smarter, more educated, "braver" or anything else compared to other people.
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