Notes on Liberty: Brandon Christensen- From The Comments: A Libertarian Solution to DAESH (ISIS/ISIL) and The Civil War in Syria

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Rik Schneider

Levant

Source: Notes on Liberty: Brandon Christenson- From The Comments: A Libertarian Solution to DAESH (ISIS/ISIL) and The Civil War in Syria

An interesting idea to dealing with ISIS and the Syrian Civil War. But I gotta tell you its a non-starter. The idea that Turkey would unilaterally give up Kurdistan whether it’s in Turkey, Syria, or even Iraq, where they’re now involved in taking on Iraqi forces there that they are claim are terrorists, it aint happening. America, Iraq and Europe, who are all now involved in trying to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria, need Turkey on our side here. And they are already there bombing ISIS in Syria and we could use their troops on the ground as well. They know the land and people, being neighbors and everything else.

America, can’t take out ISIS by ourselves, or take out Bashar Al-Assad by ourselves. Unless you want to occupy another country 20-25 million people who doesn’t like us. And then end up being bailed out ourselves financially, by the IMF or even China, because we’re already so heavy in debt. And American taxpayers simply won’t pay for this especially if we’re by ourselves again in another Arab-Muslim land and country that doesn’t like us. And our taxpayers aren’t going to pay for this in either new taxes or budget cuts to programs they care about.

Which leaves us to a non-libertarian non-dovish and isolationist solution here. Which is called liberal internationalism and putting together a broad coalition that includes America, as well as Europe, Turkey, Iraq, the Iraqi-Kurds, to not only destroy ISIS and knock them completely out of power like we did with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but knocks the Assad Regime out of power as well. America and Europe through the air in what is called a no fly zone, which is what we did in Libya four years ago. Turkey, the Syrian rebels, Iraq and hopefully Saudi Arabia and Jordan on the ground.

And tell that Russian bullish asshole Vlad Putin, that he can be part of the solution here and have a stake in the new Syria where millions of Syrians don’t want to overthrow their own government, because they’re no longer living under a Baathist psycho dictator, or they can be part of the problem. And risk having another one of their planes shot down in Syria this time. But from a first-world NATO jet, or firepower. America, can’t do this ourselves, certainly Iraq and Syria can’t do it either. We could take out Bashar Al-Assad and his regime by ourselves, but again that would leave us with another mid-size to big country that we would be stuck occupying. We have to do this through coalition.

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Constitution Daily: Staff: The First Amendment Speech Debate on College Campuses

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Erik Schneider

College

Source: This piece was originally posted at The Daily Review: Constitution Daily: Staff: The First Amendment Speech Debate on College Campuses

This point has been made several times before and I am one of those bloggers whose made this point over and over, but college is about learning new ideas, thoughts and expressions. If its censorship that you want, then perhaps you need to create time machine or something that will take you back to the 1950s when the words damn and hell were essentially forbidden in public. Well at least on TV and in the movies. And if it’s just a nice polite world that you’re looking for, well for minorities that is, leaving majorities subjected to whatever everyone else wants to say about them for good and bad, then perhaps you need to create your own country. Perhaps Paradise Island or someplace in the Pacific or Caribbean where there isn’t any hate or bigotry. At least towards minorities that is.

To paraphrase President Andrew Shepard from The American President. America, is not easy. You have to want it bad in order live and make it here. Because we’re a country where you can essentially whatever the hell you want to short of inciting violence, falsely accusing people, or harassing people. Americans, have the constitutional right to be enlightened, but we also have a constitutional right to be assholes. We also have the constitutional to be truth tellers even if what we have to say may tend to offend people who we’re talking about.

That is called America, that is called liberal democracy, that is called the land of the free. This is what a liberal society and free society is about. The right for people to be free and live freely even if what we’re doing and what we have to say may tend to offend people who are oversensitive, or have much more culturally conservative perspective on life. America is not a good place for tight asses and people who can’t take a joke and who always find the one cloud on a beautiful sunny day. America, is about freedom and individuality and free expression. Even if that may tend to offend people who can’t ether take a joke and even understand criticism, let alone take it.

I’m almost to the point that I believe everyone who attends college in America should be required to pass a class on both the U.S. Constitution and First Amendment and Bill of Rights in general. Because apparently they didn’t bother to learn those things in high school. I had to take and pass a government course in high school in Maryland in the early nineties just to graduate from high school. When most of these students weren’t even born yet. Gives you a little idea how old I am. And I’m glad I did do that, because it’s a reason why I’m a political junky and blogger today.

