Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

A couple of new items today, but first I like to comment on Bergdahl.  Thanks to LBOAYM, I read O'dwyer's article which I agree with almost completely.  It was obviously a PR disaster for Obama.  The news conference with Bergdahl's dad was dumb.  The only thing I can think of is that Obama thinks the dad looks more like the Duck Dynasty guy than a Muslim.  The reason I held off commenting was whether I agree with the trade at all.  This is where I disagree with O'Dwyer.  I don't think I would have traded given the uncertainty of how he was captured.  I understand the ideal of not leaving anyone behind.  I also disagree with the conservatives who say that this makes the enemy more likely to try to capture American soldiers.  I think even if we don't trade, the enemies will capture Americans any time they can.  In fact, if we don't trade, they are more likely to kill them and display them on tv.  So not negotiating will not make our soldiers any safer.  But given the known controversy of this case, I would not have traded at this time.

Eric Cantor loses!  Does this mean the Tea party is back in control.  No, but I guess you should not write its obituary either.  So in liberal California, the Tea party candidate loses to an unknown.  In a conservative district in Virginia, the extreme conservative beats a conservative.  Neither of these have any national significance.  It just means the GOP is split and while they will do well in the mid term election, they will have problems in the 2016 presidential election.

Iraqi militants took over a Mosul, the second largest city.  It seems the current government is in trouble.  It goes to show you, you can't bring democracy to another country by force.  All you are trading is one dictator for maybe something worse.  Al Qaeda was not in Iraq before Hussein.  Now, after billions of dollars and thousand of American lives lost, you have more sectarian violence.  In fact, this militant group is even worse than al Qaeda.  So Obama was right when he was a senator:   The Iraq invasion was wrong.  He is also right in not using military force in Libya, Egypt and Syria.  Until we have a reliable partner, military action in this part of the world will not bring good results.