The Real Reason Why We Can't Defeat ISIS

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/world/real-reason-why-we-cant-defeat-isis

In a recent AlterNet piece, I pointed to studies showing that Islamic terrorism is rooted more in politics and economics than in fanatical religious belief. In a blog response to that piece, evolutionary biologist and professor Jerry A. Coyne asks, “Even if Werleman were right, and I don’t think he is, what are we then to do? Let ISIS roam free, killing as they go?”

It’s a good question. Unfortunately, the answer is both simple and difficult to reconcile: we can’t defeat ISIS, and even if we could, there will be another group in its place, fueled by the same grievances and objectives but with slightly different branding.

The U.S. has killed no less than a half-dozen al-Qaeda number twos and number ones. From Yemen to Iraq, from Afghanistan to Somalia, the U.S. has proven skillfully adept at taking out the leadership positions of Islamic terrorist groups, but 13 years after 9/11, and after $3 trillion and the deaths of 7,000 U.S. soldiers, the threat against the U.S. is greater than ever.

Despite this extraordinary and focused effort, the question then becomes: why does the threat against the U.S. remain unbeaten? The answer is that our overall foreign policy in the Middle East remains unchanged, and while we remain addicted to the region’s cheap oil, our efforts to arm and fund oppressive despotic regimes will continue.

[Scootaloo]

1. So you're suggesting actions have consequences?

[msongs]

2. about the best to hope for if action is taken is to keep them at bay til irag can keep them out lol

of course the iraqis want us to do it all for them since we wrecked their country

[merrily]

11. We'll stand down as they stand up?

Didn't the Iraqis we trained join the so-called terrorists?

Arabs are just not that into us. Israel's being openly insulting to us, too.

The French seem to have a fair degree of contempt for us.

Italians and Germans are probably weary of our Mafia and Nazi jokes/stereotyping.

Fuck, where is Tony Blair, anymore? He loved us. He reeealllly loved us.

That "special" relationship between the US and the Brits.

[nsd]

3. An alternative idea:

Maybe Islamist violence is not rational. Maybe it's rooted in a dangerous and deformed ideology. Although, throughout history, religion has often motivated people to act in generous and amazing ways, sometimes it's also motivated them to act in depraved and hateful ways. Looking at the Middle East -- especially ISIS, but not only ISIS -- I can't help but think that these people are just crazy. And there's nothing we can do -- short of war -- to stop them.

The Arab Spring. Three years ago that was all the rage. Did that just completely fail? Is Libya better off without Gaddafi? Is Egypt better off without Mubarak? Would Syria be better off without Assad. I'm tempted to say no in all three cases. It would have been better to let secular governments, even if commanded by tyrants, to stay in power. Islamism and democracy don't mix.

So, I for one don't want American policy to bend to these hateful lunatics. I want President Obama to "degrade and destroy" ISIS, as he's vowed to do. I won't pretend that will stop the problem -- some other lunatic organization will probably arise in their place -- but I think that's the only policy we can adopt that isn't naive or craven.

[FlatStanley]

5. Oh, please. Isosceles is just the MIC's 2016 business plan.

[nsd]

6. Huh?

I assume Isosceles is supposed to be a play on ISIS, but what is MIC?

[FlatStanley]

7. ISIL, ISIS, IS. Why not call this group Isosceles.

And I wish just for once in this century we acted like the home of the brave. ISIS = PROFIT

[nsd]

9. There's no money to be made by going back to Iraq.

It's a hole. We lost so many people there. The 2003 war was a terrible mistake, and no sane person would want to go back to that wretched country.

The argument behind the Obama administration's present strategy is that ISIS is a depraved group that represents a unique threat. Not only do they have the potential to threaten American interests, but they threaten or stand accused of killing and brutalizing civilian populations. Since the Second World War, since Nuremberg, one important aspect of American and UN policy has been that powerful nations have a responsibility to stop genocide and other crimes against humanity.

On that basis, we can take ISIS on and, hopefully, eliminate them.

To accuse the Obama administration and the United States of a profit motive here is so lazy and stupid. I won't even pretend that I have any respect for such an argument.

[elehhhhna]

10. Uh, you asked what MIC means (see post below for info)

Now that you know do you get that it's the MIC that makes a fortune?

[nsd]

12. Yes, I've heard of the "Military Industrial Complex" ...

... even though I didn't recognize the acronym when the previous poster used it.

But I don't agree that the concept, while important and valid in general, is relevant to this particular situation.

That's the part I find lazy: Not everything is about money or oil or whatever, sometimes there are real human issues at stake that require us, reluctantly, to use force. I think this is one of them.

[truedelphi]

8. MIC = Military Industrial Complex.

That is, the group that Eisenhower warned us about.

Anyway, if you source out the weaponry that ISIS has hold of, it apparently came from those weapons systems tht we offered up to various UAE states, and also from "donations" of weapons sytems that our nation "was forced" to make to leaders in the Middle East, as otherwsie we would have had to ship the weapons sytems back from Iraq when our invovlement there tapered off.

[ReRe]

21. MIC =

... America's vast War machine. What Ike Eisenhower called the "Military Industrial Complex.

