Steve Sailer: iSteve: This whole Syria thing will work out, right?

August 27, 2013

This whole Syria thing will work out, right?

63 comments:

Anonymous said...: Sure, Steve.

What could possibly go wrong?

Anon.; 8/27/13, 4:34 PM
Anonymous said...: The Captain Ahab Spring; 8/27/13, 4:40 PM
oduzat 157 said...: Despatches from the front lines of World War G: gays in Pakistan can have group sex and cheap "massages". The war continues.

I am sure all iSteve readers are as cheered by this news as I am. Good will triumph over evil!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/23811826; 8/27/13, 4:41 PM
PropagandistHacker said...: gonna work out great for the war profiteers, same as always. And of course our intelligence services have already shown everyone that this war is certainly justified. I mean, poison gas? That is just terrible!

**COUGH**Tonkin Gulf**COUGH**.
**COUGH**Rape Rooms**COUGH**
.**COUGH** YellowCake**COUGH**
**COUGH**Weapons of Mass Destruction**COUGH**

**COUGH**Remember the Maine and the Lusitania!**COUGH**

**COUGH**Remember Pearl Harbor!**COUGH**

*COUGH**causus belli**COUGH**

If we can't trust our intelligence services, who can we trust.

So, yes, the corporations are going to make billions off this war. And of course the working class will gets its fair share, as always.; 8/27/13, 4:42 PM
Anonymous said...: So why are the French on board this time ? Perhaps there is something going on that we peasants don't know ?

AKAHorace; 8/27/13, 4:44 PM
anony-mouse said...: No problem.

During the 1960's there was a huge anti-draft movement that masqueraded as an anti-war movement. Once Americans realized they weren't going to be forced to fight, few cared one way or the other about the Vietnam war.

Bush's mistake was to send lots of American soldiers into Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama learned from this mistake and instead has sent in huge numbers of drones (far more than Bush did) and has withdrawn troops from both places.

Americans are fine with drones being used to kill people.

So Obama will send in a bunch of Tomahawks on Thursday.

Oh look Hannah Montana is half-naked. This is what Americans really care about.; 8/27/13, 4:55 PM
Anonymous said...: Steve,
I'm suprised that it took you so long before mentioning Syria on your blog.
Our leaders/betters/whatever-they-are tell us me must now go to war *again*... to uphold human rights in the middle of some remote desert. It doesn't matter how poorly the last adventure went. BTW I'm Canadian and Steven Harper (our prime minsister) is a total neocon. There's no internecine conflict in the middle east that he doesn't want Canada to participate in.
Honestly as an old fashioned small C conservative and I feel so completely disengranchised that if there was ever a war against the western world I think I would join the enemy side.; 8/27/13, 5:03 PM
vinteuil said...: This is a case where I really, truly, just don't get it. I mean, wtf? Has everyone in charge run completely mad?

Presumably, there's some deep-state game going on here. But heck if I can figure out what it is.; 8/27/13, 5:04 PM
Anonymous said...: "So why are the French on board this time ? Perhaps there is something going on that we peasants don't know?"

If westerners are going to be throwing their weight around in the Levant, the French want to be involved. For Historical reasons.; 8/27/13, 5:11 PM
Anonymous said...: It's amazing just how weak Obama has been on this issue. He has essentially let a cabal of advisers, pundits, and columnists push him into doing something he obviously doesn't want to do. Not to mention it's at least two years too late to actually do any good.

Somebody recently said that US political debate favors liberalism at home and hawkishness abroad. That seems like an apt description.; 8/27/13, 5:15 PM
Anonymous said...: It will work out for someone.; 8/27/13, 5:16 PM
Anonymous said...: "So why are the French on board this time ? Perhaps there is something going on that we peasants don't know ?"

The only reason the French are pushing for this is because they're desperate to retain some sort of geopolitical influence. They barely have a real military anymore and can't do much except beat up rebels is West Africa.

Also because Syria used to be a French mandate.; 8/27/13, 5:18 PM
Anonymous said...: "During the 1960's there was a huge anti-draft movement that masqueraded as an anti-war movement. Once Americans realized they weren't going to be forced to fight, few cared one way or the other about the Vietnam war."

Then why were so many women were part of the anti-war movement?; 8/27/13, 5:33 PM
Anonymous said...: So why are the French on board this time?

