COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The Biggest Loser : US Military Power in The Middle East and its Legacy with 1.4 billion Muslims: Deepening Muslim hostility to us and to an expansionist Israel.



HAT TIP: Quirk

Let’s End America’s Hopeless War for the Middle East






Our country’s longest war is unwinnable, and we have more important things to do.

 PoliticoN

Andrew J. Bacevich 


A hundred years ago, the armies of World War I fought to a bloody stalemate on the Western Front and desperately searched for ways to break it and gain an edge. They field-tested tanks and poison gas, rolling barrages and storm-trooper tactics. Today, the United States is stuck in an analogous stalemate in the Middle East and Islamic world in general. And we are field-testing all manner of novelties, much like the great armies of Europe mired in the trenches: the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs and counterinsurgency, precision-guided munitions and unmanned aerial vehicles, not to mention such passing fancies as “overwhelming force,” “shock and awe,” and “air occupation.” 

Yet as was the case a century ago, the introduction of some new battlefield technique does not necessarily signify progress. On the contrary, it only deepens the stalemate.

To reflect on this longest of American wars—why it goes on and on, and at such a cost of blood and treasure—is to confront two questions. First, why has the world’s mightiest military achieved so little even while absorbing very considerable losses and inflicting even greater damage on the subjects of America’s supposed beneficence? Second, why in the face of such unsatisfactory outcomes has the United States refused to chart a different course? In short, why can’t we win? And since we haven’t won, why can’t we get out?

The answer to these questions starts with questioning the premise. The tendency to see the region and Islamic world primarily as a problem that will yield to an American military solution is, in fact, precisely the problem. To an unseemly and ultimately self-destructive degree, we have endorsed the misguided militarization of U.S. foreign policy. As a consequence, we have allowed our country to be pulled into the impossible task of trying to “shape” the region through martial means.

It’s long past time to stop trying (a conclusion that even President Obama appears to be edging his way toward, judging from his recent comments to The Atlantic). 

The United States plunged militarily into the Middle East out of the mistaken belief that the privileged status that Americans take as their birthright was at risk. Way back in 1948, George Kennan, State Department director of policy planning, noted that the United States then possessed “about 50 percent of the world’s wealth but only 6.3 percent of its population.” The challenge facing U.S. policymakers, he believed, was “to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.” The overarching aim of American statecraft, in other words, was to sustain the uniquely favorable situation to which the United States had ascended by the end of World War II. 

A half century later, that strategy succeeded and the Soviet Union collapsed. But the passing of the Cold War period left our massive national security apparatus underemployed while rendering obsolete the policy underlying postwar U.S. military policy—energetically preparing for global war in order to prevent it. The armed services and their various clients came face to face with a crisis of the first order. With the likelihood of World War III subsiding to somewhere between remote and infinitesimal—with the overarching purpose for which the postwar U.S. military establishment had been created thereby fulfilled—what exactly did that establishment and all of its ancillary agencies, institutes, collaborators, and profit-making auxiliaries exist to do?

The Pentagon wasted no time in providing an answer to that question. Rather than keeping the peace, it declared, the new key to perpetuating Kennan’s position of disparity was to “shape” the global order. Shaping now became the military’s primary job. In 1992, the Defense Planning Guidance drafted under the aegis of Paul Wolfowitz spelled out this argument in detail. Pointing proudly to the “new international environment” that had already “been shaped by the victory” over Saddam Hussein the year before, that document provided a blueprint explaining how American power could “shape the future.” 

The Greater Middle East was to serve—indeed, was even then already serving—as the chosen arena for honing military power into a utensil that would maintain America’s privileged position and, not so incidentally, provide a continuing rationale for the entire apparatus of national security. That region’s predominantly Muslim population thereby became the subjects of experiments ranging from the nominally benign—peacekeeping, peacemaking and humanitarian intervention—to the nakedly coercive. Beginning in 1980, U.S. forces ventured into the Greater Middle East to reassure, warn, intimidate, suppress, pacify, rescue, liberate, eliminate, transform and overawe. They bombed, raided, invaded, occupied and worked through proxies of various stripes. In 1992, Wolfowitz had expressed the earnest hope of American might addressing the “sources of regional instability in ways that promote international law, limit international violence, and encourage the spread of democratic government and open economic systems.” The results actually produced over the course of several decades of trying have never come even remotely close to satisfying such expectations.

The events that first drew the United States military into the Greater Middle East and that seemed so extraordinary at the time—the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan—turned out to be mere harbingers. Subsequent upheavals have swept through the region in waves: revolutions and counterrevolutions, episodes of terror and counterterror, grotesque barbarism and vast suffering. Through it all, a succession of American leaders—Republican and Democratic, conservative and liberal, calculating and naive—persisted in the belief that the determined exercise of U.S. military power will somehow put things right. None have seen their hopes fulfilled.

Why? One explanation stands out above all others. In stark contrast to the Cold War, American purposes and U.S. military policy in the Islamic world have never aligned. Rather than keeping threats to U.S. interests at bay, a penchant for military activism, initially circumspect but becoming increasingly uninhibited over time, has helped to foster new threats. Time and again, from the 1980s to the present, U.S. military power, unleashed rather than held in abeyance (as it was for most of the Cold War), has met outright failure, produced results other than those intended, or proved to be largely irrelevant. 

