Ben Carson: Bungling Surgeon

This guy doesn't see the disconnect:

 

We are, apparently, not permitted to talk about this.

 

I know, and that's bullshit. Weren't we having fun? It sure sounded like fun to me.

 

I didn't even once talk about Josh Hamilton.

 

Ok, gonna play Devil's Advocate here. Trump is an idiot, and a Trump Presidency would be an unmitigated fucking disaster, but he has a point here. An unpleasant point, but still...

Saddam Hussein kept the lid on while he was dictator of Iraq because he understood the dynamics. Many people in the Middle East do not have the sort of reflexive loyalty to their country that we take for granted here. In many cases, the loyalty chain is family first, tribe second, religious sect third, regional area, then maybe the country as a whole. When someone got out of line and started stirring up shit, typically Saddam would do one of two things - either the offender and very often his family would be grabbed, tortured, and killed, or someone would go to his tribal elder and say "Look, either you get this guy under control or we're going to punish your entire tribe. You know what that means." The tribal elders would handle it, and if that meant grabbing the offender and putting a bullet in his head because he refused to listen to reason and cooperate, it still got handled. As a result, the Shia, Sunnis, Kurds, everybody, got along with a minimum of tribal nonsense, because no matter how bad one group hated another, doing something about it wasn't worth the consequences.

I'm not advocating that we take that approach broadly, openly, and overtly. The U.S. is supposed to be one of the good guys who plays by the rules. Sometimes, though, you have to let the hard men handle things, and if it takes the threat of or actual violence to put enough pressure on those in charge, you do the hard and ugly things anyhow. You don't want to drop a Hellfire missle from a drone on some guy when he comes home to see his family and they are all in the house, but if that's the only shot you get at him, sometimes you take the shot if he is an important enough target. It's ugly, but it's war. I find that far better than the indiscriminate bombing and shelling that took place during WWII.

 

It worked for Jack Bauer.

 

I can't believe that guy isn't making a run for the R nomination. Great name recognition, record of consistent achievement in foreign policy. WTF is wrong with the Repubes?

 

So "Saddam did it" and "It's better than indiscriminate bombing in the war that was so awful it became the foundation for all the war crimes laws we have today that Trump is proposing violating."

The devil needed a better advocate there.

 

Too bad David Palmer is dead. He was still eligible for a second term.

 

I don't like it worth a shit, Rick. Bottom line is that counter-terrorism is an ugly business.

I would not have picked Trump as my advocate for any of it.

 

Was Wayne Palmer the Jeb of the 24 universe?

 

In the end, I think, Trump voters will be there for the taking.
And Ted Cruz, zealot though he is, knows how to take them:

HOUSTON, Texas — Presidential candidate Ted Cruz issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s remarks from the Oval Office tonight:

“On December 7, 1941, in response to Pearl Harbor, FDR did not give a partisan speech, rather he called on Americans to unite and ‘win through to absolute victory’.

“If I am elected President, I will direct the Department of Defense to destroy ISIS. And I will shut down the broken immigration system that is letting jihadists into our country.

“Nothing President Obama said tonight will assist in either case.”

Like Trump, Cruz is a loose cannon, but he's a smarter and tougher loose cannon.
When things get mean next year, I wouldn't be surprised to see the pack swing his way.