Tag Archives: ISIS

Imperfection: Live With It.

Extremist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda are unable to accept an imperfect society. By force, ISIS would bring in its conception of the perfect society, the Caliphate. The followers of ISIS believe their perfect knowledge justifies killing innocents to attain power.

Less extreme versions exist in democratic societies. My brand of politics isn’t just better than your brand—your brand is a threat to democracy. Only my brand works. I will accept money from any source whatever if only my candidate will win and enact our own Perfect Society. Those who disagree with me are communists or fascists or red necks or whatever epithet will show my absolute disdain for anyone who dares to disagree.

When we can no longer compromise in government, we’re fated to know paralyzing dysfunction. When we require our society to be perfect, we risk losing it.

Our Hopes Versus the Hopes of ISIS

One reason some young people are attracted to radical Islam is the promise of hope for those who lack it. For years in too many Middle Eastern countries, corrupt elites have run governments like personal fiefdoms. They became rich while throwing crumbs to their citizens, imprisoning and torturing any who disagreed with their policies.

While the actions of ISIS repulse civilized people, ISIS has a reputation for cleaning up corruption. (They could hardly do worse.) It also offers a sense of purpose through the ISIS-inspired belief in a spiritual kingdom, bizarre though its practices may be.

Why are youth from Europe and North America attracted to ISIS, despite the greater freedoms, chances of material success, and more open governments of those countries?

Perhaps we have too often stressed freedom but have forgotten to emphasize the discipline and servanthood that partner with any successful freedom. Freedom has become a means to power and wealth, not an opportunity for meaning through service and community and an inner life of the spirit.

Al Qaeda and ISIS Aren’t the Same

The terrorist group Al Qaeda so far is a movement, not a nation. In contrast, ISIS (the organization calling itself the Islamic State) holds territories in Syria and Iraq and has a land-based army. These and other distinctions were made by Audrey Kurth Cronin in his article “ISIS Is Not a Terrorist Group” (March/April 2015 Foreign Affairs).

Because ISIS is essentially a nation, some suggest a conventional war against it. Cronin calls this a “folly.” He reminds his readers: “Wars pursued at odds with political reality cannot be won.” Such a war would be exhausting and certainly not supported by the American public over a necessarily long duration.

Cronin advises a policy of containment, the policy generally followed in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. We never fought a hot war with the Soviet Union. We waited out our adversary until it collapsed. While waiting, we shored up allies and built our economy. We knew some colossal failures (Vietnam), but overall, our policy was correct.

Similarly, Cronin suggests that we become a “diplomatic superpower,” rather than one dependent solely on military solutions. Effective leadership requires patience.

 

Those Who Don’t Know History . . .

Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist who writes in the Miami Herald, asks: What if different directions were taken in our policies toward the Middle East in the past? Would we now be planning campaigns against the ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria?

One “what if” question concerned, not officials, but the American people. What if, Pitts asked, the American people in 2003 had asked for better proof that weapons of mass destruction actually existed in Iraq? That was the reason given us for that war. As it turned out, the “intelligence” for those weapons turned out to be flimsy at best, if not actually a calculated falsehood.

The mistake not only cost us lives and wealth. Our entry into Iraq caused the sudden fall of Saddam Hussein without any clear understanding of the ethnic cleavages that would result. His removal without adequate planning for the aftermath allowed ISIS to develop.

So we are back again. Perhaps if we had not gone that first time, had asked more questions . . .

 

A Little Fiction: Why Democracy Is Hard to Sell

Joe Harlan, a character in my novel Tender Shadows, is a middle-aged political officer at the U.S. embassy in a Middle Eastern country. He tries to adjust to changes in his career world. He struggles with the technical challenges that his younger officers take for granted. Problems with his daughter, also serving at the embassy, bother him more.

He finds a kindred spirit in a man his age of a different culture, the middle-aged uncle of the country’s ruler. They talk one day in the villa of his Arab friend. One of Joe’s duties as an American diplomat is to encourage democracy. He finds it a hard task.

The uncle comments about his fellow citizens: “They have television and many have computers and the internet. Certainly, if they have businesses, they know what goes on in your world. The movies, the divorces, the living together without marriage, the children born to unmarried mothers. Do you think they want this for their daughters?”

The passage is, of course, fictitious. But it is based on my experiences in an area of the world that has imploded in a dozen different ways since the Cold War ended, including the most recent threat: ISIS.

Instant communication tosses our violence, our quest for personal pleasure, and our polarized government into everyone’s front room. As we rightly speak out against brutality and injustice, the way we live sometimes obscures the message.

 

What Do We Do With Our Soul Issues?