But I guess today’s students were too busy texting the student who sits right next to them, or listening to their I-Pod in class, or googling what shoes Khloe Kardashian wore with her new bag when she went shopping in Beverly Hills last weekend. Or whatever else they might have done when they should have been paying attention to their teacher’s lecture on American history and social studies. You want to know why Americans get stereotyped as stupid? I’ll tell you anyway. Because we now have a generation of Americans who don’t understand their country’s history and form of government and their own constitutional rights. Like Freedom of Speech.

And when these kids finally get to college after finally completing summer school, it suddenly occurred to them that some Americans say some rough things about other Americans including minority Americans and some of those negative things are negative facts. And they’ve decided they’re going to try to force their sense of decency on the rest of the country. But America simply doesn’t work that way. America, again is that gigantic melting pot of a country. The largest, the most diverse, most beautiful, the freest melting pot in the world. Where all sorts of people have the right to express their own views. And they can’t be shut up for telling the truth. Or because people can’t take a joke, or simply don’t like what someone has to say.

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Paramount Movies: Sunset Boulevard (1950) Starring William Holden & Gloria Swanson

Posted on December 7, 2015 by kireschneider

Sunset Boulevard

Source:The Daily Review

I don’t like using the word-perfect that often, because perfect is almost never seen and heard of, but Sunset Boulevard along with North by Northwest, is about as close to a perfect movie as anyone could ever see.

Great plot about a young almost wannabe screenwriter who at this point is desperate for work, so he can make his car payment. Whose on the run from repossessors and stops off at what he believes is an abandoned house only to discover that one of the top actress’s ever in Hollywood lives there. Which is how Joe Gillis (played by William Holden) meets Norma Desmond, (played by Gloria Swanson) otherwise they probably never meet each other. Joe Gillis, is considering giving up Hollywood and going back to Ohio and getting a blue-collar job. Norma Desmond, hasn’t worked in a while and the Hollywood studios no longer want her.

Norma Desmond, finds out that Joe Gillis is a Hollywood writer, struggling at that and owes three months back rent on his apartment, as well as a car he can’t afford. She knows he needs money, which is what she has plenty of and needs a job, which she has one for him. She’s not working now as an actress and doesn’t have any roles coming her way and decides to write her own script and get back into movies that way. And hires Joe to be his proofreader and to fix up her script so someone would take it and make a movie from it. Joe, is not impressed with the script so far, but believes he can work with it. Still has friends in Hollywood and has one his friends Betty Schaefer (played by Nancy Olson) help him rewrite the script and they work on it together.

Norma Desmond, is lonely and desperate to get back into movies and doesn’t want to live off her royalties and investments. She wants Joe to perhaps help her get back into the movies, but what I at least believe she’s looking for is male companionship and believes her script will get her back into movies. I don’t think it is ever clear that she thinks Joe Gillis, someone who she’s never heard of who can’t afford either his apartment or car and hasn’t worked in a while, is a talented writer and someone who has a future in Hollywood. Joe, needs a job obviously as well as money and I see them as basically using each other to meet their short-term interests. I don’t see them as a writing team that is going to write their own movie together.

Gloria Swanson, has just turned 50 at this point and so has her character in Sunset Boulevard. But Hollywood already sees her has washed up and way past her prime. Gives you an idea of how Hollywood sees the world different at least in the 1940s and 1950s than the rest of us. And in many ways this movie is pretty sad, because it shows how Hollywood treats its stars once they believe they no longer have any use for them and almost treat them like strangers and as people they don’t want to be seen with anymore. Gloria Swanson, is her beautiful and brilliant self now playing someone who s past her prime, but as an actress she still has everything going for her and is still the star of the movie. Bill Holden, is his usual charming and even funny self who mixes in clever humor in a very serious if not dark and depressing, but a great movie.

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News Receiver: President Obama’s Oval Office Speech on Syria

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Erik Schneider
President Barack Obama, United States

President Barack Obama, United States

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat: News Receiver: President Obama’s Oval Office Speech on Syria

I watched President Obama’s speech on CNN and then saw the so-called experts talk about it. And one of them was Michael Weiss whose written a book about ISIS and is very familiar with that cult of death. I don’t think the President’s speech was as bad as Mr. Weiss said it was and I don’t think the President is ignoring the treat of ISIS, or trying to give a much prettier picture of the situation than what is actually going on. But I do agree with him on one thing that the speech did fall flat. It was basically more of the same talking about what is currently going on in Syria and steps that the President’s administration has taken against terrorism since he took office.

