max solves the middle east crisis

Okay, not really.

The Middle East crisis is a pretty big crisis and I can’t solve it. But —

We’ve been avenging ourselves on Middle Eastern countries for 911 and fighting a “war on terror” now for 14 years.

Did we win yet?

Has terror stopped?

Does anyone feel safer?

 

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I’ve given up every privacy in the furtherance of safety here. Every time I get on a plane I have to give up shampoo and my lighter, strip halfways naked, and stand in a police pat down position while I am dosed with cancerous x-ray bombardments that take a photo of me naked.

 

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Police and security types prowl the streets with fun boxes that let them look through and listen through walls so there’s no expectation of privacy in my apartment.

 

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My text messages, emails and phone calls are recorded so I can’t even talk dirty. [Rude!]

 

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If I drive a car manufactured within the past five years it has chips in it so the government can keep an eye on my comings and goings. [HEB, holy shit, now that spells Al Qaeda.]

 

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If I talk about the wrong story elements with a student while discussing an action story, my whole website goes on the watch list and I have to worry about no fly lists. And that’s in the US, home of the free and home of the brave. Holy shit did that go down the tube fast. Meanwhile —

 

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I have lost count of the number of military adventures our Nobel Peace Prize winning president has launched.

Is it six or seven countries we are in military conflict with now courtesy of our peace loving Commander In Chief? You know, the “Democrat” in the White House who holds kill meetings every Tuesday to decide who to execute with drones next?

 

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Again I will ask. Fourteen years of vengeance and fighting terror? Did we win yet?

 

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Most of the Middle Eastern figure heads declared “Public Enemy Number One” over the course of wars and altercations in my lifetime appear to have at one time or another been funded, trained, and armed by the United States and counted as friendlies – till they wandered off with the cash and weapons and declared the US their prime target.

 

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Here’s a thought. What if we stop arming and funding everyone in the Middle East? Just stop doing it. Stop giving weapons and cash to anyone in the Middle East?

We appear to regularly be handing out cash and guns to both sides of most altercations — this is called a balance of power, in political and military terms I guess — or, you know, sociopath politician terms — but wouldn’t it be a real balance of power if both sides just didn’t have our cash and guns? They all appear to be fighting each other and at times us with weapons and cash we gave them. Why don’t we just stop giving them cash and weapons?

 

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How about we stop buying oil from the Middle East? The US exports as much oil as it actually uses. What if we stop exporting oil and just use US oil here at home and stop shipping US oil overseas and then buying oil from the Middle East?

Do the oil companies get extra tax credits for shipping oil back and forth between continents? Do they own stock in shipping companies? What the hell is the story there? And —

Even if we did have to depend on foreign oil to power cars, which we don’t, we have the technology to run electric cars instead of oil so that’s all crap too.

We don’t have to buy oil from the Middle East. We are exporting more oil than we use. And we could get off the oil teat altogether if we wanted. So. Why?

 

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What if we stop sending US soldiers to the Middle East? I know it’s a novel concept, not sending 18 year olds to sweat and suffer and die in foreign countries in blood baths and explosions on foreign sand. Jesus, what would Kissinger say? But it’s worth consideration. Also Kissinger was an asshole.

 

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What if we stopped blowing things up in the Middle East and rebuilding what we blow up? We can rebuild the buildings, sure, but not the people. So we’re kind of spewing death and putting up fountains which is not working out to my way of thinking for the people who got blown up before we build the pretty fountains. Kind of a downer there.

And.

If we stopped blowing things up in the Middle East, we could stop rebuilding all the stuff we blow up.

Holy shit, maybe if we weren’t pouring out cash blowing things up and rebuilding the things we blew up in the Middle East, not to mention killing women and children and reporters and humanitarian aid workers in the process, (I know, collateral damage — you do know “collateral damage” is dead people right?), we could actually spend some of that cash rebuilding things in the US — you know, at home?

Like bridges and roads and nuclear power facilities that are collapsing here?

 

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Here’s another thought. Instead of following suspected Isis loving peeps around withholding their passports so they can’t leave the country when they want to head off to Syria and trying to arrest them for wanting to travel to the Middle East and join Isis? Creating a bunch of Isis wanting to join frustrated pissed off yahoos here who want to blow things up, not to mention all the cash it’s costing to follow them around and keep tabs on them? Not to mention, if we do arrest them, having to house them in jails and prisons and try them in courts and all that sash?

How about we just let the Isis lovers go?

Fly free little Isis birds, go to Isis, here is your passport, have fun.

WHY do we want to keep them?

Let them go.

Just don’t let them come back.

Sheesh. That’s a no brainer.

 

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We’ve got a ton of problems and I don’t have the answers. But maybe we could start by bringing the troops home, stopping a 14 year war o’ vengeance on terror that let’s face it, if it ain’t won in 14 years, it’s lost, no longer arming and financing multiple sides in the Middle East who either kill each other with that money and equipment or turn around and kill us with it — in fact usually turn around and try to kill us with it — stop blowing things up overseas and rebuilding them when we could just not blow anything up and then use a little of that cash rebuilding things here at home, use our own oil instead of imported oil, or better yet, start working our way off the oil model, and letting people who want to join Isis just fucking go join Isis. Enjoy the AC over there. Don’t come back. The end.

And.

Finally.

 

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If we let the Isis lovers go? We’ll have some open beds. Beds we could give to women and children trying to get the fuck out of Syria and save themselves.

People like the 17 year old kid who walked 300 miles carrying his dog.

I’ve got an open couch. I like dogs. That kid and his dog can stay on my couch.

 

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[youtube=https://youtu.be/cixKKGkmOtw]

 

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