Catholic and Enjoying It!
Not too late to strap Our Dear Leader and Congress to Tomahawks and fire them into Antarctica. It would “send a message” to the people who have done more harm to this country than anybody else over the past 10 years: Our Ruling Class.
Speaking of which, Cracked provides its typically sterling analysis to the issues of the day:
Hey, guys — I’m starting to think we overreacted to the terrorism thing.
It hit me last year as I was standing in the naked airport scanner again, listening to the faint gasps and then applause from the monitoring booth, and realized that I wouldn’t put up with that hassle to ward off the threat of, say, lightning.
Anyway, that made me look back at the lessons we’ve learned in the 12 years since the 9/11 attacks, and I’ve got to say, it’s not encouraging. For instance, we found out that …
#6. Terrorism Totally Works!
Al-Qaida spent about $500,000 executing the 9/11 terror attacks. The U.S. government has spent up to $5 trillion fighting back. One expert estimated we’re spending about $400 million per life saved.
In other words, for every dollar the bad guys spent, we lost 10 million. And that’s not even counting the money lost due to the economic slump that followed. That, friends, is one hell of a return on an investment. Also: The 9/11 attacks killed 2,996 people. The response has killed 224,475 and displaced another 7.8 million refugees.
And with Obama we’ve learned *less* than nothing, because 12 years after our hysterical overreaction, we are ready to do it all again, only this time on the side of Al-Quaida! And nobody is pushing harder for it than the warlike buffoons at FOX or numbskulls like Kristol, McCain, and Graham who pounded the drums for sending us off to Iraq to go fight them terrorists on the promise of a utopian New American Century the last time. As A Conservative Blog for Peace puts it:
We haven’t learned anything. The narrative remains: all our wars are ‘humanitarian interventions’ to save somebody; crusades by secularized Yankee missionaries. (So the president gets to keep his affirmative-action Nobel.) The powers that be are claiming Assad has poison gas, just like the Republicans said about Saddam Hussein. Nothing to do with us in both cases. Somebody think of the chiiiildren! Of course Syria’s Christians are invisible. Neither the Evil Party in power (never mind much of it used to be Catholic: labor) nor the Stupid Party (Rockefeller liberals duping evangelicals and practicing Catholics) loves the church, and arguably there is no Catholic vote to try to please anymore (Vatican II, the gift that keeps on giving; more empty parish buildings around here for cyber charter schools). Anyway, al-Qaeda were angry about our meddling in the Mideast, so mostly Saudi hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; we continued what Bush the Elder did and invaded a secular Arab country nothing to do with the attack. Now… we’re supporting al-Qaeda trying to overthrow another secular Arab country?! Orwellian.
I disagree with the scorn for Vatican II (which, as is typical for first worlders, ignores the fact that the Church has grown 7000% in the past century and focuses solely on a narrative of decline) and I particularly disagree that “we” haven’t learned anything (if “we” means “we voters”). I think the loud and vocal opposition from the American people, including a lot of people learned from the mistake of supporting the Iraq debacle has been a markedly different experience from the war fever the Bushies drummed up. Quite a lot of our Ruling Class has learned nothing–and a lot of the Left are pretty quiet who were much noisier last time. But on the whole, I would say that “we” have learned, just our Rulers haven’t. The problem is, our Rulers decide who gets sent into battle, bombed, and killed. If the Dear Leader decides that war which work in theory are more important than people who die in fact, we still could wind up in a mega stupid war to support al Quaida and related baby killers. Orwellian indeed.
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