I'm taking a break from my usual history comments to discuss something more current, namely ISIS. I've sat back and watched the non stop stream of news and news angles on this phenomenon called ISIS. I've heard the pundits, the politicians, the military, the clergy, social media, and just about every other form of media out there discuss what they are, what they represent, what they don't represent and so on and so on. I'll even admit to having watched the full length of one of their most recent atrocities where they burned a man alive and another purported video where they stop a woman for wearing a red coat, conduct a on the spot trail, and then summarily execute her. So the question is, what do we do about it?
Lets look at what we have done thus far. First, an air campaign designed to weaken their infrastructure, diminish their supply routes, and destroy the oil depots that supports their operations. We have also provided aid of various type to groups that are fighting against them such as the Kurds, and other tribal factions. We have put "Advisors" on the ground in Iraq to re-train the Iraqi Army that we supposedly already trained. I love the term advisor...its so pre 1966 Vietnam. We have also took a stab, albeit a weak one, at the winning the hearts and minds approach. I think it is fair to say thus far, that it has had an effect upon them, but a limited one at best, and certainly not anything that has brought them to the point of where we can deliver a knock out blow.
Currently, the President is holding a summit on extremism and ways and means we can counter it. All well and good, but I get a distinct feeling from this particular approach that reminds me a little too much of LBJ and his take on "Veetnam" as he called it. A bit to touchy feely. Granted the media has played this summit two different ways, depending upon what network you watch. Granted, I think that the issues that this summit is exploring are things that need to be looked at, but they are only a part of a much larger picture. And while I do think that Fox News is making a bit too much out of the whole name game as to what ISIS is and isn't, I also think that one of the primary tenants of any operation is to clearly identify what it is you are up against. For instance, if I said I was a Professor, that would be all well and good, but a Professor of what? If you are a math student, you want a Professor who is a Professor of math, not a Professor of underwater basket weaving. In this case, I think it is fair to call a spade a spade and a radical Muslim a radical Muslim.
Then their is the drawing comparisons issue. Yes, Christians slaughtered thousands in the name of Christ in a number of events through the past 1000 years. A couple that I can name off the top of my head are the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the burning times of the witch hunts, and the "conversion" of the native peoples of the Americas. It is true, Christians have dumped a heap of corpses at the foot of the cross. It is also fair to say that Christianity has become a lot less violent in the last 400 years or so. There are some recurrences that did rear its ugly head between 1600 and now. The Salem trials, native American conversions, Jim Jones and the like, but still the numbers are not like they used to be. By way of comparison, Islam is about 1300 years old, or roughly half the age of Christianity more or less. If we were to look closely at the first 1300 years of Christianity, I think it is safe to say that it too was a pretty violent and bloody mess if you didn't agree with whatever religious leader was running the show at the time. So really, Islam is going through much of the same bloody and violent growing pains that the Christian Church and its variations experienced in its first half of existence.
If history is any guide, then I think we can expect this identity struggle within Islam to continue to grow worse or at least maintain a high body count for the foreseeable future. So again, what to do? We can't hide behind our borders anymore, that much is certain. The tactics that we have employed thus far haven't done much. A social outreach may assist in some ways, but again history has shown that such tactics usually don't work out to well. The third world is littered with the bones of a lot of humanitarian workers and ISIS has a tendency to cut off their heads in well produced propaganda pieces. Persecution of Muslims is a very real possibility that must not be allowed to occur. Besides, the human spirit is an amazing machine of the divine. Jews have been persecuted since day one, yet they endure and they flourish just as they should despite the ignorance of large swaths of the human race. The same was true of the early Christians in the Roman Empire. There were a lot of well fed lions, yet the Church of Rome built its capitol upon the ruins of those ancient places of Christian persecution.
Some call for immediate military action. Even the President recently went to Congress to ask to bomb ISIS back into the stone age per say. But lets face facts. In the last 112 years of powered flight, no war has been won, nor no enemy vanquished by air power alone. It still takes boot on the ground and sometimes ships at sea in combination with planes in the air to effect that type of victory and even then it isn't a sure bet. Vietnam taught us that lesson and sadly I think Afghanistan and Iraq is remediating us once more on that point. Military might most certainly could do the trick, but then we would need to be willing to have the gloves come completely off. But it would have to be the gloves of our humanity itself that would have to come off. The US did this with the Native American population and damn near wiped them out. One need only drive through a modern Reservation to see just how complete that campaign of destruction was and how it continues to endure across the generations. We could do that. Just go over there and wage a epic campaign of utter destruction in a true Genghis Khan style complete with "defeating our enemies, driving them before us, taking all they possess, seeing those they love in tears, riding their horses, and holding their wives and daughters in our loving American arms." It could be done if we wanted to, but do we really want to go that route? We wouldn't be much better than ISIS is or Nazi Germany was were we to do so.
So what to do? Perhaps if we scale this down a bit for starters. Think about your family or even your extended family of Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and the like. Every family, no matter who you are, every family has that one unruly teenager caught in the turmoil of the transition between being a child and being an adult. Even when they enter their 20s, they are often still reckless for a time. Think about how your family handled that member. Some took a heavy hand which more often than not boomeranged in resentment. Some were too lax and were run over by the teen. Others took a blended approach of being firm but caring. Giving them space, but not the whole house. Allowing some freedom, but not reckless abandon. Obama is on the right track in looking at things the way he is, however he has to be willing to call radical islam what it is....radical islam...the same way a parent would call a disrespectful, unruly teen a disrespectful, unruly teen. He cannot be too lax and I think that is the way he is going. Military action may be warranted in some cases, but it is not the final answer. Reaching out in a touchy feely liberal approach alone is also not the answer.
However, we may find a path in blending the two in the same way that families have found ways to bring that unruly and reckless teen/young adult back into the fold. It takes time and patience...lots of patience. We have to give them room, but not too much. Sometimes we will need to apply military force, but not so as to annihilate them. Christianity went through the same period of turmoil and as I stated before, we still have our less than shining moments, but nowadays the actual body count isn't as bad as before....we are getting better, more compassionate and hopefully more mature in the way Christ would want us to be. And we must now endure the painful transition of the youngest of the big three religions of the world as it tries to find its way just as Judaism and Christianity did and is still in the process of doing. It will be a long and doubtless bloody road ahead, but if we stay with our younger sibling, helping here, restricting there, each in good and just measure I do believe that we stand a good chance of one day seeing radical Islam collapsing in upon itself and a more moderate and mature version rejoin the family of the world. They, the Muslims, have their work cut out for themselves. The Western world does too, and though our work will be tasking, hopefully it will be less bloody. They have to find themselves....We have to find that elusive middle path between too much and too little.
