DUMB

This has been rather a lengthy hiatus-- seven months since the last post in Cato's Depot. The future succession of posts will be sporadic rather than regular.

However, a small but powerful reminder of what's wrong passed across the monitor screen Wednesday that prompts a reminder that one should consider all future possibilities before one calls someone who is irritating, "dumb" because of a disagreement.

That would be true especially if the person one branded as "dumb" has ( or had)  more information and/or experience than the "Dumb-Brander".

And, THEN:

There, staring at me from my monitor  was an officer of the new Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, brandishing a Scimitar over the head of  a Western journalist, having just beheaded an American journalist and now gloating and threatening... Albeit incognito in a ski mask.

And there, also on my monitor was a story that harked back eight years ago about a response that George W. Bush, then president of the United States, made to Democrat demagogues raising hell for the United States to leave Iraq immediately.

Bush said then that leaving Iraq "prematurely" before "the job was done" would lead to something unimaginably worse than al Qaeda.  He was quoted as saying in that 2006 statement that a "bug out" by Americans from Iraq would definitely fertilize and prompt the establishment of an organized politically and militarily more rovust  that will be  capable of challenging the West on a higher-level of organization and financial strength due to the Iraq oil reserves. Bush said at that time, if we left a vacuum behind us, mere t and go  terrorism would be replaced by sophisticated political, financial and military development that would outpace anything yet seen in the Middle East and pose a real   constant threat to the West.

Pretty dumb, Huh ?