Sunday, July 17, 2016

Peter Quinn to the Rescue

I have occasionally mentioned this clip from the television show, Homeland. In it, Peter Quinn offers his views on how to deal with ISIS.





For a transcript see this link from American Digest:

6 comments:

Ares Olympus said...

Sure, a cute story. Anger makes us feel good. It makes our enemies feel good. And as Stuart said "Don't just feel; do something!"

We didn't care about carpet bombing civilians in World War II, so why should we worry now? It's not like we're any more civilized than America's greatest generation. All you need is fear, and a Pearl Harbor I guess.

And after we finish bombing 750 square miles of city until the sand glows, killing 200,000 people, there's just 1.3 billion minus 200,000 Muslims left in the world to kill to protect them all from radicalization.

Oh, and don't forget to evacuate the all the cities downriver from the Tabqa Dam, unless perhaps that epic flood can be the second Noah's flood that will add to the "reset"
http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-uses-syrias-biggest-dam-as-rampart-and-potential-weapon-1453333531

Perhaps while we're planning "reset" we should also consider reseting our dependence upon fossil fuels that keeps civilization running. It's not like our 7th generation descendants are going to have such cheap dense energy to throw away like there's no tomorrow.

If there's an end date to our civilization, I'm sure its not ISIS that is going to cause it, but our own hubris that says we can control the world by destroying anything we can't control.

Anonymous said...

Nothing like a little random mayhem and death to cause the Muslim world to hit the "Reformation" button! As the late, great Osama bin Laden pointed out, the 7th Century Muslim mind understands only too well the meaning of the "strong horse". That means you have show them who it is: No "F-ing" rules of engagement with the seal of JAG approval needed; just total and brutal all-out destruction of a few Muslim countries is required, starting with the House of Saud, home of Mecca and Medina. When those cities are reduced to glass-covered parking lots, the "tough guys" in Indonesia, North Africa and elsewhere will fold like a cheap card table.

And, Ares, your ignorance is showing again: If those camel jockeys held sway over the Petro World, oil would be priced at over a $100 a bbl. The fact its price is half that shows how the mighty have fallen. Plus, US petroleum reserves already exceed the Saudis' and that doesn't even include the newly-discovered Oklahoma play and scaled-back already fracked, but shut-in US wells (which ca be easily brought on line when prices rise!

Anonymous said...

Field Marshal Montgomery's 2 Rules of War:

1: Do not invade Russia. 2: Do not invade China.

... Righto. I agree. I'd add one more.

3. Do not OCCUPY the Middle East. (Bush I knew, Bush II didn't. It's a depthless, endless, hopeless sand pit.)

If absolutely necessary, heed 19th C British strategy.
"Butcher and Bolt". Brutally, w/o scruples or pity.
But only if Absolutely Necessary.

... The Young Turk (ha!) in the video at least knows some History. Little else.

IMHO. -- Rich Lara

Ares Olympus said...

Anon at 7:52 PM, your racism is showing through, camel jockeys?!

The U.S. shale oil production has been impressive, but seems to have been built more on debt and speculation than reality of budgeting $50/bbl oil.

I've been curious when production would fall, and the current U.S. production peak was April 2015 at 9.69 mbbl/day while June 2016 has fallen 13% to 8.6 mbbl/day.
http://www.artberman.com/u-s-oil-production-fell-150000-barrels-per-day-in-may/

I'm not sure when we'll get back our $100/bbl oil, but I'm sure the U.S. oil industry is hoping prices recover before they all have to declare bankrupcy.

There's fair evidence the Saudi's themselves cooked up the price crash by overproduction in an attempt to bankrupt the U.S. producers, and so its a game of chicken to see who can sell for a loss the longest without crying uncle.

It all does seem to be connected - the financialization of the economy and using debt to hide economic decline as the era of cheap energy comes to a close.

I've wondered what peak oil would look like, and now its clear that it looks like financial chaos, and perhaps war, if people like Stuart get their way.

The more distractions by imaginary enemies like ISIS, the more governments can justify doing whatever they want, until the financialization game finally breaks down for good. And we can pretend a few psychopaths in Raqqa took us down by allowing each $1 of decentralized terror to inspire spending $1 billion in bombs to cook sand until it glows.

We're not very smart for all our technology. We imagine doing what "feels good" rather than what will actually make the world safer.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Ares Olympus said someone is a racist. Imagine that.

Dennis said...

It has been my experience that the first person to engage in calling others racist, sexist, et al is guilt of the very terms they utilize. It is a form of "throwing rocks" so that no one notices ones own faults and lack of ability to present a well reasoned argument for ones ideas.

Anon,

You just have to stop insulting twits like that.