If you want to bomb ISIS (Islamic State In Syria aka IS, aka ISIL) from the air, go for it and if you want to put troops on the ground, knock yourselves out. It might be effective or it could yield another round of even more dramatic unintended consequences. America should lead the free world but shouldn't get involved in age-old conflicts that are probably beyond our ability to solve.
This is the Muslim world’s fight and though many Americans aren’t enamored of Islam, to their credit my countrymen are tolerant of all but the most insane religious sects. We should be extremely deliberate before making the decision to go back into Iraq, or into Syria for the first time. Instead let’s kill two birds with one stone by stringently controlling all of our borders. Since one major fear is that ISIS terrorists will come here and commit murderous attacks, our goal should be absolute control of who enters America through our; borders, sea lanes and airports. This would stop Islamist terrorists from penetrating our borders and stop the flow of the illegal immigrants from Central America and Mexico. Unfortunately there are powerful forces on both sides of the aisle unwilling to let the latter happen.
Killing people and breaking things in the Middle East war will make some people feel better but it will exasperate problems there and create new ones here. Most of my countrymen refuse to consider that our Middle East wars are religious in nature but I suggest that’s what they are, with potential oil profits and arms sales thrown in for good measure. George Washington said, “a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils” and though he wasn’t perfect I’ll side with George over the countless experts calling for justice or revenge.
It sounds strange to suggest sending prayers instead of bombs to the Middle East and most will call that callous but Christian’s tell me prayer’s the most powerful force on earth, so let’s give it a try. Let the combatants buy weapons elsewhere while American’s pray for peace, or for rational Muslims to defeat the insane ones. Things may get worse before they get better and the proverbial “power vacuum” may be filled by Iran, Russia or China, but sooner or later they will rue the day they filled that void!
Meanwhile if concerned American’s want to spend their personal money rescuing Christians or members of other beleaguered minorities in Iraqi and Syria that would be fantastic. There are thousands of mercenaries and well equipped “defense contractor” armies eager to fight for a price. There’s nothing wrong with private armies rescuing Iraqi and Syrian Christians, or others who might have a proven record of respecting the religious and human rights of all people. ISIS held banks and treasure troves could even be emptied to help pay the legionnaires and for the property said refugees would have to abandon… after all that seems to be the way things are done over there! Caring sponsors and sympathetic countries could offer refuge to the minority communities with which they share an ethnic or religious background and for once the U.S.A. could serve as an unbiased arbitrator if the warring parties so desire.
In light of ISIS horrific beheadings of American journalists the gauntlet has been thrown down and America has to do something. As usual it will be military in nature and any suggestion that we also address the root causes of Middle East mayhem will be dismissed as misguided so I won’t get into that…
Meanwhile back at the Kasbah our allies the Kurds, like ISIS are predominantly Sunni Muslims and according to reports, our friends the moderate Syrian rebels may have sold at least one of the tragically beheaded journalists to ISIS for $ 50,000…. so who can we trust?
Recent history shows that the only way Middle-Eastern countries can control extremists is through strong men like the new Egyptian president El-Sisi, a Mubarak protégé who seems to have violently broken the back of the Muslim Brotherhood in his country. Denying, instead of providing weapons to any of the warring parties and offering only venues for diplomacy may sound cruel but it could shorten the conflict and encourage rational players in the Middle-East to form their own coalition of the willing and smoke out their hornet’s nests themselves.