Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

The revolution will be supervised.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

I really should read my own blog.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Everybody saw this coming.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Cruz-ifiction / Open Thread: Ted Cruz, Chickenhawk Idiot Blowhard

Open Thread: Ted Cruz, Chickenhawk Idiot Blowhard

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Big talk for a small, small man. If Cruz had spent his adolescence reading science fiction instead of hectoring his parents and lecturing his schoolmates, he’d know the correct Tuff Guy Talk is “bomb the Arabian Peninsula into a sheet of radioactive obsidian.” A solution which makes as much sense as announcing he’s gonna solve the nascent termite problem in his basement by setting fire to his neighbor’s house, but I bet Ted Cruz looked very butch (to Ted Cruz) when he practiced snapping off his manly threats to the bathroom mirror.

Context, per the Washington Post, which also has video:

DES MOINES — “If I am elected president, we will utterly destroy ISIS,” the Texas senator and Republican presidential candidate told reporters. “We won’t weaken them. We won’t degrade them. We will utterly destroy them. We will carpet bomb them into oblivion. We will arm the Kurds. We will do everything necessary so that every militant on the face of the earth will know if you go and join ISIS, if you wage jihad and declare war on America, you are signing your death warrant.”…

Also on Saturday, the Cruz campaign is beginning to air a new television ad in Iowa featuring a similar vow to “kill the terrorists.”

Cruz’s comments to reporters came during a pep rally in Des Moines with dozens of volunteers, many of whom came from Texas to stay at “Camp Cruz,” a former college dormitory that the candidate’s campaign has commandeered as temporary housing for volunteers….

Of course, Iowa evangelicals should have no problem with apocalyptic war in the Middle East, because they are Ready for the Rapture!!! And so is Ted Cruz, 2016 god-king candidate for his own personal Republic of Gilead.

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  2. 2.

    Mandalay

    Tough talkin’ Ted Cruz on December 5:

    “If I am elected president, we will utterly destroy ISIS….We will carpet bomb them into oblivion.”

    Wimpy Ted Cruz on November 30:

    “In my view, we have no dog in the fight of the Syrian civil war”.

    If you want a man who flip flops better than Mitt Romney then Ted is your guy.

    If he gets the nomination the Clinton team will stuff that peacenik quote down his throat so hard it will squirt out of his ass until Election Day.

  4. 4.

    Felanius Kootea

    Okay, for the sake of my sanity, and to avoid having a stroke, I will not be following the news for a few days.

  5. 5.

    JPL

    I’m listening to Trump and he’s complaining about one person interrupting him. Actually it’s a group and they did a good job. Even if he had a melt down, it wouldn’t matter. They love the Donald in South Carolina.

  6. 6.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    I would ask how Cruz plans to pay for this little adventure, but I’m pretty sure his answer will be, The war will pay for itself! because, like most Republicans, he’s stupid enough to think you can use radioactive oil.

  11. 11.

    Hungry Joe

    It’s not that what these guys are saying is so alarming — a 10-second Google search can turn up much worse — it’s that a sizable portion of the American voting public agrees with them. People with nutso agendas used to man booths at county fairs, handing out exclamation-point riddled pamphlets with misaligned paragraph blocks; now they’re members of Congress and viable presidential candidates. Pair this with the election results from France, and I am, as of this moment, Officially Concerned.

    (Hierarchy: Vastly Amused, Amused, Oddly Fascinated, Officially Concerned, Okay — Now I’m REALLY Concerned, Somebody Tell Me I’m Dreaming, Oh Fuck, and Run Screaming into the Night.)

  12. 12.

    Turgidson

    Cruz still doesn’t really worry me because I can’t imagine a majority of the electorate voting for such a transparently insufferable piece of shit. I mean that both in terms of both substance (which I’m less confident about, frankly, even though Tailgunner Ted is possibly the most unhinged participant in the clown car) and optics (the man has a face only radio could love, but a voice so nasal, smarmy and repulsive that only larynx-removal surgery can solve it). Honestly, if nothing else, I think a critical mass of persuadable voters would think to themselves: “Can I imagine listening to that guy for 4-8 years? Fuck no!” and vote against him, whether it’s in the GOP primaries or a general. Trump’s twisted-but-charismatic bombast and flair for being on camera worries me more.

  13. 13.

    shell

    Cruz’s comments to reporters came during a pep rally

    Pep rally? They use that term? We’re not cheering on the football team.

    Ugh, I cannot believe MSNBC is carrying Trumps speech live….in its entirety. I really despair.

