Last summer, the Israelis expended their wrath (again) on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with another unbalanced war, leaving, if I remember rightly, thirteen Israelis dead and about 2,000 Palestinians dead, plus thousands more wounded, Gaza City pulverized, and the American news media largely on the side, once again and predictably, of the Israelis, whose U.S.-funded anti-missile Iron Dome shot down almost all of Hamas's unguided rockets.
     Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom I have as much sympathy as I would have for a cement block dropping on a little girl from a great height, joined a chorus of Israeli and pro-Israel voices on American TV news.  American journalists in Gaza City wore flak jackets, sometimes helmets, saw rubble everywhere and watched wounded Palestinians of all ages rushed to hospitals with inadequate supplies.  American journalists covering Israeli locations went bareheaded during their reports, no flak jackets (none required), and had the easy manner of men and women on assignment in an exotic locale without F-16s blowing the shit out of the buildings they were standing in.  Only people with blindness caused by ideology can overlook a kill ratio of 2,000 to 13 and sympathize with the lower number over the vaster one. 
     I don't hate the Israeli people or the people of any nation.  I do have a problem with the Israeli government and military, and U.S. support in the billions of dollars per year that makes Israel's cruelties against Palestinians possible.  Israel, I've concluded, acts as a nation-sized aircraft carrier for the United States, a threat against Middle East unrest, or some of that.  Netanyahu (annoyingly called "Bibi" by numerous American journalists) uses rhetoric to make it seem his country is always on the verge of doom.  Yes, a country with nuclear weapons, a huge military, and run by politicians for decades who possess unrelenting hardass mentalities.  While Netanyahu and his policies victimize Palestinians with war and chronic embargo, Bibi acts the victim part, supported by U.S. news media parroting the familiar line, "Israel has the right to defend herself."
     I disagree.  Do you ever hear that Bulgaria or Afghanistan have the right to defend themselves?  Israel is the only country that this dubious line is ever said about.  Why is it dubious?  If someone takes a swing at you, you'll find that your body reacts in some way, maybe not with coordination, but in some manner your body takes over to deal with the aggression.  Self-defense is not a right, it's an instinct.  Arguably, every country has the right to defend itself, including the Gaza Strip, which has been pummeled nearly every other year by the Israelis, kept in a third, even fourth world state.  Netanyahu and his supporters have terrorized Palestinians repeatedly, but according to the U.S. news media, it's the Israelis getting terrorized by Hamas, albeit with very ineffective rockets that on occasion have killed or wounded Israelis and demolished houses. 
     Terrorism, which the U.S. claims to be at war with, is the use of violence or the threat of violence to achieve political ends.  Osama bin Laden's 9/11 attack used violence to achieve the political end of causing economic turmoil in the U.S.  He figured, correctly, that U.S. politicians led by the Bush Administration would go apeshit on the world's ass, leading to endless warfare that would eventually wreck the U.S. economy.
     Another consequence of this shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later viewpoint embraced by our leaders is the never-ending creation of new enemies.  Do you want to see what first world weapons directed at the third world looks like?  Look at images of Gaza City from Netanyahu's war last summer.  What the U.S. does to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, now Syria, is that flavor of twisted metal, smashed houses, and destroyed families who got in the way.  Images of victims of U.S. war violence tend not to make it to television.
     The psychology of this disgusting subject is as easy to understand as basic arithmetic.  The policymakers for the War on Terror, I aver, know what they're doing, because the purpose of the War is to perpetuate the War.  Money and power, as with many wars, are at stake.
     Thus, Obama's decision to hit Isis.

                                                                                Vic Neptune