ISIS Is But a Stage by RRO

We somehow want to believe that ISIS can be defeated with physical weapons.  Actually, it can't be defeated by our military or anyone else's military.   ISIS is just a manifestation of something that is much bigger.  They are just the latest reincarnation of the hate we have created in the world.  ISIS is but a stage where this hate is now gathered.  It will reappear on another stage unless we address the core problems facing our existence.

At best, ISIS can be contained like Israel contains the Palestinians.  Israel occupies the West Bank and Gaza and runs it as a military state.  We did this same thing in Iraq, we occupied the country and ran it as a military state.  It took a hundred thousand troops and half a trillion in loose change each year, but it is doable.  And that is what it will take if we chose the military option ... many decades of war, perhaps until Rome falls.

First, you have to realize that we are not talking about two separate things, the Palestinians and ISIS, not to ISIS followers.  In their mind the injustices against the Palestinians, and they are plentiful, are injustices against all Muslims.  And, who are we to say they are wrong, besides it really doesn't matter what we think.  

And when we attack Pakistan, Yemen and a dozen other countries with drones across the world, do you think ISIS might consider their people are being attacked.  When they sign up new recruits I am sure they praise America for keeping peace with the drones.  Sure.

Until we are smart enough to realize that all of our actions have consequences, that all of our actions are part of the whole, we can not begin to successfully fight the ideological war in which we are now engaged.  For instance, if we can not find a way to find a way to keep the promise we made to the Palestinians in 1947 and quit coming up with excuses because we don't want to strong arm Israel, we can't begin to stop the tide of hate building up against us. 

And don't get confused, they do not hate us for doing good things in their country or for living by American values.  All the things they really hate us for involves our military, either by us directly, or by our proxy (Israel, Saudi's, NATO, etc.)  On just religious principles, they couldn't get sufficient traction against us. 

Of the two billion Muslims in the world, about 200  million of them probably are not our friends based on the way we have treated people in the Middle East as noted above.  In short, there is an infinite supply of people that hate us for good cause. 

So one option is to spend our way into poverty bombing all the people that hate us, or the second option is to change our actions that produces the most hate.  Our (U.S., Israel, NATO) military-industrial-complex (MIC) is responsible for most of the hate for America around the world.  We use our  MIC to secure oil rights in the Middle East and pretend because we need the oil it makes what we do okay.  Actions that are motivated by greed are never, never, ever okay. When we chose our friends by how much oil they have in the ground, we can not expect it to turn out well.

Even when our politicians mouth off about Muslims should not be allowed to be President, even when we call Obama a Muslim like it is a dirty word, even when we reject Syrian refugees, etc. we are rightly creating hate against America.  

Now that we have created an ungodly mess in the Middle East with our MIC, what now?  Step one, we need to realize that we can't defeat hate, especially hate that is justified, with bombs.  We have to re-evaluate the impact that our MIC has had on not only the well-being of the Middle East, but our well-being.  If we don't, we will not only be bombing our enemies to hell, but ourselves with them.