Pat Oliphant for February 28, 2012

Ah the ‘who me’ crowd. Nobody willing to move.

Does Pat really think we need another Middle East war? Oh wait, I’m sure he will tell us the solution tomorrow.

On the other hand, looking at history we see it was the proud privilege of rulers to slaughter as many as needed until a population was manageable, if necessary to extinction. They often did it to clear an area of tens of thousands of tribesmen. If the women and children weren’t killed, they were enslaved. A big bonus to being warriors was to rape and pillage, then to colonize.

For examples, read the great heroic sagas of any nation, read Plutarch’s LIVES, read the Bible. Read modern history, and pick up the current newspapers. The tradition continues.

Scientists think Genghis Khan had a certain identifiable gene that was passed through time to a large part of the population of Asia and the Middle East. How do they think that happened?

One theory is that in his conquests he impregnated large numbers of women to make copies of himself: Pre-scientific cloning. To look at the closely similar facial features among the inhabitants of some countries, it can be imagined that this has happened many times in the past.

What would our population be without these massacres? It’s ironic that when the world population was so small they were accepted; and now that it’s so large they’re not. Since religious disputes often instigated the past slaughters, I guess it was their acceptable alternative to birth control – and probably still is.

Oliphant is so smart, maybe he has a reasonable solution. We already know the problems.

Maybe someone should have taken a hand in OUR Civil War.

they’ve been slaughtering each other for 20000 years. the day and age aren’t going to change millenia of chronic tribal and ethnic brutallity.

Rather reminds me of editorial strips of the 1930’s particularly David Low’s in Britain ( I have an old book of his cartoons) with the parliamentary heads of Europe dithering while Hitler swallows places up diplomatically, Italy invades Ethiopia, Japan annexes Mongolia and invades China and Franco starts the Spanish Civil War. “Should we do anything?” “Too risky. Let’s just sit and deplore.” Of course all were traumatized by WWI and understandably so, but diplomacy creaks while guns speak loudly. It is ever thus. Cambodia, Rwanda. Where psychopaths and sociopaths have free rein is in international politics.

Isolationism has generally been a conservative principle. Go look at the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s, which were sponsored by Republican congressmen. Look at Ron Paul today.We can’t impose order on the rest of the world without running up more debt. Anyone calling for fiscal restraint at the same time the call for military intervention in Syria or Iran, is being foolish or is engaging in deceit. I’m looking at you, Romney, Gingrich & Santorum!

Syria is the “rock & hard place”. There are two evils forces vying for power: Bashar Assad vs. the islamic fundamentalists that want to overthrow him, and establish another false theocracy. Which do you prefer?

@ Doug Dash: Actually, the Islamic fundamentalists are a small part of the uprising. Most of it is by people who are just sick and tired of living under a brutal and corrupt dictator. That doesn’t mean that the fundies couldn’t take power in a new government, of course…………..

Bad as he is, he still hasn’t killed as many people as his dad, or “W” did in Iraq OR Afghanistan.

Jeeeez! Leave the Middle East alone. Afghanistan has become another name for American suicide.