The Greater Middle East remains defiantly resistant to shaping.

Not for want of American effort, of course. In World War I, the supreme importance assigned to the Western Front made the stalemate there visible to all. The geography of America’s War for the Greater Middle East has been more variable. Always there is the Persian Gulf, of course, but at intervals Central Asia, the Levant, the Maghreb, the Horn of Africa, and even the Balkans have vied for attention. More recently still, West Africa has emerged as an active theater. These periodic changes of venue do not mean that the United States is closing in on its goal, however. Opening up some new front (or reopening an old one) testifies to the reality that U.S. forces in 2016 find themselves caught in a predicament no less perplexing than the one that ensnared the armies of Germany, France, and Great Britain a century ago. Mission accomplishment is nowhere in sight. Put simply, we’re stuck.

Why in this instance doesn’t the ostensibly superior power of the United States confer choice? How can it be that even today, large segments of the policy elite entertain fantasies of salvaging victory if only a smart president will make the requisite smart moves?

To understand the persistence of such illusions requires appreciating several assumptions that promote in Washington a deeply pernicious collective naiveté. Seldom explicitly articulated, these assumptions pervade the U.S. national security establishment.

The first assumption is that those responsible for formulating U.S. policy in the Greater Middle East—not only elected and appointed officials but also the military officers assigned to senior posts—are able to discern the historical forces at work in the region. But they can’t. The worldview to which individuals rotating through the upper reaches of the national security apparatus subscribe derives from a shared historical narrative, recounting the story of the 20th century as Americans have chosen to remember it. It centers on an epic competition between rival versions of modernity—liberalism vs. fascism vs. communism—and ends in vindication for “our” side. Ultimately, the right side of history prevailed. Presidents and Cabinet secretaries, generals and admirals see no reason why that narrative should not apply to a different locale and extend into the distant future. 

In other words, they are blind to the possibility that in the Greater Middle East substantially different historical forces just might be at work.

A second assumption takes it for granted that as the sole global superpower the United States possesses not only the wisdom but also the wherewithal to control or direct such forces. In the 20th century, “our” side won because American industry and ingenuity produced not only superior military might but also a superior way of life based on consumption and choice—so at least Americans have been thoroughly conditioned to believe. A third assumption asserts that U.S. military power offers the most expeditious means of ensuring that universal freedom prevails—that the armed might of the United States, made manifest in the presence of airplanes, warships and fighting troops, serves as an irreplaceable facilitator or catalyst in moving history toward its foreordained destination.
That the commitment of American armed might could actually backfire and make matters worse is a proposition that few authorities in Washington are willing to entertain.

A final assumption counts on the inevitability of America’s purposes ultimately winning acceptance, even in the Islamic world. The subjects of U.S. benefactions will then obligingly submit to Washington’s requirements and warmly embrace American norms. If not today, then surely tomorrow, the United States will receive the plaudits and be granted the honors that liberators rightly deserve. Near-term disappointments can be discounted given the certainty that better outcomes lie just ahead.

None of these assumptions has any empirical basis. Each drips with hubris. Taken together, they sustain the absence of self-awareness that has become an American signature. Worse, they constitute a nearly insurmountable barrier to serious critical analysis. Yet the prevalence of these assumptions goes far toward explaining this key failing in the U.S. military effort: the absence of a consistent understanding of what the United States is fighting for and whom it is fighting against.

To mask this loss of definition (and perhaps their own confusion), successive presidents framed the overarching problem in generic terms, referring to adversaries as militants, terrorists, warlords, rogue states, or, most recently, “violent extremist organizations.” Alternatively, they followed Ronald Reagan’s example in focusing their ire on specific bad actors. By implication, removing the likes of Qadhafi, Saddam Hussein, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, Slobodan Milošević, Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi held the key to putting things right. 

Today, all but one of these unsavory figures have passed from the scene, their departure bringing the United States not one whit closer to a definitive outcome. And although American airstrikes or commandos may one day bag the sole remaining survivor—ISIS leader al-Baghdadi—no reason exists to expect his elimination to have a decisive effect.
***

Indeed, today the problems besetting the Greater Middle East are substantially greater than they were when large numbers of U.S. forces first began venturing into the region. We may argue over the underlying sources of those problems and about how to allocate culpability. Multiple factors are involved, among them pervasive underdevelopment, a dearth of enlightened local leadership, the poisonous legacy of European imperialism, complications stemming from the founding of Israel, deep historical divisions within Islam itself, and the challenge of reconciling faith with modernity in a region where religion pervades every aspect of daily life. But there is no arguing that U.S. efforts to alleviate the dysfunction so much in evidence have failed abysmally.