[merrily]

13. Maybe "Islamist violence" is no more or less irrational than any other kind of violence.

What does "Islamist violence" have that "Christianist violence," "Jewishist violence" or "paganist violence" don't have?

3.5 billion people on this planet are Muslim. If all 3.5 share some special kind of violence that is more irrational than dropping an atom bomb on Japanese school children after Japan was on the run, like some very decent Americans (no sarcasm as to the airmen) did, be afraid, be very afraid.

Me I'm a llttle afraid of people who still think the US has solved anything by going to war since the WW II ended. I'm even a little afraid of people who don't get that war is between or among two or more sovereign nations; and, at that, has always been the most irrational, brutal and inhuman way of resolving differences between heads of state.

[nsd]

16. A few things.

The number of human beings who profess to be Muslim is closer to 1.5 billion than 3.5 billion.

But more importantly, my post and the concerns behind it have nothing to do with the vast majority of Muslim people. I will stipulate that overwhelmingly people who believe in Islam just want to live their lives, raise their children, and be left alone. That's terrific.

The issue here is about ISIS, Al Qaeda, and groups of that ilk. The first may profess to be an "Islamic State" but I don't think that claim would survive a fair vote. They don't represent anyone outside of their own group. But their group is large enough and well armed enough that we have to take them seriously.

That's all I'm saying. We need to confront ISIS -- just as we have confronted Al Qaeda.

[merrily]

17. Well over 2 billion, actually, and growing daily, of course, but, very obviously,

the exact number was irrelevant to the point of my post.

http://www.muslimpopulation.com/

Still, I don't want you or me to mislead anyone about the correct number.

But more importantly, my post and the concerns behind it have nothing to do with the vast majority of Muslim people.

Yet, you used a nonsensical term like "Islamist violence."

That's all I'm saying. We need to confront ISIS -- just as we have confronted Al Qaeda.

Our "confrontation" of Al Q'aeeda gave rise to Al Q'aeeda Iraq, Isis and a whole new level of hatred of the US by people who'd like to see us dead. So, good luck repeating that cycle.

[nsd]

18. I don't agree that the term "Islamist" is nonsensical ...

... even if it doesn't apply to the vast majority of Muslim people.

Islamist groups arise from a particular cultural and religious tradition, even if they don't speak for most of the members of the broader tradition. And groups from this tradition have driven discussion of cultural/religious-based violence for a dozen years.

Yes, there are extremist Christian groups (Christianist, if you will), extremist Hindu groups, extremist Jewish groups, and (maybe even) extremist Jain groups, but since 2000 none of these have had the worldwide impact of Islamist groups. The Westboro Church are weirdos who picket funerals; they don't behead people or crash planes into buildings.

That's the difference. And I don't think it does anybody any good to deny the difference exists. Denial reduces credibility.

[merrily]

19. Stop digging. That hole really doesn't need to be any deeper.

[nsd]

20. ? What hole?

ETA: What you've just tried to pull is such a weak and cliched Internet ploy. Superciliously accusing someone of "digging themselves into a hole" is a classic, lazy, dumb, Internet move. People were pulling that move back on Usenet 20+ years ago. I found it annoying and infuriating back then, and even more so now. If you don't want to keep the discussion moving forward, that's fine, no problem -- but don't pretend you've somehow "won" the argument.

[blkmusclmachine]

4. In a nutshell:

Operation

Iraqi

Liberation

[Shankapotomus]

15. Perhaps there is a cultural component

fueling the terrorists violence? I suspect it is a matter of great pride and ego to the middle eastern male not to be dictated to by Westerners or their "puppet" governments and they will stop at nothing to resist such indignity.

We all see how many males (not all, of course) in the Middle East react when their wives or daughters fall under too much Western influence.

Perhaps it is a patriarchal thing where losing domestic control to international customs is an intolerable affront to a great many middle eastern males?

Perhaps the resistance under rulers such as Hussein, Gaddafi and others was lower because they were "boys from the neighborhood" that rose to power rather than controlling westerners and that made it more acceptable and palatable to the middle eastern male ego?

I'm just guessing here but if, in their mind, the middle eastern male accepts western domination, perhaps their fear is falling to the level of a "beta male" in the eyes of middle eastern women? And that is so intolerable to the highly masculine middle eastern culture, many middle eastern men are willing to engage in terrorism?

And as we can all see, so much of violence in the Middle East seems to be related to the male/female relationship.

So the key to stopping the fighting is perhaps addressing the patriarchal culture in the Middle East? Teaching young middle eastern boys they are not entitled to control women. Of course, the issues have now escalated beyond the confines of the family dynamic and getting the violence under control is the priority.

But how do you stop violence when the cultural pattern is of males who would rather die than submit and regard the imposition of western influences as an unbearable indignity?

You either have to throw them a bone (which I don't suggest doing) or completely destroy their capacity and will to fight.

You have to make the fighting more painful than the ego reinforcing rewards that fuel their violence are encouraging. You have to take the romance out of the fighting for them. And, of course it's understandable, that that is not a solution many even want to contemplate.