HBO US IS IL BHO

No, I had not started watching HBO. It is not really available in mainstream China TV yet but it promises to go streaming next year. To date, it has been a subscription program within the 50 States of the Union, and its international exposure has been primarily on those networks that rebroadcast its programs.

But an international HBO promises to be online next year, and with all networks jumping into the bandwagon of Internet broadcast, we may yet get the benefit of one of our age’s remarkable inventions, a continuing domain for innovation and creativity.

US is either “us” or the United States in our usage, often left as a double-entendre since I am a U.S. citizen, and I also include myself in the arenas and fields I comment about, my exact meaning often left to the reader to decide, as it is in this case. It applies either way.

IS capitalized is not a sudden adaptation of the existentialist approach to life, the is-ness as the all important perspective vs. the idealism of a previous era that focused on ought-ness; in the title, it is used as the designation of the Islamic State, the ragtag force that defies Anglo-American air power in taking over a third of Iraq and the northern part of Syria, conveniently condemned by the media as barbaric. Aligned with the al-Qaida, they are united in their opposition to Anglo-American presence in North Africa and the Near East, especially as it relates to the exploitation of oil resource and the support of a few “royals.” Though focused in fealty to sharia law, structurally they remain just nodding acquaintances to each other!

IL usually goes with IS to form ISIL, the Islamic State in the “Levant,” an archaic word that referred to the eastern part of the Mediterranean but also colloquially used in French as where one go to and hide if one runs afoul with the law. In my ancient studies, it is the triangular area shaped like a boomerang from the mouth of Mesopotamia’s Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (Iraq), to Anatolia (across the Bosporus and Dardanelles from Thrace, the boundary between Europe and Asia), and Lebanon down to Palestine including Syria and Jordan. 

In its current use in U.S. military strategy, IS represents Iraq’s Sunni base of the late Saddam Hussein who suddenly emerged with power after taking over U.S. materials that Cheney’s boys left behind when BHO had them withdrawn, and the balance of power in Baghdad between Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites became a free-for-all.

IS IL easily reads as “is ill” and here lies our double entendre of the day. The “US is ill” perhaps means the Pentagon is clear that it wants to blow the bejesus out of the non-Baghdad and non-Kurd forces, eradicate their support from oil refineries, and send the cavalry into the fray to save Kobani and the hijab-draped damsel in distress into perpetual gratitude. Not.

That’s where Mr. BHO has been more presidential than ever. He refuses to commit ground troops into the theater; maybe he understands the depth of animosity that the IS has of what the United States represents, regardless of what short-term gain or loss he might gain in any excursion. Contrary to what neocons are calling the “slow response from the WH” or the ambivalence of the current occupant, we have got the Pentagon portraying BHO’s fight with ISIL as going to take at least a year to accomplish. Uncle Sam needs practice targets!

One wonders what the military strategists’ justification is to continue presence in areas where we used to dominate. Oil? The Koch brothers? For sure, it keeps the bombs raining down, and it lubricates and tests the jets we sold to the alliance in the region, which means a continuing market for our products. It also provides flying time for their flyers we trained instead of buzzing camels in the desert. Business good, allegiances secured.

These would all be hunky-dory save for a tiny virus that crossed the genetic border and surprised all those who rely on health structures of the planet. Listening to the WHO officials, you’d think global health structures are collapsing. We just got us a wily virus!

Now, would it not be a wonder if we ignore swatting the buzzing ISIL fly threatening global stability (OZ PM Tony Abbott loves repeating), let Assad handle his own yard, and Baghdad, continue to keep its artificial unity on band aid until the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites stake out their own territories? Let the real division be kept just the way it really is! And let them keep their oil, for heaven’s sake!

BHO has a job to do. First, get Americans understand that Uncle Sam in uniform is no longer a desired presence in many parts of the world; second, BHO convinces Americans to share the best the nation can offer, if asked for, by anyone in the world; and third, BHO can shift from competition to cooperation, conflict to collaboration, exceptionalism to ordinary human partnership.

Might cost him his life doing it against the current grain but what the hell? It’d be an HBO program to die for, won’t it?