When I worked as an American consular officer in other countries, our most difficult cases dealt with child custody issues, that is, with the children of divorced American/non-American marriages. In one case, the father, divorced from the American mother, refused to let her visit their child. He told me that the mother’s influence could result in his child’s spending eternity in hell.

Faith issues can cause conflict because they often deal with what are regarded as life or death issues—including eternal life and death. Extremist organizations like ISIS believe it is their duty to force their perception of religion on all in order to, in their minds, save society.

Reactions to such attitudes can lead some to an opposite extreme: disavowal of all religion. Religion is bad, they say, and results in fighting and warped views. Yet, faith also leads some individuals to dedicate their lives to helping others—to fight inhumane prison systems, for example, or to work with Ebola victims, or to advocate decent working conditions for laborers.

If we truly believe in God, it is rather foolish to take on the role of God ourselves. If we believe in a God of power, we witness to our beliefs, but trust God to handle the results.

 

 

Age of the Het Up

To be het up over something is an old-fashioned phrase, similar to getting bent out of shape. Something angers us. A lot of us are het up these days. Politics, perhaps, or the NFL, or religious issues.

Being het up may lead us to organize for righting wrongs. Some activities, like human trafficking, should make us het up.

Serious forms of het up include the recent Scottish movement for separation from Great Britain. Extremely lethal forms include al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Reaction is a natural response to times and processes that affect us. Liberalism sparks a conservative reaction and conservatism a liberal reaction. Religious emphasis on grace may change to an emphasis on works and vice versa. Trends toward strict parenting and permissive parenting swap places through the decades.

In areas of the world thrust suddenly into modern times in the past century or so, reaction to change is understandable. Encouraging the survival of a culture that offers identity is acceptable. Murdering innocents is not.

A wise society allows challenges to the status quo. Those challenging it have the obligation to challenge it within civilized bounds. Allowing differences that don’t destroy community means finding a balance. The rules include respect for the one who may not agree with you.

 

No Shock and Awe This Time

 I finished a late night visit to a morgue in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in March, 2003, where I was working at the U.S. consulate. For months, the U.S. and its allies had prepared for a war with Iraq, two countries to the north of us. Meanwhile, a lone terrorist had killed an American working in Dhahran, and his identity must be verified to notify next of kin. After my return to the consulate, I phoned the victim’s boss to brief him. He informed me that the air war with Iraq had begun with the bombing of Baghdad. Utterly exhausted, I stood in the desert breeze and hoped the campaign was going to be over with as quickly as the first Gulf war over a decade before.

This one was to be, so we were told, a brief campaign of shock and awe, after which we would conquer Iraq and be greeted as liberators. The war lasted over eight years, and by then, Americans had become increasingly unpopular in Iraq and most of the Middle East.

The current proposal to destroy ISIS appears more realistic. No optimistic blitz. It is anticipated to last beyond the tenure of our current president. Ground fighting will be left to local armies, not U.S. combat forces. Syria, where the conflict began, will be included in the campaign.

Kenneth M. Pollack, at the Brookings Institution, also presented a more sober assessment of any conflict which intends to ultimately defeat Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian dictator’s brutal tactics led to the current situation. Pollack’s observations are found in the September/October 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs. He proposes American support of a new Syrian army and political structure. It not only would defeat Assad but support the aftermath with the establishment of “a functional, egalitarian system of government.”

If carried out, a big “if” as Pollack realizes, it would overcome the peace that so defeats us in these wars: “a victory by one side, followed by a horrific slaughter of its adversaries . . .”

Do we have enough patience to act as midwife to such a slow birthing?

 

America and ISIS: Guns Blazing or Sergeant Alvin York

 Alvin York was an east Tennessee hillbilly who received the Congressional Medal of Honor in World War I. He led nine American soldiers in capturing 132 German combatants after half his original group of Americans had been killed.

York was an uneducated religious man who hated war and fought in World War I only because his request for conscientious objector status was denied. He reluctantly came to believe that the war to defeat Germany was justified. He followed a similar path before World War II, convinced by the actions of Hitler’s Nazis that his country should enter battle to defeat them.

York, however, spent most of his adult life working to bring education to the disadvantaged poor of Tennessee. The fact that he is remembered mostly as a war hero and not for his other pursuits indicates our tendency toward misplaced values.

The U.S. savors the myth of the individual: the war hero who blasts his way to victory. York is sometimes pictured through that myth—the lone hero. York, however, had the help of the others in his unit. And he fought reluctantly. York’s other activities remind us of ideals that shape a country worth defending.

The confrontation with ISIS must be taken with the understanding that military involvement should be reluctant and in consultation with allies. We should acknowledge that other values, like inclusive government, are of more consequence.