In circumstances such as this, there are two broad ways of employing military power. The first is to wait things out—insulating yourself from the problem’s worst effects while promoting a nonviolent solution from within. This requires patience and comes with no guarantee of ultimate success. With all the usual caveats attached, this is the approach the United States took during the Cold War. The second approach is more direct. It aims to eliminate the problem through sustained, relentless military action. This entails less patience but incurs greater near-term costs. After a certain amount of shilly-shallying, it was this head-on approach that the Union adopted during the Civil War.

In the War for the Greater Middle East, the United States chose neither to contain nor to crush, instead charting a course midway in between. In effect, it chose aggravation. With politicians and generals too quick to declare victory and with the American public too quick to throw their hands up when faced with adversity, U.S. forces rarely stayed long enough to finish the job. Instead of intimidating, U.S. military efforts have annoyed, incited and generally communicated a lack of both competence and determination.

In what ranks as the ultimate irony, the circumstances that had made the Persian Gulf worth fighting for in the first place have ceased to pertain. If today the American way of life still depends, for better or for worse, on having access to plentiful reserves of oil and natural gas, then the Western Hemisphere, not the Persian Gulf, deserves top billing in the Pentagon’s hierarchy of strategic priorities. Defending Canada and Venezuela should take precedence over defending Saudi Arabia and Iraq. To put it another way, the United States would be better served to secure its own neighborhood rather than vainly attempting to police the Greater Middle East—and it would likely enjoy greater success, to boot.
Even so, shorn of its initial rationale, the War for the Greater Middle East continues. That the ongoing enterprise may someday end—that U.S. troops will finally depart—appears so unlikely as to make the prospect unworthy of discussion. Like the war on drugs or the war on poverty, the War for the Greater Middle East has become a permanent fixture in American life and is accepted as such.

Partly this is because the ongoing war has long since acquired a perfidious seal of bipartisan approval, with both Republicans and Democrats alike implicated. Politicians aspiring to high office, especially those contemplating a bid for the presidency, find it more expedient to “support the troops” (and therefore the war) than to question the war’s efficacy or to propose alternative approaches to satisfying U.S. objectives in the Islamic world. A particular campaign that goes awry like Somalia or Iraq or Libya may attract passing attention, but never the context in which that campaign was undertaken. We can be certain that the election of 2016 will be no different. The War for the Greater Middle East awaits its Eugene McCarthy or George McGovern.

Perhaps most important, there is this: Thus far, at least, Americans themselves appear oblivious to what is occurring. Policymakers have successfully insulated the public from the war’s negative effects. Reliance on a professional military places the burden of service and sacrifice onto a very small percentage of citizens and lets everyone else off the hook. The resort to deficit spending to underwrite the war’s costs sloughs off onto future generations the onus of paying the bills.

It’s not that Americans today actively support the war in the same sense that their grandparents supported World War II. It’s that they see no particular reason to attend one way or another to the war’s progress or likely outcome. In a fundamental sense, the war is not their concern.

In the 21st century, the prerequisites of freedom, abundance and security are changing. Geopolitically, Asia is eclipsing in importance all other regions apart perhaps from North America itself. The emerging problem set—coping with the effects of climate change, for example—is global and will require a global response. Whether Americans are able to preserve the privileged position to which they are accustomed will depend on how well and how quickly the United States adapts the existing “pattern of relationships” to fit these fresh circumstances.

Amid such challenges, the afflictions besetting large portions of the Islamic world will undoubtedly persist. But their relative importance to the United States as determinants of American well-being will diminish, a process even today already well advanced even if U.S. national security priorities have yet to reflect this fact.

In this context, the War for the Greater Middle East becomes a diversion that Americans can ill afford.













75 comments:

  1. We haven’t won a war in 70 years. It is thirty one years since the Great Ronald Reagan hosted the Mujahideen at The White House, thanking them for their service against the godless Soviets. Since then we “took out” Qadhafi, Saddam Hussein, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, Slobodan Milošević, Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and to what end?

    Millions of Muslim refugees trying to flee to Europe; How will that end?

    Have we advanced our position and real interests in Europe or the Americas?

    No. We are stuck with supporting regimes in Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey at a cost of trillions and the resultant death of millions.

    Is there any end in sight?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Al-Baghdadi has been "taken out?"

      Somebody needs to tell him. He's still raising considerable hell over there.

      Delete
  2. .

    Is there any end in sight?

    No.

    At least, it seems not.

    It would require a paradigm shift in D.C. that appears impossible given the intellectual vacuity there, the vested interests that require the long war, and the 'accepted truth' that America's political system, values, and culture are the best in the world and need to be shared even if it has to be at the point of a gun.

    Further the denizens of D.C. are abetted by a public that is for the most part indifferent to public policies that do not directly affect them, unless of course, those policies can be used to make political points against the 'other guy's' party. Being uninformed and uninterested, they really have no incentive to drive the change that is necessary.

    .

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    1. If you ever get around to the point, after having done some reading and thinking, of accepting the fact that something touching 70% of the American people support Israel, due to our shared outlooks on life and morality, always have, and always will, your stupid simplistic theories and prejudices will buckle.

      This is unlikely of course as you display all the confirming signs of being high on sugar and LSD and booze day after day....

      Readin' and writin' and thinkin' but not drinkin' is hard in your condition.

      Delete
    2. And fully half of the remaining 30% couldn't point to the Middle East on a map.

      Delete
    3. .

      Sorry, Bjorn, I could care less what 70% of Americans thinks of Israel.

      First, because the polls you cite usually ask questions like "Which side do you support, Israel's or the Palestinians'?" The question is meaningless because for the most part the American public's knowledge of Israel is shaped mostly by Paul Newman and Sal Mineo in the movie Exodus. Likewise, they perceive all Palestinians as Muslim terrorists not ever looking at the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in any detail. Uninformed opinions mean little to me.

      Second, because those Americans who are informed about Israel or support it fall into three categories; those that support it because of the sticks and carrots it controls, those that support it because they believe the appearance of the Israeli state is a precursor to the end times, and those like you and WiO whose knowledge of Israel is minimal but who still champion it regardless.

      And finally, because unlike you, WiO, and apparently Deuce I do not view Israel as the center of the universe responsible for all that is good and/or evil in the world. True the current government there can be a pain in the ass at times and Bibi is the consummate prick, but there a lot worse players in the ME than Israel.

      If I ever get around to the point of accepting the fact that something touching 70% of the American people support Israel?

      If that is what it is, I accept it. But the question remains, "So What?"

      You obviously have me confused with someone who really gives a shit.

      .

      Delete
  3. .

    From the Guardian...

    The Sugar Conspiracy

    In 1980, after long consultation with some of America’s most senior nutrition scientists, the US government issued its first Dietary Guidelines. The guidelines shaped the diets of hundreds of millions of people. Doctors base their advice on them, food companies develop products to comply with them. Their influence extends beyond the US. In 1983, the UK government issued advice that closely followed the American example.
    Advertisement

    The most prominent recommendation of both governments was to cut back on saturated fats and cholesterol (this was the first time that the public had been advised to eat less of something, rather than enough of everything). Consumers dutifully obeyed. We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine and vegetable oils, eggs with muesli, and milk with low-fat milk or orange juice. But instead of becoming healthier, we grew fatter and sicker.

    Look at a graph of postwar obesity rates and it becomes clear that something changed after 1980. In the US, the line rises very gradually until, in the early 1980s, it takes off like an aeroplane. Just 12% of Americans were obese in 1950, 15% in 1980, 35% by 2000. In the UK, the line is flat for decades until the mid-1980s, at which point it also turns towards the sky. Only 6% of Britons were obese in 1980. In the next 20 years that figure more than trebled. Today, two thirds of Britons are either obese or overweight, making this the fattest country in the EU. Type 2 diabetes, closely related to obesity, has risen in tandem in both countries.

    At best, we can conclude that the official guidelines did not achieve their objective; at worst, they led to a decades-long health catastrophe...


    Nobody could have predicted, it is said, how the food manufacturers would respond to the injunction against fat – selling us low-fat yoghurts bulked up with sugar, and cakes infused with liver-corroding transfats...


    .

    ReplyDelete
  4. New scientific study confirms correlation between drinking, driving, and traffic deaths....

    The old 'street myth' confirmed....

    'Rubbernecking' suspected as contributing factor

    Hundreds of 'drunken Detroit rubbernecking drivers' interviewed....

    "All I was doing was drinking, driving and looking around, You Honor"

    DUI VEICULAR HOMICIDE CHARGES RISE

    More later...

    The Bjorn Report

    ReplyDelete
  5. .

    Ugly End-Game Coming For Japan On Its Debt Spiral

    Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said zero interest rates have disguised the underlying danger posed by Japan’s public debt, likely to reach 250pc of GDP this year and spiralling upwards on an unsustainable trajectory.
    'One day the BoJ may well get a call from the finance ministry saying please think about us – it is a life or death question - and keep rates at zero'
    Olivier Blanchard

    “To our surprise, Japanese retirees have been willing to hold government debt at zero rates, but the marginal investor will soon not be a Japanese retiree,” he said.

    Prof Blanchard said the Japanese treasury will have to tap foreign funds to plug the gap and this will prove far more costly, threatening to bring the long-feared funding crisis to a head...

    --------------------------

    "The risk of fiscal dominance, leading eventually to high inflation, is definitely present. I would not be surprised if this were to happen sometime in the next five to ten years."

    Arguably, this is already starting to happen. The BoJ is soaking up the entire budget deficit under Governor Haruhiko Kuroda as he pursues quantitative easing a l’outrance.

    The central bank owned 34.5pc of the Japanese government bond market as of February, and this is expected to reach 50pc by 2017...

    -------------------

    Once markets begin to suspect that Tokyo is deliberately engineering an escape from its $10 trillion public debt trap by means of an inflationary ‘stealth default’, matters could spin out of control quickly...



    Japan is still the 3rd largest economy in the world. It's hard to predict the effect on other world economies if Japan is forced into a funding crisis. What's not hard to predict is that it won't be good.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  6. 60% of “Palestinians” support jihad attacks against Israeli civilians

    By Robert Spencer on Apr 11, 2016 10:58 am

    60% of “Palestinians” support jihad attacks against Israeli civilians

    Polls always reveal the “tiny minority of extremists” to be much larger than most Westerners assume. “Poll: 60% of Palestinians Support ‘Armed Attacks Against Israeli Civilians Inside Israel'” The Tower, April 10, 2016 (thanks to The Religion of Peace): A majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza approve of attacks against Israeli civilians […]
    Read in browser »


    Jihad Watch


    It's always the same, same old same old, going back to the days of Martha Gellhorn and beyond....

