ISIS – The Case For Non-Intervention
Submitted by Roger Barris via Acting-Man.com,
Happy Armchair Warriors
The recent terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, have thrown the debate about ISIS into overdrive, particularly among the presidential candidates. Several strands have emerged from these discussions, but I think that their taxonomy is not often clearly laid out. I would therefore like to try to do this.

IS military parade in Mosul
I think that there are three inter-related strands to the discussion, which I summarize below:
- Military action against ISIS in Syria and Iraq
- Protecting the border (including the related issue of profiling)
- Data privacy
Today, I would like to discuss the case for military action against ISIS.
The argument here is that, in order for the world to defend itself against terrorism, ISIS must be defeated in its homeland. ISIS must be denied territory. This position is supported by, among the major Republican candidates, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Chris Christie.
Less clear are the positions of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, who are both reluctant to engage in further foreign interventions, but who also make belligerent noises about ISIS. The only candidate who is consistently and unambiguously against military escalation is Rand Paul.
The undercard of the Republican debates, however, features the most aggressive proponent of escalation, Senator Lindsey Graham. Graham is the only candidate in either party proposing “boots on the ground.” He has recently reiterated this stand in an editorial in The Wall Street Journal entitled “How to Defeat ISIS Now – Not ‘Ultimately.’”
John McCain and Lindsay Graham: the happy warriors
He wrote the article with his Senate colleague, and fellow happy warrior, John McCain. Since they are such vocal advocates of escalation, let’s use their article as the standard bearer for the position. As the title implies, Senators McCain and Graham presume that defeating ISIS should be a goal of American foreign policy, a goal that they clearly link to the fight against terrorism:
In his address on national television Sunday night, President Obama insisted that he has a strategy to destroy…ISIS. But what Americans see instead is an incremental, reactionary, indirect approach that assumes that time is on our side. It is not. The danger is growing nearer: from attacks in Paris and Beirut, to the bombing of a Russian airliner, to the Islamic State-inspired shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.
The Senators implicitly claim that only by defeating ISIS in its heartland can we protect ourselves in San Bernardino. They apparently don’t feel that this linkage requires justification, just treating it as a self-evident truth. But it is far from obvious that ISIS’ control of territory materially increases its willingness and ability to commit the type of attacks that we have recently seen in Paris and San Bernardino.

Territory controlled by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq as of late 2015 – click to enlarge.
Interventionist Arguments
I have seen three arguments put forth by the proponents of attacks on ISIS:
- ISIS’ prestige is enormously enhanced by its occupation of territory and its declaration of a caliphate. Among other things, it is a demonstration to the devout that God is on their side. This is an essential recruiting tool for the movement.
- ISIS uses its controlled territory to plot assaults – “Apocalyptic terrorists cannot be allowed to have sanctuary in ungoverned spaces, from which to plan attacks against the West,” to use the wording of the Senators – and train attackers.
- ISIS uses the financial resources arising from its territory – taxes and natural resources, such as oil – to further its terrorist activities.
These are the arguments for why ISIS must be defeated militarily in order to weaken its ability to commit acts of terror. But there is a forth element required to make the argument complete, as even the Senators admit. The fourth element is that ISIS must be replaced with stable regimes that can and will permanently repress the group or any of its successors.
Let’s examine each of these four elements in turn.
To my mind, the validity of the first step comes down to the following question: Which is the more effective recruiting tool for ISIS, (a) the prestige of declaring and holding a caliphate or (b) the ability to point to bombs falling on Muslim brothers? Although I cannot, fortunately, put myself in the mind of an Islamic terrorist, I don’t think that there is any doubt that (b) wins.
It is obvious that the terrorist attacks are “blowback” against military action against ISIS. This is clearly seen in the bombing of the Russian plane, which was only targeted after Russia commenced military action in Syria. The terrorists in Paris were reported to have shouted references to Syria and Iraq during their spree.

Syria lies in ruins – nearly every bomb dropped in the region drives more recruits into the arms of extremist groups like IS
A recent terrorist knifing in London also involved the attacker shouting references to Syria. I think that only the deliberately obtuse could deny that blowback anger makes a better recruiting poster than territorial occupation.
