Political and Social thought of the week: 16NOV15

In the wake of the terrorist attack in Paris, the weekend and this morning’s news and social media is still buzzing with talk of what we should do, how we should do it and who should be involved. For me the news and social media can be a “Catch 22.” I like to know what’s going on in my world and the world in general, but I have a low tolerance for….bullshit. Memes, comments, biased news articles, the whole lot.

Our “leaders” in Washington are taking to the air so all can hear how they have an answer to the problem and they clearly know how to defeat ISIS. I just listened to Lindsey Graham and I just sat here thinking, “How the f… did this cat even get elected?!?” His best sound bite is he’d put “boots on the ground” i.e. a ground force and that along with help from our allies would defeat ISIS. He also insulted the SOF community when he highlighted that 50 guys on the ground can’t do anything. Lindsey Graham should go tackle “Nasty Nick.” He talks as if he’s actually going to go fight. That’s laughable. Or Donald Trump’s idea about bombing them to the Stone Age. The French President’s response to the attacks, he dropped around 20 bombs on the “ISIS capitol.” Yeah…that will solve the problem. But in general, I love it when folks talk mad cash knowing fully well they don’t have to do ish but watch it on TV or hear about it in a briefing. Folks talk a good game yet how many have spoken to any actively serving or retired military strategists about how you go about defeating an IDEOLOGY!!!!! It is no different than racism. Racism is not a person or group. Racism is an ideology.

Yes that’s right. I don’t mean to burst your uneducated military bubble but ISIS is not a bunch of jihads on the ground, ISIS is an IDEOLOGY and THAT is what we have to fight. You can kill 1,000 individuals in the fight against ISIS but if you don’t defeat the mindset, the ideology…then you will have other individuals who pick up where those you just killed left off. And just how do you combat an ideology? Education…along with maturity and an open mind is a good place to start. You must be mature enough to listen and educated enough to be able to absorb the words you are being told. You also need to be educated enough to utilize critical thinking skills so that you can truly look at the ideology and perhaps see just how flawed it really is. Lastly, be willing to change and move from said ideology. Once you’ve done that, then  the real battle begins. That battle being what do you do with all those whose mindset you have now changed? And how do you keep them from going back to that or finding another ideology that perhaps is far worse? But, jobs, education…a life, must surely be at the forefront of all of that. If you don’t believe me that all of that is monumentally important, go west and visit some of the lovely and bustling RESERVATIONS that house Indians who have just done so well the past 200 years.

I’m not a rocket scientist nor do I claim to know it all but I do have common sense and enough of it combined with an education to form an opinion based on the use of both.