    But City Slickers like Quirk are so damned dense they just cannot get the point, just CANNOT WILL NOT get the point...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Only one in three Muslims in UK would tip off police to jihad terror plot

      By Robert Spencer on Apr 11, 2016 06:55 pm

      Only one in three Muslims in UK would tip off police to jihad terror plot

      It is much the same in the United States. Contrary to its claim that “CAIR believes it is both our civic and religious duty to work with law enforcement to protect our nation,” Hamas-linked CAIR has more than once advised Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement. In January 2011, its San Francisco chapter featured […]
      Read in browser »


      Jihad Watch

      Stop Moslem Immigration To USA Now

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. .

      Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch.

      :O)


      I answered your silly talking points up stream at QuirkTue Apr 12, 04:15:00 AM EDT.

      .

      Delete
  7. The Donald looks to be running away with it in Pennsylvania....up 15% and rising....

    WARNING: Pennsylvania has a weird primary with rules coming from God Knows Where....

    ReplyDelete
  8. First We Show The PolesTue Apr 12, 03:41:00 AM EDT

    First we're gonna show the Poles, then everybody else.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmmmm...that's REAL predatory behavior, FWSTP, attacking the weak and lame brained and helpless first.

      That's not what I call Heroic Behavior.

      You are not Humble and Kind, Sir.

      Always be Humble and Kind, Sir -

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awzNHuGqoMc

      Delete
    2. .

      In your case, the word 'simple' also applies.

      .

      Delete
    3. In your case, the words 'simple simpleton' apply.

      :o)

      ;)

      Delete
    4. First We Show The PolesTue Apr 12, 05:00:00 AM EDT

      In Quirk's case, the words 'blind childish defenseless silly simple simpleton' apply.

      Delete
  9. Good Morning !

    I'm up and rested and ready to renew combat with one of Detroit's finest !

    Cheers !! and Top o' the Day to all on this fine morning except for you know who...

    Suggested theme for the day from here in the outback - The System Is Rigged (except in Idaho)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. On the Third Ballot, Cruz Will Find Out What It's Like to Be Trump

      April 11, 2016

      Listen to it Button

      Listen to it Button

      BEGIN TRANSCRIPT


      RUSH: Look, here's what you have to know here if you want to be able to read this NBC story and understand it. You have to understand that the Republican Party, the GOP, the RNC, whoever. They structured -- and they do it every year; they change the primary process. They change a number of things about it, based on what went wrong the previous year. And the previous year is four years ago, and they wrote rules four years ago to stop somebody like Ron Paul. Okay, so those rules are still in place, and they're going to change those rules.

      Some of those rules have to be voted on by the convention. Some of those rules can't change 'til the convention openings. But one of the things in place right now is that the GOP... Because, remember, the GOP has always thought that it was going to be in control of who wins these primaries. "What do you mean, Rush? How do they know who's gonna vote for whom?" It's money, folks. They arrange for the donors. They go out and even if somebody doesn't want to run, they might implore them on to run (like Jeb), and get 'em in and get this whole network going.

      Is there any doubt that the GOP wanted Jeb Bush?

      Is there any doubt whatsoever?

      Jeb may never have actually wanted it. I mean, I'm just basing it on energy level and so forth. But it's beside the point. The party is never going to write themselves out of control of this process. So when that happens, oh, panic sets in! So reason that Trump ends up here with essentially a 22% bonus in delegates is because the Republican Party set it up so that the front-runner gets bonuses for being the front-runner, 'cause they thought they were gonna be in charge of who the front-runner ended up be.

      They wire it or try to in a lot of ways. The problem is, they're working four years in advance and they're always basing rules on what went wrong the last time. So the rules are rooted in the past and things they lost control of. So they say, "Okay, we don't want that happening again," and they come up with a new rule. But then four years later the process begins, things they didn't anticipate happen, and they get caught short, which is where they are now.

      Delete
    2. But the point is that while Trump is out blasting what happened in Colorado and some of these other states, the fact of the matter is, as NBC News is reporting, Trump basically has been awarded a delegate bonus of 22% above his raw support from voters. Without getting into the arcane details, it's a front-runner bonus. It's just the way the rules are written. So they're dealing with that. Now, Colorado comes along and last August, after... I'm sure they did this because of Trump. They'll never say so.

      In last August, Colorado changed its procedure and decided that they weren't gonna have a straw poll or a primary -- and, in fact, instead were going to choose the nominee at the party convention. They were gonna choose the delegates there and the delegates were determined, and there would still be a primary, but the results wouldn't mean anything. Now, this didn't happen two nights ago or a week ago. It wasn't decided recently. It was decided back in August. Now, in my humble estimation I am sure it happened because of Trump way back in August.

