Opinion from the desk of the Editor:
Yes, I admit it….I am a news geek! I watch even press conferences to see if there may be something to post about in the future……and the one that the prez had yesterday did not disappoint… until the rest of the social media I will not write about the color of his suit…to me that is just petty and shallow….
The prez covered a wide array of international subjects…of course there was the inevitable Ukraine statement….Russia be bad….yada yada….after that condemnation he turned to the 800 lb gorilla in the room….Iraq.
On another major foreign-policy front, Obama played down the prospect of imminent US military action in Syria, saying “we don’t have a strategy yet” for degrading the violent militant group seeking to establish a caliphate in the Middle East. He said he has asked the Pentagon to develop a “range of options.” And in blunt terms, the president said it was time for Middle Eastern nations to “stop being ambivalent” about the aims of extremist groups like the Islamic State. “They have no ideology beyond violence and chaos and the slaughter of innocent people.” You can read a full transcript here.
After the presser the press sec was out in forced explaining what the prez had said…..especially the “we don’t have a strategy yet” comment……he made most of the major outlets to explain……and then he was on All In With Chris Hayes on MSNBC and finally someone asked the question that needs to be asked…..Hayes asked point blank…”Is the US at war with ISIL”?
And the press sec said “No”…..and then went about giving all the day’s talking points……the usual crap.
This is where I want to interject my feelings here……if one would ask a member of ISIL he would give you a definite YES!
You see if you have rockets and bombs flying up your nose it is kinda impossible to see it any other way…..he would sharply disagree with the press sec………
In case you might be interested………..U.S. military operations in Iraq, including airstrikes and surveillance flights, have cost about $560 million since mid-June, the Pentagon said Friday.
Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the average daily cost has been $7.5 million. He said it began at a much lower rate in June and has escalated as the airstrikes in northern Iraq intensified this month.
A Helluva price tag for something that is NOT a war!
If it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck…it probably is a duck……so yes we are at war with ISIL and any other answer to that question is so disingenuous that it is almost unbelievable….
chuq,
Loved it…. although, you forgot to mention that, in this case especially, it also QUACKS like a fucking duck….
I am SO tired of this country spending a fucking fortune on military expenditures, and military ACTIONS, in which we are engaging in acts of war, without ever having had war declared by Congress…. as it is supposed to be, according to the Constitution…. The last time Congress actually declared war was in 1941…. Every other time we’ve spent anything for military action, anywhere in the world, it has been an undeclared “police action”, a “military advisor and equipment loan”, a “strategic allotment of resources”, a “failure of diplomacy incident”, a “clandestine intelligence gathering mission”, or, the latest euphemism, a “presidential act of executive privilege, as CofC of the armed forces”, and, the most euphemistic of all, a “humanitarian delivery of aid to local patriotic forces”…. otherwise known as bombing the shit out of whichever “terrorist group” we are targeting that week…
It’s quacking pretty fucking loud, as far as I can tell, so, yes, you are right… It IS a fucking duck….
Great post, and thanks for the chance to get that out; mini-rants are very cathartic…. Hope you’re having a good day, and are able to be comfortable…. which, these days, is about all I shoot for, pain-wise… the arthritis seems to be getting worse at a faster rate… I think I need to hit the road, to stress myself enough to keep loose… or, at least, distracted….
Take care, & thanks for dropping in over at ECR… I can’t get around much, so I appreciate it….
See ya, bro…
Ned, aka gigoid, the dubious…
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My friend no need to thank me it is a pleasure to read your stuff…thoughtful,as well as insightful……did you see where it cost $75 million a day to carry out the airstrikes?
Thank you for your visits….chuq
Yes, I saw it, but, don’t want to think about that, or about what use that money could be put to, if not being wasted on planes & bombs…
😉
I agree like school lunches or something equally frivolous…
Well, it wouldn’t take a very big percentage of the Defense (?) budget to feed everybody who needs it… corn is cheaper than phosphorus or saltpeter… Personally, I wish they would take that money & split it, one half to work on saving our sorry asses from extinction by the current climate change and global warming crisis, which gives us very little time to come up with an answer to a problem that could, and will kill us all before too long… The other half should go into the IMMEDIATE establishment of colonies on the Moon, the asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Mars itself, and the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, several of which are habitable, at least as much so as Mars, or the asteroids… both of which we now have the technology to accomplish, if the money were directed to that….
Whew… you did it again… mini-rants galore today… This is one of my passions, though, because it doesn’t appear we’ll be able to stop the climate change from turning the atmosphere into an unbreathable toxic mess, and probably in the next one hundred years, or less… no shit, no doubt, and no fucking way around it…. So, colonization of the rest of the solar system is just about our only remaining option…
More later on that, obviously…
Sorry about that but that is kinda what I do…get people tghinking and talking…..have a good Labor Day….chuq