This whole U.S. foreign policy game is like a video game from the 1980s you’d go to an arcade to play. Remember those? You’d run down with your allowance, cash in those coveted greenbacks for quarters, and play Joust, Spy Hunter, Pac Man, Rush’n Attack, Star Wars…all the hits. But those games were made by the same folks that made slot machines—they’re all geared for the house. If you got a certain number of points, you won a free game and got to put your initials in at the cherished “Highest Scores” hall of fame. But it never worked out that way. Just when you get ahead, the game throws in a new problem so you never do win that free game.
Take Syria, for example. Oh, look, throw some Tomahawks at that dart board! Big threat from Assad, oooo, get scared! Now, let us change directions to keep the American people guessing and send an aircraft carrier to intimidate North Korea. Let’s make threats and tell the American people, again, ooooo! Get scared! Oh, and while all of that is going on, Russian Bear bombers are probing our air defense response time off the coast of Alaska! Quick! Scramble F-22s to intercept! Let’s not disappoint them! “Should I get NORAD on the phone, sir?” “NO! Get me the news media on the phone! Let us build this up and play it for all it’s worth!”
Has anyone noticed how these “threats” just keep manifesting, almost as if by magic? Assad has nerve gas, North Korea is about to test another nuclear weapon, and the Russians are mooning the Alaskan coast from Bear bombers. Also in the news, China is prepping their strategic bombers with cruise missiles and readying all combat aircraft. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say we’re not going to win that free game, folks.
The “free game”? Yeah, remember how President McTweet was going to put “America first” and fix the economy, create jobs, let the rest of the world fend for itself for a change, and invent a better dill pickle spear? But, see, none of that need be delivered when just soooooo much is going on in the world! Why, who knew the world was so complicated? Well, America, the game is over. No free game, you lost that quarter, and no more are in your pocket. Time to go home and read your SGT Rock comic books.
12:37 pm on April 21, 2017
