On Killing The ‘Right Way,’ For The ‘Right’ Reasons

Democracy, Islam, Jihad, Just War, Middle East, Terrorism

“Killed in an un-Islamic way” is how Jake Tapper of CNN described the torching by ISIS of a captive, caged Jordanian pilot. In case you didn’t know, beheading is killing the Islamic way.

Killing à la America, now that’s an entirely different matter. We do it right. The US is civilized: America strafes from above.

Villagers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen already know it, although the people on the ground near American drone bases in Somalia and Ethiopia are still blissfully unaware of it—Barack Obama is the uncrowned king of the killer drone. In Iraq, ordinary men and women scan the skies nervously for the telltale metallic shimmer, wondering whether they are being simply surveilled from above, as promised, or targeted by Hellfire missiles. Ditto the Iranians, who once even downed, and promptly displayed to the world, an RQ-170 Sentinel, launched into Iranian airspace by Uncle Sam.

Here is the face of disfigurement by American forces.

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Still, the “good” killers can claim they are without mens rea—criminal intent—we don’t mean to disfigure and kill all the little Shakiras we’ve disfigured and killed.

The child, reported London’s Daily Mail, “was burned beyond recognition by a U.S. drone and left for dead in a trashcan. … She was found by a medical mission team two years ago and was described as ‘lucky’ by staff as two other children found with her were killed by the military attack.” “[B]rought to the U.S. from her home in Pakistan,” the girl’s American surgeons patched her up.

As you can see, not much remains of the small, charred face. Nevertheless, as the narrative goes, the little girl and tens of thousands like her, should be grateful that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men put little Shakira together again. (Or would have if they could have.)

That’s how we role; we reduce the “bad guys'” countries to rubble, decimate their neighborhoods with Daisy Cutters—all with good intentions and for a good cause: Democratizing the devils!

Ours is “The Jupiter Complex”: “the ability granted by the possession of huge air forces, to rain thunderbolts on the wicked.” “The Jupiter Complex,” writes (neoconservative) historian Paul Johnson, “was to be with the United States for the rest of the century.”

And into the next.

Savages all, if you ask me.

First The Packers’ Fan, Then The Pickup Line

Crime, Nationhood, Politics, Sport

So I’m out power walking up the hill, in the gentle precipitation characteristic of the sublime Pacific Northwest. (I have yet to resume running since knee pain struck in October.) Ahead of me a man walks his dog. Both look forlorn.

I’m powering ahead, trying to decompress because of a laundry list of stressors, of which the least pressing are Pete Carroll, Russell Wilson and “Beast Mode”:

Well, at least we have a better Chris Matthews to help supress the bile that rises whenever the wide receiver’s namesake on MSNBC makes an appearance. (The other, lesser Chris Matthews is host of “Hardball,” an apropos name, given Chris’s well-known carnal affections for Barack Obama. The man spent the first two years of the Obama presidency in a state of sexual delirium. The crappy, MSNBC Chris is famous for fessing up to experiencing something akin to a (daytime) nocturnal emission during Obama’s coronation—”thrill up the leg,” Matthews called the accident.)

I pass the gloomy dog and his owner. The latter asks me how I’m doing. I reply: “Seahawks sad.” The guy says, “Oh, I’m a Packer’s fan, so I’m doing OK.” By Wikipedia’s telling, “The Green Bay Packers are the last vestige of small town teams common in the NFL during the 1920s and 1930s.” The team members look good. I might switch allegiances.

So far I’ve rooted for my home team, the Hawks. Why? It occurred to me that the football fetish in the US has arisen in the context of a country whose inhabitants share very little other than The Game. The host country’s history and founding documents have been turned into a liability by its educrats. The language has been dumbed down and demoted as the number of non-English-speakers clamoring for official recognition for their respective tongues rises. And the faith that once united those who fought to establish the republic has been banished from the public square and confined to the shopping mall, where adherents shop for God until they drop.

As I neared the end of my walking route, a car that had driven past a few time stopped. I imagined the occupant needed directions and sidled up to his vehicle. I’m wearing a thin anorak and a Jews-for-the-Preservation-of-Firearms-Ownership cap.

A young man looks me over and asks, “Want a ride, honey?” Really? In a family friendly neighborhood, in perfectly pleasant weather? I’ve seem “them” grisly cases on Investigation Discovery—a big favorite, bar “The Americans” and “The Fall” (first season, especially)—where women get shoved into cars by crazies.

First the Packers’ fan; then the pickup line. Perhaps I should pack a pistol next time I go for a walk in the neighborhood?

Shaming Sherman? Are You Kidding Me?

Feminism, Gender, Political Correctness, Sport

Men have been shamed into partaking in the pregnancy production: “We are pregnant.” “We are having a baby.” “I can’t close on that million-dollar deal now; “we’re due today,” they all chant obediently.

