CapitalistImperialistPig

So what is El Puto up to in Syria, and how dangerous is it? Some see it in terms comparable to the pushing and shoving that led up to WW I, and other see analogies to Hitler's series of probes that led to WW II. These might be exaggeration, but one thing that is not an exaggeration is that the catastrophe Putin could unleash on the world would dwarf those of the previous two World Wars. There is little doubt that he is now pushing the envelope, seeing how far the US can be pushed without striking back. With some reason, he suspects that Obama is tired of wars and the US military's repeated failure to deliver results. Or maybe he is just so impressed with the success of the Bush family's various escapades in the Middle East that he wants in on the game. In any case, it seems that we can expect an escalating series of provocations. Now what?

Saudi Arabia has three times the population of Israel, twice the GDP, and immensely more land area than Israel, but it is militarily completely helpless by comparison. It has had immense oil wealth and a large income from it for a couple or three generations yet relative balance of power has continued to tilt the same way. Why so? Of course Iraq tried to increase its military power too, but came acropper through several kinds of stupidity, notably attacking Iran and Kuwait, but also by other kinds of folly. Saudi Arabia doesn't have that kind of excuse, so why don't they have a technological society and military power. Some of the answer may lie in the fact that Israel, and it's pit bull (that's us) didn't want it to happen, but I suspect the real reason was the greed, shortsightedness, and insecurity of its rulers. Those rulers chose to indulge in imperial luxury, feeding their appetites to the detriment of their country. Of course there was enough money to build a...