      Remember the panic levels. This is after we've had the first debate, and everybody's outraged over what Trump has been saying about Mexicans and immigrants and John McCain and Megyn Kelly's orifices and stuff. They're just having a cow. So these Republicans in Colorado decide to change their whole procedure to give them control over their state, and Cruz knew it. Anybody could have known it! It was not done under cover of darkness. The rules were not kept in a secret black book housed in the crypt of some former great Republican who perished back in the days of the Civil War.

      It was right out in the open. Anybody could go read the rules. Now, it's fascinate. You know what fascinates me about this? Many things. But in this whole process of the primaries, there have been various leakages from the GOP and from the establishment about their supposed concerns. So we've gotten all the news about Rule 40 and how that might come into play, and we've had leaks about efforts that are gonna get made maybe to put this candidate in who hasn't run. They have all kinds of things offered up as distractions.

      Yet what happened this weekend at party conventions and delegate selection? Nobody ever said a word publicly about it coming back. Nobody in the establishment ever said, essentially, "Don't worry. We're gonna stop Trump at our party convention." They all said, "We're gonna stop Trump on the floor of the convention. We're gonna see to it that he doesn't get 1,237, then we're gonna go broke, then we're gonna do contest." Everybody talking about that while nobody had a heads-up about what they were planning to do this weekend the party convention......


      http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/04/11/on_the_third_ballot_cruz_will_find_out_what_it_s_like_to_be_trump

      Delete
    3. Sometimes I think Rush could use a marijuana patch to chill a bit.

      Delete
    4. Note to the uninformed:

      The political parties are private entities. They can make the rules however they so choose.

      If you don't like it, you can form a political party of your own.

      Delete
    5. Q did this once. The long forgotten "Q" Party, out of Detroit.

      Most folks saw through it immediately, as a big advertising gig.

      Before it closed up shop Q was able to milk the sheeple of several hundred K.

      All perfectly legal, he has always stoutly maintained.

      Some of the donors tried to sue him but could never get service accomplished.

      Delete
  10. My war against submitting to allah is not going to change. Just as the Theo-political ideology's adherents won't stop until it conquers all.
    Would you leave a ticking time bomb laying around for the rest of your life just to have it explode in your offspring's midst?

    Not me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you got a lot of Jehovah witness errrrr Islamic people wandering about your neighborhood trying to get you to join up Mr. Saxum? Take a jihad? When were you ever requested to submit to Allah?

      Delete
    2. doug saxom, I second the well said above.

      If you hang around here for awhile, Mr. Saxon, I predict you might begin to agree with me in my opinion that our smart ass punk Ash needs, and deserves, and has earned, a good non lethal mugging to knock a little better sense and humility into him.

      He can be irritating as hell.

      Delete
    3. doug saxum, are you like our resident logician Idaho 'mensa' Bob who believes that the reason Osama bin Laden orchestrated the downing of the twin towers was because he wanted to convert Americans to Islam? Is that what is behind your "war against submitting to allah"?

      Delete
    4. Answer my question first Ash.

      Delete
    5. What, about the 'ticking time bomb'? Of course not. Is there one lying about somewhere that threatens my kids?

      Delete
    6. Mr. Saxum, I had offered many months ago to buy Ash, Quirk, Deuce, and Jack "Memorial Day" Hawkins a free one way air line ticket to Gaza, on the condition they stay at least one week, wear Jewish clothing and a skull cap, and never deny, if questioned, that they are Jewish. No one accepted my generous offer, except Quirk with an exception to terms so I guess the whole thing has expired.

      Quirk did accept but only on the condition that he be allowed to do the air line booking for himself, and probably a companion.

      I'm onto Quirk, so I declined.

      I figured I'd just be financing to trip to Rio for Quirk and his gal.

      Delete
    7. Maybe the next bomb that is planted by the religion of peace will have their name on it.
      In an airport, train station, subway, mall,...You can be sure there is going to be another, and another after that.

      Delete
    8. or maybe the bomb will be planted by an anti-federal cracker like in Oklahoma. Heck, if you want the bombing to stop, take the current crop of Islamic terrorists at their word and get out of the middle east. That's what Osama's terrorism was about - he didn't like the air bases in Saudi Arabia.

      How do you propose to combat terrorism doug saxum? Are you a turn the region into glass kinda guy? Do you think there is a military solution to the problems we face in the region? Do you think there is a military solution to your fear of being forced to submit to Allah? You are a pretty Christian guy who takes the Bible as truth are you not? Won't your God protect you against theirs?

      Delete
    9. Have you got a lot of Jehovah witness errrrr Islamic people wandering about your neighborhood trying to get you to join up Mr. Saxum? Take a jihad? When were you ever requested to submit to Allah?

      Equating the jehovah's witnesses with the blatant evil that is islam?
      Silly.

      Yes, there are muslims moving into my community everyday.

      I've read enough to know their endgame.
      "Convert or die" Or pay the jizya and live under the sharia law like a lower class punching bag.

      Delete
    10. Heck, if you want the bombing to stop, take the current crop of Islamic terrorists at their word and get out of the middle east.

