At the same time, the author is pretty fatalistic about what the West can do about it, other than, basically, wait it out.
Which is a reaction that we haven't seen in a while. Beheadings? Enslavement? "It's not our battle." "We'd probably make it worse." "It's not worth American lives." Really?
Yes, of course, we have a long tradition of not-our-problem-ism, beginning with the Holocaust. And in the case of Rwanda, the West again sat on our collective hands. "Isn't that terrible what's happening there?" "Can't be helped."
In how many times, in how many places, have we in the West shrugged off genocide and mass murder? I suppose if I thought a bit harder I could come up with counter-examples, when we truly could do nothing, and, of course, there are the cases when intervening may have made things worse, such as our bombing in Libya that toppled the regime but left a void for Islamic extremists to fill.
But sometimes it seems like there's a calculus: what's the value of an American soldier's life? Is there a trade-off: military intervention is acceptable if each such death can save the lives of 100 or 1,000, or 100,000 innocent civilians elsewhere to would otherwise be put to death or enslaved? No guarantees? Then it's a non-starter.
Mind you, the White House goes a step further, and, as quoted by Breitbart, even denies the reality of what happened this weekend, with the murder of 21 Coptic Christians by ISIS in Libya, deliberately targeted for their faith. The press statement refers to these martyrs as only "Egyptian citizens," as if it was merely a coincidence that they all shared a Christian faith. (More details in this Reuters article.)
And while the statement calls on the international community to "unite against ISIL" -- but at the same time, the President's request for military authorization is so watered down as to raise the question of whether Obama is particularly interested in winning. As the Chicago Tribune's editorial today said,
The president wants permission to engage, but he also wants Congress to tie his hands. He's asking Congress to sign off on a plan to fight a limited war that excludes "enduring offensive ground combat operations." He would tie the hands of the next president by setting a three-year expiration on the resolution. . .
Few people anticipate a substantial deployment of U.S. ground troops, "enduring" or not. But no one can predict how the war to defeat Islamic State will go. It's a chaotic situation, involving an unpredictable foe against a coalition that includes a feeble Iraqi force and a motley collection of militias in one of the most unstable regions of the globe.
Congress should give the president broader authority. Taking away options and setting a timetable constrains our ability, complicates later decision-making and helps the enemy.
Give the president the authority he needs, not the authority he seeks.
Last link: The Anchoress offers us a prayer, recognizing that, in the Catholic tradition, these victims are martyrs, killed for their faith.
And last observation: I suppose you can tell when a cause is of great concern to those on the right, but not so much those on the left, because there doesn't even appear to be a hashtag with when one can tweet one's outrage.
First, it isn't an "Authorization For Use Of Military Force". They are Obama's Articles of Surrender". Absolutely the last thing he wants to do is win. His goal is to get the Republican Congress to give him exactly what he asked for so he can blame them for "tying his hands" when the obvious result is realized.
ReplyDeleteThe Left looks to the Jihadists to destroy the West for them. For some reason, the Left then thinks they will be able to just push their new masters aside and impose their "Progressive State" on the ashes that remain and the Islamic State will simply step aside, apologizing for getting in the way.
Your value of military life misses the boat completely. It is an accountant's way to counting bodies. Which society is better; one where three people drown trying to save one from the river or because only the victim died because the crowd on the banks all said, "Not worth MY life."? The value of a military life lies not body counts but in the Principles they die for. How many lives were saved by the hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers, sailors and marines who died in the Civil War? The War to Save the Union. The War to End Slavery. The War to give these United States a new breath of Freedom. (I intentionally discount the Confederate soldiers who fought for none of those things) Three hundred thousand Americans died to stop the Japanese and German Empires. Really and truly, how many Americans were in dire threat from those empires that would satisfy your type of accounting?
Given that, there are still situations where the exercise of force would be counter productive. The Cold War was a perfect example. Taking out the Soviet Empire risked enough destruction to make the preservation of our founding principles irrelevant. So for 50 years the two most powerful nations the World has ever seen glared at each other over the Iron Curtain and fought proxy wars. Hundreds of thousands died in these proxy wars. The Soviet Empire finally succumbed to the economic reality that makes socialism a fool's errand.
One of the goals of the IS is the extermination of non-believers including Christians, Jews, any Muslims who worship the wrong brand of Islam. A complete re-establishment of the Caliphate* will see mass murder on Progressive regime** scales. Millions will die and untold millions more will be dislocated, flooding Europe and Southern Africa refugees to spread the chaos. A clever person forseeing these outcomes might go, "Boy that would be a good thing to prevent." Think if the Nazis had been disbanded after the Munich Putch in '23. Or Chamberlain had stood up to Hitler at Munich in '38.
* North Africa from Morocco to Egypt. Asia from Turkey to Pakistan. Europe including the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal, and really, can anybody see politically correct Spain resisting an invasion nowadays?)
** Progressive regimes killed as a matter of domestic policy somewhere on the order of 100 million people in the 20th Century. Hitler was a Progressive, but he was a piker in the mass murder department compared to Stalin and Mao. Look up 'democide' or go to http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MURDER.HTM It is the source of my belief that Power is the Root of All Evil is Power.