  15. 15.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Hungry Joe: We’ve had a fascist subculture in this country since the 30s. It was dealt a blow (not a fatal one, though) by WWII, but it’s been steadily rising since the 50’s and general paranoia about communism. The GOP tried to keep it under the rock (see Buckley’s claim that he kicked the JBC out of the “Conservative” movement) but now it’s out, loud, and proud.

  18. 18.

    cmorenc

    @goblue72:

    EBOLA!!!!!
    MEXICANS!!!!
    BENGHAZI!!!!
    DEATH PANELS!!!!

    Dumbest voters on the planet.

    …unfortunately, their vote counts just as much as that of a sensible, well-informed citizen. Actually, in many of the states that were severely gerrymandered following the 2010 elections, their vote counts more than that of a sensible, well-informed citizen.

  20. 20.

    cmorenc

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    I would ask how Cruz plans to pay for this little adventure, but I’m pretty sure his answer will be, The war will pay for itself! because, like most Republicans, he’s stupid enough to think you can use radioactive oil.

    No, he’s going to promise to pay for every dollar of increased military spending for foreign misadventures by cutting a dollar of domestic spending – which he’s ambitious to cut past threadbare minimalism even without any war to pay for. Like George W Bush, he’ll be promoting huge tax cuts even while greatly ramping up spending for the military and wars.

  21. 21.

    goblue72

    @shell: “Vee must protect da Fatherland Homeland from the JEWISH MOOSLIM foreigners diluting our Aryan American heritage. Vee will crush deport them and send them to zee camps! Gitmo! Sieg heil! Sieg hell! USA! USA!”

  22. 22.

    Mandalay

    @mdblanche: Cruz got the tone of Churchill’s words hopelessly wrong. Churchill (deliberately I’m sure) said “we shall never surrender” in a mundane matter-of-fact manner, much like someone might say that the dry cleaning will be ready on Wednesday.

    He wasn’t being defiant at all. He was saying it with quiet certainty, as though the issue wasn’t even worthy of debate.

    Video link @ ~1:45.

  23. 23.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Mandalay:

    If he gets the nomination the Clinton team will stuff that peacenik quote down his throat

    Clinton’s been bragging up the peaceful Iran resolution. It’s the ‘carpetbomb them into oblivion’ she’ll beat him to death with.

  24. 24.

    Hungry Joe

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yup — fascism is no longer a subculture in these parts. What’s (slightly) encouraging is that socialism isn’t, either. The two sides aren’t in balance, but Bernie’s Run is a riposte, and a good one with real potential.

  26. 26.

    Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA

    A good friend of mine died last week. She was smart, talented, funny, and my best friend until I left New York. The years took us in different directions, but it’s still pretty damned devastating to think I’ll never see her again.

    In case anyone wants to send money to some total strangers they’ll never meet, based on the word of someone on the internet who says they’re worth it: The cost of getting her body home from Tennessee to New York, plus the funeral, is more than her family can handle. My husband and I decided not to spend much this Christmas, and instead sent her family a few hundred before the GoFundMe page went up. Her family was a replacement family for me back when I was at my most depressed, anxious and agoraphobic, much more patient and supportive than my real family. I don’t know where I’d be without them. So I’m casting as wide a net as possible to try to get them help. Here’s their GoFundMe page.

    Thanks for any help, be it financial or just some good thoughts for them.

  27. 27.

    goblue72

    @Hungry Joe: Its like a weird political equilibrium. One side veers into more extremism, the other side needs to counter. And the moderate middle gets smaller. On the one hand, there’s something to be said for having more voices at the table, a la Europe.

    On the other, with our first-past-the-post system, no proportional representation, and way too much money in politics – things get too polarized in our system, and cracks appear as one side starts to feel completely shut out. Our system is way more set up for mushy middle, compromise oriented stability.

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    Attempted abhorrent historic revisionism of the like of Curtis LeMay and Joe McCarthy by the Grand Old Fear & Scold Party.

    Pants wetting has usurped policy.

  34. 34.

    PurpleGirl

    @Felanius Kootea: Not following the news for a few days is a good idea but you also need to do/watch something fun and positive. I watch kitten cams and do on-line jigsaw puzzles (especially pictures of kittens). The scampier the kittens the more fun they are to watch.

  35. 35.

    Mike Furlan

    @Roger Moore: Which leads me again, to ask why Daniel Larison, a self proclaimed “proud member” of the Neo-Confederate League of the South is continually quoted.

    A couple of police officers in Alabama were forced off the job because of their membership in this organization.

    But your member of the LOS is OK because he belongs to a group that thinks we should spend our energies on the internal enemies, the Blacks and the Jews rather than fight any more external wars.