I am equally unconvinced of the validity of the second element. The San Bernardino terrorists, for example, were “inspired” by ISIS, but never trained nor plotted from this area. Certain of the Paris terrorists had trained or fought in Syria, but I can’t see that this was essential to the attacks they committed.
The reality is that these are low-tech assaults upon soft targets. The idea that the attackers require an ungoverned sanctuary to carry out their plotting or training is nonsense. Almost any suburban living room would serve.

San Bernardino attackers Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik – quite possibly inspired by ISIS, but they certainly didn’t need the self-anointed Caliphate to commit the attack. Islamist fundamentalist ideology cannot be eradicated militarily.
The third argument – the financial one – is probably the strongest, but even this one fails to compel. I repeat, these attacks are low tech assaults upon soft targets which do not require a great deal of financial support. The San Bernardino attackers, for example, were able to fund themselves, with a little help from an online “P2P” lender .
The attacks in France were more expensive, but even they would not have required anywhere near the financial resources of an ISIS. Although ISIS requires state-like revenues to support its military actions, this is not true of its terrorism.
The Failure of Nation-Building
But it is with the last element that the proponents of military action against ISIS really fail to make their case. Our experience in Afghanistan and Iraq – both places where we defeated our enemies militarily, as the proponents of military action against ISIS somehow forget – shows that we cannot win the war against ISIS unless we can also win the peace.
Otherwise, our enemies will simply melt away, waiting for the inevitable slackening of our resolve to re-emerge, just as the Taliban have done in Afghanistan and just as the Sunni supporters of Saddam Hussein did in Iraq (before becoming, among other things, ISIS).
Senators McCain and Graham acknowledge this in their article, which contains quotes such as:
Iraqis must win the peace, but Americans have a major stake in their success, and a unique role to play in helping them. The only way to do so is to be present.
And:
At the same time, Islamic State’s ability to spread is directly related to the collapse of political order. Unless America does more to help these countries make the transition to just and inclusive governments, Islamic State will find havens to pursue its evil ends.
And finally:
So the U.S. should lead an effort to assemble a multinational force…[to] destroy Islamic State in Syria. Such a force could also help to keep the peace in a post-Assad Syria, as was done in Bosnia and Kosovo. Here, too, if the West wins the war and leaves, it should not be surprised if violence and extremism return.
In other words, what the happy warriors have to offer is the same old “nation building” mantra that the neoconservatives have been chanting forever, combined with an apparent willingness to garrison these regions in perpetuity.
And right on cue they have defaulted to Bosnia and Kosovo as the lone alleged success story for this strategy, which is in fact no success at all and where we have recently been treated to Kosovan parliamentary debates featuring tear gas attacks from the opposition, as proof of the vibrant democracy we have fostered.

Parliamentary debate, Kosovo-style: tear-gassed by the opposition.
But probably the most amazing thing about the article is the total lack of proportionality. Although tragic, the 14 deaths and 22 injuries in San Bernardino would have been, in the Detroit of my youth, about an average tally for a hot summer weekend. Yet in response to this, Senators McCain and Graham want us to embark on a Pax Americana which has been shown to work exactly nowhere.
Looking at this, it is hard to resist the notion that they are spoiling for a fight and since they can’t claim that ISIS is developing weapons of mass destruction, San Bernardino will have to do.
Dubious Logic
Although Senators McCain and Graham would lead us into a massive overreaction, this should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the current policy of the Obama administration (and, by extension, the proposed policy of Hillary Clinton, which is basically the same with a “no-fly zone” added to show that she is more butch than her former boss).
Obama’s policy uses enough military action to expose us to “blowback” attacks and keep the ISIS recruiters busy, yet is insufficient to actually achieve military victory. From the standpoint of the America’s interests, this is not as barmy as the proposals from the happy warriors, but it isn’t much better.
It should be noted that American politicians are not the only ones pursuing this dubious logic. Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the UK’s David Cameron have also decided that the best way to fight terrorism is to put their countries in harm’s way for more of it.
