Killing civilians to vanquish Isis will only make besieged people hate us
Advocates for even more war in the Middle East apparently have a new strategy for defeating Isis: allow the US military to kill more civilians.
Advocates for even more war in the Middle East apparently have a new strategy for defeating Isis: allow the US military to kill more civilians.
Even as Obama admits there's no military solution in Iraq, the Pentagon is pouring more U.S. troops and weapons into its floundering war on the Islamic State.
The CIA’s weapons have been pouring into Syria for years, and they’ve ended up, inevitably, in the hands of Isis and al-Nusra, as weapons tend to do when they cross borders and turn into currency.
So last week at Ramadi, the U.S. called Iraqis cowards for fleeing before ISIS, who are sheer evil. As if it all happened out of time: no 35 years of war and invasion, sanctions, displacement, death, in which U.S. policy was central. Just sheer cowardice on one side; pure evil...
The whole debate about “who lost Ramadi?” assumes facts not in evidence, like Ramadi has been somehow a United States protectorate, sort of like Guam or Puerto Rico.
For some evils, a direct approach that seeks to decapitate the threat only results in the multiplication of that threat.
The tangle of conflicts in the Middle East is confusing to many Americans who lack some key facts, such as the transformational Israeli-Saudi alliance that is dragging the American people into a sectarian religious war dating back 1,300 years.
The horror of the ISIS beheadings might become unbearably real to the public at large as people consider the nature of warfare itself and suddenly, my God, get it: We’re doing the same thing, but with technology a thousand times more powerful.
The point of a war resolution is not to “send a signal” to anyone. It’s supposed to give the people’s representatives a chance to say no. Without that, it’s little more than an imperial farce.
The Obama administration wants a rubber stamp on its unwise, unlimited, and unauthorized new war in the Middle East. It shouldn't get it.