    “In recent years, it has become increasingly rabid, writing about potential violence, criticizing perceived Jewish power, and warning blacks that they would be defeated in any “race war.” “

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:

    Definitely good thoughts. That’s a no-brainer.

    I’m devoting some time this week and next to making decisions on my year-end giving. As I get older, and my income remains ever more fixed, it’s not as easy as it used to be — but I will certainly consider making a modest contribution if I can. Thank you and your husband for being stand-up friends.

    ETA: Meant to say, and should have started by saying, condolences on the passing of your friend. I am on FB with people I haven’t seen in 50+ years, but I know I will be devastated when I read about their deaths.

    (Notice I fully expect everyone else to predecease me.)

  39. 39.

    FortGeek

    “I will teach those sandbox-hoarders to respect the name TED CRUZ!!” whined the 7-year-old Junior just before Frankie Jones came up behind him and atomic wedgie’d the hapless Canadian import for the second time that morning.

    Thus began his lessons in the ways of empty threats. Young Ted bought flea market sabers to practice rattling. He built entire fleets of diplomatic gunboats, purchased at the local Hobby Lobby. In his dreams, he was a power with which to be reckoned, superiorly furrowed brow, cheap haircut, smarmy f*ckfaced smirk and all. He towers subjectively…but always, the daily humiliations meted out by Frankie “Atomic Wedgie” Jones weigh heavy on his mind.

  43. 43.

    Anoniminous

    Dinner conversation, discussing the state of the primary:

    Me: And Cruz wants to carpet bomb ISIL.

    Herself: ICELAND!?! Why does he want to bomb Iceland?

    Me: NO! ISIL

    Herself: Oh. Well … with Republicans you never know.

  46. 46.

    PurpleGirl

    @Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Condolences to you and your friend’s family. I had a friend from college who I called my weird twin because we were born same day, same year but 7 hours apart (me in Manhattan and she in Brooklyn). She passed in 2002 and I still think I’m going to hear from her. (Virtual hugs, lots of them)

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    If one of you jerks on the East Coast managed to pass that nasty death cold to me via wi-fi, I’m going to be SO MAD YOU GUYS!!!

    Currently drinking a Jamba Juice smoothie because all other food sounded disgusting.

  54. 54.

    FDRLincoln

    So you thought you might like to go to the show
    To feel the warm thrill of confusion that space cadet glow
    I got some bad news for your sunshine
    Jeb! wouldn’t sell, he’s back at the hotel
    And they sent Trump along as a candidate man
    We’re gonna find out where you voters really stand….

    Are there any queers in the audience tonight?
    Get them up against the Wall!
    There’s one in the spotlight, he don’t look right to me
    Get him up against the Wall!
    And that one looks Muslim!
    And that one’s a coon!
    Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?
    There’s one smoking a joint
    And that one’s got spots
    If I had my way
    I’d have all of you shot

    (apologies to Roger Waters)

  55. 55.

    Turgidson

    @goblue72:

    I know, but Bush wasn’t as aggressively unlikeable as Cruz is. And this country can be sweet talked by a loveable buffoon, which Bush successfully managed to dupe millions of people into believing he was.

    From what I can tell, Cruz is just pure, distilled asshole and has no other setting. That can take him pretty far in the GOP primary, since it seems to be the only essential qualification they’re looking for this time around, but I just don’t see Cruz’s brand of smarmy, arrogant-yet-whiny assholery being a winning formula. Trump has the bravado, Rubio has the slippery car salesman thing. Christie is the kind of bellowing bullshit artist the Beltway dopes swoon for. Cruz is just an insufferable prick.

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anoniminous: Herself: ICELAND!?! Why does he want to bomb Iceland?

    You’re married to Emily Latella?

    (And are you old enough to get that?)

  59. 59.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Dear MSNBC- I (and I suspect most of your audience) already know Trump’s a crude demagogue. I really don’t need you to replay his greatest hits twice an hour.

  61. 61.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Dear God, the parade of stupid from his supporters (on the Maddow show). My favorite is the woman who said it was a prudent decision made after due diligence.

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    There are two significant, let alone a lot of other, problems with seeking an annihilation strategy against the Islamic State:
    1) You CANNOT kill and idea. All the Islamic State folks have done is take Abdul-Wahhab’s doctrine of tawheed (radical unity of the Deity) and opposition to bidda (innovation), shirk (unbelief), and takfir (apostasy) to their logical end. Unlike the last time this was tried, by the Saudi Ikhwan (desert Brothers) in the late 19th Century during the formation of the Saudi state, there is no overwhelmingly powerful monarch to put limits on them and coopt them into what eventually became the Saudi National Guard (not the same as our National Guard). You can’t destroy the doctrine and theology. Its simply not possible.
    2) To reduce the Islamic State through an annihilation strategy would required completely reducing the Islamic State wherever they are holding territory. To do so means countenancing enormous amounts of non combatant, civilian casualties. Annihilating the Islamic State on the ground in Syria and Iraq means annihilating everyone in those areas. This is simply not going to happen.

