Opuscula KneeJerk

 

I'm not sure if "knee jerk" is one word or two or if it applies to a hasty reaction to something or to the person who is reacting*.

But the incumbent at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC comes to mind for both options.

Knee Jerk #1: Sending U.S. military personnel to fight the ebola epidemic in Africa.

Knee Jerk #2: Training and arming "moderate" terrorists in Syria and Iraq to combat the so-called Islamic State which, it seems, is considered an "extreme" terrorist group.

When will we ever learn?

Obviously not on Obama's watch.

Ebola

It's nice that the U.S. might be able to help the folks in Africa who contracted the normally fatal disease.

But, just as sending troops into combat puts American lives at risk, so does sending American troops to fight a disease that has a 90% fatality rate.

According to Wikipedia, The virus may be acquired upon contact with blood or bodily fluids of an infected animal. Spreading through the air has not been documented in the natural environment. Fruit bats are believed to be a carrier and may spread the virus without being affected. Once human infection occurs, the disease may spread between people, as well. Male survivors may be able to transmit the disease via semen for nearly two months.

The problem is, there is little in the way of laboratories where the disease runs rampant, so it is not easily diagnosed.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a page of links that cover all ebola-related concerns.

According to the CDC's "risk of exposure" information,

High risk exposures

A high risk exposure includes any of the following:

• Percutaneous (e.g., needle stick) or mucous membrane exposure to blood or body fluids of EVD patient
  

• Direct skin contact with, or exposure to blood or body fluids of, an EVD patient without appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE)
  

• Processing blood or body fluids of a confirmed EVD patient without appropriate PPE or standard biosafety precautions
  

• Direct contact with a dead body without appropriate PPE in a country where an EVD outbreak is occurring*

Low risk exposures

A low risk exposure includes any of the following

• Household contact with an EVD patient
  

• Other close contact with EVD patients in health care facilities or community settings. Close contact is defined as
  
  1. being within approximately 3 feet (1 meter) of an EVD patient or within the patient’s room or care area for a prolonged period of time (e.g., health care personnel, household members) while not wearing recommended personal protective equipment (i.e., standard, droplet, and contact precautions; see Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations)
     

  2. having direct brief contact (e.g., shaking hands) with an EVD patient while not wearing recommended personal protective equipment.

• Brief interactions, such as walking by a person or moving through a hospital, do not constitute close contact

Today the U.S. has an experimental drug that was successfully used on two American ebola patients. Unfortunately there is no stockpile of a drug deemed, even now, as "experimental."

According to Israeli sources, the blood of a person who survives being infected by ebola contains an antibody that seems to preclude that person from contracting ebola again. There was discussion in the U.S. of taking blood from one of the two survivors and using it on the remaining U.S. ebola victim, Meanwhile, the Israelis - and others - are searching for a serum to counteract the disease.

Training and arming "moderate" terrorists

Proving that neither the country's chief executive nor his advisors have ever read a newspaper or history book, and certainly never heard the expression "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, December 16, 1863 - September 26, 1952), Obama is proposing to train and arm "moderate" Islamist terrorists, those doing battle against the Islamic State.

Perhaps he intends for the U.S. to once again arm the Taliban as it did during the Cold war days when the Taliban were fighting the Soviets. The Taliban, having sent the Russians packing, promptly turned the weapons on the U.S. and anyone who wanted real or pseudo-democracy in Afghanistan.

Today, U.S. personnel are being murdered by U.S. trained Iraqis armed with U.S. weapons. These Iraqis are supposed to be America's allies.

Even if the Iraqis stopped killing the people sent to help them, as late as September 17, 2014, a U.S. general states that Half (of the) Iraqi Army Incapable Of Working With America - and this while the Islamic State takes over more and more of Iraq.

Training and arming terrorists to combat another terrorist organization and expecting peace and appreciation for America from a "moderate" terrorists group is a political pipe dream, especially when both extremists and moderates share so much ideology.

Although Obama promises "no American boots on the ground," that is a blatant lie. Even today there are several hundred "advisors" in Iraq. The incumbent is following in the footsteps of every president since Harry S Truman left office. In Dwight D. Eisenhower's time, the soldiers were part of "Military Advisory Groups" or MAGs. (To be fair, neither Eisenhower nor those that followed him remembered history and the fact that the Vietnamese had sent the French packing.

