Disasters at Home and Abroad

National Review ^ | 5/26/2015 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Servant of the Cross]

From ISIS at Ramadi to riots at home, nothing is going right.

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” – W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Things are starting to collapse, abroad and at home. We all sense it, even as we bicker over who caused it and why.

ISIS took Ramadi last week. That city once was a Bastogne to the brave Americans who surged to save it in 2007 and 2008. ISIS, once known at the White House as the “Jayvees,” were certainly “on the run” — right into the middle of that strategically important city.

On a smaller scale, ISIS is doing to the surge cities of Iraq what Hitler did to his neighbors between 1939 and 1941, and what Putin is perhaps doing now on the periphery of Russia. In Ramadi, ISIS will soon do its accustomed thing of beheading and burning alive its captives, seeking some new macabre twist to sustain its Internet video audience. We in the West trample the First Amendment and jail a video maker for posting a supposedly insensitive film about Islam; in contrast, jihadists post snuff movies of burnings and beheadings to global audiences. We argue not about doing anything or saving anybody, but about whether it is inappropriate to call the macabre killers “jihadists.”

When these seventh-century psychopaths tire of warring on people, they turn to attacking stones, seeking to ensure that there is not a vestige left of the Middle East’s once-glorious antiquities. I assume the ancient Sassanid and Roman imperial site at Palmyra will soon be looted and smashed.

What is unique about American foreign policy today is not just that it is rudderless, but how quickly and completely the 70-yearpostwar order seems to have disintegrated...

[Servant of the Cross]

Democrats ... bringing the results of Detroit to all of America ... and the world.

[Travis McGee]

[Pollster1]

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has it in for Israel. Why, no one quite knows . . . .

Does any objective observer really wonder why Obama hates Israel? Obama's feelings for Jews are not well hidden, and it would be hard to imagine him wanting anything for the Jewish state other than complete annihilation. He is doing his best to achieve that goal.

Between:

- the billions of dollars he is giving Iran,
- the green light for Iran to use that money and finish developing nukes,
- the elbow room he is giving the JV ISIS team to take Iraqi territory with the associated revenue, and
- the nukes in Pakistan that can perhaps be purchased by ISIS for the right price,

I would be amazed if Obama's Israel policy didn't end with a bang.

[Diogenesis]

The EXEMPT Uniparty has “won”.

[grania]

Don't blame one political party. It was REPUBLICAN John McCain who went to Syria and friended the worst of the terrorists. It was REPUBLICAN Mitt Romney who refused to go after Obama about Benghazi. Now the 'pubs have the majorities they wanted (and then some) and they're still playing the games that get Obama his way, every time. Both political parties are still playing the MidEast game for delusional, civilization-ending financial and political benefit.

Blame DC and the insidious effect it has on people who go there with the best of intentions but get swept up in the sewers.

[Biggirl]

Because remember, it is from both Heaven and Israel that Our Lord comes.

[Biggirl]

....Or rather has LOST.

[SaraJohnson]

Obama’s into creating chaos and blood and he lies all the time about what he is doing. Like Satan. What a coincidence!

[Always A Marine]

Excellent article by Victor Davis Hanson from the first paragraph:
"Things are starting to collapse, abroad and at home. We all sense it, even as we bicker over who caused it and why."
...to the last:
"Whatever liberalism is, it is not working. Our country’s policies overseas are falling apart, while at home our society stagnates and turns tribal — with a growing and embittered underclass, a shrinking and angry middle class, and a plutocratic and apartheid elite who, as absolution for their privilege, are desperate to praise in the abstract what they so studiously avoid in the concrete."

The nation that survives this onslaught will little resemble the nation that existed beforehand. Liberty is dying.