I didn't watch the first Democratic presidential candidates debate, but I heard later that Hillary Clinton was "strong."  If elected, she'll make a fine military leader, I suspect.  We should admire an American president's strength and toughness, because the world doesn't need more compassion, right?  The Republican Party's presidential candidates speak like they're ready to deal militarily with Russia.  Clinton, I think, would not be as stupid as Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio when it comes to dealing with Vladimir Putin, but my hopes aren't rosy when it comes to the 2016 election.
     Putin's military activities of the past few years point to a nation looking out for its interests, a practice long in play by U.S. leaders.  President Monroe in the 1820s decided that the United States should have sway over the Caribbean and Latin America.  Putin, like Stalin before him, wants control over "properties" adjacent to Russia.  He does pretty much the same thing American leaders do when they talk about protecting "American interests."  Interests are not the needs of poor people to live in peace.
     Looking out for American interests includes such ill-conceived projects as Obama's handling of the war in Syria.  He didn't and doesn't want to get involved, so he used the air option against ISIS (it worked so well in Libya), and now he's partnered, bizarrely, with Putin in the latter's entry into the Syrian war, with the Russians bombing Syrian rebels and making only a few raids against ISIS.
     It's difficult to understand Obama's decision-making process regarding Syria.  For a year he's conducted a half-assed military campaign against ISIS.  It won't succeed.  He speaks of a community of nations that will destroy the black-clad fanatics, but his approach has two faces.  Obama's against Bashar al-Assad, says he has "to go," but the Assad regime is also against ISIS, and is supported by Putin.  Obama and Putin had a meeting at the United Nations; soon after, Russian warplanes attacked U.S.-supported anti-Assad forces.
     "I'm shocked, Vladimir, what the fuck?"
     I'm not convinced Obama and his advisors knew nothing of Putin's intentions in Syria.  It's just a feeling based on my observations of the deviousness of political minds.  I do think we're looking at a Harvard-educated intellectual's mediocrity when it comes to conducting military campaigns.
     Syria and Yemen are both fucked.  What they need is not more military hardware and bombing campaigns.  The two former superpowers, now post-Cold War actors becoming adversaries again, find in militaristic tensions a new breath of life for their respective defense industries, with the backgrounding War on Terror sounding its ostinato, a musical term meaning a continually repeated rhythm.
     The growing power of information in the hands of most people on the planet means that more and more minds are aware of tactics and strategies of first world powers as they continue their tired practice of ruling the world by fucking over the overwhelming majority, a population getting bigger, and thus, increasingly feared by those in power.  War, then, is control.
     Hillary Clinton's "strength" as president will be the same as Obama's, meaning she will kill lots of people, and the Syrian people's agony will not end, and the weapons makers will continue to enjoy their paradise climate vacations, and none of them will ever go to prison.  Killing millions is the easiest crime to get away with.

                                                                               Vic Neptune