Posted on 08/13/2014 9:36:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
The hawks (including me) were wrong about a lot, but some got one thing right. It's going to be a long war.
In the early days after 9/11 there was a lot of talk about a "clash of civilizations" and a long "existential struggle" facing the West. I once asked the late Christopher Hitchens what he felt on that terrible day, and he said he felt no small amount of joy. Not for the suffering and death, but for the fact that the West finally had been awakened to the terrible but necessary struggle before us.
And for a time, many liberals bought into the idea that America was heading into a generational struggle with jihadism. There were a slew of books on the subject. Peter Beinart, for instance, wrote "The Good Fight: Why Liberals -- and Only Liberals -- Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again." As the subtitle suggests, there was a lot of partisan mischief in his argument, but it rested on the premise that liberals must accept that "Islamic totalitarianism" -- his phrase -- has replaced communism as our enemy. On this, at least, Beinart and company, briefly agreed with George W. Bush that the war against "Islamic fascists" (Bush's term) was the "decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century."
That consensus evaporated in the hot rage ignited by the Iraq war. By the time President Obama was elected, even the war in Afghanistan -- once the good war according to most Iraq war critics -- had become an emotional albatross. Tellingly, among Obama's first executive orders was one to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay as quickly as possible.
This was a triumph for the new enlightened consensus that the war on terror wasn't really a war at all. In 2007, retired Gen. Wesley Clark co-authored an op-ed for the New York Times ridiculing the idea that Al Qaeda was a military enemy. "Labeling its members as combatants elevates its cause and gives Al Qaeda an undeserved status," he argued. The "more appropriate designation for terrorists is not 'unlawful combatant' but the one long used by the United States: criminal."
Although Obama has tried to move captured terrorists into the domestic criminal justice system, to his credit, he never fully bought into this argument. Still, he cast terrorism as a manageable problem for the experts, not a civilizational struggle. Zeus-like, he personally went over his kill lists, selecting which enemies should be dispatched with a drone strike or, in the case of Osama bin Laden, the furies of SEAL Team 6.
When new threats emerged, the White House dismissed them with the whitewash that "core Al Qaeda" was "on the run." All pretenders to Al Qaeda's mantle were little more than a "jayvee" squad, as Obama put it. It's OK to slumber again was the message.
One jayvee squad -- the self-styled Islamic State formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS -- now controls the territorial equivalent of Britain and is one of the best-equipped and ideologically committed military forces in the Middle East. Everyday jihadis -- many with Western passports -- enlist in the struggle to create a global caliphate while the "Muslim street" from Turkey to Saudi Arabia follows the Islamic State like a sports team.
The Islamic State's atrocities are too numerous and too horrible to list here. It includes rape and slavery, religious cleansing, mass murder, public crucifixions and beheadings. Over the weekend, an Iraq official said that the Islamic State had killed at least 500 Iraqi Yazidis, burying some alive, including women and children. The group is only too happy to tweet about all of it.
Watch Vice TV's reports from Islamic State-controlled parts of Syria and you will quickly see how the word "criminal" is morally, logically and strategically inadequate. They indoctrinate children to become jihadists and suicide bombers. They vow to fly their black flag over the White House.
Pentagon officials told NBC's Jim Miklaszewski that they see the Islamic State as a "10- to 20-year challenge." I hope that's pessimistic. But it's simply realistic that the ideological agenda driving these jihadis will present a challenge for far longer than that.
No one in the West wants a generational struggle with jihadism any more than Israel wants perpetual war with Hamas in Gaza. The problem is the enemy always gets a vote. It just may be that the Middle East will become the West's Gaza. And, so far, nobody has a good answer for what to do about it.
There is no denying the battle in Iraq at least is between Saudis and Iranians. Approx. 85% of the muslim world is Sunni (included in that Salafis & Wahabis). The rest are Shia & its offshoots. Iranian regime after 35 yrs has failed to successfully export its version of an Islamic state to the world. IS has taken territory in a matter of months. Is it feasible to play Iranians & co against Saudis & co when it isn’t nearly an even match?
One thing is 'with certainty'... the Muslim Nations have never deviated from their mutual desire of seeing the Caliphate arise.....which will, despite their differences, unite them eventually against what they see as a common enemy to Islam.
I don’t know. The war between sunnis and shia has been ongoing ever since Mohammad died, that’s some 1400 years. During that time they never united as such even among a common enemy. But, in more modern times, I do believe if the west stopped supporting Islam, for whatever reasons, we wouldn’t increasingly face a dire Islamic threat on a global level, which this is.
among = against a common enemy..
As I recall, our own Matt Bracken once gave a fairly effective solution a while back that could be summed up in two words:
Nuke Mecca.
One of the ‘major claims’ of Islam is that “Allah” will never allow harm to come to Mecca. The Muslims firmly believe that Mecca will never be destroyed.
He postulated that if you destroy Mecca, Muslims would be disheartened (at the very least) to know that the claims of their “Allah” turned out to be false. Granted, it might spark a massive ‘holy war’ by Muslims worldwide, and we’d have to be prepared for that.
...”The war between sunnis and shia has been ongoing ever since Mohammad died”....
Well from the Muslim ‘Leadership’ perspective try and look at it like Republican and Democrat Parties attempting to run our nation since the parties began. Many of their political leaders give lip service to Islam enough to keep the public on course..(and supporting them)...but their real motives are in the political power and wealth those positions will afford them, and their impact on the International Stage.
Islam unites the people sorta like Patriotism unites us....they just call it a religion when in fact it’s an ideology, but it does “control” the masses. Freedom is not something most Muslims could handle in the ME....so keeping them in a Islamic Religious state of mind controls them....otherwise they’d all be killing each other.
We’re supporting what ever will continue the push for the European Expansion and One World Governance...regardless which terrorists or not we support...it’s the end game they’re looking at.
The Islamic Global threat will increase as our nation weakens more and more....because we can’t afford to fight in all places...and Europe must rise to greater impact in that region since they are there...we’re clear over here.
Note:.....take a look at the US Embassy in Baghdad.....that monsterous thing wasn’t built for nothing!
Unsure if I understand your point, what is the end objective/game for the U.S. in supporting Islam? Do we think we'll be somehow protected from the menace?
At some point, we're probably going to have to deal with that, anyway.
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