Neocons Are Useless Idiots

With a crisis continuing in Iraq, President Obama has already chosen to intervene, at least on a small scale, with “advisors” and security for the embassy—troops that may see combat, but are certainly not (perish the thought!) the dreaded combat troops. Why in God’s name this seems like a good idea to him is beyond me, but sadly—as usual—Obama isn’t the worst one on the issue. That title would have to go to neocons like John McCain, Dick Cheney, and Rick Perry, all three of whom are blaming the fact that Obama left Iraq at all for the current situation, and naturally, advocating a new intervention—Iraq War III, if you will (because weren’t the first two fun?).

According to these three—two of whom are war criminals and one of whom is possibly the stupidest person to ever be elected to any office, ever—keeping out of Iraq, like Rand Paul proposes, is “isolationism” and a threat to our national security. As others have pointed out, it’s our readiness to invade other countries and involve ourselves in matters where we don’t belong that truly isolates us from the rest of the world. The second claim is even more absurd. As any number of foreign policy analysts could tell you, our “national security”—assuming that means the security of everyday Americans—is threatened not by “isolationism,” but by the fact that we constantly give Middle Easterners quite legitimate reasons to despise us.

In an op-ed so painfully stupid it borders on unreadable, Perry argues that the rise of a group calling itself the Islamic State poses a “real threat.” His piece then hilariously links to an article that notes that the Islamic State does not seem to want to attack the United States. I’ll let that speak for itself.

Of course, the “national security” that is threatened is not that of ordinary American citizens, but that of the interests of the powerful; Cheney certainly knows this. McCain and Perry may be too senile and brainless, respectively, to know it, but they’re certainly performing a valuable service to the elite interests that want to keep Iraq friendly to the west. If anyone should doubt that that’s the ultimate goal of the interventions being looked at, consider the talk of ousting Iraq PM Maliki and replacing him, potentially, with Ahmad Chalabi—a fabricator who helped lead us into the war that created the current nightmare.  

It’s a complete disgrace that people like McCain and Perry actually hold elected office, but not surprising when one considers the electorates they represent. The presence of buffoons like this, though, should not keep us from focusing on what has already been done. We have seen nearly eight hundred troops deployed already. The neocons may not be getting the intervention they want, but we “isolationists” haven’t exactly been getting what we want, either. The difference is that, unlike the neocons, we have real reason to think the departure from our principles does threaten American lives.

Later note (11/27/2017): Looking back on this blog post a few years later, I think it was probably quite a bit more vitriolic than it really should have been. I particularly regret labelling John McCain a war criminal--not because I think the accusation was false, but because it was done in a very blithe, ad hominem sort of way, which trivializes the accusation; also, as we are all aware of the grave ordeal that McCain suffered as a POW, it seems cruel to try to discredit him based on the actions that resulted in far more suffering for him than anyone should have to go through. It is not a remark I would include if I were writing the piece today, without a doubt.

UPDATE: I've corrected this post to note that Rick Perry himself may not have inserted the hyperlink I mentioned. I apologize to Mr. Perry for the potential inaccuracy.