Sunday, October 2, 2011

The sky is always sunny ...

At 50,000 feet. When I was in the Air Force, especially when I went to SAC for a couple years, bomber pilots always creeped me out. Not a one of them I'd ever met gave a second thought to dumping 70,000 lbs of ordnance over a target while not knowing who would die when gravity did its work. Friendlies, civilians, didn't matter. Bombs away, do a 180, and head for the O-club, then home to help the kids with their homework and lay some pipe on the ol' lady. All in a day's work.

Rick Perry didn't bomb anything, but he was a transport pilot (how the fuck they taught him to fly an aircraft is beyond me, but they taught the Chimp how to fly fighters so there you go) and those guys are almost as bad. They also see things from 'above the clouds' and wish they could bomb or shoot at something.

Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry on Saturday said he would be open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to combat drug cartels.

Speaking in New Hampshire during a campaign stop, Perry said, "It may require our military in Mexico working in concert with them to kill these drug cartels and keep them off our border."

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After a decade of endless war, how this idiot can come up with the bright idea that we should now send our troops across the southern border and engage the drug cartels is beyond me. It's red meat to the old white people who are the core of the GOP/Teabag cult but somehow I think the Mexican people would have a problem with US troops running all over their country, let alone after a decade of witnessing the 'collateral damage' left over in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It'd be nice if the "supporting the troops" crowd would actually see our armed forces as people, with families, homes, and dreams, as opposed to the little green army men we played with as kids, as numbers on a ledger under the heading "force strength".

As opposed to actually solving the drug problem (probably giving our economy a big boost in the process and saving a buncha ammunition and American lives), the GOP's only answer to anything is to either shoot it or drop bombs on it, whether literally or metaphorically.

And a last thought: Haven't we heard this before?

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As the Washington Post points out, Perry on Saturday also said he wouldn’t send American troops into a combat situation if he didn’t have a clear plan for victory and withdrawal.

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I think I remember the Chimp saying that before we went to Iraq and Afghanistan. Does Rick Perry think our troops should be in Mexico for a decade or more? Just askin' ...

4 comments:

Gordon said...

Perry has no idea what he's talking about but he knows damn well who he's talking TO.

montag said...

The Mexican Ambassador has a fairly short reply to this nonsense. While praising police and intelligence cooperation he essentially said, Nuh-unh, no boots on the ground, no way. The Mexicans have long memories where US soldiers are concerned.

DBK said...

Joe Kennedy made his fortune as a bootlegger during the violent Prohibition era. When Prohibition ended, he sent one son into the White House, two others were prominent in politics (one of whom should have been president), and while violence claimed Jack's and Bobby's lives, they made a helluva mark before they were done. If we end the prohibition on marijuana today, we end the violence and the drug cartels become corporations exporting a legal product to the United States. They become vested in a system that works rather than being at war with it, and their product just another, ordinary, taxable commodity...and one that doesn't need automatic weapons to defend. And that's the end of that. The cartelistas become respectable citizens just like Old Joe Kennedy, and the world continues to spin on it's slightly tilted axis without interruption or catastrophe.

Naw. Can't do that. Makes too much sense.

Gordon said...

Bt, for once I agree with you.