Obama is doing only one thing different from his predecessors is that he promoted, urged on by his far left, liberal money people, to work to instigate the "Arab Spring" which has brought instability throughout the reason. Obama, and his advisors, - one again - failed to do their homework to see that the former European powers had accomplished with their arbitrary borders.

Most of the "Islamic" countries in the region are artificial - they are composed of individual tribes, many who hate their neighbor. Only a strong central power, e.g., Sadam in Iraq, Sadat in Syria, could keep a lid on local warlords. The liberals either failed to understand that or elected to disregard what was obvious to previous administrations.

 

* Kneejerk: an immediate unthinking emotional reaction produced by an event or statement to which the reacting person is highly sensitive; - in persons with strong feelings on a topic, it may be very predictable.

Opuscula Dear President Obama, Go on vacation (again)

 

Obama wants to "do something" about the Islamists attacks in Iraq.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner is haranguing Obama for not doing enough.

Democrat House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Obama is doing enough.

I say, Mr. President, do what you do best: Go on vacation where you can do less harm to America.

Iraq is NOT America's problem and most assuredly NOT a place to "insert" U.S. troops.

I realize that Obama did NOT get the U.S. involved in Iraq or Afghanistan. U.S. soldiers died there - and continue to die there - in actions initiated by Republican presidents.

I also realize that Obama is making noises to get most U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and he has kept U.S. troops out of Syria. As much as I dislike the man, credit where it is due.

But if Obama even suggests U.S. boots on the ground in Iraq it will prove he failed to learn from the past.

Boehner should be retired for pressing Obama to "do more" in Iraq. Will he never learn that all warfare in Muslim countries is religious warfare? Doesn't he get it? Is he blind to reality?

Obama does enough dumb things without Boehner's help.

For once - and probably for only time - I am in at least partial agreement with Pelosi on one issue: Iraq.

If we are attacked by a "non-state entity" (e.g., Al Qaeda and similar ^{NOTE 1} organizations), the U.S. should reserve the right to seek out the terrorists no matter where they hide, with or without host nation approval or cooperation. Where possible, use drones and other weapons that keep American troops out of harms way. If there is "collateral damage" because the country hosting the terrorists won't turn them over, so be it. The terrorists declared war on the U.S. and "collateral damage" is the unfortunate price of war.

Politically I am a social liberal and fiscal conservative. My social concerns, however, are for U.S. citizens and others legally in the country. I have no sympathy for "undocumented residents" - a/k/a illegal aliens - no matter from where them came. I am against "fast tracking" illegals, putting them ahead of people who believe in the "rule of law."

I also believe in the Monroe Doctrine which stated, basically, that the U.S. would not get involved in foreign escapades outside our region - North, Central, and South America.

I have little problem with offering off-shore guidance, but I'm old enough to have seen how in-country advisory groups grew into army-size combat and support units in Korea and Vietnam - the last of the (semi-)conventional wars we should have avoided.

My personal bottom line is that the U.S. has NO business in any religious war - no matter where the war is fought.

If you don't believe Iraq's war is a religious war, read what Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, referring to fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that are pushing toward Baghdad, allegedly said on Iranian tv the other day: “This is an extremist, terrorist group that is acting savagely,” Rouhani said live on state television, adding that Tehran will not “tolerate this violence and terror.”

 

Note 1: For a list of terrorist groups, most of which are Islamic, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_organizations

IMO U.S. should quit Role as world cop

An entry in The Israel Project's Daily Tip reports that:

State Department officials found themselves on the defensive Monday, after an expose published by Reuters revealed that Iraq has signed a $195 million arms deal with Iran for the delivery of weapons to Iraq. Baghdad sources told the outlet that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had been moved to seek arms from the Islamic Republic - in violation of a broad range of international measures up to and including an explicit United Nations ban on arms sales by Iran - after he became 'fed up with delays in U.S. arms deliveries.' State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki defended the administration, insisting both that Washington was keeping Iraq adequately armed and that it "would raise serious concerns" if the Reuters report turned out to be correct. The Reuters report cited multiple officials and included an account of documents seen by the outlet's journalists describing the deal. If confirmed the development is likely to deepen criticism, heard both domestically and from Washington's Gulf allies, that the Obama administration is withdrawing from the Middle East and allowing Iran to fill in. A recent Politico article, headlined "Who Lost Iraq?" and authored by former Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) fellow Ned Parker, opened with an Iraqi official blaming the U.S. for creating a security vacuum in the country. A New York Times article published around the same time by Michael Doran and Max Boot - respectively a Brookings Institute fellow and a CFR fellow - blasted the administration for not sufficiently "countering Iranian machinations" in among other countries Iraq.

Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, is calling for the U.S. to punish Venezuela by withholding funds from the oil-rich country. The U.S> gives Venezuela about $400 million annually. (Oil rich and US monetary gift - how does THAT compute?)

And, of course, we have John Kerry burning jet fuel for what probably will be fruitless trips between Washington and Jerusalem and between Washington and Ramallah, with an occasional trip to Amman.

Of the three, only Venezuela is in America's "sphere of influence" (and I'm not sure that's accurate anymore; does the U.S. have any influence in Latin America?).

Here at home, SecDef (Secretary of Defense) "Chuck" Hegel is talking about reductions in ground troops and navy vessels as the world moves into a "different kind of war."

Iran and Iraq. Why should the U.S. care about Iran and Iraq? Granted, Iran is threatening the world that once it has n-weapons and a delivery method it will destroy both the Great and the Little satans (U.S. and Israel, in case your name is Rip Van Winkle). Since Iran is a sovereign nation, does the U.S. have a right to act against it? If it does, then would a pre-emptive strike be appropriate?

What about Iran's neighbors. Saudia invites non-Muslims to fight and die for it, but otherwise non-Muslims stay out. Saudia claims to fear Iran, but it does nothing to stop Iran's progress to nuclear warfare capability. Likewise the other Islamic states,

Meanwhile, Mr. Kim and Company in North Korea apparently has both "the bomb" and the means to deliver it - if not to a U.S. target, certainly to South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan/Formosa. The U.S. does nothing about that except, as in the cases of Iran, talk, talk, talk. But then neither does Japan.

The decline of U.S. "influence" did not start with Obungler, but the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania has hastened the slide.

ON THE OTHER HAND, does the U.S. need to be the world's policeman? Why should we care is Iran has "the bomb"? True, Israel is our ally - but almost everyone knows how American treats its allies - we promise them anything and don't even give them cheap perfume*.

I'm not suggesting that the U.S. should become isolationist, but I AM suggesting that the U.S. should "butt out" of the role of policeman to the world. The U.S. also should "butt out" of trying to force every country to be a pseudo-democracy in the U.S. mold. (The U.S. is, strictly speaking, a republican form of government, not a "democracy." The government type has nothing to do with the party in power.)

The days when Theo. Roosevelt could send The Great White Fleet around the world to show off America's prowess - and intimidate others - is over. The day when nations dealt with other nations largely is over - now we must confront hoodlems hiding behind old women and babies.

The U.S. is, in some respects, on the right path when it targets its enemies wherever they are hiding; national borders not withstanding. If Nation A offers sanctuary to a person or organization threatening America, then that nation sacrifices its sovereignty and protection from U.S. attacks on those threatening the U.S. and its citizens, wherever they might be; pre-emptive or retaliatory strike is immaterial. "Collateral damage" - death or injury to "civilian shields" and facilities - will be on the head of those in control of the country hosting the terrorists.

That "right of self-defense" must also apply to other nations as well, as example Israel. Whether or not the U.S. should come to Israel's aid - if asked as it was by England in WW1 and WW2 - needs to be considered before the need. (This obviously applies to other nations as well.) Still, I would not encourage any country to depend on a timely U.S. response - remember the '50s.

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* "Promise her anything, but give her Arpege," 1927-coined commercial for a Lavin's fragrance. The polar opposite is more in line with what the U.S. did for (to) Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the 50s: "Promise Them the Mine – But Give Them the Shaft."