Only other Americans thank that's the reality.

Good point. We are definitely not the America our founders and even my family envisioned.

Very good essay Robert. Many peoples who have a strong ancestral ties to Eastern Europe find Putin utterly appealing. From what he says and his actions as the leader of Russia has shown himself a masterful player in foriegn affairs. He makes Obama look like a little girl a real pancy.

Thanks.

Excellent observations and suggestions.

Excellent article. I hadn't seen Putin's exact words laid out like that before. I think your analysis of events in the Middle East is spot on, and I'm also eagerly awaiting part 2..

I agree.

In an absolute sense, probably not, just as alcoholics can always choose not to drink. However, as with alcoholics who seem incapable of stopping, so to it may well be that those who give up the exercise of their free wills often enough may, over time, essentially lose their ability to exercise it at all.

Hello straightlinelogic,

This on going nation building in an area of the world with a population inculcated with political philosophies anathema to ours is folly. Time and time again they have proven they prefer totalitarian theocracy over democratic republican forms of governance. I just look at what folly our intervention in Libya was and how little threat a subdued Qadaffi posed to us then. Now, as Putin alluded, the vacuum our government created there is being filled with no-goodniks too.

This altruistic tendency to make the world all better is filled with potential dangers our founders warned us about.

"Nothing is so important as that America shall separate herself from the systems of Europe, and establish one of her own. Our circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct. The principles of our policy should be so also. All entanglements with that quarter of the globe should be avoided if we mean that peace and justice shall be the polar stars of the American societies." --Thomas Jefferson to J. Correa de Serra, 1820.

"The Great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith." George Washington, 1796.

However, I think the question we need to ask, isn't what have we done wrong in the past? it is, what will we do now that the hornets nest is emptying itself and stinging us and others around the world? I am now of the opinion that the best we should do is help to support a safe zone or a city in the region that will welcome all from the surrounding areas the few that desire peace and liberty. Perhaps it could be a seed on its own. Enough of the whole nation building bilge.

We should do less there and more at home. Let "Allah" sort them out...
Regards,
O.A.

"US actions will, based on prior history, prompt some people to respond with violence against innocents."

Again, from an outcome standpoint, yes, some are likely to choose to lash out in violence. I am not sanctioning the actions of the US you have cited or disagreeing with the conclusion. I am merely pointing out this statement is an assertion of cause and effect. However, the precedent need not lead to the consequent at all. Again, it is a choice of the individual as to how to react. One can allow one's emotions and predispositions to rule, or one can choose to rule over the emotions. I just can not sanction the reaction as being generated by the action as a scientific rule when dealing with conscious individuals ruled by free will.

"Regardless of individual choices, for individuals, when considered as part of a larger mass, violence has often and will continue to beget violence among some members of those larger masses."

True, but it is not for lack of a choice. They choose to respond with violence. They choose to use another's violence to justify their own, denying the responsibility of free will.

So here's an interesting question: can those who start with free will after a period of allowing others to dictate their decisions for them ultimately reach the point where they lose their free will?

That may be a minor quibble but it is an important one. Yes, terrorists make there choices, so in that sense my statement should be quibbled with. However, as a matter of observed phenomena, US intervention, bombing, other military action, and installation of compliant governments has led some people in the countries so affected to choose violent resistance exercised against innocent people. The proposition that individuals as individuals make and are responsible for their own choices does not preclude the proposition that predictions can be made about outcomes about individuals in groups, without identification of specific individuals. A better way for me to have made my point would have been to say: US actions will, based on prior history, prompt some people to respond with violence against innocents. It should be noted that the US government has engaged in plenty of such violence itself. Regardless of individual choices, for individuals, when considered as part of a larger mass, violence has often and will continue to beget violence among some members of those larger masses.

I have only one minor quibble, and that is with the statement that "the US is creating more terrorism". To assert such is to state that one individual can tell another what they must do without their own consent. This is simply impossible without denying free will.

Terrorism is very simply an excuse to exercise dominion over another. It stems from the false notion of superiority over another and the conclusion that that superiority gives that person the right to inflict one's own views corporally (physically) on another. Terrorism is built on the premise not of equals looking to benefit each other through trade, but on the premise of a ruling class and a sub-class. Terrorism is an ideology, and the only way to perpetuate it is to actively spread that ideology. Those who argue that American wars or support of Israel in the Middle East (or the even more absurd arguments that industrialization and climate change) are responsible are in fact denying a core principle of being: individual responsibility. They are taking the Freudian tact that we are merely products of our environment: clay pots to be molded rather than self-determining beings capable of self-locomotion - action and consequence.

Terrorists and tyrants alike make excuses about the acts of others in justification of their own acts of aggression, but the base argument is false. I am not the product of someone else's decisions no matter what they may be. I am a product of my own thoughts and actions. If I become a terrorist or tyrant, it is because I willed it to happen.

While I agree with you that some of the Sunnis who became part of Iraq ISIS did so while Obama was president, most of them date from the aftermath of the US invasion, democracy and the establishment of a government from which they were basically excluded, de-Baathification, and the incarceration of leaders of the Sunni resistance. So I would not agree with you that Bush fixed Iraq. Like so much of the Middle East, it was and continues to be "unfixable," especially when the US presumes to do the fixing.
Thank you for the Snowden edit. I'll make the change.

Hi Robert. I believe Snowden's first name was Edward, not Edwin.
Aside from that, it's unclear to me exactly where this article is laying the blame for the imploding middle east condition. Yes, I agree that the U.S. has been a long time ally of Saudia Arabia due presumably to oil and I agree this is short-sighted as they are one of, if not the formost producer of terrorists. However I don't agree that the U.S. led coalition going into Iraq was entirely or even mostly bad. Iraq had stabilized enough to have over half a dozen local and national elections by the time Obama took over the helm. Yes, Bush broke - and fixed - Iraq. Unfortunately Obama touched it before the glue had dried and broke it again and from those cracks ISIS emerged.

That's what we get when we allow the dumbest among us play government.
Come to think about it...we see the same predicament in all governments...guess that's why we call them...wait...you know what's coming...or do you?...wait...here it is...........
KAKISTOCRACIES!

This is what many think. Even those not as astute as most of the Gulch. Thanks for putting it into words.

Just not giving them aid probably would have been enough.. But you can't blame our generals for wanting Soviets to die instead of Brits, Americans, etc.

Oh, like Napoleon and Hitler did.
Somehow I can't see Americans agreeing to a deliberate nuclear attack against an ally.
Staging a false flag is much easier (and people are more brainwashed) today than it would have been in '45.
Lots of people were still angry about FDR's arranging Pearl Harbor.

Patton was right. We should have kicked Soviet butt when they were down.

The result of the cynical real politic from the cold war (actually starting with WWII and Stalin being our ally).

I think we should leave the middle east to the middle east. Let them fight out their religious wars on their one. Put our money into alternative energy

Thanks.

Thanks.

Robert...another brilliant and insightful article...

notice the instant reaction of the Obama regime was to call for more gun restrictions against Americans...pushing another agenda...