      I'm taking "the prophet" and his followers at their word.
      You are not.

      How do you propose to combat terrorism

      With every available weapon in our arsenal.
      Starting with Bacon.


      Delete
    11. I have to get some sleep before working tonight.
      Till we meet again.
      Be well.

      Delete
    12. wow, you've swallowed b00bie's koolaid. I'm curious as to your sources that you've "read enough" - Jihadwatch perchance?

      Delete
    13. .

      Interesting stream.

      Since Mr. Saxum seems to have left the building, I'll save my response until tomorrow morning. Wouldn't want to put the time into it and then have him miss it.

      If you check back in later Dougo, look for my response tomorrow morning. I look forward to the conversation.

      .

      Delete
    14. Pardon me?

      Since when did I relinquish that term of endearment to anyone else?

      Delete
  11. From Syria to Malaysia: Tentacles of Terror Are Spreading

    https://fronteranews.com/news/asia/syria-malaysia-tentacles-terror-spreading/

    How many will die in this islamic death spiral?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Deuce's warped world of weird:

    "No. We are stuck with supporting regimes in Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey at a cost of trillions and the resultant death of millions."


    Your world view makes Yasser Arafat look like a Rhodes Scholar.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Deuce's obsession with the Ummah is telling.

    Some how the "1.4 billion" moslems are something to be feared, obeyed or pay tribute too.....

    Support Israel? The "1.4 billion" will punish you....

    Maybe we should take a page from the "Art of War"....

    The "1.4 billion" are really MANY different groups that hate each other....

    Shits verses the Suns as I like to say....

    The Shits? Doing a FINE job in mass murder of the Suns in the last few years....

    400,000 plus in syria
    300,000 plus in iraq

    no clue how many in yemen and such...

    then broaden the field....

    yeah the "1.4 billion" sounds impressive... But green grass always looks better at an angle than straight down....

    ReplyDelete
  14. The Donald is now up at 60% in New York.

    He is just killing it.

    ReplyDelete
  15. The 'students', the 'kids' as we used to call them, have really succeeded in screwing Mizzou's pooch.

    U. of Missouri to close 2 dorms due to lack of students - 4/12/16
    Budget shortfall due to 1,500 fewer freshmen than anticipated. More


    American Thinker Headline

    Seems like 'mom and dad', those 'final funders', even of student loans, want some education for their money, and not a 'revolution'.

    ReplyDelete
  16. No big loss here -

    Warhol 'Campbell's Soup' art stolen from museum....DRUDGE

    ReplyDelete
  17. Here's a kicker -

    “What I’ve talked to the secretary about, and what she’s said now in public, is that if she’s elected president, when she gets into office, she’ll ask for as many records as the United States federal government has to be declassified, and ((((I think that’s a commitment that she intends to keep)))) and that I intend to hold her to,” Podesta said.

    In HillaryHagWorld, there are commitments, and then commitments one intends to keep.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://hotair.com/archives/2016/04/12/podesta-yes-hillary-will-get-to-the-bottom-of-the-ufo-question/

      Delete
    2. .

      :o)

      Now, she's feeling the ire of her base for a somewhat tame racial joke she and DeBlasio came up with in a skit. PC bites both ways. In fact, it's insatiable.

      .

      Delete
    3. Damn disappearing post, Quirk, I tried three times.

      Please read the link.

      A testimony to the reality of Bigfoot is contained therein.

      Do some sites have somekind of self destruct code inside so you can't get them displayed ?

      Delete
    4. .

      I suspect it's an alien cover-up.

      You better get out your tinfoil again just to be safe.

      .

      Delete
    5. Tinfoil is good.

      Some guys and/or gals just broke into a bank in, I think the article said, Europe, all covered in tinfoil to foil the alarm systems.

      You ever tried that one, Quirk ?

      If so, how'd it work out ?

      Delete
    6. This method of theft is called, in the business, The Tinfoilfoil Method.

      Delete
  18. .

    It's derived from the Swedish 'Stand real still and look like a spoon method' of wolf avoidance.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A spoon ???

      That show's you don't know nothin'.

      It's actually the 'stand real still and look like a spruce tree' method.


      A spoon, for Lord's sakes, you nitwit, is just an invitation to a feast with YOU being the main course.

      Stick with urban survival.

      Delete
    2. shows

      Once again you got me so exorcised I lost control from the guffaws...

      Delete
    3. .

      Merely shows you have lost touch with your Swedish heritage.

      I gave you the number the other day.

      Make the call.

      Get in touch with your roots.

      Quit embarrassing yourself playing the part of a faux Swede.

      Cook up some meatballs.

      .

      .

      Delete
    4. Send me your balls, frozen,UPS, I'll cook 'em up.

      Send some gloves too. And mask and goggles.

      Out this way we call elk testicles Rocky Mountain Oysters.

