The New Bourbons

M. Talleyrand, upon observing the court of King Louis XVIII of France after Napoleon was deposed, said that the House of Bourbon had "forgotten nothing and learned nothing." Which is a neat way of presaging Santayana's dictum that "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

Welcome to the ancien regime nouveau, ladies and gentlemen, courtesy of our new program of arming Sunni insurgent groups and tribal militias in Iraq so they can help us fight the al-Qaeda salafi (foreign) terrorists.

Bear with me here. We are seeing more and more of our soldiers and marines blown up by Shiite and Sunni insurgent groups, so we're going to ARM selected Sunni groups based on their promise they won't turn those weapons on us.

Does anyone see any historical parallels here?

Afghanistan in the 80s?

Does anyone in the fucking Pentagon, that five-walled monument to Murphy's Law, recall the concept of blowback?

Ordinarily my crystal ball doesn't work well - it has a crack in it, so I get split screen - but mark my words: Some of these US-armed Sunni groups WILL aim those weapons at our men and women.

There is not enough rope.