Even Francois Hollande, on behalf of a country not known for its martial appetite, has joined in. It is hard to see this as anything but the deplorable universal tendency for politicians to need to do something, no matter how misguided.

The UK government’s reaction to the Paris Attacks
Conclusion – We Have no Dog in this Fight
I continue to believe, as I stated way back in September 2013, that we don’t have a dog in this fight. San Bernardino doesn’t change the calculation. ISIS will eventually collapse under its own homicidal and parasitical weight, probably with the help of one or more of its neighbors, whose inactivity and divisiveness we currently underwrite.
Then ISIS will be replaced by something better…or worse…it is impossible to know in this region. In the interim, we and our European friends should focus our efforts on isolating ourselves from the madness. And we certainly should not go out of our way to draw further fire.
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Jesus wasn't a pedophile. Mohammed was. He's their freaking hero.
This sums up a lot of the differences between the West and the savages.
Yeah, but Abraham was going to cut his own son's heart out from the same shared "god" saying to do so.
We can all do better.
I think you forgot to add the part about God saying to Abraham "Do not lay your hand on the lad."
The author takes these 'terrorist incidences' at face, corporate MSM value. I don't.
Every time I dig into one of these events I find you can't get to the hard information and that independent investigation is stymied at every turn. Fuck 'em, I don't believe any of it. Note that they repealed the Smith-Mundt Act that forbid propagandizing the American people. Now why would they do that?
The author's starting point is bogus in assuming these events are as reported, so why fumble around for solutions when the premise is flawed?
non intervention?
as opposed to training, arming and funding our ISIS dog in this Shiite-pipeline-thwarting fight?
@saddam miser. He didnt forget to leave out the part about God saying to Abraham "Do not lay your hand on the lad.". This would-be advocate of defenseless infants also left out the story of aborted millions. So much for Progressives and their love of children.
Right. "We" already intervened. "We" created the damn thing.
People keep forgetting that fact. And that John McCain hisself VC'd the Junior Varsity. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-22683261
The point remains. The muslim world is rooted at its core on exploitation: pillage, child-rape, and violence didn't just happen. It is endorsed in their guidebook. And adherents are told to ask no questions on any article of the "faith".
The same things happen everywhere, but in no other religion does is it pretended that God calls it a virtue. The most humane thing in the world is to tell the truth about this horrible belief, what it does to societies, and how it warps people.
Right on JM .... beginnig around 1100 CE, when the Muslims began their invasion of the Indian sub-continent to around 1500 (when Western colonizers arrived), they did exactly that ... pillaged and kill.
They carted off India's wealth to their homes beyond the Khyber pass, and killed millions of Hindus who did not submit to Islam, destroyed their temples! Its been going on in some form ever since.
No telling what they would do if they were really armed and organized as modern nations! It is perhaps a good thing that they are occupied in thier Shia - Sunni obsessions!
"No telling what they would do if they were really armed and organized as modern nations!"
http://news.sky.com/story/1617197/exclusive-inside-is-terror-weapons-lab
Exclusive: Inside IS Terror Weapons Lab
Experts describe the footage obtained by Sky News of a "jihadi technical college" as an intelligence gold mine.
02:41, UK,
Wednesday 06 January 2016
Video: Inside IS Weapons Lab
By Stuart Ramsay, Sky News Chief Correspondent
Terror group Islamic State is employing scientists and weapons experts to train jihadists to carry out sophisticated "spectacular" attacks in Europe, while also modifying weapons systems capable of targeting passenger jets and military aircraft.
From a "jihadi university" in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the scientists have stunned western weapons experts by producing a homemade thermal battery for surface-to-air missiles.
It had been regarded as a virtually impossible feat for terror groups working without a military infrastructure.
Be a graduate of Bomb U!!
Most infidels tried to improve their lives and gave thanks to their gods along the way. Muslims stayed locked in savagery and ignorance by virtue of their "scholarly" consensus, deviation from which was punishable by death. As Baron Bodissey notes, Islam is the perfect closed system.
