Optics

Pay close attention as I take you from nothing to something. I despise the ticker stream of blurbs that runs at the bottom of all news and alleged news programs. They often contain incorrect information, misspellings and misrepresentations. They're just plain annoying and I wish they'd go away.

One of the current blurbs says Bashar Assad says the west is to blame for the refugee crisis facing Europe today. You of course know that Assad is the President of Syria and those refugees are mostly from Syria. His dad ran Syria for decades and then Bashar took over the family business. Do you know what Bashar was before? That's right, an optometrist. Know who else is an optometrist? That's right, Rand Paul. Coincidence? Absolutely. But don't let that stop you my little conspiracy theorists, fly with it, fly high.

Assad actually has a point. We put up with the Assad family for many decades, turning the other way and ignoring any wrongdoing. They have always had strong ties to the USSR and then Russia, we'll get back to that. Then comes the Arab Spring which was believed to be a sweeping multinational uprising. Unfortunately it really didn't turn out that way but we proceeded to make some mistakes based on it. There was a civil war raging in Syria so we chose that moment to say Assad must go, he didn't and we were not willing to make him go so we said while we're waiting for him to go he must get rid of his chemical weapons or face the consequences. Working with the Russians and Syrians those weapons went away but Assad did not. The war continued with massive casualties. We wagged our finger. Meanwhile a new group of nutbags called ISIS was rising as the result of our war in Iraq and they moved into Syrian territory. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice wanted to take out Saddam Hussein, so they convinced President George W. Bush that would be a good idea. Even though Bush ran for the Presidency saying America shouldn't be in the nation building business. Our ten year war in Iraq completely destabalized an already volatile area. This led to the current mass exodus from Syria and other countries and created a refugee crisis. So the west does in fact have blame.

Russia has recently been amping up it's presence in Syria. It appears they are establishing a base and we're concerned. Concerned about what? Why wouldn't Assad encourage the Russian presence? They need Putin's assistance. Mr. Putin of course says their presence is to fight ISIS/ISIL or whatever those bastards are called. He's probably using that as an excuse to widen Russian influence but frankly who cares. If Russia commits to launching military assaults on that terrorist group, it's a good thing.

The refugee situation is a major problem that the whole world must come to grips with, starting with the super wealthy nations of the middle east such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and others who are doing nothing to help. Those refugees are fleeing to Europe because they want opportunity and to live under peaceful skies. The big question is are we doing our part to help, the answer is no when you consider what Dick, Don and Condi did.

Destroy ISIS, even if it means teaming up with the Russians and repatriate the refugees to their homeland. While we're doing this it's well beyond the time we insist that Saudi Arabia and the oil rich Shiekdoms finacially step up to the plate and help their own region.

So the lesson is an optometrist really can help you see and blurbs flowing across the bottom of your t.v. screen really are irritating.