CastleBravo
New member
Q. What is Al Qaeda’s desired end-state?
A. The ultimate objective of Al-Qaeda is the overthrow of the Western-supported corrupt governments of the Middle East, and their replacement by radical Islamic theocracies along the lines of the Taliban in Afghanistan. They are particularly interested in overthrowing the Saudi government.
Q. But wait, aren’t the Saudis radical Islamics already?
A. You would think so, but not radical enough. For one thing, they support the U.S. (sort of), and more to the point they host our military forces. Our presence in the region stifles change of the sort that Al-Qaeda wants to happen, and also offends religious sensibilities of the nuttier sorts, which are plentiful. Since our presence has about ZERO effect on religious observances in Saudi Arabia, this may seem stupid, but radicals aren’t known for dwelling on logical details. Regardless, Saudi Arabia is sort of a combination target, ally and recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda. If that confuses you, hang on.
Q. Why are we even involved in the Middle East?
A. Well, it is in our material interest to do so, at least in theory, because that’s where a lot of the cheap oil is. But since everything we do there seems to offend somebody horribly, it all seems like a horrible waste regardless. Horribly offending people with oil also makes them charge higher prices for it, oops.
Q. But all those corrupt Arab regimes at least like us, right? We give them billions of dollars, don’t we?
A. Oh yeah, and lots of weapons besides. We are the Sugar Daddy of the Middle East. Except they hate us, because we are the Sugar Daddy of Israel, too. We give cash and guns in huge quantities to both sides, with the end result that both sides do what they want, and the Arab populations all hate us because we support Israel AND their sleazy governments, even though their sleazy governments hate Israel, too. Israel is like a bad date, which alternately ignores you, treats you nice, and asks for you to buy them stuff from Lockheed-Martin (since Tiffany’s doesn’t make cluster bombs). But at least sometimes they give us the foreign-relations equivalent of a hickey.
To make matters worse, most of the dictatorships regularly crack down on their more radical Islamic elements, but they do a bad job of it, which just makes them more radical and hate us and our so-called “allies” even more.
Q. Doesn’t this mess just make oil more expensive? Which was the opposite of what we wanted to happen in the first place? And is my brain going to explode?
A. Yes, yes, and probably.
Q. Did you spell “Al-Qaeda” right?
A. No, but my keyboard doesn’t have keys with little Arabic squiggles on them.
Q. Can we blame this on Democrats? Republicans? Jews?
A. Yes, except that the Republicans seem to pursue almost exactly the same policy of ineptly “helping” everyone and being hated by everyone. Jewish conspiracy theories are fun for the skinhead crowd, but we give so much money and so many modern weapons like M1 tanks to countries that tried to invade Israel that it just makes no sense. Sound familiar?
Q. So whom do our policies really help?
A. Mainly our Arab “allies” that never help us. Or more precisely their corrupt regimes, which spend all our aid money on gold-plated limos and huge armies to not use against Israel. Since their countries are all so laughably backwards and primitive, we obviously haven’t actually helped the counties themselves develop in any sense that matters. But also our Arab enemies, since we provide them a scapegoat to distract attention from how cosmically ruinous Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah du Jour are to their countries. We also prop up Israel, but then again we are propping up some of their historical enemies about as much. We give Arab demagogues something to complain about, so in a sense we keep them in business, too, though in the negative sense of supporting corrupt governments who pester them ineffectively.
Q. So is this our fault?
A. Sort of, but only in the sense that stupidity rarely pays. It is kind of like we moved into the worst neighborhood in Detroit, gave free money to all the gang leaders and crack dealers, parked a Ferrari in front of our apartment, and then acted surprised that we got carjacked by the REALLY crazy gang-bangers when we were driving around at 2am with the top down and the doors unlocked. We’re sitting in the hospital, and we seem to recall that the same freaks that carjacked us tried to burn our apartment down and kill our children several times over the past few years, but we wrote it off as youthful exuberance while we waited for the money we gave to the gang leaders and crack dealers to “trickle down” to the rest of the neighborhood in the form of better schools and reliable garbage pick-up
Q. So what should we do?
A. In the short term, kill off everyone in Al-Qaeda, or anyone who ever helped them, anywhere on the Earth. In the long term, spy on everyone but otherwise scale back our assistance to everyone, since we get nothing for it and it just seems to motivate the people that want to get rid of our “allies” anyway. Kill off every radical group that says they want to kill us far in advance of them doing anything interesting. And develop fusion power and electric cars so we can quit having to care about the damn place.
