This piece is not intended to be wonky or policy driven. It is all about common sense. The reality is that policy wonks have failed America over the last several decades. They write op-eds that are ultimately proven wrong at best. In the case of some New York Times columnists, they were outright designed to mislead. No one should forget that New York Times Judith Miller was used as a conduit to mislead during the run-up to the Iraq War.
Does it not feel like 2002 and 2003 all over again? The drumbeat to war is in full vogue. What is sad is that the traditional media is using the same discredited cabal to bolster the case for war. Except for a surprising blip on Fox News where Megyn Kelly seemed to challenge neocons John Bolton and Andrew C McCarthy, the traditional media true to form is towing the military industrial complex’s narrative.
ISIS/ISIL is bad but no existential threat – Common sense please
America must not be conned into another war or irresponsible military action. Ask yourself a question. How can ten thousand or so men in pickup trucks with guns welded on its flatbed with a few captured American tanks be a threat to the world order? How would they function to sustain those they oppress without an eventual internal revolt? A contained ISIS can raise havoc in its immediate vicinity but will die like how any epidemic burns itself out. It will take longer if those in the vicinity capable of resisting the threat do not immediately resist.
ISIS is playing to a West that is fearful of a vicious violence, beheadings, mass executions that they have never seen. They display these on propaganda videos as they threaten attacks on the West, America and beyond. ISIS becomes its own media. It uses social media as a weapon of fear and and as a method to get the West to engage. It needs the West to engage in order to put out the false narrative of a West predisposed to kill Muslims henceforth an existential need for ISIS.
The military industrial complex and its puppets in the media and Congress play into the game. After-all, it is a gain for them both. For the military industrial complex they profit from the bombs, military hardware, and services they provide. Congress keeps Americans in a state of fear. Americans remain paralyzed and take their eyes off the ball. They are no longer focused on a plutocracy extracting their wealth and squandering their economic future.
Americans must wise up and make it absolutely clear to the President and Congress that ISIS is not an existential threat to the US. Instead of spending billions over there, spend it over here. Improve our security. Rebuild our infrastructure. Invest in America’s human capital.
Those who believe this is naive should remember one thing. It does not matter how many terrorists we kill over there. We cannot kill them all. And any number irrespective of a war over there can hurt us over here.
Additionally terrorism from within, Right Wing groups and American militias are likely a bigger threat than ISIS. The largest act of terror against America sans 9/11 was by a Right Wing entity, Timothy McVeigh who detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. American taxpayer dollars are best spent over here on security and on improving our economy.
Remember the following. Osama Bin Laden was responsible for killing 2,996 Americans and residents in the 9/11 attacks. America’s reaction to that horrific act effected the deaths so far of 5,281 American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally up to and likely more than 1,033,000 innocent civilians died in Iraq and north of 18,000 died in Afghanistan. It does not take rocket science to understand that America can never win the game of proportions as we have unlimited killing potential. There is a better way and the President must be given the latitude to pursue it.
This morning there was a piece on The Daily Rundown that was rather upsetting. Chuck Todd appears to imply that Saudi Arabia was upset with the Obama administration for not invading Syria as if the United States military is responsible to carry out their defense. I vlogged it here.
The excerpts from one of David Gregory’s last Meet The Press pieces on ISIS in the video above should be watched over and over again. The sensible narrative from Dick Durbin and the other panelists should be played every time neocons and their protegees in the traditional media and Congress attempt to drive America into war once again.
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