  67. 67.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Turgidson:
    Forget the personality. We have plenty of evidence that Republican voters do not respond to personalities like we do. Take that off the table. Cruz is hated by the party establishment he needs to organize for him. They’ll do it, but they won’t bust their butt, and in a presidential election he needs their 100% support. Squishy moderates see him as the face of divisive politics. He is unlikely to swing much to the middle, so his politics are against him in a nationwide election. He has shown no special skill as an organizer – far from it, he’s disruptive, narcissistic and uncooperative, preferring to stroke his own ego rather than win. He’s a gold mine of skeletons for opposition research. He hasn’t excelled particularly in debates, facing kiddie kar levels of opposition. A Cruz nomination will turn at least one new minority against the GOP forever. The demographic timer has shaved another itty bitty slice off the GOP’s ceiling. Rather than uniting the PACs around a unified message, his craziness will encourage the billionaires to go full-on Don Quixote, and blow unprecedented amounts of money on television commercials no one even understands.

    I don’t see how he even does as well as Romney, and by modern standards, Romney was a blowout. I would prefer Trump, because Trump’s solidifying the Hispanic vote absolutely against the GOP would have serious ‘coat tails’ effects, and I don’t know if Cruz is bad enough to make the big dent we need there.

  68. 68.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Donald Trump too far gone for the Dark Lord

    ‏@ jdickerson
    Dick Cheney on @ hughhewitt: Trump’s call for banning muslims “goes against everything we believe in.” via

  70. 70.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Frankensteinbeck: Already I’ve heard rumors that a top ¡Heb! supporter in Florida (some multi-millionaire guy) will vote for Hillz if the nominee is Trump or Cruz.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    @raven: It still won’t happen. There will be no coalition to support it. And I would posit you would see an attempt to mobilize and anti-US coalition to prevent it. I realize that our media will never report on it, and most Americans are unable to conceive of it, but I would wager good money that all of our allies and partners, let alone are clients and competitors, have been watching not just our behavior since 9-11, but also the increasing sclerotic dysfunction of our governing and political institutions and making plans. Its what we would do. There are lines that our allies and partners will be unwilling to cross with us and should we go past them we are likely to find ourselves on the receiving end of what we are normally on the giving end. Even if the opposition is overmatched by our resources. That will be a sad and unfortunate day, but it would happen should we decide to throw out the Laws of War and their underlying ethics.

    No British leader will ever again do what Blair did. Not because they are unwilling to do so, but because the British public will not allow it. Our Middle Eastern partners and clients are unreliable at best. They either have their own agendas, have no real ability/desire to use their militaries, or some combination. The EU and NATO will not follow us down that path. We could go it alone, but we will find our credit has dried up and no one has our back. And despite having civilian control of military I do not see any senior military personnel willing to jettison their own Professional ethic. While I don’t know too many of the other Services general officers/flag officers, I know a couple of dozen of the Army’s. And of those I know about a dozen well. They are good people, will do their duty with honor, but I don’t see any of them countenancing a war of annihilation.

  75. 75.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: Armageddon is what they propose, policy wise. Isn’t that the foundation to all their beliefs? Apocalypse, rapture, return of Jesus, etc.

    Logic need not apply. If they get their hands on the most powerful empire the world has ever known, they can make it real.

  77. 77.

    max

    If Cruz had spent his adolescence reading science fiction instead of hectoring his parents and lecturing his schoolmates, he’d know the correct Tuff Guy Talk is “bomb the Arabian Peninsula into a sheet of radioactive obsidian.”

    Well, I did! And I always heard it as green glass, aka Trinitite:

    Trinitite, also known as atomsite or Alamogordo glass, is the glassy residue left on the desert floor after the plutonium-based Trinity nuclear bomb test on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The glass is primarily composed of arkosic sand composed of quartz grains and feldspar (both microcline and smaller amount of plagioclase with small amount of calcite, hornblende and augite in a matrix of sandy clay) that was melted by the atomic blast. It is usually a light green, although color can vary.[…]
    A number of different types of Trinitite have been identified. Green is the most common form. Black contains iron from the tower structure. Red contains copper from the device used in the blast or from the communications cables that led away from the site. Both black and red specimens are extremely rare. Rounded “pearls” also are found, which come from melted silica that returned to solid form before hitting the ground.

