Programming Note: At UGA, we’re lucky to share a campus with other thoughtful student publications. One of those is The Arch Conservative. A friend of mine, Russell McKinley Dye, recently published this piece addressing the President’s speech tonight on the terrorist group known as ISIS in that magazine. In the spirit of friendly debate, I offer this rebuttal.
By: Chet Martin
It is the undoubted duty of American presidents to jealously guard the security of our country. Yet in the words of President John Quincy Adams, it is not in their character to scour the world “in search of monsters to destroy.” If any force in the modern world can be labeled a monster, it is ISIS*. Yet we did not rebel against the country of St. George only to become her.
The butchers that comprise ISIS cannot be called anything but barbarians. As antiquated as that term is, it is entirely appropriate of a group that slaughters children, that beheads journalists, that brings crucifixion back to the Middle East. Another impolitic term is necessary here- evil. If a country can be judged by its enemies, we should be proud to count ISIS as one of ours.
In the past few months, we prevented genocide. We have weakened ISIS from the skies and saved some of those they wished to slaughter. We have sent them fleeing from Kurdistan and the strategically crucial Mosul Dam. Their aura of invincibility has been punctured.
This is all that we can do. You claim that we’ve sat by with folded arms and indifference on our face, watching callously as evil is done. You ignore the enormous good our country and our president has already done in Iraq. Part of this, I understand, is the partisan criticism at the core of our democracy and our values. It is right and good to criticize those in power, asking what more they can do.
It is not right to criticize the executive branch for trying to develop an effective strategy against ISIS rather than rushing in full of wrath and bluster. As we came to realize almost a year ago to the day, the border of Syria and Iraq is an extraordinary complicated place; an American presence could breed both greater discontent and wider bloodshed. Most of all, it could unite the fanatics of ISIS and more moderate rebel and Islamic forces against us.
There is an undeniable gravity to our presence. Before it was ISIS, the organization was AQI- al Qaeda in Iraq. It was formed in 1999 by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, an Iraqi jihadist training in Afghanistan under the Taliban. It only grew to prominence in 2004, when al Zarqawi (who has since cooled to room temperature with American assistance) swore fealty to Osama bin Laden and waged war on American forces in Iraq. After the 2001 eviction of the Taliban and their terrorist guests, al Zarqawi and his kind were on the run. By chasing a non-existent threat of al Qaeda ties and weapons of mass destruction, we allowed his rump group gained power in the region. If we deploy boots on the ground to eradicate Zarqawi’s legacy, which lunatic are we crowning?
“Eradicate” is the word in question. Vice President Biden promised to chase ISIS to the “gates of hell” just as you promise to wipe out the group in less than the three years Pentagon planners have forecasted. After a decade of fighting and a trillion dollars spent, no one would claim al Qaeda has been eradicated. Weaker? Certainly. Discredited? Yes, mostly by their own actions (witness the Sunni Awakening.) But not eradicated.
By what standard do you judge an eradication? At the last breath of one who claims to fight for ISIS? When they control no land? The death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? It is impossible to tell and would only become more convoluted if we asked American soldiers to spend three years wandering in the desert. Over three thousand Americans died for the Iraqi state that is crumbling before our eyes. How many more should die for the frail governments that will succeed ISIS?
Spend ten minutes absorbing the national conversation and you’ll hear that ISIS is a unique threat. In many ways they are; they’ve proven themselves militarily effective where none have been before them, able to draw recruits from Europe and North America, competent (if despicable) administrators of territory, and the world’s richest terrorist group. However, their greatest asset, the ability to act as a truly organized military power, makes them uniquely vulnerable to a disengaged attack by aerial and Special Forces. Unlike al Qaeda, ISIS holds land and has a capital (Rakka, Syria.) They are an enemy our incredibly effective air forces were designed to fight. We don’t have to send troops on the ground to root them out of caves, only destroy their palaces and administrative centers.
Tonight the president will address the nation on our enemy. He won’t have to introduce himself to ISIS. They’re familiar. We have and most continue to deny them the total control they are seeking, but we don’t have to sacrifice American blood to do it. Don’t send our brave warriors abroad in search of monsters to slay. Don’t let the shifting, blood-soaked sands of Iraq make you forget our mistakes.
*Many journalists have begun referring to ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria) as ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) or simply the Islamic State. I deny them that name. They are not and will not become a state and I am unwilling to grant them Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine even in name.
