Most unfortunate, too - for underscoring so much else
- that is non-negotiable.
Because in the Lands of shoot-from-the-hip, such an obdurate position makes it so much easier to tag 'em all with one of our typically infrahuman nicks, like ragheads.
And, after the first successful next massacree, nearby - those Lands are apt to Not-ask, "How many legions have the ragheads?" -- instead, just call in the Bag Man. We could be closer to that scenario than ever before...
Recall the colorful adjectives attached to -Kulaks, here, in the days of Fail Safe, Dr. Strangelove and Gen. Curtis LeMay? But a lot of them Russkis were..umm er Aryan-type + even a few discernible WASPs -- so.. we.. stifled ourselves from experiencing that Victory Rush felt just-before-Launch.
[Also - we Knew Our Turn would happen next. So not much credit accrues re that particular stifling, now does it?]
Now: no balance-of-Power counters Our Bag Man, unless the Soviet State of Putin were to toss in his Entire Lot with the nonproductive masses of duelling-ragheads [???]
I see.. I see damn Few details over which a compromise is possible amidst these folks: perpetually afflicted with a clan-wide Certainty-fetish just like Our Fundies, constantly at each others' throats for centuries -- and despising US now even more than Them.
{sigh}