Doug's Darkworld

I can’t help myself, there’s a few things that need to be said about the recent attempt to set off a car bomb in NYC, the first and most obvious being … good thing it didn’t go off. You’d think that would go without saying, but the polarization of political discussion in the USA has gotten out of hand. Eliminationism or eliminationist rhetoric have become all too common. I digress though, terrorism in Times Square, in no particular order.

My first thought is, what would have been the result if this had happened before 9/11? Well, a passer by sees an untended car that appears to be on fire, calls the fire department. One look inside by them or the first cop on the scene, the bomb squad is called, the area cordoned off, and the bomb neutralized. So, um, we’ve spent hundred of billions of dollars on allegedly preventing such attacks, and our front line of defence is still the man in the street? And weren’t we fighting them over there so they wouldn’t attack us here? And lastly, um, there was no Taliban in Pakistan before we intervened in the region and started waging war. So the only real difference between this attack and a pre 9/11 attack, is that this attack was precipitated by our response to 9/11 … which was supposed to prevent this sort of attack?

Moving right along, if this is the sort of attacker they are throwing at us, we shouldn’t get too alarmed. He’s obviously not some sort of crack trained terrorist. It’s pretty hard to avoid the conclusion that he’s either not very bright, or that the quality of the “training” that he got in Pakistan really sucked. Because honestly, it’s not rocket science to build a car bomb. Anyone halfway mechanically inclined with an ability to read can find out all they need in the typical library. This was more a terrorism gesture than true terrorism. In fact I have to wonder, since apparently his family is in Pakistan, if he only did this because he was ordered to do so by terrorists in Pakistan that threatened his family?

Of course now the USA is pretty much openly blaming the Pakistan government for this attack, and claiming there will be “serious consequences” over this. Right, one lone nutjob makes an abortive terrorist attack, and the government of Pakistan is somehow responsible? That Clinton can makes threats like this with a straight face shows how far down the rabbit hole our foreign policy has gone, entire countries will be punished if a single one of their citizens tries to attack America? Obviously no country could conceivably control every single one of their citizens to prevent any sort of occurrence like this, so one has to wonder if this is simply more terror-mongering for domestic consumption, or are we actually trying to destabilize Pakistan further for some reason?

One has to understand that Pakistan is not a willing participant in the so called “war-on-terror,” just the opposite in fact. They are waging war on their own people at our behest, they are turning a blind eye to Americans killing Pakistanis regularly with our missile strikes, and just in general are cooperating with our occupation of Afghanistan, despite the fact that not only is this extremely unpopular in Pakistan and is seriously destabilizing their country. The Pakistani government is caught between a  rock and a hard place, India is their real enemy, not their own people or the Taliban. In fact Pakistan was the only country in the world who recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Basically they have been threatened and bribed by the USA to embark on a policy that is the opposite of what is good for Pakistan, and despite all the problems this is causing, the USA wants them to do more?

I can’t help but wonder, has US foreign policy simply lost touch with reality and is now entirely based on domestic politics with no thought or concern about the problems we are creating, or are we deliberately trying to make the situation in Pakistan worse for some nefarious reason? The only reason I can think of would be to create instability and a pretext for either seizing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and/or installing yet another American backed puppet government in the region. Either is such a risky and fraught with peril strategy that it’s hard to imagine anyone seriously considering it, but when it comes to western meddling in Asia, ever since the crusades we’ve done things that were so insane as to beggar belief on a regular basis. Maybe the folks in Washington actually believe that God is on our side and that no matter what, it will all turn out the way we want if we just push hard enough.

Damned if I know, all I know is that the pronouncements from the Obama administration become more bellicose and more irrational all the time, this is definitely not “Change we can believe in.” This is in fact Obama turning out to be even more of a disaster than Bush when it comes to foreign policy, something I would not have believed in my wildest dreams before he was elected. Another Clinton I could have handled, hell I miss the days when who was sucking the president’s wang was the biggest issue of the day. Now with American’s deeply involved in what appears to be a slowly but surely spreading war in Asia, I can only conclude: “This isn’t going to end well.”

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s central to illustrating the post, it’s a low resolution copy of the original, and arguably it’s an historically important image. It’s Times Square after the bomb evacuation. I have no idea who it is attributed too. And no, there is nothing wrong with the actual picture per se, the post’s title is a rhetorical device. Coming tomorrow, a stunning announcement on Doug’s Darkworld. Happy Mother’s Day everyone.)