A. The ultimate objective of Al-Qaeda is the overthrow of the Western-supported corrupt governments of the Middle East, and their replacement by radical Islamic theocracies along the lines of the Taliban in Afghanistan. They are particularly interested in overthrowing the Saudi government.
Q. But wait, aren’t the Saudis radical Islamics already?
A. You would think so, but not radical enough. For one thing, they support the U.S. (sort of), and more to the point they host our military forces. Our presence in the region stifles change of the sort that Al-Qaeda wants to happen, and also offends religious sensibilities of the nuttier sorts, which are plentiful. Since our presence has about ZERO effect on religious observances in Saudi Arabia, this may seem stupid, but radicals aren’t known for dwelling on logical details. Regardless, Saudi Arabia is sort of a combination target, ally and recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda. If that confuses you, hang on.
Q. Why are we even involved in the Middle East?
A. Well, it is in our material interest to do so, at least in theory, because that’s where a lot of the cheap oil is. But since everything we do there seems to offend somebody horribly, it all seems like a horrible waste regardless. Horribly offending people with oil also makes them charge higher prices for it, oops.
Q. But all those corrupt Arab regimes at least like us, right? We give them billions of dollars, don’t we?
A. Oh yeah, and lots of weapons besides. We are the Sugar Daddy of the Middle East. Except they hate us, because we are the Sugar Daddy of Israel, too. We give cash and guns in huge quantities to both sides, with the end result that both sides do what they want, and the Arab populations all hate us because we support Israel AND their sleazy governments, even though their sleazy governments hate Israel, too. Israel is like a bad date, which alternately ignores you, treats you nice, and asks for you to buy them stuff from Lockheed-Martin (since Tiffany’s doesn’t make cluster bombs). But at least sometimes they give us the foreign-relations equivalent of a hickey.
To make matters worse, most of the dictatorships regularly crack down on their more radical Islamic elements, but they do a bad job of it, which just makes them more radical and hate us and our so-called “allies” even more.
Q. Doesn’t this mess just make oil more expensive? Which was the opposite of what we wanted to happen in the first place? And is my brain going to explode?
A. Yes, yes, and probably.
Q. Did you spell “Al-Qaeda” right?
A. No, but my keyboard doesn’t have keys with little Arabic squiggles on them.
Q. Can we blame this on Democrats? Republicans? Jews?
A. Yes, except that the Republicans seem to pursue almost exactly the same policy of ineptly “helping” everyone and being hated by everyone. Jewish conspiracy theories are fun for the skinhead crowd, but we give so much money and so many modern weapons like M1 tanks to countries that tried to invade Israel that it just makes no sense. Sound familiar?
Q. So whom do our policies really help?
A. Mainly our Arab “allies” that never help us. Or more precisely their corrupt regimes, which spend all our aid money on gold-plated limos and huge armies to not use against Israel. Since their countries are all so laughably backwards and primitive, we obviously haven’t actually helped the counties themselves develop in any sense that matters. But also our Arab enemies, since we provide them a scapegoat to distract attention from how cosmically ruinous Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah du Jour are to their countries. We also prop up Israel, but then again we are propping up some of their historical enemies about as much. We give Arab demagogues something to complain about, so in a sense we keep them in business, too, though in the negative sense of supporting corrupt governments who pester them ineffectively.
Q. So is this our fault?
A. Sort of, but only in the sense that stupidity rarely pays. It is kind of like we moved into the worst neighborhood in Detroit, gave free money to all the gang leaders and crack dealers, parked a Ferrari in front of our apartment, and then acted surprised that we got carjacked by the REALLY crazy gang-bangers when we were driving around at 2am with the top down and the doors unlocked. We’re sitting in the hospital, and we seem to recall that the same freaks that carjacked us tried to burn our apartment down and kill our children several times over the past few years, but we wrote it off as youthful exuberance while we waited for the money we gave to the gang leaders and crack dealers to “trickle down” to the rest of the neighborhood in the form of better schools and reliable garbage pick-up
Q. So what should we do?
A. In the short term, kill off everyone in Al-Qaeda, or anyone who ever helped them, anywhere on the Earth. In the long term, spy on everyone but otherwise scale back our assistance to everyone, since we get nothing for it and it just seems to motivate the people that want to get rid of our “allies” anyway. Kill off every radical group that says they want to kill us far in advance of them doing anything interesting. And develop fusion power and electric cars so we can quit having to care about the damn place.