Which was not the task of his speech tonight. Tonight’s speech should have not have been a status report. But instead, “this is the threat that we’re facing and this is what we’re doing to address it.” As well as laying out what additional steps that need to be taken. And I agree that tightening gun control laws will help reduce gun violence in America, but will do almost nothing if anything at all to deal with ISIS in the Middle East and Europe. But would defeat ISIS and Syria, Iraq and wherever else they are stationed in the world.

And we’re going to need an international coalition to do this. President Obama, didn’t even mention that now Britain, Germany and France, as well as Turkey and Iraq, are all onboard to taking on ISIS in the Middle East. He didn’t call on Saudi Arabia and Jordan to do more n defeating ISIS. It was instead really just a status report about what his administration has already done and what they’ll continue to do. I think this speech is memorable only on what he didn’t say and what the President left out. Instead of hearing, “this is what we’re doing right now. These are the challenges and this is what we need to do in the future to go along with what we are already doing.” Didn’t hear that from President Obama, which is why this speech was flat and could have been better.

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Barbara Walters Special: Elizabeth Taylor (1999) Interview

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Derik Schneider

Source:The Daily Review

I think survivor or perhaps the Silent Generation’s version of the drama queen as far as someone who really has lived the life of a Hollywood character. With all the ups and downs that she’s gone through in her life and gotten through all of that and perhaps came out stronger each time. All of the failed marriages, the alcoholism, the obesity, the tragic deaths of close people in her life. The life that she’s lived looks very similar to that of Ava Garner. Another Hollywood Goddess who lived her own life and lived her life her way, there was even a song made about that.

Liz Taylor, lived a life that you would think anyway could have only had been written by a very good Hollywood screenwriter. Perhaps writing the script that made them the star. Similar to Ava Gardner, I think what made Liz Taylor such a great actress is that she in many cases lived the life of a Hollywood star. She didn’t have to play roles and parts, because those parts in many cases were very similar to how she was in real-life. She was born to so soap operas and would have had a great career there has soaps not been too small of a stage for her.

Butterfield 8, which she did with Laurence Harvey in 1960, where she plays a model whose not really working, but goes from man to man and not sure who is the real man for her and not really committed to anyone. But relies on several different people to help her get through, is a pretty good example of what I’m talking about here. I believe she was such a great actress, arguably the best ever and the best of her generation, because she was a great actress, with a keen wit and intelligence, but she played women who were very similar to who she was in real-life.

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The National Interest: Robert Farley: ‘What If America Had ‘Eliminated’ Saddam Hussein?’

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Rik Schneider

The National Interest_ Robert Farley_ 'What If America Had 'Eliminated' Saddam Hussein_'

Source:The National Interest– American fighter jets.

Source:The New Democrat

“In the early days of the air campaign of the 1991 Gulf War, the United States undertook a concerted effort to track and strike Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The effort was predicated on the belief that eliminating Saddam Hussein would have two effects; it would throw the Iraqi military hierarchy into chaos, and it would make the surviving Iraqi leadership more amenable to a negotiated solution.”

From The National Interest

To answer Robert Farley’s question: I think the answer would be chaos. If you think 2003 was a bad time to invade and take out the Hussein Regime in Iraq, especially the unilateral way we did it, that would have been a great time compared with 1991.

If we had taken out Saddam in 1991 and he’s either replaced by another Baathist dictator like one of his sons and what would we have gained from that? Or almost twenty-five years later we’re still trying to occupy Iraq today. America, was in recession in 1991 and had its own economic and financial problems at home. And couldn’t afford to take on the responsibility of occupying another big country.

And the economic boom that we had in the 1990s probably doesn’t come about in America, because we’re spending so much money in Iraq. At least in 2003 there was something that looked like an opposition and there were people that could come in and at least temporarily run the Iraqi Republic. It just took them more than two-years after the invasion to make that come about. There wasn’t any at least moderate opposition to the Baathists in 1991. There was Saddam and his Baathists and anyone who opposed them risked their own lives as a result.

The 1991 Gulf War was a very simply and well-executed. Get Iraq out of Kuwait and protect our economic and energy interests in Kuwait. That war was in the national and self-interest of the United States to not have a Baathist dictator in charge of one of the largest oil suppliers in the world to go on top of his already large supply of oil and gas in Iraq. This was not some idealistic neoconservative utopian war that was about bringing freedom and liberal democracy to a country of twenty-million that had no idea what those things were.

