No New War.

9-3-14 SHORT HILLS: We’re back in NJ in time for the 90° heat wave. I haven’t been political for a while, but I have to weigh in on the attacks on Obama for his ‘inaction’.

I think charging in to fight ISIS is just what they want us to do and that the beheadings are provocations to get us to come out and play war. Bin Lauden said he did what he did to get us to attack the Middle East and bankrupt ourselves in the process. It came close to that, and the adding machine is still totaling up the balance due, and the cost of caring for the injured will go on for decades. And that’s just the dollar cost, not the cost of ruined lives and dead soldiers.

Attacking ISIS, a Sunni force, and doing damage to it will just strengthen the Shiites and Iran and Assad in Syria. I thought they were the enemies. Anything other than tactical bombings or dronings would be an expensive mistake. ‘Fool me once…..’

Iraq before the war was controlled with ‘no fly’ zones and the UN nuclear inspectors were on the scene, and there was no evidence of a nuclear program except in the minds of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. And that was how many trillions of dollars ago? Haven’t we learned anything? Where are all those deficit and debt hawks now?

And BTW, who’s funding ISIS? Could it be our allies the Saudi’s, Qatari’s and our other ‘friends’? Staying out of that quagmire is exactly the right strategy, let Iran or someone else deal with the Sunni uprising.

See Tom Friedman’s column today in the NYT.