So one of those big white people superpowers finally came down hard on ISIS. Problem is, it's Russia.
Meaning it's a problem for the aging reptiles who run things in the US and UK. The Cold War is still hot, as far as these guys are concerned, so anything Russia does besides deteriorate under Boris Yeltsin is immediately suspect. The Beltway press has been all in a tizzy for the past week, fretting over just how a card-carrying villain like Putin is going to bomb the bad brown people but spare the good ones.
He's likely not, since no war ever spares civilians. And that it ever could is just one of the many fantasies you must embrace before you can be considered "respectable" in American discourse...
We were already deep into bizarro territory, what with an election next year, but Putin's little pest control operation has really cranked up the DC crazy. Every Republican from Donald Trump to Those Guys Losing to Donald Trump has come out blaming the whole thing on Obama for muddled reasons - muddled even by the usual standards of Obama-blame in right-wing politics. The "objective" media doesn't go quite that far but is still furrowing its collective brow in worry that Russia might be just helping their allies in the Assad regime. And Brzezinski is making noise but he's wanted World War III since 1977, the racist little fucker.
Yet at the same time, ISIS is still everyone's designated monster. They're raping 8-year-olds, if ya didn't know. They've also raped grown Yazidi women and sold them into sex slavery - and bragged about it in their own glossy industry mag - but that was back when only the Kurds were fighting them so nobody in the pundit class cared. Now that Russia is hitting them in Syria, all the Very Concerned People want to get in on the action before there are no more scalps to claim.
That Russia could stamp out ISIS in Syria is a very real scenario. The Kurds were halfway there a few months ago, and they don't even have an air force. Because ISIS has always been more bark than bite, a regional militia that made up for its small numbers and rotten performance in battle by acting extra scary on YouTube. They're the black metal virgins of terrorism.
And the US is obviously jealous of Russia snuffing them.
No comments:
Post a Comment