President George H.W. Bush and his National Security Council, didn’t want to invade and occupy a country about the size of California in land and about the same population as Texas. Just because Iraq invaded Kuwait, an Arab ally of America’s. All they wanted to do was get Iraq out of Kuwait and put Iraq in a tight box so they couldn’t invade anyone else again. Which they remained in for the next twelve years with Iraq being so weak that they had a hard time feeding themselves. In were never in any position to attack another country again.

The 1991 Gulf War, was conservative foreign policy and national security at its best. Protect American national interests which was the energy supply coming from Kuwait. Which has a peaceful and moderate regime, as well as a strong economy. And get an evil tyrant out of that country and box him in so he can’t invade anyone else. Not to bring peace and liberal democracy to a country that has never heard of those things. The Gulf War, was probably H.W. Bush’s finest days as President of the United States, with the grand coalition of European and Arab allies that he bad behind him. And why you wanted someone who his professional and national security background as Commander-In-Chief in a time like that.

Instead of having a dove in there who generally sees American strength and use of force as a bad if not evil thing, who tends to be against the American military and things that it does.

Or someone in there who would’ve done nothing and froze, because they didn’t know what to do. Because they lacked the experience and judgement in foreign affairs. And another reason why the 2003 Iraq War was an unnecessary mistake, because we already had Saddam under control and so weak to the point that Iraq didn’t even bother defending themselves in that war.

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The Onion: House Speaker Paul Ryan Discovers Half-Finished Escape Tunnel Leading Out of Speaker’s Office

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Erik Schneider

Paul Ryan

Source:The Daily Review

After spending a few months trying to lead the Tea Party and rest of the House Republican Conference, which might be harder than trying to lead a pack of wild horses for the very first time, new Speaker of the House Paul Ryan might be looking for an escape tunnel in the Speaker’s office. “What have I gotten myself into? I can’t lead these people, no one can. It’s like trying to tell Anarchists what to do.” Speaker Ryan’s first quote walking into his first House Republican Conference meeting as Speaker. Well according to The Onion anyway. But The Onion is more reliable than Fox News and MSNBC combined.

Speaker Ryan, is going to have to lead a pack of wild wolves and get them to do things that they see as sinful. Like funding government agencies, because you have to know that the House Tea Party Caucus, doesn’t believe in governing. Even though they supposedly serve in government. Just one of their ironies. He’s going to have to lead a Republican Conference that has no problems shutting down the government, even if it means getting exactly what they don’t want at the end of the day.

Paul Ryan, is no longer chairing the House Budget Committee or the Ways and Means Committee. Where he can get away with passing legislation that will pass with only Republican votes in committee and then pass on the House floor on a party-line as well. And watch it die in the Senate like fish out of water. As Speaker, Ryan is responsible for passing legislation that can become law. Pass the Senate and then be signed by the President as well and of course pass in the House. And that means working with who the Tea Party sees as a Socialist Muslim Devil. Who secretly funds ISIS to kill Americans. Thats right, President Barack Obama.

And to do these things he’s going to have to do a couple of things that are seen as four-letter cuss words with the Tea Party. Govern and compromise with Democrats. Even though govern has six letters and compromise has ten letters. A little Tea Party math for you and these things won’t be easy for him to do. The Tea Party sees themselves as Middle Eastern dictators, even though most of them are of Anglo-Saxon Protestant background and are House backbenchers. Not even freshman senators and live by the childish code, “if I can’t have that house, burn it down.”

It’s not so much Paul Ryan I’m making fun, but the people he’s now responsible for leading. Ryan, I believe is a good intelligent man who sees himself as a legislature who may end up dying in Congress even if his whole career is in the House, because he loves it so much and wants to do the right things. But like with football, a coach is only as good as his staff and his players. Then its up to him to get the most out of what he has to work with. And like with Congress a leader is only as good as his staff, his leadership team, his committee chairman and his troops.

Trying to get the Tea Party to compromise on anything is like trying to tell kids they can’t have cake for dinner and have to do their homework before they play video games. Speaker Ryan is going to hand his hands full and I wish him the best. Because for government to work, he’s going to have to be able to work with Democrats and then sell that to his troops. He’s going to have to tell his troops to vote to fund government agencies that the Tea Party believes doesn’t exist, at least in the U.S. Constitution. Which is like trying to sell broccoli for desert and doing your homework for fun to ten-year olds. Lets wish the new Speaker the best, he’s going to need it as well as the luck of the Wisconsin Irish and perhaps some Jack Daniels whisky as well.

