It’s 9/11. Remember who attacked us. And who let it happen. And who made money from the attacks.

Today is September 11th, and in order to truly honor the memory of those who died at the hands of those terrorist goat-f***ers in Al-Quaida, this writer will forego the usual platitudes, and instead point a big finger at the “Republicans” who sat back and let it happen; and then used those thousands of deaths to further their political ends whilst padding their offshore bank accounts. Think that is inappropriate, nasty, partisan, or lese-majeste? Gentle Reader, you ain’t heard nothing yet.

The 9/11 Commission report said that the Bushistas ignored the threat until after the attacks had occurred. And then, of course, they used the deaths of our fellow citizens to launch a phony war in Iraq and make themselves multi- millionaires. It’s all public record, click the links if you don’t believe it.

In stark contrast to the incompetence, malfeasance, and obfuscation of the “Republicans” stands President Obama. People told him about an imminent terrorist threat, and he quickly got started kicking their mass-murdering asses. And he told the country exactly what he was gonna do: bomb, shoot, and generally kill all of the Shaitan-worshipping thugs in ISIS. That, friends, is how you respond to an attack. Openly, firmly, and honestly.

There are still fools around the world who think the Prexy is weak, indecisive, or naive. To those idiots, we present four words:
Osama
Bin
Laden’s
Dead.
He died because Obama had the smarts and the testicular fortitude to pursue the mutt and kill his ass. The Bushies didn’t care enough to catch the motherf***er, which helped Al-Quaida grow stronger and prosper by showing the world that America would not punish those who attack us. But the Dems in the White House DID care, justice WAS rendered, and today Al-Quaida is a shattered remnant of the jihadi collossus it once was. Punishing criminals works a lot better than rewarding them.

We can best honor the victims of crimes by rendering justice on the criminals, and preventing future crimes. To the first point, not all of the criminals of 9/11 have been brought to justice yet, but Obama has made a good start. And to the second, he is doing things differently than his predecessor, thus helping to prevent a recurrence of 9/11.

Not to say that Obama’s actions are without risk. They carry enormous potential for blowback and unintended consequences. But doing nothing failed in 2001, and failed earlier this year as well. Terrorists will commit acts of terror whether men of good will do nothing, or do something. It’s what terrorists do. At least killing them, taking their money, and destroying their assets slows them down. (Again, see what has happened to Al-Quaida since PBO took office.)

The Bushies have the blood of innocents on their hands and in their wallets. Never forget, Gentle Reader. Because if we forget, it’ll happen again. Good luck to President Obama and all the brave people who fight for us every day. And bad cess to those who attack us, abandon us, and use tragedy to manipulate us.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Putin is a scumbucket. That does NOT mean we should go to war.

Russia is (again) invading a sovereign nation. Just as in Georgia, they sent lots of Russians into part of the Ukraine, and now claim these Russians are in “danger” and in need of “protection” from the other country. A patently transparent way of expanding Russian territory via military force.

And of course, the War Cheerleaders amongst the Right Wingnuts are urging Obama to follow the lead of Bush the Lesser, because, well, maybe sending troops in to stop a motherf***er will work this time. But anyway, freedom. And money for the arms merchants, of course.

Too many Americans (and foreign leaders) think Obama is weak and/or as dumb as the Bushistas, who got played like a violin during the Georgia adventure. If we have seen anything during the current Prexy’s tenure, it is the exact opposite: he is smart and cautious, perhaps too willing to believe in the goodness of others, but not soft. (Anybody who really thinks that Chicago lawyers are wimps hasn’t encountered one.)

We aren’t going to war over Pooty-Pants’ invasion of a foreign country. We aren’t because our Prexy is smart, our Secretary of State is a combat veteran, our nation wouldn’t support it, and the international community still doesn’t trust us after 8 years of Bush II.

