A few Bullets About ISIS

With all the Jingo crazy bullshit in the media right now hopefully this can shed a little light on a complex and difficult situation

ISIS rose out of the civil war in Syria. They were not created by the US government. Their funding (prior to looting Iraq) came predominantly from Saudi Arabia and other pro Sunni, anti Assad governments and organizations in the region.

ISIS exploited a major security flaw in Iraq in that they gambled a Shea dominated Iraqi military wouldn't fight Sunnis over the predominantly Sunni Region of Iraq, and they nailed it. Many Iraqis don't view Syrians as foreign and  have family and business ties with Syria. Much of ISIS ranks aren't Syrian but many of them are and they are viewed as the defenders of Islam by a great many people in the Muslim world.

Iraq was, and is, in essence a failed state the US spent billions of dollars propping up after the US invasion which proved to be a fiasco. Revenge,Reprisals and corruption of a brutal type most Americans have never seen have predominated Iraqi life for decades. It merely changed players after Saddam's rule. 

Establishing Sharia law under a caliphate is a widely popular idea in much of the Islamic world. They've a tragic history of brutal dictatorships as well as western and communist power meddling at the barrel of a gun. Middle eastern people have one of the longest histories in the world and it is full of foreign invaders imposing foreign ideas onto them which they have always resisted. Middle eastern people know, at least their version of their own history quite well and take a great deal of pride in it. Telling historical stories of great kings, sheiks and warriors is a hugely popular past time in the middle east. It's long been the way their history is handed down.

 

The west has gotten a skewed impression of what a caliphate is from the Taliban version our media  presented.The Taliban were far more interested in holding power through intimidation than they were sharia law. ISIS isn't likely to be any different.

The American press pushes "Jingoism"(very pro war) in the early stages of any kind of armed conflict then turns pacifist when the conflict gets ugly. "Support the troops, not the war" was a slightly bizarre (it was to us Marines fighting that f*****g war) slogan the press invented that encapsulated these two conflicting points of view. 

President Obama was politically stung by the Afghanistan troop surge which was not the success the Iraqi troop surge was and he has shown restraint with the use of military force since.

The reluctance of US middle eastern allies to participate in any actual fighting is motivated by Sunni dominated regions, such as Saudi Arabia not wanting to fight other Sunnis, Assad's massive unpopularity in much of the Muslim world,much of the Arab media favoring ISIS and a host of other complex local political rivalries. Despite the very real threat ISIS poses to the regions governments.

At present ISIS poses no real threat to US homeland security. The rhetoric coming from the far right is nothing more than conspiracy theory nonsense in an effort to  court the tin foil hat wearing crack pot vote the far right created. ISIS does pose a threat to US interests in the region by posing a threat to US middle eastern allies.

Airstrikes, while effective at disrupting supply lines, defensive positions, communication and control and stalling ground assaults aren't enough to completely eliminate a determined enemy. This is particularly true if you're trying to minimize collateral damage, which in the middle of a war isn't possible. An ugly reality many westerners find all but impossible to embrace.

"Moderate Rebels" A term the white house has been throwing around is a bit of a misnomer. Extremist ideas and ideologies bloom from extreme conditions such as war, violence, brutality and injustice. The Ideology driving ISIS is common throughout the Muslim world where these conditions exist. The idea that people experiencing the extreme violence of war, particularly the young men doing the fighting are somehow immune to an extremist ideology, is absurd. 

To most Sunni's Assad and the Alawite minority he represents in Syria aren't true Muslims and Assad's war against the Syrian people is a genocide perpetrated by a hideously evil monster. As in many civil wars throughout history the Syrian conflict will likely end in a genocidal slaughter of the losers carried out by the victors in an effort to "cleanse" the land of infidels. 

The real threat with ISIS isn't so much the privately held army presently occupying regions of Syria and Iraq. It's the ideology that drives them. It's easy to kill people, killing an ideology next to impossible. 

An assault such as the one the US launched on Afghanistan in 2001 would definitely push ISIS out of Iraq, and quickly, but such an assault would require US ground troops. 

President Obama, sensitive as he's always been to political winds knows how badly such an assault could back fire at home if US ground forces are put into the position they were forced into during the Iraqi occupation, which is likely. (What's the old cliche? Two dumb f**k moves don't make a right? Something like that.) 

ISIS and the ideology that drives them isn't going to fade from the Muslim world for decades if not centuries. It took two world wars for European nationalism to be destroyed as an ideology so we can expect the same insanity to continue in the middle east. 

The US assault on ISIS is going to be viewed very unfavorably by much of the Muslim world. Presently it's unclear if US ISIS policy will have any impact to the region's stability. If past US policy is any judge it could be yet another failed opportunity for the US to achieve any sort of real victory in a region of the world where any form of traditional victory is all but impossible. Only time will tell. 

Author's Note

Is president Obama doing the right thing taking on ISIS? In the short term, probably. Long term, probably not. The American public doesn't have the stomach for a protracted conflict and that's what this is likely going to turn into. Big WWII style victories are resigned to history and modern conflict has an unfortunate habit of dragging on indefinitely. The end isn't in site because it never was.

Reviews

[R Smith]

You sum up the problems very well and have given me a new view of this situation being someone who only sees TV coverage of this war, the behind the scenes activity of who runs who does not come through here, there can be no end to this it will drag on, I wish somehow ISIS could be stopped because I hate their apparent inhumanity but then they learnt from others I guess, right back down the centuries to the crusades people have tried to impose beliefs on others, now its turned full circle and we see the ones who were oppressed then now becoming the ones who want to oppress now, why in this crazy fucked up world can humans not worship their God and let others do the same, in the end we all have that same God just a different name, for the sake of the future, 'LIVE AND LET LIVE'

[Baby Ricochet]

On the ground the line between duty and atrocity can easily disappear into the blind rage of revenge so crossing it is stupid easy. There's no doubt ISIS has committed atrocities and plenty of them. The collateral damage from US bombing raids doesn't look any different when you're the one digging through the rubble for survivors. I'm not in any way forgiving ISIS for their barbaric behavior or our indifference to what US air power delivers to the people under the bombs. It's a brutal reality many westerners don't want to think about and it's got a lot to do with the hatred much of the Muslim world has for the US.

[hardeep sabharwal]

The question u have asked in the story has made me think, though it is not easy to reach a solution
But we have to think
Great write good job

[Baby Ricochet]

Thank you hardeep

[Cody Williams]

As I write this I feel myself not wanting to put what I really think...which is that ISIS are everything that's wrong with religion. That's not to say that religion is always a bad thing (I mean, let's face it, people are going to find away to hate each other one way or another. It's human nature...depressing isn't it?) but it is a big part of the problem. But you get these kind of people with any religion really...religious nuts! The best example of A Christianity religious nut...Phil Robertson...enough said. His mindset (convert or kill) just shows that he's no better than ISIS.

Great write BR! It's always nice to hear how other people view these situations.

By the way, I like the last sentence of your author's note. "The end isn't in site because it never was."

-CW

[Baby Ricochet]

In the first half of the 20th century it was nationalism. The assassination of the Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip which sparked the great war was over Serbian nationalism and the Fascists were as nationalistic as they came. The trouble with religious ideology, or any ideology controlling a government is the ideology is viewed as an absolute, unwavering truth so any negotiating even vaguely resembling compromise isn't possible with that sort of mind set.
Once the weapons come out the 'the bodies of the unbelievers pile up. Something to remember the next time you hear the religious right trying to tie the US constitution to their rigid belief system.

[Cody Williams]

Completely agree BR!

-CW