@Newsboy, not the same God, I believe. Allah came from some moon God worshipped by the Arabians. The crescent symbol of Islam probably is no accident.
You are a fool.
No, I not. I am telling the truth. Mohammed was a pedophile and a curse to humanity.
Pedophilia is just the icing on the Muhammad cake. There's the whole serial mass murderer thing, the assassinations thing, and the slavery thing, as well as lesser but still vile behaviors like being a thief and a bandit.
True, but something about the suprme leader and prophet sexing a nine year old should be sufficient for anyone but a psychopath to trade out. Oh yeah, you get the death penalty if you try to leave islam.
Religion is too good a word. There isn't a good word for it.
Not to worry soon it will be a crime to even point out that the "holy" prophet of Islam just made it up as he went along. The Koran is such a mess it takes another book and imams to figure out what the hell "allah" was trying to say. As always a fish rots from the head down be it .gov, issuance of money or a belief system. Right now it appears the whole world is one big stinking Mackerel.
Not to get all spiritual, but the level of intellectual dishonesty is of concern. You want to follow Islam, then unless you make an informed decision you might as well handle poisonous snakes cause the pastor said we can.
I get a mental picture of God, his finger in the dyke of a world about to be inundated with a flood of evil. While he still can see some good, I believe his patience is running out. His nemesis seems to be ready to "pull it" and the big man might just let him this time.
There is no doubt that the West should follow Japans lead and maintain a complete separation from all things Islam begining with immigration. Its easy to see how Germany, Denmark, Norway & Sweden are just realizing the mistake they have allowed.
Quisling paid with his life for a lot less than what the European leaders are doing now.
Demdre you need to do your homework before you call someone out.......
Actually, Aisha was 9 years old when Moe started raping her. Excuse me, I meant to say Aisha was 9 years old when Moe and his young child bride began marital relations. Today, someone like Moe would be sharing a cell with Jared and comparing notes.
In contrast, Jared prefers more mature women (10 to 11 year olds).
Of course, Tommy Jefferson had the decency to wait until his slave, Sally Hemings, was the ripe old age of 14 before he began serially raping her. It is not known whether he raped any of his children with Sally, but he did keep them in slavery (as any good father would).
Yeah, Jared pimped sandwiches and Jefferson was a politician.
Moe is supposed to be God's Captain Supremo.
Here's another really bad father...
https://twitter.com/BadFatherHan
I am not convinced that it's been shown Mr. Jefferson raped that woman. It's too much an article of faith of the left to believe. Jefferson just must be shown to be the hypocrite. He used to wake up in the a.m. and put his feet in cold water and was a prodigious scholar. Not really the kind of man you'd expect couldn't control any manly urges regarding any woman. As opposed to some who counted as presidential timber in our time.
Even accepting the charge FTSOA, Jefferson didn't claim prophet status or divine revelations.
Correct on not freeing his slaves during his life, but he did provide for their freedom on his wife's death. Whether he treated his slaves well is an interesting issue. God knows why those otherwise excellent men mired themselves in that peculiar institution I'll never understand.
Sorry, ISIS *is* a US asset.
Langley funds them with the hundreds of billions it derives from its Afghan heroin industry, NATO supplies them through NATO member state Turkey, Erdogan makes hundreds of millions selling cheap oil to Isreal.
ISIS is our dog in the game.
Will the tribesman who down voted this truth attack on the lying PTB storyline please step forward and identify yourself?
Nobody has any illusions. The US, EU, Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia aids and arms these monsters. They all have their reasons. For Israel ISIS is a counterweight to Hezbollah. For the Saudis, they can ship their incorrigibly violent cases to go get killed. For the US and EU, it is about energy and global control. Russia supports a murderous regime in Assad to secure their energy exports. Assad is not nearly so bad as ISIS, but still a brutal murderer part of yet another muslim sect that oppresses another sect for years. Iran is no peaceful regime and further supports Hezbollah... these are a bunch of well-organized killers. No one has clean hands.