    The actual color will vary depending on the location of the detonation, type of weapon used, distance of surface from detonation point, type of local minerals involved in the area soil, and of course, the composition of any melted objects (including human bones, clothing and jewelry).

    No radioactive element glows (i.e. emits photons), instead the radioactive element in the fluorescent paint cause a base substance to fluoresce.

    Thus, sand will not glow due to radioactivity.

    OK, that was my Poindextering for the day.

    We won’t weaken them. We won’t degrade them. We will utterly destroy them. We will carpet bomb them into oblivion.

    Carpet-bombing is a pointless waste of perfectly good bombs. The United States and the UK used used what you could call carpet-bombing in the Pacific and European theaters. Specifically, the UK was engaged in a ‘de-housing’ campaign by trying to level a lot of cities and break civilian morale, which gave us Dresden and Hamburg. The US was engaged in frying Japanese cities with incendiaries, which destroying an enormous number of lightly built Japanese cities.

    Neither campaign worked. Enormous numbers of civilians were killed but factories and military installations were already hardened and not as affected. And factories continued to churn out equipment. This is effectively reducing the efficiency of any particular bomb below what it would be if you just keep bombing important (but hardened) targets over and over again. Worse, innocent civilians butchered en masse tends to increase motivation for surviving workers and soldiers. This is not what you want. This is what we mean when we say ‘strategic bombing doesn’t work’.

    Going after roads (particularly bridges), trucks, rails, rolling stock, power distribution networks, communications networks (radars to radio stations and on down the line to cell towers), headquarters and factories works. (It works because those are mostly big fat fixed targets that are hard to hide, impossible to move and vital to the function of states and quasi/pseudo-states at war.)

    Carpet-bombing also didn’t work in Vietnam, particularly on the Ho Chi Minh trail, because that was a dirt trail carrying human porters under a jungle canopy, all of which was hard to find and easy to relocate. In this case, we don’t have to worry about that because desert highways and transport trucks using those highways are easy to locate.

    This would all be a lot easier if we were using a lot of A-10s and AC-130s in Iraq, because, as our friend Professor Cole says, A-10s are made ‘to spit fire and death’ at all sort of juicy moving targets and quite a few fixed targets. Like big trucks and Toyota HiLuxes. (I don’t know what the holdup there is, actually.)

    No carpet bombing needed.

    max
    [‘This is a ridiculous country.’]

  78. 78.

    JMG

    @Adam L Silverman: I think both China and Russia might just say no to any US ground intervention in the Middle East. Until now, it’s been in their interests to see us bogged down in a hellhole, but it would be more in their interests to reveal the next Republican US President as a cowardly eunuch, geopolitcally speaking.

  79. 79.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Christopher C. CuomoVerified account
    ‏@ ChrisCuomo Christopher C. Cuomo Retweeted mark
    So the media should strike him down for making a suggestion that perhaps offends certain sensibilities?

    perhaps…. certain sensibilities…

  80. 80.

    schrodinger's cat

    @max: Beta decay can cause ionization of the inner most shells (K and L ) which can result in X-ray emission.

    X-rays are photons.

    Gamma rays are photons too. (Radioactive decay involves alpha, beta or gamma radiation)

  81. 81.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Ryan Williams ‏@ RyanGOP 17m17 minutes ago
    Actual Trump NH chair DEFENSE of comments “What hes saying is no different than…when we put the Japanese in camps”

    The tweeter worked for Sununu and Romney in MA

  84. 84.

    Matt McIrvin

    And in certain unfortunate situations, you might see a flash of Cerenkov radiation in air. If you do see this, you’re probably gonna die within a day or two.

  85. 85.

    Matt McIrvin

    @efgoldman: Though in blue-voting states with Republican governments, we’re probably going to see some more of what they already tried unsuccessfully in California and Pennsylvania, attempting to go to the Maine/Nebraska model so that Democrats can’t take all the state’s electoral votes.

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JMG: I think there are two different dynamics going on. In the case of the Chinese it is both in their interests (of slow transition from Maoism to whatever they’re becoming and to emerge as a great power/super power) to allow the US to maintain the global order and provide security. That’s why they made the business decision that it was cheaper to finance a portion of our debt to do these things than for them to have to try to do it for themselves even in their own region.

    In the case of Russia it is clear that Putin’s understanding of the world is based on his belief that the US working with the EU and through NATO took advantage of Russia as it emerged from the end of the Soviet Union when it was weak. Moreover, the US working with the EU and through NATO deliberately attempted to keep Russia weak. So anything that allows Putin to act upon his revanchist understanding of the past 25 years or so and expands his sphere of interest, near abroad, and influence is going to be attempted. And if it serves to weaken or injure the US, the EU, and/or NATO so much the better.

