Sunday, June 22, 2014



















Syria, Iraq, Captain Phillips & the ISIS pirates

     On my recent really-long plane ride back from Syria where I had served as an election observer, I must have watched at least six different inflight movies -- and one of them was "Captain Phillips," starring Tom Hanks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4FDRlBJNjg.  It was all about being attacked by brutal pirates brandishing deadly weapons -- and about looting and fear. 

     And then it suddenly occurred to me that the ISIS invasion of Syria (and now Iraq) was also all about being attacked by brutal pirates brandishing deadly weapons -- and about looting and fear.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2658286/Return-Mosul-Days-Iraqs-second-largest-city-fell-feard-Isis-fighters-Iraqis-heading-promise-food-gas-water.html
 
     The only difference seemed to be that Captain Phillips' Hollywood pirates were basically just poor schmucks with no other available job opportunities -- whereas the Al Qaeda-backed and American-financed ISIS pirates are killers to the bone http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/20133.

     I just learned that 15 of the ISIS pirates killed while plundering in Syria were from Malaysia.  Huh?  They came all the way from Malaysia to loot and burn and kill Syrian women and children and also desecrate Syrian churches and mosques while they were at it?  I wonder who paid their airfare to Syria -- and if their inflight movie was "Captain Phillips" too?

     American taxpayers paid for their airfare.

     I also just learned that, "The Malaysians who go to Syria and Iraq to fight will be arrested when they return home."  Of course they will be.  They are pirates!  Pirates belong in jail.

     And America, the country that pays these ISIS pirates' salary and writes up their job description, is not about to let any of these monsters come over here after they've been thrown out of Iraq and Syria either.  These guys are not ever gonna be allowed to get jobs chauffeuring tourists through the "Pirates of the Caribbean" at Disneyland.  Why?  Because you definitely do not want to let these marauders and butchers anywhere near your kids! 

     In America, criminals like these would be jailed for life in an instant -- or even made to walk the plank.

     But apparently it's okay with our State Department if they butcher Syrian and Iraqi kids.  http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2013_04_01_archive.html#3554538807908354245#3

     One other thing I learned the other day is that Saudi Arabia is paying a $300-a-head bounty for every Alawite Syrian these pirates kill.  One ISIS pirate bragged that he has chopped off 350 Syrian heads.  So far.  And played soccer with them.  (Please don't let this guy play in the World Cup!)  And apparently there's even a video of this guy eating one of his victim's hearts out on live TV.  Who the freak in their right mind would ever do that?  Pirates.

     And another thing I would like to make perfectly clear.  You can't blame all this blood-lust on Islam either.  These ISIS butchers and boogeymen are not Muslims.  Muslims venerate compassion and justice.  ISIS venerates booty and loot.

PS:  When I spoke at a press conference at the United Nations last week, I first planned to make a simple speech about how the elections that I observed there were honestly conducted.  See the text of that speech here:  http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2014/06/my-speech-at-un-press-conference-1-my.html

PPS:  But as jet lag set in and the horrible news of all the looting in Iraq came pouring in and I got tired and cranky, here's the speech that I actually gave, outing the ISIS pirates for what they really are.  Here's the text of that speech:  http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2014/06/my-speech-at-un-press-conference-number.html

PPPS:  Then later that evening I gave another speech -- and being even tireder and more cranky than ever after a very long day, I said to myself, "Enough already about pirates.  I want to talk instead about all those covert bad-guy Bluebeards and Barbarossas who are funding and encouraging all this looting and pillaging."  And that would be us. 

http://prayersforsyria.com/iraq-and-syria-whats-going-on/ 

     Back in the 1660s, French pirate captain Francois I'Olonnais used to cut off his victims' heads and eat their hearts out.  Sound familiar?  Perhaps that's the kind of thing that America is now teaching ISIS in pirate school?  Yeah.  Or else they are cribbing their notes off of Attila the Hun. But I digress.  http://mawtani.al-shorfa.com/en_GB/articles/iii/features/2014/06/23/feature-01

     My third speech of the day dealt with the American military-industrial complex's last 100 years of failed foreign policy -- and how weaponizing and training pirates to invade Syria and Iraq seems to be the dumbest foreign policy of all!

     Here's the text of that speech: 

     "I have read somewhere that there are four things that human beings need in order to survive: Air, food, water and to feel good about themselves.  Yet despite this excellent information, I’m afraid that, in the name of truth, I’m going to have to ignore it and make a whole lot of people on Wall Street and War Street feel very bad about themselves.  Sorry about that.

     "Lately, everyone on the news has been talking constantly about the 70th anniversary of D-Day – but I have yet to hear even one talking head mention the recent 100th anniversary of World War I, probably the most unnecessary and, well, er, just plain stupid war ever fought.

     "But, sadly, America’s foreign policy has just gotten dumb and dumber ever since.

     "Next up, the badly-designed Treaty of Versailles led to a very preventable World War II.  And then we lost China.  And Korea.  And just what dummy dreamed up the Cold War?  Then came Vietnam, a really stupid war.  A ten-year-old could have designed a better foreign policy than that.  Trillions of dollars wasted and millions of lives destroyed.

     "Then came the loss of South America’s hearts and minds, the shambles that is Africa today and disaster after disaster in the Middle East – as our State Department just keeps on riding their express train to Stupid Town."

     With regard to America's brutal (and dumb) foreign policy of creating chaos in the Middle East wherever it can, it's been a humongous success -- costing millions of lives. Libya is now in total chaos (just think Benghazi), Afghanistan will take a century to recover, Pakistan is a hot mess, Egypt sucks eggs, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are fascist dictatorships, Yemen is in a constant state of civil war, Palestine is a gulag, Israel is a joke balanced on top of a weapons factory the likes of which have never been seen since the USSR went bust, and Maliki in Iraq is as mean as a snake, far worse than Saddam Husein ever was http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/04/28/140428fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all.  Have I left anything out?

     "But this new war on Syria has just got to be America’s foreign policy’s all-time low (unless of course you count their support of the neo-Nazis in Ukraine).

     "Isn't it about time for America's foreign-policy makers to stop being so stupid?"  Nice ending to a nice speech, if I do say so myself.

     Everything -- EVERYTHING -- that the U.S. has done in the Middle East since most of us were even born has been wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.  And apparently the powers-that-be in Washington have done it all deliberately, in order to sow chaos.

       From Paul Bremmer to what's-his-name Maliki, Iraq has been a disaster.  http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/04/28/140428fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all

    And apparently Israeli neo-cons have been the major recipients of this huge gift of chaos in the Middle East http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/20/its-all-for-israel/.  Or have they?  If I were living in Israel right now or even in America (which I am), then I would be afraid, be very afraid (which I am) with all these incompetents, sadists and dummies at the helm. 

    But has any of this long-term stupidity -- of setting so many blood-thirsty pirates loose on the world -- made you and me feel any safer?  To quote Bluebeard, "Har har har har".

     So.  What can we do about stopping all this bloody nonsense?  For starters, let's cut America's military budget by SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT.  Why give these misbehaving miscreants such a big reward all the time when what they actually need is a time-out and a dunce cap?

     True American patriots need to look Wall Street and War Street in the eye and say, "Look at me.  Look at me.  I'm the captain now."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnpeOTLgyKs