Kill Shots

From Andy Borowitz at The New Yorker, "The San Diego Convention Center is hosting the first-ever convention of people who shot Osama bin Laden, with organizers expecting a turnout of between three thousand and four thousand." Go read the piece. It's a short read and will have you rolling on the floor.

And this from The Irish Times, "Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman at US central command, said yesterday: 'I can confirm that coalition aircraft did conduct a series of air strikes yesterday evening [Friday]in Iraq against what was assessed to be a gathering of Isil [Isis]leaders near Mosul.'"

We have this maniacial passion for killing leaders, and have been doing so for more than six years now. Where has it gotten us? If someone had killed Dwight David Eisenhower in 1944 would we have abandonded our war effort, packed up our weapons and gone home, leaving Europe to the Germans? And yet, this is apparently what we think the Islamic terrorist and war forces are going to do if we just find the right "leader" to kill.

For more than six years we have been claiming as "victories" the death of this terrorist leader or that one, and yet the alarms keep coming and the places from which the threat emanates are proliferating. When are we going to figure out that this plan of "cutting off the head of the snake" is not only not working, but is actually making the problem worse? When are we going to figure out that we are creating vastly more enemies than we are killing?