In the end, what Putin is doing today is what Shrubya did when he chose to lie us into Iraq. Nobody believes Putin, and it’s not just because he is such a motherf***er; it’s because Putin and Gee Dub are two sides of the same imperialistic coin. And that currency has lost more value than a Mt. Gix Bitcoin, due to Georgia and Iraq.

We did not intervene in Syria, even though their leader is at least as big a scumbucket as Vladimir. Nor have we sent troops to many other motherf***er-owned-and-operated countries. We have other tools that we can use, and sometimes they work better than just randomly counter-invading sovereign nations.

Plus, both Russia and America have proven that starting off by rolling in with tanks and machine-gunning the locals is not a good way to do business. It might seem like a good idea to scumbucket leaders who have big eyes and want a territory to match, but it always ends badly.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Lying Sack of S*** of The Week: Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad

Was there any doubt? No, there wasn’t. Mr. Al-Assad won the LSoSOTW competition going away: he started the week by claiming to have no chemical weapons, then claimed he’d be happy to give them up, then saying he maybeprobablywouldn’tunlessthisandthathappened.

And of course, you can’t give up something that doesn’t exist. So unless he developed the technology to create and deliver chemical weapons (and then made the chemicals and missiles, too) in a day or less, he’s lying.

A Sarin-encrusted Crown O’ Polished Turds, then, for the Syrian Prexy. A most exemplary Lying Sack of S*** of The Week.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

(Honorable mentions to Putin, Lavrov, Obama, and Kerry for the pretense of an “accidental slip of the tongue” that “started” this week’s diplomatic effort. Dudes, it was kinda lame. Everybody knew you made that s*** up – you have been talking about this idea for a year. But it was a pretty big lie – not as big as ol’ Bashie’s was, though.)

On Syria: Doing Nothing CAN be worse than Doing Something (WARNING: this post will probably p*** you off).

When this writer was but a wee cranky lad, he was sometimes bullied. Fortunately, he was blessed with the ability to fight back. So after a while, the bullies went and found other, easier targets for their bullying. Does that mean that fighting back did no good? After all, the bullying didn’t stop, it just happened somewhere else.

Most of us have seen a domestic incident happen in public. Usually, some good citizen will call the cops or otherwise intervene. Odds are, the domestic abuse continues in private after the intervention. Does that mean that the intervention did no good? After all, the abuse didn’t stop, it just happened somewhere else.

In both of these cases, it’s a fair guess that you’d say “standing up for the victim of abuse is the right thing to do, even if it doesn’t completely fix everything”. This writer agrees. There are issues of morality in play here, not just inhuman calculations of efficacy. So why do so many of us appear willing to throw the Syrian people under the bus by ignoring the abuse that is being heaped upon them? 

Yes, Iraq was a cluster-f***. Sure was. That was (as your humble correspondent said and has been saying since before the Bushistas lied us into that quagmire) a stupid conflict that we never should have gotten into. But Syria is not Iraq. Nor is the fact that an intervention went South in the past a good reason to never intervene again everevereverevernomatterwhat.

On a short-term, purely practical level, there may be no clearly foreseeable benefit to intervention in Syria, and  there certainly are manifold risks to consider. That doesn’t mean we should sit back and do nothing. Just as with a wife being beaten or a child being abused, we intervene even though we do not know the outcome, because we know that right now, a basic human right is being violated. And we owe it to our fellow human beings to stand up for them when their rights are denied.

The fact that they are on the other side of the world instead of the other side of the street does  not take away our obligation to care for those who are being oppressed. You know what oppressors love? The same thing that bullies, wife-beaters and child molesters love: they love people who do nothing to stop them from committing crimes against humanity, because it enables them to continue committing those crimes.

Sometimes the media and politicos (and our fellow Americans) can get so wrapped up in realpolitik that we forget about basic human rights and decency. And make  no  mistake, there are lots of Americans saying “what is happening in Syria is none of our business”, or something of such. So take a moment and think: if you were being beaten, bullied, sexually abused, or gassed, what would you say? Answer: you’d say “HELP ME!” or words to that effect. As you should.