Maybe for the same reason they did this.; 8/27/13, 5:33 PM
Anonymous said...: If Washington attacks enough other countries, it it not out of the question that one of them might actually fight back?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Arrogance will be the downfall of the US military esyablishment.; 8/27/13, 5:35 PM
Anonymous said...: If we can't trust our intelligence services, who can we trust.

Dude... you're supposed to shut up and keep working, if you still have a job. Let your esteemed betters, who can actually comprehend such complex issues, work things out on your behalf.; 8/27/13, 5:39 PM
Anonymous said...: If Obama does a Clinton and fires some cruise missiles into the desert then it won't be any worse than it was before.

If this is an excuse for regime change then all the religious minority groups along the coast including all the Christian communities that have survived the last 2000 years will be cleansed - if not eaten.; 8/27/13, 5:45 PM
Kibernetika said...: Look on the bright side. This will be a boon to the refugee resettlement industry. And the non-woven fiber industry (e.g., diapers and other pop-related products; population directly correlates with consumer sales). Seems important to those in power.

We disrupt nations as if they were ant colonies, poked at with a six-year-old's stick. Do we have any say in this?

The USA is having an existential crisis. Who are we and why are we here? A collective Adm. Stockwell moment.; 8/27/13, 5:45 PM
Anonymous said...: Then why were so many women were part of the anti-war movement?

Because they have brothers, boyfriends, and hate their Dads trying to tell people what to do.; 8/27/13, 5:46 PM
Anonymous said...: Despatches from the front lines of World War G: gays in Pakistan can have group sex and cheap "massages". The war continues.

Actually that's not really part of "World War G". That type of scene in places like Pakistan have been around for a while, from before the recent gay activism in the West.; 8/27/13, 5:49 PM
countenance said...: Barack Obama, John Kerry, Chuck Bagel, Goober Grahamnesty and Manchurian Candidate McCain should realize that with their Syria bellicosity, they stand with a BIG 9% of the people.

Funny, but I remember a day when Obama was winning Democrat Primaries over HRC because he was against Iraq and she was for it.; 8/27/13, 5:52 PM
Kibernetika said...: Oops, Admiral Stockdale, not Stockwell, Dean, who played a character in the film Blue Velvet. Hmm, that character could've prospered in our current State Department.; 8/27/13, 5:54 PM
Anonymous said...: "So why are the French on board this time ? Perhaps there is something going on that we peasants don't know ?"

They were gung-ho for Libya too - with the previous government.; 8/27/13, 5:56 PM
Luke Lea said...: Do not touch.; 8/27/13, 6:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Higher oil prices will make US LNG even more attractive.; 8/27/13, 6:16 PM
Anonymous said...: Nobody knows what we're trying to do in Syria, so whatever the outcome, the Obama regime can claim "We meant for that to happen!"; 8/27/13, 6:23 PM
Harry Baldwin said...: I'm not happy Obama was elected president, but at the same time I am really, really happy John McCain was not. How many Middle East wars would we be involved in by now if it were up to him? I've lost count.

Here is the indispensable
John Derbyshire on McCain's war fever from the most recent Radio Derb podcast:

It would be totally risk-free, said McCain. Quote: "There would be no boots on the ground. We would use standoff weapons just as the Israelis have four times as they've taken out targets inside Syria. We would not put a single life at risk."

Not a single life! It'd be all over in a week! A cakewalk! And then the Islamists would take over, and they would love us so much because we helped them, and our nation's interests would have been hugely advanced!

The phrase "involuntary commitment" comes to mind. I know you can do it for mental asylums; does it apply to old folks' homes, too? Could someone please find out before we lose another four thousand guys and another trillion dollars?

Does Fox News keep John McCain and Lindsey Graham on retainer? I can't get through a single news program without hearing from both of them.; 8/27/13, 6:23 PM
Nanonymous said...: There is progress. Not a good kind but progress: the shameless assholes no longer bother to come up with even tenuously believable lies. The cynicism of "why bother? the sheeple will swallow anything we throw their way" is astounding.

