ISIS and Its Effects

So the terrorists invaded Paris and others have now invaded Mali and have given the intellectually bankrupt GOP an excuse to start shouting about Obama’s strategy or lack thereof in the fight against ISIS. It also gave the cowardly Republican governors, mainly in the south, an excuse to campaign against all refugees that are trying to get away from ISIS.

It’s hard to understand how any nation, especially this one, can make a huge fuss about three heroic young men who took on a gun wielding terrorist on a French train and then, almost without taking a breath, turn around and wave the yellow flag over a bunch of the victims of those terrorists trying to get away and find a safe place to live.

I haven’t got the exact time frame but over a hundred thousand refugees have come to these shores in the past few years and there have been no incidents involving any of them – not one. So where is all this cowardice coming from? We flashed it after 911 but this is a full-blown epidemic.

The lack of incident among the recent refugees is a direct result of a superior vetting process that continues even though many of them are from countries that cannot or will not help us facilitate it. If one of them did kill some Americans how would it stand out in a country that completely overlooks the carnage we commit against ourselves every year, simply because we are too cowardly to stand up to the gun interests? The lack of incident surrounding the recent refugees is a direct result of the above mentioned superior vetting process, which has been successful despite an almost complete lack of cooperation from the refugee’s countries of origin. This petty much puts the lie to Marco Rubio’s attempts to stop the same flow that allowed his parents to come here from Cuba. I really don’t understand how this guy looks in a mirror.

But while our policies on how to deal with the refugees are under attack here, our policies on how to deal with the reasons for the refugees are under attack by the same cowards who are afraid of three year-old orphans. (I have to thank, the slimy Bobby Jindal for that one)

There has been so much misinformation put out by the Right and so much misinterpretation of facts about the war on ISIS that it seems to be time to get someone who is an expert and who doesn’t have an ax to grind to talk about what the hell is going on. Graeme Wood, editor for The Atlantic magazine had an article in that magazine entitled “What ISIS Really Wants.” It seemed to be the most clear- headed explanation of what they are about and what their goals represent to have emerged from the entire swamp of writing on that subject. This mainly, I think, because he isn’t trying to prove a point but to explain a situation that desperately needs clarity.

Wood is clear about the fact that the ideology of ISIS remains the same as when it emerged from the ashes of our destruction of Iraq. They still want to build a Caliphate. They believe that they are the only true Muslims, and that anyone who opposes them, even other Muslims, are apostates. Their goal is to draw the Christian West into a war in Syria so that they can accomplish the end of days scenario that is described in the Koran, in which the prophet Jesus comes back to lead them to victory and they annihilate the crusaders, which leads them eventually to heaven. This philosophy establishes them as more a cult then a religion, mainly because it has very little to do with the true teachings of the Koran and is opposed by the overwhelming majority of Muslims all over the world.

What they have done though, is establish a very flashy presence, first in Iraq and then in Syria that has now been extended to a plan of attacking the West. Up to now that was the policy of al-Qaeda, al-Nusra and organizations like them. But until their attack in Paris and their bombing of the Russian plane ISIS had been satisfied to establish a Caliphate in Iraq and try to expand it into Syria to fulfill their concept of the End of Days where the great battle for the world will take place in the Ahmec Valley

They have suffered losses of late in Iraq as the Kurds backed by U.S. and French bombings and drone attacks have forced them out of much of what they had captured in places like Cobani and Begi and seriously lowered their appeal to young disaffected Muslims searching for a powerful icon from which to grow their expectations. It has seemingly forced them into a new strategy of attacking the West where it lives. This will, they seem to think, give their brand a boost by showing that they can still get something done, even though they are losing ground in their battles in Iraq and probably soon, Syria.

By the way, when Obama said they were contained, he didn’t mean every group of six in the whole world. He was speaking of the general mass of forces that they maintain in Iraq and those forces are contained, even if the GOP pundits have failed to recognize that fact.

Based on Wood’s research and writings it would seem that the Neo con strategy of putting a large invading force on the ground, as well as turning away refugees from our borders, will play directly into ISIS hands. Rather we should welcome Muslim refugees even if they do pose some threat and we should encourage what reliable Muslims there are in that region to put their troops on the ground with our support. This is almost exactly what Obama is proposing, and why the political Right has attacked him.

The Right loves to wave the flag, cry American exceptionalism to the skies, and denounce any attempt to create a calm and humane world, but the results of their actions all point to craven cowardice and anti-patriotic motives, driven by greed and avarice.

Nuts like Ted Cruz scream and pound the table, demanding that Obama debate him and his demented theories of government. Why? Why would the President of the greatest nation on earth waste his time with a snake oil salesman like Ted Cruz?

Donald Trump wants to have all Muslims in this country be forced to register. Attacks on immigrants and refugees are nothing new in this country. Those of us, who are old enough, remember the internment of Japanese/American citizens during WWII, along with the disgraceful turning away of the infamous ship filled with Jewish refugees before the war. My own grandmother was investigated by our government as an enemy alien despite the fact that she had two sons serving in our armed forces, one of them a Colonel in the army. She was still an Italian citizen and we were at war with Italy. This was a little old lady who couldn’t even read, which is what had kept her from applying for citizenship when her husband did. As a consequence of the enemy alien designation, my grandmother refused to ever again speak English or go off her porch onto American land. The family always thought it was funny. My grandmother didn’t.

One after another the GOP politicians attack everything that Obama is doing in the fight against ISIS but when they are asked, as was Senator John Thune of South Dakota today, what they would do, they all have the same answer. I’m not the president and I can’t speak for him. Is there in the whole wide world, a more cowardly cop-out? These clowns all want something done but none of them has an inkling of what they would do if they had the power. Maybe, just maybe, that means that right now, right at this moment, there is nothing to do that we aren’t already doing. That maybe, Obama is doing the right thing and maybe we should just be on hold until this volatile situation has worked itself into a recognizable mass that will make its solution obvious.