Remember just a year and a half or so ago when Barack Obama reluctantly asked Congress for Authorization for the Use of Military Force(AUMF) against the Assad government in Syria after the American people loudly wondered why the British Parliament got to vote on such a thing and voted it down? Remember how Congress balked after their email sites and switchboards crashed with the storm of Hell No’s from the American people?

Apparently, our corporate-owned, “mainstream” media doesn’t. Cynically using the death of a pretty young female aid worker in Syria who had been abducted by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq(ISIS) caused by what apparently was an American drone strike, Obama recently proposed a very broad AUMF to Congress. From what I saw on the Sunday talking head shows, some form of AUMF is taken as a given by both Congresscritters and the media.

Oh, there’s some squabbling. Some Democrats say it is too open-ended while some Republicans say it is too restrictive, which just goes to show that the old party divides are gone when it comes to advancing things like imperial war. This time, Obama will get his shiny new war.

The timing is very convenient. Obama has been outsmarted and outmaneuvered by Russian President Vladimir Putin at every turn on the Ukrainian issue. America and Germany both pushed for and got a neo-Nazi coup in Kiev, but ethnic Russians in Ukraine bucked, and fought. The largely ethnic Russian province of Crimea begged to join the Russian Federation and Putin obliged by simply annexing it.

Now, Russian separatists are holding their own in eastern Ukraine if they are not actually gaining ground. Comparisons of Putin to Hitler are nonsense. Even Henry Kissinger says that Russia will never, ever, allow Ukraine to become part of NATO or any other potentially hostile alliance, anymore than the United States would allow Mexico or Canada to do the same. They’ll invade if they have to, and what will America do?

Nothing, that’s what. The Russians, you see, have nuclear weapons. When I was in the Navy I met some people who had connections with, and some who eventually joined, Naval Intelligence. They told me there was this little informal agreement between the then-Soviet and American militaries that if some wackjob ever ordered a war between the two superpowers, that superpower’s military would make sure said wackjob was removed from power. It’s all part of Mutually Assured Destruction(MAD), the doctrine that kept us all alive during the Cold War.

There’s no reason to think it’s gone away just because Obama wants to push things in Ukraine. It won’t be allowed. But ISIS, now, they don’t have nukes. The defense industry gets to make big bucks, Obama can look tough in waging a war on the Evil Terrorists, and tens of millions of stupid Americans can wave the flag and cheer on our Heroes in Uniform. Rah, friggin’ rah.

And everybody quietly forgets about Ukraine while it slips back into the Russian orbit.