And yes, it will work out OK for Israel. E.g., the fractured Iraq _is_ infinitely weaker than Saddam's Iraq. Likewise, post-Assad Syria will likely cease to exist as a whole entity.; 8/27/13, 6:36 PM
Auntie Analogue said...: Our Dear Rulers: why can't they be Syrious!; 8/27/13, 6:39 PM
jody said...: WTI 109, brent 115.

speaking of that, oil production in libya is down from 1.6 million barrels per day under kwadaphi to 0.8 million barrels per day under...who is running libya now, anyway?

oil production in iraq is also falling. it may never return to pre saddam levels.

seems that taking out these small time dictators isn't exactly the way to turn a third world country into a well run machine. kind of the opposite. they may have been brutal but they kept the place running.; 8/27/13, 6:44 PM
Hepp said...: Pretty impressive that the Syrian Electronic Army--apparently hackers sympathetic to Assad--have been able to take down the NYT website and Twitter. Pretty impressive for Arabs. Anyone with technical knowledge know how easy or difficult this is?; 8/27/13, 6:48 PM
AMac said...: Good news: our team, the Rebels, are working together closely to oppose Assad's bad guys.

Free Syrian Army units are known to conduct joint attacks and administer areas of Syria with al Qaeda's affiliates in Syria... Currently, in northern Syria, Free Syrian Army units are fighting alongside the Al Nusrah Front; the ISIL; Ahrar al Sham; the Ahfad al-Rasoul Brigade... and the Islamic Kurdish Front.; 8/27/13, 6:59 PM
carol said...: Then why were so many women were part of the anti-war movement

Because women are all peacey anyway, and, dudes.; 8/27/13, 7:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Is the Syrian Electronic Army based in Shanghai or St. Peterburg?

goatweed; 8/27/13, 7:17 PM
Anonymous said...: "Pretty impressive that the Syrian Electronic Army"

Probably Russians - maybe even Chinese.; 8/27/13, 7:23 PM
Anonymous said...: "Honestly as an old fashioned small C conservative and I feel so completely disengranchised that if there was ever a war against the western world I think I would join the enemy side."

Well, what do you think Canada has the NDP for?; 8/27/13, 7:54 PM
fish said...: Does Fox News keep John McCain and Lindsey Graham on retainer? I can't get through a single news program without hearing from both of them.

And come this fall you can catch them on their new weekend gig....move over "Fox and Friends"...lets welcome to the Fox family' John McCain and Lindsey Graham as the co hosts of the hottest new show on the TeeVee; The Feeb and the Fag; 8/27/13, 8:22 PM
Anonymous said...: "Then why were so many women were part of the anti-war movement."

So that the guys they hung out with and wanted to impress by being there (so much fun) could have someone to screw later that night.

It's remarkable how all of the big movements of the 60s and the 70s made it easier for men to get laid without consequence. Has worked out brilliantly for men.; 8/27/13, 8:26 PM
Matra said...: So why are the French on board this time ?

They were involved in Libya, Serbia, and Gulf War 1. Iraq 2003 was the exception. They've become quite tight with the British lately as well as more pro-American just as they are declining relative to Germany.

Oops, Admiral Stockdale, not Stockwell, Dean, who played a character in the film Blue Velvet. Hmm, that character could've prospered in our current State Department.

Dean Stockwell also played the title role in the film adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Kim about the 'Great Game' between the British Empire (the USA's predecessor) and Russian Empire in 19th century Asia. The fictional character would've been too competent and knowledgeable for the current State Dept or CIA to ever employ.; 8/27/13, 9:01 PM
Noah172 said...: countenance wrote:

Chuck Bagel

That's an interesting name for an alleged "anti-Semite".

Funny, but I remember a day when Obama was winning Democrat Primaries over HRC because he was against Iraq and she was for it.

That was a niche issue. That race was mostly about which "first" the Democrats wanted with an election that they were always favored to win. They chose the hip black (but not too black, wink, wink) guy over the wrinkled-up yesterday's news Boomer feminist.