So oil plays a big part in the equation, but another part is that muslim societies are weak and unable to avoid domination by other countries. They are by their religion trained to be a warlike bunch of savages that spend their lives memorizing crap instead of learning and discussing ideas. What they memorize is to hate followers of Ali or Abu Bakr -- or Jews, Christians, yazidis, or any other non-muslim rather than trying to improve their lives and families through work, effort, and innovation. And they blame everybody else for these internal failings.
Face it: either muslims are too weak to keep from being dominated by the EU or the US or Russia, or soon-to-be rising Asian powers OR muslim sects for centuries have done little more than kill each other and other nations merely sell them weapons to make them more efficient. Muslims have to take responsibility either for their weakness compared to other countries or their hostility to each other (or both). Taking responsibility doesn't seem a part of being muslim.
A-. I only ask where is the evidence that Assad is this brutal dictator. To borrow from the author, its an article of faith that he is but Syria's an OK place for Christians, Kurds, and Shia and Sunnis.
The "Assad mus' go" stuff is just political crap. Compared to whom is he this monster?
It's odd to me why the author here doesn't argue that supporting Assad and Putin is our very best option. Instead he argues we don't need to fight ISIS. He also criticizes (properly) the nation-building idiocy but it's obvious that Assad would do just fine with ISIS and the "rebels" if we'd just stop supporting them and join in with the Russian wack-a-mole festivities. Putin leads the way.
I never said Assad must go. I am saying that he is a tyrant that doesn't mind using violence. As an adherent to a weird sect of islam, he is cut from the same cloth as the rest of them.
The solution is obvious. Colonize Mars with all the radical Sunnis that want to live in the Caliphate and radical Shia that oppose them. Let them setup shop there. I believe the NASA mars rover is scouting locations as we speak.
Their stagnating culture already leaves their under developed world looking like Mars, with some bombed out husks standing as exclamation marks.
Strannick, when you bring up their bombed out culture, it's a bit of a distortion to leave out the fact that the Anglo-zino West has ogranized, one way or another, most of the bombing out.
ISIS has said that it is fine to rape and molest women that are not Muslim.
Imagine 1000 muslim men congregating on a German beach come July 2016 - have the majority of these refugees even seen a woman in a bikini?
Some German beaches are topless and even nude. There is a nude picture of a young Merkel out there with two nude friends because of this particular European norm.
Thanks for the image! What I meant to say was: an ATTRACTIVE woman in a bikini - I really can't fathom muslim men on a nude beach.
From my personal experience, I can say that any beach, by any body of water in Germany is defacto clothing optional. Looks like flowers in a meadow sometimes.
Put one pig on every beach and it will be save.
Yeah, let them go at it... We certainly aren't going to change anything, we think we can, BUT we can't...
Wouldnt non-intervention mean a stop funding and arming these guys? The idiot who wrote this piece must live in a cave if he doesnt understand who created and funds Isis....
I will also give him a hint, if the tacit US support of ISIS dries up, do you think the Saudis and the Gulf countries would still fund them? Hell no, we are literally and figuratively giving them the air cover to do so. As well as allowing the turks to committ genocide against the kurds.
Yours is the only starting point from which to begin understanding and fixing that mess. It's "Made in U.S.A."
You have not factored in "where do we get our oil" while they sort it out.
I would love to pull us out of it all.
We will be running on empty in weeks is why we keep our men and women in this stupid game.
The author is ignoring this point because they don't know what to do about it or they are being willfully ignorant of where the energy is coming from.
Shale has made north America self-sufficient in oil. Russia has all the oil Europe will need for decades to come.
We don't NEED Arab oil any more.
Wrong. Even with shale the US imports around half the oil it consumes. The US with the inclusion of coal, nat gas, and other sources produces more energy than it consumes which mistakenly led people to think we pumped enough oil for our own needs. The recent lifting of the ban on exporting oil was more about politics and refinery mix than the US having a surplus of oil. The US is out to destroy Russia economically, thus the US sponsored coup in Ukraine and resulting sanctions, and to keep Russian oil and gas out of Europe. That policy will fail when Europe quits succombing to US demands and threats, which are not in it's long term interests, but they don't have the balls presently.