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Salon: Walker Bragman: ‘More Like Ronald Reagan Than FDR: I’m a Millennial & I’ll Never Vote For Hillary Clinton’

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Derik Schneider
Salon- Bernie- Hillary

Salon- Bernie- Hillary

Source:The New Democrat

You know to say that Hillary Clinton is more like Ronald Reagan than Franklin Roosevelt, I’m not sure if Democrats who will mostly likely overwhelmingly nominate Hillary Clinton for president, should be insulted by that, or take that as a complement. President Reagan, didn’t lock up German, Italian and Japanese-Americans during World War II simply because of their ethnicity and for fear they would be loyal to their former homelands over the United States. President Reagan, doesn’t serve as an inspiration for Neoconservatives today with the Patriot Act and national security over liberty. But Franklin Roosevelt does.

President Roosevelt, did say, ‘we have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” But he didn’t practice that beautiful line himself. President Reagan, didn’t try to stack the U.S. Supreme Court with friendly justices, because he thought that he was losing too many cases. President Reagan, paid reparations to Japanese-Americans, because of the Roosevelt Administration’s unconstitutional internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. As much as today’s so-called Progressives say they love FDR, there’s a lot about him that is not even worth liking.

Today’s so-called Progressives, like to point to Franklin Roosevelt as their political icon, but the fact is President Roosevelt was way to the right of them on civil liberties issues. And would be what we would call a Neoconservative today when it comes to civil liberties and national security. Meaning civil liberties wasn’t a major concern to him, at least if he thought they interfered with national security. And was more than willing to bypass Americans constitutional rights in order to protect our national security. And probably not as Far-Left as today’s Progressives who are really Democratic Socialists in actuality, on economic policy.

President Roosevelt, wasn’t anti-wealth, anti-business, anti-capitalism, anti-private enterprise. He believed in all of these things, but was a Progressive in the sense that he believed all Americans should have an opportunity to succeed in life. And not just people who are born to wealth. Today’s Progressives, should be looking at Eugene Debs, Henry Wallace, Norman Thomas and other Democratic Socialists, who ran for president in the early and mid 20th Century, but came up way short. Not someone who created the National Security State and Military Industrial Complex. Which is what President Franklin Roosevelt did in the 1940s.

As far as saying that Hillary Clinton is more like Reagan than Roosevelt, is that supposed to be an insult, or a complement? I guess when it comes to economic policy for Democrats that would be an insult. Especially since President Reagan didn’t have much if any role for government when it came to economic policy and helping people who are struggling. But when it comes to national security, foreign policy and civil liberties, you know again Reagan believed in those things. Not as strongly as I do and neither does Hillary, but they both have much better records when it comes to civil liberties than FDR could even dream of having.

As far as writing in Bernie Sanders for president once he overwhelmingly loses to either Hillary, or my preferred choice Martin O’Malley, good luck. Bernie will probably say no to you, because he doesn’t want Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio to be the next President of the United States with a Republican Congress controlling both the House and Senate. You want to go third-party and go with the Green Party and Democratic Socialist Jill Stein, by all means. You want to create Sanders-Stein 2016 Democratic Socialist ticket for president and vice president, I suggest you consult with both Bernie and Jill first. Because Bernie probably won’t be interested.

But just take all the Democratic Socialists in the Democratic Party who prefer the political correctness fascism over free speech, who believe middle class Americans are under taxed and that Americans aren’t smart enough to decide what we should eat and drink and need a nanny state to make those decisions for us. While Democrats bring in Center-Left Independents who aren’t Democrats, because they see us as a big government party that wants to spend most of our money for us and shut us up when we say something that is offensive, or critical about minorities. And the next president will be another Democrat in a landslide.

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The American Conservative: Tom Switzer: ‘Dean of the Realists’

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Rik Schneider

TAC-Owen Harries

Source:The American Conservative– “Owen Harries/ photo courtesy of the Lowery Institute.” From TAC.

