Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 5:24am

Africa Open Thread

 

The usual open thread rules apply:  be concise, be charitable and, above all, be amusing!

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Art Deco
Thursday, October 10, AD 2019 7:37pm

Is this another suggestion from Dale Price? Do you want us to discuss the continent or the song?

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, October 10, AD 2019 10:37pm

I like the song. I like the Weezer cover. But then I wore out a Weird Al Yankovic tape listening to my Walkman mowing lawns when I was a teen.

So, how ’bout them Kurds? Think there’s any way?

Art Deco
Thursday, October 10, AD 2019 10:55pm

Never took an interest in Toto. Better music from that era:

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, October 11, AD 2019 6:46am

I’m conflicted. There was in Instapundit post listing all the times our media betters have accused us of betraying the Kurds going back to the Carter years. And my thought was, “well, they ought to be used to it by now.”

We don’t have any good options in Syria. Trump’s left holding the bag, unless he wants to pull an Obama and pass the buck to his successor.

That worked out great for us when Clinton did that with An Qaeda and bin Ladin.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, October 11, AD 2019 11:05am

So…. Benedict Option. Part of the problem or part of the solution?

I notice that, for the most part, when Trump does something to upset the dyspeptic Rod Dreher, it serves as a reminder of everything that’s wrong with the right, or Trump, or the Trumpian right. On the other hand, when the Left does something to make him bilious, like last night’s LGBTQ(rsuvwxyzabc123) forum in which all the contenders to be Trump’s opponent next November vied to outdo each other in throwing civil and constitutional liberties under the rainbow bus, it serves as an opportunity to pitch the Benedict Option.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, October 11, AD 2019 11:58am

Dreher pitches it as a strategic withdrawal, but I incline to see it your way. Still it kind of puzzles me that he can’t (or perhaps won’t) find some value in Trump’s brand of populism, if only as a kind of holding action allowing for that withdrawal.

I’ll say this: he may be in too much of a hurry to get there, but at least he knows which hill he wants to die on. So he’s got that going for him; unlike most of the so-called conservative commentariat.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, October 11, AD 2019 10:01pm

Back to the Kurds in Syria: maybe this wasn’t such a bull in a china shop moment after all:

We have limited interest in Syria, we have limited capabilities, and we have limited influence. The question is how to use that best?

The [Kurdish militia] we’re talking about specifically is called the YPG, which is a subset of a group called the SDF. They are an armed militia that we partnered with to help fight ISIS and to track down ISIS guys and detain them. And indeed, they’re detaining many of these guys. They’re not an ally. … They’re very, very good fighters. That doesn’t make them nice guys.

To be fair, defeating the caliphate as rapidly as we did under President Trump would not have been possible without arming them. Having said that, they’re not an ally of the United States. We don’t really owe them anything, other than we made a transactional deal to work with them to defeat the caliphate. And we have transactional deals to help them when they do [things that are] helpful to us. As long as we’re fulfilling that obligation, that transactional obligation, I think we’re OK.
[….]
These people that talk about a couple of hundred soldiers—which to be honest, are a speed bump to bad actors in that country—they’re not going to end the war in Syria. They’re not going to solve the problem. They’re not going to protect the Kurds.

Art Deco
Saturday, October 12, AD 2019 2:37am

Dreher pitches it as a strategic withdrawal,

The only thing Dreher ever pushes is his emotional disorders, and vain little apercus which he fancies make him an original thinker. (“Crunchy Cons”, “Benedict Option”).

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