  88. 88.

    mclaren

    @Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:

    The cost of getting her body home from Tennessee to New York, plus the funeral, is more than her family can handle.

    Call me a total asshole, but why the hell don’t they just cremate her? I sure as hell won’t care what you do with my corpse when I kick off. In fact, after cremation I would be delighted if someone used by ashes as an ashtray. At least that way, they’re serve some useful purpose.

    Just speaking for myself. What the hell is this ritualistic mania about funerals? It’s not the person anymore, it’s a piece of rotting meat. Just torch it and be done with the whole thing.

  89. 89.

    mclaren

    @max:

    Carpet-bombing is a pointless waste of perfectly good bombs. The United States and the UK used used what you could call carpet-bombing in the Pacific and European theaters. Specifically, the UK was engaged in a ‘de-housing’ campaign by trying to level a lot of cities and break civilian morale, which gave us Dresden and Hamburg. The US was engaged in frying Japanese cities with incendiaries, which destroying an enormous number of lightly built Japanese cities.

    Neither campaign worked. Enormous numbers of civilians were killed but factories and military installations were already hardened and not as affected. And factories continued to churn out equipment. This is effectively reducing the efficiency of any particular bomb below what it would be if you just keep bombing important (but hardened) targets over and over again. Worse, innocent civilians butchered en masse tends to increase motivation for surviving workers and soldiers. This is not what you want. This is what we mean when we say ‘strategic bombing doesn’t work’.

    Exactly.

    Strategic bombing does not work.

    The entire fantasy that aerial bombarment can win a war by “casualtyless fighting” was first propounded by General Giulio Douhet during the first World War. It was dead wrong then, it’s dead wrong now, and it will be dead wrong when the rotting corpse of this discredited and failed idea gets resurrected in the future.

    Assigned to the General Staff shortly after the beginning of the new century, Douhet published lectures on military mechanization. With the arrival of dirigibles and then fixed-wing aircraft in Italy he quickly recognized the military potential of the new technology. Douhet saw the pitfalls of allowing air power to be fettered by ground commanders and began to advocate the creation of a separate air arm commanded by airmen. He teamed up with the young aircraft engineer Gianni Caproni to extol the virtues of air power in the years ahead.

    In 1911, Italy went to war against the Ottoman Empire for control of Libya. During that war aircraft operated for the first time in reconnaissance, transport, artillery spotting and even limited bombing roles. Douhet wrote a report on the aviation lessons learned in which he suggested high altitude bombing should be the primary role of aircraft. In 1912 Douhet assumed command of the Italian aviation battalion at Turin, where he wrote a set of Rules for the Use of Airplanes in War—one of the first doctrine manuals of its kind. However, Douhet’s preaching on air power marked him as a ‘radical’. After an incident in which he ordered construction of Caproni bombers without authorization, he was exiled to the infantry.

    When World War I began, Douhet began to call for Italy to launch a massive military buildup—particularly in aircraft. “To gain command of the air,” he said, was to render an enemy “harmless”. When Italy entered the war in 1915 Douhet was shocked by the army’s incompetence and unpreparedness. He proposed a force of 500 bombers that could drop 125 tons of bombs daily to break the bloody stalemate with Austria, but was ignored. He corresponded with his superiors and government officials, criticising the conduct of the war and advocating an air power solution.[citation needed] Douhet was court-martialed and was imprisoned for one year for criticizing Italian military leaders in a memorandum to the cabinet.

    Source: Wikipedia entry for “Giulio Douhet.”

  90. 90.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @max:

    Worse, innocent civilians butchered en masse tends to increase motivation for surviving workers and soldiers.

    This is not what the postwar studies found. Steady bombing dulled motivation and initiative on the part of the German and Japanese civilian populations. In fact, a severe drop in morale is exactly what happened. The reason it didn’t have the intended consequences is that these effects didn’t produce a population that refused to keep supporting the war. Instead, it produced a population that refused to challenge the authorities. When their governments kept pressuring them to keep working, they didn’t have the capacity to resist. So the factories kept churning things out, at least in Germany. Japan suffered significantly greater industrial location, in part because of Curtis Lemay’s decision to start bombing from lower altitudes. (As an aside, most of the factories weren’t particularly hardened; rather, they were just very hard to hit with bombs from the altitude the European strategic bombing campaigns were conducted at, and they proved significantly easier to repair than had been assumed.)

