Is ISIS Really a Threat to the U.S.? The argument(s) for staying out of Iraq’s Civil War.
June 16, 2014

 
Share

By now, you’ve already heard the “catastrophic”, “world-is-coming-to-an-end” news that a terrorist group “too extreme for alQaeda” (“too extreme” for a group that dive-bombed hijacked planes into buildings? Doubtful.) is slowly taking over Iraq, with Iraqi soldiers so afraid, they’re “stripping off their uniforms and running for their lives”. And… of course… a conga-line of Republicans taking to the airwaves to say “We told you so!” to President Obama for “leaving Iraq too early.” Okay, can we just stop with the nonsense and hyperbole for a moment. We were in Iraq for EIGHT YEARS… almost twice as long as America’s involvement in World War II. Trust me, if leaving after eight years was still “too soon”, NO amount of time would have been long enough. And in a country where the same people claiming we “left too soon” are also the LEAST likely to PAY for that involvement… is either taxes OR blood… they sure are eager to commit American forces to “Nation Building” once again… something Republicans so abhorred during the Clinton Administration that George W. Bush ridiculed the idea during the second presidential debate of 2000. And, news alert to those same Chickenhawks: THE SAME THING WILL HAPPEN WHEN WE LEAVE AFGHANISTAN after THIRTEEN YEARS. These regions have been at each others throats for CENTURIES, and they’re not going to stop now if we stay a few extra years.

If you clicked on the comic above to read it full sized, you’ll notice it’s from 2007… just four years after the start of the war in Iraq and before Bush left office. It’s an excellent reminder of all the warnings the opponents of invading Iraq gave. If ANYBODY should be saying “WE TOLD YA SO!”, it’s US. A few famous quotes from that comic:

“I will bet you the best dinner in the Gas Light District of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week.” – Bill O’Reilly on 1/29/03

“There is a certain amount of pop-psychology in America that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni, and the Sunni can’t get along with the Shia… there’s almost no evidence of that at all.” – Bill Kristol, 4/1/03

“It’s amazing that more than two weeks into the liberation of Iraq, the anti-war crowd is still spinning a doomsday scenario.” – Brendan Miniter of OpinionJournal.com, 4/8/03

“The war was the hard part… and it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but not as hard as winning a war.” – Fred Barns, 4/10/03

I nearly threw a brick through my TV yesterday as “Meet the Press” had on… of all people… PAUL F-ing WOLFOWITZ… often called “The Architect of the Iraq War”… to comment on the current situation in Iraq. The only reason this is even happening today is because of his pathetic & incomplete plan for the invasion of Iraq based upon false pretenses with no exit strategy. That’s like bringing on Richard Nixon to comment on Bill Clinton’s ethics. Fortunately for me, sanity prevailed and I simply switched off my TV rather than turn it into a fishtank. They also brought on Mitt Romney to criticize President Obama for withdrawing from Iraq… despite advocating the same thing himself in 2007 AND admitting that he is no longer privy to the daily intelligence briefings that are provided the president. And John McCain has spent more time in front of a camera since his loss in ’08 than he has his own wife. Please tell me how many times these shows brought on Al Gore or John Kerry to criticize George Bush after they lost their elections? “Liberal Media” my ass.

The organization that has all these pundits wetting their pants is “ISIS: Islamic State of Iraq and ash Sham” (not Iraq and Syria), formed in April of last year. Are they violent & brutal religious extremists? Yes (I’ve always found it curious how the most religious in any society have a tendency to be the most vicious & brutal, then justify their brutality with the Bible/Koran/Torrah). Would their take-over of Iraq be a big step backwards for Iraq? No question about it. But that doesn’t concern us. There are MANY brutal & dangerous Islamic fundamentalist states across the Middle East, and we don’t go invading all of them and try to “set them right”. It is ONLY a matter of concern for the United States if that organization is threatening to attack the United States, and that is NOT the case here.

ISIS is fighting to restore the Sunni minority back to power (Saddam was Sunni, and the Sunni controlled “Iraq” for centuries) after being marginalized by the al-Maliki government, which is Shia. President Obama openly chastised the Maliki government for excluding Sunni’s from his government. ISIS HATES the corrupt Miliki government. In Syria, Assad’s government in “Alawite”… a Shia sect. Iran is also Shia. ISIS hates them all and wants them all gone. Tell me again why were on the side or Assad, Maliki and Iran? Oh yeah, because they are “a threat to the United States”… or are they?

I went searching online for reports of terrorist attacks committed by ISIS (originally “ISI: The Islamic State of Iraq”). We’ve all heard/seen the coverage of the brutal attacks in Iraq, and have led the Civil War against Assad in Syria (including the brutal murder of seven children). But they have also launched attacks in Lebanon, and are threatening Israel from Gaza. To date, ALL of their terrorist activities have been “local” to that region of the world.

I don’t agree with Ron Paul on very much, but when he was lambasted during one of the 2008 RNC Debates for pointing out the obvious… that al Qaeda only attacked us because we had been meddling in the Middle East for decades… he was spot on. And if you want to see history repeat itself with ISIS, use American force to prop up the corrupt Maliki government and crush the Sunni opposition. As I tweeted yesterday:

#ISIS is only a threat to the U.S. if we involve ourselves in their civil war, propping up the corrupt Maliki gov’t.

The worst thing we can do now is get re-involved back in Iraq. Don’t give extremists another reason to hate us. Religious Extremists will always be there in that part of the world. It took a brutal Strong Man in Saddam Hussein to repress it for decades, and we took him out.

During the Eisenhower Administration, America overthrew the leadership in Iran and propped up a corrupt, brutal military dictator, The Sha. Iran went extremist, the Islamic Fundamentalists overthrew him, turned the nation into a theocracy, and became an enemy of the U.S.. Let’s not repeat that mistake in Iraq.

The current leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, spent four years in American custody (UPDATE: a PolitiFact investigation finds Baghdadi spent ONE year in custody, not “four”, captured and released in 2004) at Camp Bucca, so he already has sufficient reason to hate the U.S.. Let’s not give him one more.

POSTSCRIPT: Blast-from-the-past. in 2007, then Senator Joe Biden partnered up with then Senator Sam Brownback to propose that the route to peace & stability in Iraq may require breaking Iraq up into three regions, all controlled by a single centralized government. It seems now that he might have been right all along as ISIS, the Kurds and the Shia all seem to be moving in that direction on their own.
 

Writers Wanted Got something to say? Mugsy’s Rap Sheet is always looking for article submissions to focus on the stories we may miss each week. To volunteer your own Op/Ed for inclusion here, send us an email with an example of your writing skills & choice of topic, and maybe we’ll put you online!

RSS Please REGISTER to be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS


 

Share

June 16, 2014 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Middle East, myth busting, National Security, Terrorism, War

One Response

  1. Admin Mugsy - June 21, 2014

    Funny how the story of how long al-Baghdadi was in custody was conveniently stretched out to place his release under Obama instead of Bush.

Leave a Reply