      Though you ain't no elk. But the neighbor's dog might give 'em a chew.
      **********

      Poll: Trump hits 60 percent in New York


      posted at 5:21 pm on April 12, 2016 by John Sexton

      A NY1/Baruch College poll of New York found Donald Trump has hit 60 percent support and leads his nearest rival in the state by 43 percent. NY1 News reports:


      Running in his home state, Trump is supported by 60 percent of likely Republican voters, the poll found. Ohio Gov. John Kasich and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas trail far behind with 17 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

      “Trump is just killing it,” said Baruch College pollster Mickey Blum…”Every demographic group goes for him,” said Baruch College pollster Doug Muzzio. “Every geographic group, every socio-economic group. And with large majorities.

      It means Trump is in a position to possibly sweep all 95 delegates up for grabs. To do that, he must win at least 50 percent of the primary vote in every one of New York’s 27 congressional districts. Otherwise, the top finisher in a district wins two delegates and the runner-up gets one.

      Trump currently has 743 delegates according to an AP count and needs 1237 to secure the nomination. Sweeping the delegates in New York would help him overcome the failure to secure any delegates in Colorado. While a decisive victory would certainly be good news for Trump, there was also some bad news for the candidate in the same poll:


      In a general election, Clinton or Sanders beat Trump in New York. Our poll found Clinton winning 51 percent to 35 percent. Sanders would trounce Trump even more decisively: 54 percent to 32 percent.

      So Trump seems poised for a big win next Tuesday but New York is a state that voted for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by 63-35% in 2012. In real numbers, Obama got about 1.9 million more votes than Romney. That’s a pretty deep hole to climb out of for anyone on the GOP ticket.

      The same poll also found Hillary Clinton maintains a double-digit lead over Bernie Sanders, 50-37.

      http://hotair.com/archives/2016/04/12/trump-hits-60-percent-in-new-york/

      Delete
    5. .

      And you wonder why I call you a rustic lout. I mention Swedish meatballs and your mind, what there is of it, automatically turns to the crude and bizarre. You take atavistic pleasure in eating dead animal genitals and think it's cute. I can only guess what else you eat.

      Delete
    6. Rocky Mountain Oysters crude and bizarre ?

      Good God are you a tender dandy or what ?

      You eat Polish sausage wrapped in pigs guts. For breakfast.

      And YOU all ME bizarre.

      Probably the rest of your diet consists of booze and tasteless TV Dinners.

      Hell, what you need in is some clear clean western air in you clogged lungs, and the smell of some cedar trees instead of smog.

      It'd clear what's left of your 'mind', what there is of it.

      I can only guess what else you eat, other than Maria, and decline further speculation, you urban degenerate.

      Delete
  19. Hillary Clinton is a totally tone deaf and idiotic candidate.

    She makes The Donald look like a suave and sophisticated gentleman.

    Did anyone see her 'CP Time' skit with that moron de Blasio?

    Good Lord....

    ReplyDelete
  20. The contrast between rural purity and urban degeneracy is found all through Hemingway. He'd rather be fishing in the Italian mountains, in the Abruzzi, than hanging around the cess pools of Rome.

    This old theme goes back to the Romans, even the Greeks.

    In one famous passage Ernie was wrapping the pure rich nutritious steaming liver of a just downed buck in the buck's stomach for the trip backs to camp.

    One of his companions and pack animal guy, who had seen a lot, said:

    "Dat's smart, Ernst."

    A faux sophisticate and phony urban dandy like Quirk is satisfied with denatured cereal, Cheerios perhaps, booze, probably cheap rum, and Polish sausage stuffed inside unwashed raw pig guts, in contrast.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The technical term for this convention or genre is 'the pastoral', for your info, Quirk.

      Delete
    2. .

      Pastoral?

      No, fishing in a mountain stream is 'the pastoral'. Eating fish and chicken and greens is 'the pastoral'.

      Eating elk testicles is 'the rustic bumpkin'.

      Go eat you elk balls, Bjorn.

      .

      Delete
  21. Go eat your raw Kiełbasa stuffed in unwashed pig intestines, Kucharski.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Or, if you will cry "Uncle", we could just go to McDonald's and have Big Mac and fries, and some of your 100 proof Jamaican rum on ice, and talk politics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      I thought all you and Wayne drank were Airheads and Red Headed Sluts.

      .

      Delete
  23. .

    FBI paid hackers a fee to crack iPhone of San Bernardino terrorist

    The U.S. government got help from the sometimes shadowy world of security researchers who profit from finding flaws in companies’ software or systems.

    ---------------------------

    Hackers point out at least one security flaw with the phone.



    .

    ReplyDelete
  24. .

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-paid-professional-hackers-one-time-fee-to-crack-san-bernardino-iphone/2016/04/12/5397814a-00de-11e6-9d36-33d198ea26c5_story.html

    The bureau in this case did not need the services of the Israeli firm Cellebrite, as some earlier reports had suggested, people familiar with the matter said.

    The U.S. government now has to weigh whether to disclose the flaws to Apple, a decision that probably will be made by a White House-led group.

    The people who helped the U.S. government come from the sometimes shadowy world of hackers and security researchers who profit from finding flaws in companies’ software or systems...


    .

    ReplyDelete
  25. Florida Drivers:

    https://www.facebook.com/maxkearns12/videos/10201083888603369/?pnref=story

    ReplyDelete