Bombing Away, Sans Plan

THE HIGH FLYING, BOMB FLINGING Air force of the United States of America ("Amassacre") is at it again. It (the USAF) always manages to either break something, kill somebody, or both. Hospitals send a strong message. Leave town, Taliban! Will are even willing to kill the sick and the wounded! Or something like that. American air power is on loan in Syria and Iraq. And why not? We certainly aren't using it for anything more destructive. Russia and the United States are both dropping bombs in the Middle East, and neither of them has the slightest idea why. At least the Russians seem to have some sort of plan, and appear to be implementing it. The United States has no such luck. Evidently both Obama and America's military brain trust in the Pentagon are at a complete loss. both superpowers keep pledging to lead a great victorious war to destroy the Islamic State. But they both seem tentative, uninterested, and there may come a time when it begins to appear that the Islamic state will outlast them both. You begin to wonder whether its all worth it.Whether the imperialism, the domination of the world, is worth all the trouble, the money, the death, the grief. Think of those poor bastards in Russia, barely scraping together enough to eat, wondering why their government is spending all that time, money, and effort in places like Syria. All militarily powerful countries throughout history have become empires, because they, being human, have been unable to resist the temptation to use power for further gain. and they've all come to ruin. The cost of conquering an empire - and that's the only way to get one, to conquer it - is always greater than the wealth gained through conquest, than the return on the investment. Its almost as if this is a law of nature. And yet, over and over again, down through history, the powerful have sought to expand their domain by reaching out into the domains of others, and conquering. A wise man once said: "put a gun in a man's hand, the first thing he wants to do is use it." Ah, will we never learn...