Obama’s Syria policy in shambles as Assad opposition squabbles

[bemildred]

17. It is a subject that people disagree about.

I have read many histories of WWI, the Yurpean ones tend to frame it in Yurpean ways, outside of that they all tend to see it from where they sit. I tend to see it as two or three regional wars that impinged on each other, harming or destroying everybody who got involved.

I like the analogy mainly because of the general and global cluelessness of the ruling elites at the time, they were stuck deep in the past and completely unable to adapt or reform. Which is why it was so destructive, and continues to be destructive. It is worth remembering, every day, that the current mess derives in a direct line from that mess. Denial has a steep cost.

But anyway, I see the same thing today, the hubris, the provincialism, the arrogant ignorance and deep faith in the failed status quo. In the period of rapidest change in human history, by orders of magnitude, all effort is bent to stall progress. And denial has a steep cost.