And don't forget that Obama was always open about escalating in Afghanistan and was never more than a smidgen less hawkish about Iran than crazy McCain.; 8/27/13, 9:10 PM
Anonymous said...: Best case scenario, this is a repeat of the Ghadaffi toppling in Libya. Of course, when Quaadafi went down things did not improve and Syria seems to have potential to be a much bigger tinderbox considering its geographic position.; 8/27/13, 10:37 PM
NOTA said...: With Iraq, we had to invade and topple a dictator and dismiss the army in order to get a godawful civil war along ethnic lines going on. But in Syria, that part's already done for us, so we can move right to the really fun part of trying to keep a lid on a civil war where we can't tell the sides apart and all sides hate us just marginally less than they do the folks they were ethnically cleansing via machine gun last week.; 8/27/13, 11:00 PM
David said...: The US busted the oil spigot in Iraq and needs the spigot in Syria more than ever. So it's going to wreck that country too, hoping that this time the pieces fall intact into its hands. Russia is mad as hell because this.

It really is all about oil, gang. The voodoo beliefs of the brown natives are irrelevant except insofar as these can be manipulated.

Guess who else has a straw in the milkshake.; 8/27/13, 11:14 PM
Anonymous said...: Adding to goatweed's St Petersburg and Shanghai as possible bases of operation for the Syrian Electronic Army, I offer for consideration the holy city of Qom and, channeling James Jesus Angleton applying Game Theory, Tel-Aviv.

At least facebook has been spared so far, but has anyone noticed the computers running slower, or is that just me?

OklahomaRichard; 8/27/13, 11:37 PM
hbd chick said...: it's sooo not gonna work out. =/

(libya's gonna look like a huge success compared to syria....); 8/28/13, 12:07 AM
Charles Martel said...: LOL!!!
So true!! Hippie chicks would fornicate- nice girls wouldn't, until around 1967. Most men's politics were simply penis and fear driven - not that I blame them.

Another good indicator was if a girl wore blue jeans. No one remembers this now, but girls wearing jeans was an issue. Shana Alexander's book on Patty Hearst, "Anybody's Daughter", got into this.; 8/28/13, 5:47 AM
Farang said...: So why are the French on board this time ? Perhaps there is something going on that we peasants don't know ?

The effect of two things:

1. The influence of the local Israeli party, which is quite strong (1% of the French are Jewish. It's only half the Jewish percentage in the USA, but still more than enough). Bernard-Henri Lévy is the unofficial representative of that very influential party. He has been chummy with EVERY French president since Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in the 70's.

2. Qatari investments in France. As a French citizen, I'm beginning to realize how important those investments are. French soccer teams are now largely Qatari-owned, and, indeed, much of everything else. Maybe Chinese and Japanese investments are more important, but they are certainly more discrete.

The Libya war was initiated by Bernard-Henri Lévy (a great buddy of Sarkozy) and supported / funded by Qatar.; 8/28/13, 6:01 AM
Cail Corishev said...: The US busted the oil spigot in Iraq and needs the spigot in Syria more than ever.

We supposedly attacked Iraq for cheap oil, but I never got mine. How cheap is attacking Syria going to make a gallon of gas? $8? Over $10?; 8/28/13, 6:29 AM
Anonymous said...: http://mondoweiss.net/2013/08/striking-syria.html; 8/28/13, 7:26 AM
Anonymous said...: http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-complexity-of-syria.html; 8/28/13, 8:03 AM
Anonymous said...: "it's sooo not gonna work out."

That's what Eskimos want. Endless Muslim vs Muslim war. Iraq is a success in those terms. All the king's men can't put Muslimty-dumpty together again.; 8/28/13, 8:06 AM
Sean said...: From Israel's point of view, Syria already is a success: neutralised as a factor in the power politics of the region, just like Iraq.

A few Tomahawk missiles will hit empty bases. The Syrian rebels will need a lot more than that to defeat the government so the civil war will be fought until both sides are exhausted, along with the entire county.

Israel's lobby are concentrating on Iran, now that will be a serious attack.; 8/28/13, 10:17 AM
Rohan Swee said...: oduzat 157: Despatches from the front lines of World War G: gays in Pakistan can have group sex and cheap "massages". The war continues.[...]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/23811826

"...even describing the port city of Karachi as 'a gay man's paradise'."

Even! Lol. Karachi is gay heaven? Who knew? Paging General Napier and Sir R.F. Burton.

The whole article shows what a surreal level of propaganda the MSM has reached with the whole gay thing:

"Pakistani society is fiercely patriarchal. Pakistanis are expected to marry a member of the opposite sex, and the vast majority do."