If we left these countries alone they would be pumping more oil than they do now. It's all about control, of which oil is but one tool, and thwarting the influence of Iran and Russia and the drive by the US to destroy any potential rivals and for ultimate control. The US pushed Saddam to attack Iran. After that war and he was broke, and the "friends" he fought the war for calling in their markers, he invaded Kuwait with US ambiguous assurance that that the US didn't care what he did after refusing to give him cash for fighting the Iran war as a proxy for the US. It was only after great PR work by Kuwait that got world opinion behind getting Saddam out that the US invaded. If the US had given Saddam a fraction of what they spent on the Gulf War there would never have been a Kuwait invasion by Iraq and the whole ME would be different today. The Iraq invasion was based on propaganda, as was the destruction of Libya, and the current destruction of Syria. By US action Al Qaeda has gone from a near nothing to growth mode and spreading all over the ME and Africa. Recent declassified US documents show that Obama was warned in 2012 that the then current US training and arming jihadist groups for regime change in the ME would result in extremist groups like Al Nusra and ISIS forming. He didn't. Obama is up to his neck in the current destruction of the ME and if anything he's trying to keep oil in the ground, as in Libya and Syria, for his climate agenda. A month ago Obama got another $500 million to fund "vetted rebels" in Syria. Obama won't rest until Syria is destroyed.
If we took the advice of the clown who wrote this piece does anyone really think ISIS will fold it's tent and retire to a life of liesure on the Rivera. The cat is now out of the bag thanks to Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Bush Seniors policies. When ISIS was gaining ground it attracted wackies and hangers on from around the world but now that they are dying like flies, thanks to Russian intervention, they are fleeing and only the hard core are left. Just as in Pakistan in 2001 and 2002 when Muslim recruiters went into Pakistan to recruit suckers "to kill Americans in Afghanistan" they lined up and went. When it was obvious the kids ended up as cannon fodder the volunteers dried up. The biggest recruiting tool is Obamas drones that have killed thousands of innocent people and have people living in terror in more than 10 countries that death will reign on them from the sky. Some experts claim the Houthis rebeled because they wanted to eliminate the US puppet government that allowed the US to kill innocent people in their country. With the Saudis now in play Al Qaeda is making a big comeback in Yemen. For every innocent person killed by drones it is proven that 10 people turn to terrorism not for ideology but to avenge the death and destruction of their familes and homes, the most dangerous form of opposition.
It appears that the author is oblivious that ISIS is a USSA/ISISrael joint venture. wtf.
So, we should stop bombing weddings, schools, and hospitals?
Arming, funding & training the Mujahideen then, now & forever. The Al CIA duh names may change but the flavor will always be the same.
Lets once and for all stop with the fucking lies... Okay!
9/11 Al Qaeda/ISIS/ISIL/Al Nusra/Daesh Wahhabisim/Muslim Brotherhood is all a FUCKING WESTERN ANGLO-AMERICAN INVENTION to kill the surface population for conquest of it's fucking resources.
Re-posted from elsewhere! Enjoy MOFOS...
Just like their fucking British and American teachers....
Teach them that rape theft and murder is all they can anticipate when they are overrun by the American whore...
We'll fuck your mother(s), your daughter(s)... And "your children!...
Isn't that what the lie was all about when we decapitated Iraq in 2003!
As my father who was a Vietnam Veteran who understood the art of war well when he sat me on his knee to tell me you do everything you can to eviscerate the "vicitim" that did nothing to you and make him the villian You crush the soul out of him by raping his wife, his daughter and his children hoping all the while that they will fear you forever!...
Well guess what motherfuckers!... After 70 years starting with the Germans and Japanese this "shit show" is over U.S. (of which I am one) motherfuckers! Game Over!!!
Russia and China tear a new asshole out of it... It's ripe!!!
If I were an American soldier sailor, marine and airmen! Think twice you lilly white assed pusillanimous pieces of shit!
If I were you I'd finish the job of taking your own soul out of this World with a bullet to the head using your own hand first before you get your asses scorched by the "big boys"!!!
Spoken like a modern-day Mohammed.