    However, that unwillingness to challenge authority is also a huge part of the reason why the postwar occupations of Germany and Japan proved so successful at completely remaking those societies. When the Allied occupation forces began issuing orders, the civilians didn’t have the wherewithal to challenge them, either. There was essentially zero resistance to the occupations. So one shouldn’t be too hasty to say that the strategic bombing campaigns weren’t effective, even aside from the question of destroying the Luftwaffe and Germany’s oil infrastructure.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    The other problem with the comparison is that ISIL is essentially an occupier, not a government. Would steady bombing have been as effective in, say, German-occupied Poland?

    ETA: US bombing of Cambodia only empowered the Khmer Rouge, so I don’t really see a good outcome from carpet bombing the territories ISIL is occupying.

  93. 93.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I don’t think it really matters whether or not it’s a good comparison, for reasons Adam laid out upthread. Even if the U.S. was willing to engage in that sort of extended and comprehensive bombing campaign (which, frankly, we don’t even really have the capacity to do anymore), the rest of the world wouldn’t tolerate it.

  94. 94.

    Peale

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ugh. Again people. I think we agreed 30 years ago that the Japanese internment was a bad thing that we did. Like, even conservatives found it useful to say that was bad because it hurt FDR’s legacy.

  95. 95.

    mclaren

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    Even if the U.S. was willing to engage in that sort of extended and comprehensive bombing campaign (which, frankly, we don’t even really have the capacity to do anymore), the rest of the world wouldn’t tolerate it.

    Where’s the evidence that the U.S. doesn’t “even really have the capacity” to “engage in that sort of extended and comprehensive bombing campaign” today, in 2015?

    America has lots of F-18s and F-22s, we’ve still got a fleet of B-52s, and we’ve got B-2 stealth bombers — granted, the air force is now extremely reluctant to fly the B-2 into combat zones because of the cost of replacing ’em (2 billion a pop).

    But the U.S. air force conducted an extensive and comprehensive aerial bombardment in the Balkans about 17 years ago, and in Iraq 12 years ago. Why couldn’t the air force conduct similar campaigns of aerial bombardment today?

    The essential objection is that strategic bombing doesn’t work. It doesn’t win wars. It might or might not demoralize the population, but that’s an entirely different thing from destroying ISIS. Strategic bombing in WW II and in Vietnam and in Iraq never came close to destroying the leadership of these societies. Without destroying the leadership, how do you win the war?

    Strategic bombing is likely to enrage the civilian population and convince them that the Christian west is waging another religious crusade against the Islamic middle east. That will create lots of new recruits for ISIS.

  96. 96.

    mclaren

    @Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:

    I’ll be sure to relay your concerns to her family.

    You do that. Also be sure to mention that if these people are so impoverished they can’t afford a funeral, they’re infinitely better off spending the money that would otherwise get wasted shipping a corpse around the country to feed their children and provide them with health care.

  97. 97.

    mclaren

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    This is not what the postwar studies found. Steady bombing dulled motivation and initiative on the part of the German and Japanese civilian populations. In fact, a severe drop in morale is exactly what happened.

    That’s something entirely different from winning the war.

    The Allies won against Germany when ground troops entered Berlin and occupied the city. The Allies could have kept bombing Berlin for the next 50 years, and it wouldn’t have ended the war. Soldiers don’t surrender to airplanes. They surrender to other troops.

    The situation in Japan is a peculiar case. I hope you’re not going to try to make the claim that aerial bombardment can win a war if it uses nuclear weapons, because I don’t think anyone wants to go there.

  99. 99.

    mclaren

    Incidentally — while everyone is getting hysterical about the alleged “existential threat” of ISIS, here’s a real existential threat not one single presidential candidate is talking about:

    The last drug has fallen. Bacteria carrying a gene that allows them to resist polymyxins, the antibiotics of last resort for some kinds of infection, have been found in Denmark and China, prompting a global search for the gene.

    The discovery means that gram-negative bacteria, which cause common gut, urinary and blood infections in humans, can now become “pan-resistant”, with genes that defeat all antibiotics now available. That will make some infections incurable, unless new kinds of antibiotics are brought to market soon.

    Source: “Resistance to last-resort antibiotic has now spread across globe,” New Scientist, December 2015.

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    @mclaren: Because the current Chief of Staff of the Air Force has publicly announced he’s running out of ordnance and material to service the fighters in the current campaign. And that unless Congress does something to actually authorize and provide a revenue stream the strikes will have to stop. We’re not out of Schlitz, but as usual we’ve decided not to produce anymore… Kind of hard to carpet bomb something when you don’t have enough ordnance left in inventory to bath mat bomb something.

  102. 102.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I have come back to the opinion that mclaren is not someone who interacts with people as most do. No sense of humor. No grasp of nuance. No ability to recognize wordplay. Going from half-way polite to over the top asshole in seconds. I cannot and will not diagnose over the ‘net, but mclaren does not function as most do.

