We have been warned and warned and warned again – by the Greeks, the Romans, the British, the Germans, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Israelites, the Egyptians, the Ottomans, the Africans, and our own Founders – of the lethal danger of foreign entanglements. The study of any nation’s history reveals that things always go badly when that nation involves itself politically and militarily in conflicts in which it has no business. It’s a lesson no people seem capable of grasping; Americans are no exception. A scientist might consider it a defect in human evolution – I hereby name it the geo-political suicide gene or GSG. Maybe we can start a society and find a cure.

As the GSG condition progresses one thing always leads to another for the afflicted state. The hobgoblins must be found or invented one after another. Following the defeat of the Nazis, the Italians and the Imperial Japanese in World War II, the United States immediately turned its animosity and attention towards the Russians. Upon the bankruptcy of Russia late last Century it was decided to concentrate, stupidly, on the Middle East.

I watched and listened as Colin Powell stated America’s alarming case against Saddam Hussein at the UN in 2003. Fact after deadly fact was rattled off of the dangers posed by the seemingly most dangerous man on earth. As I listened I wondered why, if all this was known, we weren’t already bombing the hell out of Iraq. We soon were. Iraq and just about every other Muslim country.

The problem (as usual with this sort of thing) was that each and every fact was a lie. Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. He had no nuclear program. He had no League with al-cia-da or with Osama – he was their enemy in fact. He had no plans nor ability to attack the U.S.

Lies or not, we stepped in it. We’re still knee-deep in the mud and muck of an eternal conflict between peoples wholly unconcerned with us. Well, they are now , being sick of our meddling. ISIS is the name given the latest hobgoblin (or ISIL, or IS, or CIA program X).

And, now, in the middle of the fray the Russians are back. Things are ugly enough already but now stand the chance of turning nightmarish.

Our history with Russia is topsy-turvy. Our ally in WW2 they became our cold war enemy. Now they could be viewed as an ally against ISIS but that obviously isn’t convenient for someone. We would seem to have a common enemy in Syria but we don’t or, at least, our approaches differ.

Yesterday our NATO treaty ally Turkey shot down a Russian plane over Syria. The Russians threaten retaliation. Under Article Five of the outdated, idiotic NATO treaty we could be legally (if that’s the term) bound to defend Turkey from Russia. An attack on one is an attack on all. Our common enemy must find this convenient and amusing.

While we waste our waning power abroad the enemy is at work here. On American soil. Today. They are as serious and determined as we are deluded.

Back during the early stages of the foolish and failed Iraqi campaign there was a popular saying of justification: “We have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.” It was an expression of the ever-changing defense of the defenseless. One heard it from the blathering fools of talk radio and the national redneckery on a regular basis. It, too, was a lie. It did not work.

The strategy failed because the same governments that started the trouble in the first place have insisted on importing into the West the enemies they made overseas. This is the suicidal part of GSG.

ISIS is in America now. They’re in France and Britain. They’re shooting and bombing our people while we play chicken with the nuclear armed bear. At the same time the natives have their liberties curtailed by the government. The same government that chastises the people for pointing out the problem. The same government that created the problem. The same government that makes the people pay for the GSG.

Sometimes the government admits the truth. They just admitted finding a dozen terrorists among the droves of allegedly vetted “refugees.”

Yet and still they claim they have control. Many still believe them. Many still support the GSG.

Really, with “leadership” like this, who needs ISIS or any other hobgoblins? It’s something to ponder while there’s a little time left.