Reader, be amazed! A society so exotic, so fiercely patriarchal that it is the common expectation that people will marry a member of the opposite sex, and they actually do! In all of your readings of travelers' tales from farthest Bongoland or mystic Xanadu, have you ever encountered a society so strange, so alien, so inexplicable in its customs? My mind is less boggled by human sacrificers and cannibals.; 8/28/13, 11:27 AM
David M. said...: NOTA's remark at 8/27 11:00 PM is the best commentary on Syria that I've read yet.; 8/28/13, 12:20 PM
Anonymous said...: "From Israel's point of view, Syria already is a success: neutralised as a factor in the power politics of the region, just like Iraq."

If it was just about Syria then yes, a permanent civil war would suit Israel best but it's not. They want Assad taken out as a prelude to an attack on Iran.; 8/28/13, 3:49 PM
Anonymous said...: unlimited settlement building, israel's enemies consumed in internal chaos, what's not like. pity about all those goy, but what can you do?; 8/28/13, 4:15 PM
Anonymous said...: There is no way our elite cannot to know of the terrible effects on the Christian population of Egypt, Iraq and now syria where many have fled. They not only don't care, they actually welcome it.; 8/28/13, 4:16 PM
NOTA said...: Anin 4:16:

I'm nowhere near America's elites, but I'll admit, I also don't care all that much about what happens to the Christians, Jews, Alawites, etc., within Syria. I mean, I certainly don't want anything bad to happen to them, but I don't care enough to think we should send in the Marines, or start bombing stuff, or any of that. It seems to me that Syria is pretty far away, and that how its civil war unfolds isn't really a critical question for our well-being. I hope they work things out in the least horrible way possible, though since they've been fighting a really ugly civil war for the last couple years now, I don't know how likely any decent outcome really is. Nerve gassing your opponents doesn't exactly convince them to treat your side decently when they have the chance to get some of their own back.; 8/28/13, 5:07 PM
Jane Go Unchained said...: The headline of that BBC article is:

Gay Pakistan: Where sex is available and relationships are difficult

Gosh, isn't it the same here? One day Steve Sailer should do a statistical analysis of what it's really like to be a gay man. As he ages and the dating pool shrinks, it ain't pretty. It doesn't get better.

I can't wait for someone to blame the Syria mess on Israel. Really, I think that Turkey is to blame. I'm sure we could work out a partition scheme with Russia, France, etc., except the Turks won't hear of anything that would give any semblance of independence to the Kurds. Kurdish independence drives them up a wall.

I'm surprised that no one has gone OT about Ben Affleck as Batman. I think it is an inspired choice. The Internet is such a negative place. Did anyone point out that before the Nolan Batman trilogy, Bale appeared in Newsies and Swing Kids? I'm doing so here, for a little levity and a change of pace from the grim news of the day.; 8/28/13, 5:54 PM
Anonymous said...: Another American war for Israel. Sigh....; 8/28/13, 8:17 PM
Sam said...: Nanonymous said...
...And yes, it will work out OK for Israel. E.g., the fractured Iraq _is_ infinitely weaker than Saddam's Iraq. Likewise, post-Assad Syria will likely cease to exist as a whole entity...

I believe this is the essence of what's going on. Fracture all the countries around Israel so that they're to busy to attack Israel. Will it work? If it doesn't it will be catastrophe for Israel.

The sad part, for us, is they're using the US military to do it. The Israelis must be laughing at us constantly.; 8/28/13, 11:01 PM
NOTA said...: Our invasion of Iraq left Iran more powerful, which was not remotely in Israel's interests. A broken Syria (with or without our help) may end up run by true-believer Islamists instead of a ruthless secular dictator, and it's pretty questionable that that will be in israel's interests, either. Perhaps our foreign policy is run for Israel's benefit, but if so, its architects are no better at helping out Israel than they are at helping out America.; 8/29/13, 6:12 PM
Sean said...: A flick of the US eyebrow could take out Syria. It's the Samantha Power types who want to intervene meaningfully, ie regime change, against Syria because they want to do it on humanitarian grounds-- a motivation that is not taken seriously. (Check out Fox news headline today "As Syria strikes loom, Samantha Power's skills better suited to classroom than UN").

The US being drawn into a war against Syria just isn't going to happen.; 9/3/13, 10:35 AM

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