Written by michael payne   

The fight against radical terrorists is difficult enough but it gets far more problematic when it becomes evident that the enemies that you are fighting against are the same ones that you are largely responsible for having created. And, if that’s not bad enough, it gets even worse when you realize that you have, unwittingly, furnished that enemy with weapons that you left behind when exiting Iraq in 2011.

We’re watching a new chapter of the War on Terror getting underway in the Middle East. Just recently President Obama proclaimed that “Our objective is clear and that is to degrade and destroy ISIL so it’s no longer a threat ---.” I kind of think I’ve seen this movie before, one that featured G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the lead roles; a truly inspirational film in which G.W. Bush very eloquently stated that he was going to destroy every one of those Terrarists.”

Just who is this ISIS and how did it suddenly emerge, seemingly out of nowhere? Some say its roots are to be found in Saudi Arabia while others say that it represents the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s senior officer corps and associated local support networks in Iraq and Syria. The best that can be determined right now is that ISIS fighters first came on the scene in Syria’s civil war in 2013 as one of the groups that were intent on bringing down the Syrian government. But the key issue is not its origins but where it’s going to go from here.

ISIS is a very formidable fighting force, with significant funding and modern-day weaponry (a large portion of which was formerly was the property of the U.S. military), and its cause has attracted new recruits largely from the entire Middle East. New fighters are also joining it from other countries such as Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, countries that have long been the targets of U.S. drones. Others are known to be coming from Libya, that nation that was subjected to intense bombing by the U.S. and it Western allies. And, the most alarming development is the fact that several hundred new recruits have come from the U.S., Britain and other Western nations.

The American people seem to be quite conflicted on the issue of war. Most Americans have had enough of perpetual war, its monumental costs and the ongoing deaths of troops; they are fed up and want this government to proceed in a different direction. However, since they became aware of the ISIS atrocities, involving the beheading of two Americans, and they have heard the sound of war drums beating in the White House and the Congress, some 70% of them are now fully behind Mr. Obama’s call for the destruction of ISIS.

On the other hand there are still many Americans who have heard the president call for this new Middle East operation designed to smash these terrorists and think that, here we go again; “shoot first and ask questions later”, the old Bush Wild West doctrine. So some think the president is doing the right thing and others are adamant that he is going to initiate yet another misguided war.

Based on Mr. Obama’s latest actions and the plan he has presented to combat the terrorists one might well conclude that he simply has given in to the immense pressure and power of the military establishment and is marching to the never-ending beat of its war drums. It’s no great secret that for an American president to try to stand up to the military establishment is virtually impossible.

As ISIS was in the process of growing, what exactly were America’s 16 intelligence agencies doing? Why didn’t the CIA sound the alarms long ago since they are present all over the Middle East including within Iraq? Where was the NSA? Well the NSA was probably busy monitoring the American people’s communications, busy sorting out billions of emails, texts, and other forms of communications being exchanged by those 300 millions plus Americans who apparently can no longer be trusted.

Media reports indicate that the U.S. government is going to send military aid to moderate rebel groups in Syria. What? Pass that by me again, please. What and who are moderate rebel forces in Syria? No one seems to know. What is this, the latest way of pouring billions of taxpayer dollars down the black hole of war?

The Mainstream Media has been obsessed with and fixated on the barbaric beheadings of Americans by this terrorist group. In their reports they have been showing everything but the actual beheadings. Of course they have the responsibility to report the news but the way that they try to sensationalize it to jack up their ratings is deplorable.

A key question is: why did the U.S. military leave billions of dollars of military equipment and weaponry in Iraq when it exited that country? There is absolutely no excuse or reason why it failed to take the time to remove most or all of it. What it did was provide ISIS with weaponry that it is now using in Iraq and Syria. Well, Duh!

ISIS is considered to be the most moneyed militant organization in the world with estimated assets of $2 billion. It evidently has secured these billions from wealthy people from Arab countries who support its cause. Also ISIS is said to have used, extortion, kidnapping for ransom and bank robberies in its quest for funds to carry out its mission. In Syria it took control of certain oil refineries and sold that oil on the black market. In 2014 ISIS secured some 400 million dollars by looting the Mosul's branch of Iraq's central bank.

The question is: has President Obama just opened a door that he and this country will find impossible to close? How in the world will the U.S. military carry out bombing raids in Syria, a country where there are so many different rebel factions fighting against the government and, in fact, against each other? Which ones will he bomb? And if the U.S. Air Force makes the gross mistake of bombing Syrian government forces they could well see their planes shot down by that country’s formidable air defense system. Does this president even have a clue as to what he is getting his country into? Is this déjà vu all over again?

And think about this. Even if the U.S. uses its military power to stop ISIS in its tracks and destroy it the plain fact of the matter is that the underlying boiling rage and thirst for revenge against America by those radical groups in the Middle East and other areas of the world is not going to just go away. These are people who have grown to despise America for its aggressive military actions over many decades and when you destroy one particular faction then it’s a good bet that another will rise up and take its place in seeking revenge against those they consider to be their oppressors.

How will this situation evolve? Will Iraq and Syria be bombed relentlessly as was the case with Iraq in 2003 and Libya in more recent times? Well, based on previous experience, bombing causes massive destruction but doesn’t solve the primary underlying problems. The more bombs that are dropped the more enemies that will be created. It’s time for the U.S. to wake up to the fact that it now must use brainpower instead of relying exclusively on military power.

That seems like the logical thing to do, it would seem. But here’s why that’s not happening. There is one entity in America which believes that the more enemies you create the better it is, because the more weaponry that is produced the more profits that are generated. It’s a win-win situation for the giant defense industry and its parent company, the Military-Industrial Complex, and neither will ever back off that objective unless forced to. But who’s going to do that?

Yes, that’s a great problem and is the primary root causes of these ongoing wars, and why it would take a minor miracle to bring an end to them. But sometimes miracles do happen. Just suppose that at some point in the future this government was mysteriously transformed because the power of the people was somehow energized to force its leaders to stop wasting the nation’s wealth on the machinery of war.

Well, here’s a formula for this government to do just that: take immediate steps to reverse the engines of war, stop fueling the fires of terrorism; stop invading, occupying and bringing destruction to nations that aren’t at war with America; end the mindless launching of drones in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Totally back off the faulted plans to bomb Syria and think more deeply about how to deal with ISIS by working diligently with those countries under siege to stand up and fight against those who want to dominate them. That can be done if the same degree of effort is put into it that is typically used to bomb, bomb, and bomb again.

It’s time to think out of the box for once and try to understand that in the long term a political solution is the only way to deal with this troubling dilemma and that using relentless military force will never work.

In short, stop helping to create your own enemies.

Michael Payne