Source:The New Democrat

“When the first issue of The National Interest was published in 1985, its editor, Owen Harries, proclaimed an affinity between realpolitik and conservatism. By this he meant that realism—a foreign policy that respected the primacy of self-interest as a motive and of power as a means in an anarchic international system—reflected a conservative temperament. After all, both realism and conservatism put “their stress on what is, rather than what should or might be.” Both “emphasize the importance of circumstance and are suspicious of abstract theory and general principles as bases for action.” And both are “aware of the intractability of things and the difficulties and dangers involved in attempting sweeping changes.”

For Harries, realism was not incompatible with the pull to incorporate moral principles into foreign policy; democratic values simply had to be treated as one among many interests. Looking back to George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1797, Harries pointed to the first president’s clear-eyed assertion that U.S. interests must not be compromised by “permanent alliances,” which in turn might undermine America’s diplomatic flexibility. Harries also reminded his readers that John Quincy Adams warned that freedoms at home would only be tarnished by wars abroad. In Adams’s words, America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Were she to “become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.” Not for Harries any ideological crusades or grandiose plans for global social engineering.

Yet when the foreign-policy journal he edited was officially launched at the Sheraton Carlton (now St. Regis) in Washington on October 9, 1985, guests were a Who’s Who of leading neoconservatives, including Irving Kristol, editor of The Public Interest; former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick; former chairman of Council of Economic Advisers Martin Feldstein; Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams; Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz; writers Gertrude Himmelfarb and Midge Decter; and the rising 35-year-old star columnist Charles Krauthammer. Writing in the Washington Post to mark the event, future Hillary Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal adjudged: “In an effort to influence the foreign-policy agenda, a group of neo-conservatives is rolling out what its members consider their ultimate weapon.”

From The American Conservative

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USA Today: Qanta Ahmed: Islamism’s Double Pronged Assault on Liberal Democracy

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Erik Schneider

Paris

Source:The New Democrat

Islamism, from ISIS and other groups, is not just and assault on American and Western values, but its an assault on liberal values, whether it’s in America, Europe or in Asia. ISIS Islamists, want to destroy individual freedom, freedom of expression and individualism in general, all great liberal values and why I’m a Liberal. And replace it with their far-right view of religion and impose their values on everyone in the world that they can reach. Religious and cultural fascism where they decide how everyone should live and if you disobey in any way, or try to live like a human being an individual, you risk your life as a result.

The Far-Right’s version of Marxism which is religious theocratic fundamentalism. How today’s so-called Progressives, can ever say that what Islamists believe is just part of their culture, all I have to say to that is what Richard Dawkins said. Which is, “the hell with their culture.” When you take the side of a group like ISIS and other Islamists, you at the very least are showing sympathy for their perspective and worldview. A worldview where non-Islamist Muslims, women, gays and others, are considered to be second-class citizens who should be forced to live like prisoners in their tiny world.

You can’t have a liberal democratic world and a Islamist world when the Islamists are trying to destroy the Liberals. The Liberals and the West, have no choice but to fight back and destroy ISIS. This is not the Cold War where you had liberalism against Marxist Communism. Where both sides knowing they could destroy each other and the world agreeing not to in order to protect their self-interests. This is a war where the good guys have to win. Very similar to World War II when the West destroyed the Nazis. There’s no co-existence between the Islamists and Liberals. The Islamists have to be destroyed for the good of the West and for there to be any chance that someday Middle Easterners can have a peaceful home and region of their own. Where they’re not always dealing with extreme terrorism.

Paris last month, was the French 9/11 and France was already wide awake against ISIS and bombing them in Syria which is why ISIS hit them. So France is not some socialist pacifist pushover (to be kind) that doesn’t understand the use of force and that there are times that you have to be tough. They know what ISIS is about and what they need to do to destroy them and are already a great American ally in the War on Terror and now the War on ISIS as well. America, will probably have all of NATO, plus Iraq and the Syrian rebels, in the West’s fight to destroy ISIS now, thanks to Paris. Even though Paris was a hell of a price to pay for it, because of that insult on liberal values.

They don’t want another Paris attack happening to them and Britain doesn’t want a major attack in London, or one of their other great big cities and they’re now onboard to destroying ISIS as well and will provide airpower against ISIS as well. So what ISIS has done in Paris as horrible as an attack as that was, but they’ve woken up the West to the threat that they present against us and will take a hell of a beating as a result. What we’re going to see in this fight against ISIS is not neoconservatism and one country taking all the risks and collecting very little rewards for what they put up. But instead liberal internationalism, where a coalition of Western and Middle Eastern countries, take out ISIS together.

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