Paris terrorist attacks yesterday, 150 killed

Paris attacks. Indefensible and barbaric. Many call for retaliation and greater military force against extremists. What is lacking is historical perspective. Could these extremists have any significant power without the past 60 years of Western interventions into their cultures, societies and governments? What has happened as those governments have been toppled, couped, leaders assassinated by the West? How great a power vacuum has been left in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, Syria, etc, from as early as the 1950s, as those countries have been occupied, rebels armed, social systems destroyed?

Saddam Hussein and Qaddafi were not good guys, but they did not allow international terrorists to use their countries as bases as they are used now. Your government toppled, then killed those leaders and in return…? Assad in Syria is not a good guy, but in return for supporting and arming the ISIS terrorists that would attempt to oust him (as Reagan supported bin Laden and the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan against the Soviets), your government achieved…? The refugee crisis? Terror bombings? 9/11? All terrible. And all have roots in international interventionism. Why would the Islamists even care about the U.S. if we hadn’t been over there since WWII, occupying, staking petroleum claims, mandating geo-politics, “spreading democracy?” Yes, they are crazy and violent. Can you kill all of them? At what cost – financial, military, societal? Is this not Vietnam on a global scale? Futility writ large?

I don’t know what you do now. You have created, funded and supported quite a mess. Perhaps, at a minimum, you stop doing all of the things that have been shown to fail. Perhaps you stop arming, weaponizing, inciting, intervening, bombing, occupying. Perhaps you stop destroying systems that might lend some stability to those regions, even if imperfect. Perhaps none of that region is any of your business. The costs of attempting to make it your business will be immeasurable. The wise are able to recognize failure, to change course and to move on. The blind nationalists and historically ignorant will double down on the failures out of pride and magical thinking. We have a country full of the latter.