And what would you say to those who could have helped you but chose to turn away, leaving you to the tender mercies of your abuser? Answer: you’d say “F*** YOU, MOTHERF***ER”, or words to that effect. And those whose cowardice or indifference had sealed your fate would deserve those words, that shame, that stinging indictment of their manifest inhumanity.

This does not mean that military intervention is safe, or simple, or even desirable. Nor is military intervention the only route to take – there are some rumblings about a new diplomatic solution, thanks to John Kerry’s flapping yap. But no intervention, doing nothing at all, just because we are understandably weary of war and justly suspicious of our government? That is morally indefensible. (To be clear: thus far, we have done nothing. Nothing at the UN, nothing on the ground.)

People are being abused in Syria: 2 million Syrians are refugees, many living under tarps in the desert, as this post is being written. Hundreds have been gassed to death, and thousands more have been tortured and killed by the abusive Assad regime. If we vote to do nothing to help them, it is no different than turning away from the bullied person or abused child who needs our help right here at home.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Vlad the Destroyer (Up yours, Putin)

Yesterday, the Russian-backed Syrian government used chemical weapons on its own people. Russia (meaning Vladimir Putin) is blocking UN action to investigate this war crime. Vlad the Destroyer is OK with crimes against humanity.

Recently, Russia passed some truly regressive anti-LGBT laws, and announced that foreign visitors (such as Olympic athletes) would be jailed, harassed, and so on. Vlad the Destroyer is OK with persecuting gay people for being gay.

A while back, members of a Russian punk band got sent to a labor camp for making fun of Putin and the Church. Vlad the Destroyer is OK with working people to death, if they offend him.

It is hard to imagine anyone supporting or praising such a despicable piece of dung as Putin. Indeed, one would think that anyone who does praise and support Putin is someone who shared his destructive, regressive, authoritarian tendencies and traits. One would be right.

So, then: Syria, Wikileaks, Greenwald, Snowden and Assange have been revealed as supporters of war crimes, hate crimes, and violations of human rights across the board. Think about this, the next time you think about supporting them. When they praise Putin as a human rights icon, they support his human rights activities.

Up yours, Putin. And the same goes for anyone and everyone who supports him.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Majority is Supposed to Run America

Ancient Rome occupied quite a bit of real estate at one time, and though they were a minority in most of their Empire, they were able to rule over the majority through various means. Eventually, though, the majorities in each occupied nation got tired of being screwed over, and revolted. Buh-Bye, Roman Empire.

England once occupied even more of the globe than Rome, and though the English were a minority in most of their empire, they were able to rule over the majority through various means.  Eventually, though, the majorities in each occupied nation (like America, India, Scotland, and so on) got tired of being screwed over, and revolted. Buh-Bye, British Empire

We are seeing this happen elsewhere on a smaller scale in Syria today – minority is ruling a majority and screwing them over. The majority has gotten sick of it and is revolting. Pretty soon, it’ll be Buh-Bye, Assad. We saw it in South Africa, too. Majorities eventually get tired of being boinked and rise up, usually causing a lot of death and destruction in the process.

Today, America is increasingly heading towards minority rule – a small group of wealthy individuals are using the tax code to their benefit, buying our “representatives”, using their ownership of the media to give us the mushroom treatment, rigging elections, and so on. Pretty much the same thing as Caesar and Quadaffi did in their times; and Americans are slowly waking up to this reality. When enough of them get ticked off enough, it will not be pretty.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are both members of this minority. They could be poster children for this group, in fact. They do not understand the lives of ordinary Americans, but they wish to rule a nation full of them.  Say what you will about Obama and Biden (and this writer has said plenty), neither of them was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Hell, half the time they didn’t have silver of any sort, but they each worked their own way up and made themselves successes.

Not Romney. He started rich and got richer. Ditto Ryan. They and their little clique will screw us all over to such an extent that people will start getting really pissed off.  And when that happens, it’ll be Buh-Bye to America as we have known it.  And that would really suck.

Mr. B & C