“And I can’t play the Super Bowel if my girlfriend gives birth on the day” is what Richard Sherman, the Seattle Seahawks’ cornerback, is expected to announce. Yes, with 30 million or more on the line, the man is expected to drop the ball and rush to the delivery room if his girlfriend drops a baby on Sunday.

Excuse me while a puke.

Coach Pete Carroll, who will have a baby himself if Sherman deserts the field, is too afraid to say anything insensitive lest some Enforcer gets on his case and he is forced to resign.

Sherman is one of the best players expected to play in Super Bowl XLIX. His ability to virtually shut down an entire side of the field causes major game-planning obstacles for opponents. That’s especially true for a team like the New England Patriots, which relies heavily on the passing game to move the ball.

(Bleacher Report.)

You and I know that Sherman, 26—who, I dare I say? will have many more girlfriends in the future—wants to PLAY come Sunday, no matter what.

Anyhow, the New England Patriots are going DOWN.

In the battle with the Boston Brahmins of the Northeast; the team furthest away from Rome must win Super Bowl XLIX. How else can I get worked up, if I don’t cast this weird game as a battle between those close to Rome and those far away from it?

Go Seahawks. Go Sherman!

Too Earnest, Too Attractive, Too Macho, Too Moneyed, Too White, Too Christian

Elections, Ethics, Republicans

“Romney’s repeal-and-replace statism was irreconcilable with this writer’s libertarianism. … Romney was wrong on China. Wrong on Iran. Wrong on Russia. Wrong on Foreign policy, in general. Wrong on almost everything. Yet as incongruous as this may seem, Mitt Romney is a fine man—a man with great personal virtues, if profound flaws in political philosophy. Ann Romney, herself a delightful lady, is a lucky woman. Romney is a great provider, is fabulously devoted to family and faith, is consistently generous and charitable to all those around him, and brilliant in all endeavors, academic and entrepreneurial. … Unlike Obama’s university transcripts, Romney’s would have stood up to the scrutiny that never came.” (From “No Country For Old, White Men.”)

And whatever you think of him, Romney is still doing what he believes is best for the country he loves.

According to National Journal, despite bowing out of the 2016 race to rule, Mitt “Romney’s push forward had been his belief, … that other establishment candidates—Bush, Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio—aren’t up to snuff. But his Friday remarks indicate that he thinks his presence in the race would be more damaging to his goal of electing ‘a conservative leader to become our next president.'”

Romney is right about the rest of the Republicans in the 2016 race to rule; they’re a repulsive lot.

More about Romney the man:

… Money was Mitt’s Mark of Cain. So were his wicked work ethic and whiteness.

Romney was booed when he wooed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Enough to provoke the ire of blacks, Latinos, ladies of all hues, the halt and the lame was the mere hint that the too-white-to-like Romney would slow down the gravy train.

Lickspittle Republicans were as eager as the Democratic representatives of these identity groups to lambaste Mr. Romney for being too attractive, too macho, too white, too Christian, and too rich. No one could have failed to notice that Mitt Romney resembles the “Mad Man” played by Jon Hamm, in the eponymous AMC series. Both men are tall, dark and handsome, with the kind of picture-perfect, quintessential American good looks. Both hide their feelings and are spare with their emotions. When they show their softer side–it actually means something. Each is dutiful and dependable.

Such qualities, once considered desirable in a man, now offend the dominatrixes who run the nation’s newsrooms. “He’s a very private man; and that’s a liability.” “How can you get me to vote for him, if I don’t like him?” “He needs to humanize himself.” And, “Can he [even] be humanized?” demanded one CNN ghoul by the name of Gloria Borger on the eve of Halloween. Mitt Romney was inhuman: That, very plainly, was the premise of this harridan’s rhetorical question.

“Ann Romney’s job, and she’s been pushing for this in the campaign, is to kind of humanize him,” noodled the banal Ms. Borger over and over again, for the campaign’s duration.

This was the menstrually inspired miasma that emanated from TV studios countrywide.

Thus did Mitt Romney come to embody elements in Aristotle’s definition of a tragic figure:

* The “tragic hero is of noble birth and displays a nobility of spirit.” (Check)
* The character must be a person of stature. (Check)
* The protagonist is pitted against forces beyond their control. (Check)
* The character must be neither totally good nor totally evil.
* An error of judgment or a weakness in character causes the misfortune. (Check)
* The character must be responsible for tragic events. (Check: Romney’s failures ushered in four more years of epochal evil.)
* His action involves a change in fortune from happiness to misery. (Check)
* Subject is serious. (Check)
* He struggles courageously until his fall. (Check)
* Though defeated, he gains a measure of increased wisdom.

Mr. Romney’s pathos-filled election concession speech crystallized these tragic elements.

We “left everything on the field,” he said. “We have given our all to this campaign.”

Indeed, the prototypical Greek tragic figure “struggles courageously until his fall.” …

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