    ETA: Tl:dr: mclaren is fucked up.

  105. 105.

    Scapegoat

    Of course, Iowa evangelicals should have no problem with badly want apocalyptic war in the Middle East, because they are Ready for the Rapture!!!

    FTFY, A.L.

  107. 107.

    mclaren

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):

    Cremation is not free. Also, STFU, asshole.

    Cremations costs several hundred bucks. Funerals start at about five thousand dollars and go up from there. Way, way up. That doesn’t include the cost of shipping a coffin around the country.

    Speaking of assholes: shit-for-brains Mnemosyne offers a case in point. Enabling people who have made a piss-poor choice to waste money they don’t have ranks as number one with a bullet.

    Instead of taking up a collection for five grand plus to ship a corpse around the country and bury it, it would make one hell of a lot more sense to take up a collection to educate and pay for health care for the kids left behind. But of course saying this makes me an “asshole.”

    Well, shit-for-brains, this is why some people wind up homeless and impoverished. They make stupid and crazy and self-destructive choices, like pissing around five thousand bucks plus on a funeral instead of spending that money for something useful — like, oh, I dunno, health care for the children? First plus last plus deposit on a decent apartment? Something like that?

    But since I’m talking to an asturfing troll paid by the Koch brothers to disrupt this forum, well, not much point in continuing, is there?

  108. 108.

    mclaren

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I have come back to the opinion that mclaren is not someone who interacts with people as most do. No sense of humor. No grasp of nuance. No ability to recognize wordplay. Going from half-way polite to over the top asshole in seconds. I cannot and will not diagnose over the ‘net, but mclaren does not function as most do.

    This from a paid astroturfing troll on the Koch brothers’ payroll. Keep on trying to work those JTRIG imperatives: “Deny, Degrade, Disrupt, Deceive.” You’re not succeeding, but, boy, the untraceable 20 dollar bills in those paper bags you get must keep coming, because you’re nothing if not persistent.

    Meanwhile, the rest of us are talking about issues rather than personalities. But that’s not your bailiwick, is it? It’s all about the Joseph McCarthy smear with you, the Karl Rove innuendo, the Richard Nixon knife in the back implication.

    Standard Republican astroturfing technique. Jeb Bush is deploying it right now against Rubio, and he’s Mister Outside: you’re deploying it against anyone who speaks against the ever-further-rightward tilt of the Democratic party, and you’re Mister Inside.

    Only trouble is, you’ve been outed, so your usefulness as an astroturfing troll for the 1% is coming to an end.

    One very common tactic for enforcing political orthodoxies is to malign the character, “style” and even mental health of those who challenge them. The most extreme version of this was an old Soviet favorite: to declare political dissidents mentally ill and put them in hospitals. In the US, those who take even the tiniest steps outside of political convention are instantly decreed “crazy”, as happened to the 2002 anti-war version of Howard Dean and the current iteration of Ron Paul (in most cases, what is actually “crazy” are the political orthodoxies this tactic seeks to shield from challenge).

    This method is applied with particular aggression to those who engage in any meaningful dissent against the society’s most powerful factions and their institutions. Nixon White House officials sought to steal the files from Daniel Ellsberg’s psychoanalyst’s office precisely because they knew they could best discredit his disclosures with irrelevant attacks on his psyche. Identically, the New York Times and partisan Obama supporters have led the way in depicting both Bradley Manning and Julian Assange as mentally unstable outcasts with serious personality deficiencies. The lesson is clear: only someone plagued by mental afflictions would take such extreme steps to subvert the power of the US government.

    Source: “How Noam Chomsky is discussed,” Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian, 23 March 2013.

  109. 109.

    satby

    @mclaren: You might consider that your statement is a really asshole-ish comment to a person who is grieving. And that your personal choices for disposition of your remains isn’t relevant here.
    Then again, I doubt you’re able to consider either of those things.

  111. 111.

    Southern Beale

    I realize I’m jumping in late here, but WTF is this cremation vs funerals crap? We had both! My family cremates its dead people, but we also have a funeral/memorial service, complete with religious person, ceremonial stuff, and a big spread of food and drink, etc. So while the actual cremation might cost a few hundred bucks, there’s certainly a much bigger expense.

  112. 112.

    chopper

    @mclaren:

    exactly! if these people wanted to have the basic dignity of a “funeral” for a loved one, they wouldn’t have made the dumb life choice to be poor. poor people should just dump the corpse on the side of the road, which is free. and if they don’t like it well, tough shit, mr. no-money.

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