Obama Plays "Game of Thrones"

Obama has failed playing the "Game of Thrones" in the Middle East. Obama has illegally interfered in the sovereignty Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Furthermore, Obama has two bad uncooperative puppets. Maliki in Iraq and Karzai in Afghanistan. Finally, Kerry, the US Secretary of State, failed miserably at attempting to negotiate a cease fire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza. 

Obama's meddling in these countries has result in ongoing civil strife including a continued humanitarian disaster. Even the Washington Post finally acknowledged: "Libya crumbles as the United States looks the other way". More relevant to current events, the Post noted that "The Kurdish forces facing the Islamic State need help from the United States". Today, Obama finally announced limited aid and limited military assistance for the Kurds, Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic/religious groups being marked for genocide by the Islamic State. Ishaan Tharoor wrote in the Post: "As The Washington Post's Loveday Morris reports, as many as 40,000 remain stranded on "the craggy peaks of Mount Sinjar," dying of hunger and thirst and devoid of much support from a faltering Iraqi government."

While Obama is finally getting around to countering the ISIS advances, it is also Obama who facilitated the rise of ISIS by supplying (illegal) covert aid to so-called rebels in Syria. ISIS having been one such group. Had Obama supported the Assad regime, even if it is considered deplorable, the rise of ISIS may never have occurred as the Assad regime may have been able to neutralize ISIS. By destabilizing Syria and weakening the Assad regime Obama made a strategic blunder.

It would be ludicrous to place all blame on Obama for the chaos in Middle East since there are many players involved in this "Game of Thrones". Nevertheless, Obama meddling in "Nation Building" and "King Making" make him partially responsible for endless war and the ongoing humanitarian disaster.

American Airlines Bad

It's been a while since my last vent against despicable corporate behavior. In this case the finger-of-disapproval is pointed at American Airlines. In this example, my daughter and a girl friend planned to take a cross country road trip which involved picking-up our car in Santa Fe, New Mexico. To get there, they had to fly to Albuquerque where another daughter would pick them up. Unfortunately, the girl friend's grandmother got sick at the last minute and my daughter's girl friend could not go.

No problem we thought. I could just use my daughter's girl friend's ticket. Well American Airlines claimed that the ticket was not transferable. That is unconscionable, tickets are for "renting" a seat on the airplane. Who is occupying that seat should not matter.

American Airlines also refused to give a refund on that ticket. I can sympathize, to a degree, with that position since the tickets were bought in advance at a discount. My sympathy with that, however, vaporizes with the fact that American Airlines would not provide reasonable customer service (allowing a ticket transfer) given the extenuating circumstance of the girl friend's grandmother getting sick. In a sense, American Airlines "rented" that seat twice.

Washington Post article: "The travel industry’s one-sided cancellation policies are due for cancellation".