Everyone seems to have a theory on how to obliterate Daesh. But two points are rarely raised — one concerning the origins of the group and the second on whether or not there are genuine intentions to defeat it in the first place.
We must boldly address the first to unravel the enigma behind Daesh’s rise and growth — otherwise, how else can the group be dismantled?
We must contend with the second point before engaging in superfluous discussions about the most appropriate war strategy — that is, if war is the answer in the first place. The questions are quite urgent, yet somehow they are frequently overlooked, or glossed over through some disingenuous logic, or the blame is always placed elsewhere. Now that America has launched yet another aerial war against Libya, purportedly to target Daesh positions there, the discussion is being carefully geared towards how far the US must go to defeat the militant group?
In fact, the question, “Can airstrikes alone win a war without ‘boots on the ground’?” has become the crux of the matter, and has engaged a large number of intellectuals on both sides of the debate. US media gurus, split between two war-mongering parties, are particularly opportunistic in the matter, seeking to discredit each other, as if waging wars in other countries is an exclusively American affair.
Those days are long gone when the US labored to establish coalitions to wage war as it did in Kuwait and Iraq in 1990-91, and to a lesser extent, again, in Iraq in 2003. Modern American war tactics seem to be more subversive but very real. Many Americans seem to be unaware of or oblivious to the fact that their country is actually fighting wars on several fronts, and is circuitously involved in others.
With multiple war fronts and conflicts fermenting all around, many are becoming desensitized. Americans, particularly and sadly, have swallowed the serum of perpetual war, to the extent that they rarely mobilize in any serious way against it.
In other words, a state of war has become the status quo.
Although the US administration of President Barack Obama has killed thousands, majority of whom were civilians, there is no uproar or mass protests. Aside from the fact that the Obama brand was fashioned to appear as the peaceable contrast to warmongering George W. Bush, there has been no serious change in US foreign policies in the Middle East in any way that could suggest that one president is “better” than the other.
Obama has simply continued the legacy of his predecessor, unhindered. The primary change that has occurred is tactical: Instead of resorting to a massive buildup of troops on the ground specifically directed at toppling governments, Obama has used airstrikes, targeting whomever was perceived to be the enemy, while investing in whomever he deemed “moderate” enough to finish the job.
Like Bush’s pre-emptive “war on terror,” Obama’s doctrine has been equally disastrous. Obama’s wars were designed to produce little or no American casualties since they were almost entirely conducted from the air and via unmanned drones operated by remote control, sometimes thousands of miles way — an approach that proved less taxing politically. However, it worsened the situation on the ground, and instead of ending war, it expanded it.
While Bush’s invasion of Iraq revived Al-Qaeda and brought it to the heart of the region, Obama’s aerial wars forced Al-Qaeda to regroup by employing a different strategy — it rebranded itself, from militant cells to a “state,” sought swift territorial expansion, used guerrilla warfare when facing an organized army or is bombed from the sky and carried out suicide bombings throughout the world in order to crush the morale of its enemies and to serve its propaganda efforts aimed at garnering still more recruits.
Considering that Daesh’s enemies are themselves enemies of one another, the group is rest assured that its existence, at least for the foreseeable future, is tenable.
The truth is that Daesh thrives on military intervention because that is precisely what it was born from. Its expansion is almost guaranteed simply because its enemies are not in unison, as each is serving agendas that are rarely concerned with ending war, but rather with seeing war as an opportunity to realize political gains.
With this logic in mind, one cannot expect the US’ “Operation Odyssey Lightning,” which officially began on Aug. 1 in Libya to achieve stabilizing results within the country.
How such “stability” could be projected if it were the US and other NATO members’ war on Libya in 2011 that has largely dismembered once a rich and relatively stable Arab country? Indeed, it was the vacuum left by subsequent conflicts that invited Daesh to Sirte and other areas. Now, the US — and other western powers, led by the French — are applying unwinnable war tactics to stave off a messy crisis they had created themselves when they waged an earlier war.
Even if Daesh is driven out of Sirte, it will find some other unstable environment elsewhere where it will spawn and wreak havoc. Sirte, in turn, will likely fall back into a state of bedlam where various militias, many of whom were armed by NATO, turn their guns against each other. Without a clear and holistic new approach to the problem, the conflicts will certainly keep multiplying.
There are few voices in US media and government that seem in some way serious about changing the perspective completely on the Bush-Obama war on terror. Sensible calls from the likes of Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president, that the root causes of terror must be addressed to end terrorism, rarely register in the halls of US government and Congress.
In January the cost of the war on Daesh, as estimated by US Defense Department data, has jumped by $2 million a day to a total of $11 million.
Expectedly, this is a great time for business for those who benefit from war. Concurrently, the cycle of war and violence is feeding on itself with no end in sight.
“Hope in aerial bombardment as the prophylactic for peace is absurd,” Vijay Prashad, professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, wrote recently about the futility of airstrike wars. “It has given us instability and chaos. Other roads have to be opened. Other paths seeded.”
I couldn’t agree more.
We must boldly address the first to unravel the enigma behind Daesh’s rise and growth — otherwise, how else can the group be dismantled?
We must contend with the second point before engaging in superfluous discussions about the most appropriate war strategy — that is, if war is the answer in the first place. The questions are quite urgent, yet somehow they are frequently overlooked, or glossed over through some disingenuous logic, or the blame is always placed elsewhere. Now that America has launched yet another aerial war against Libya, purportedly to target Daesh positions there, the discussion is being carefully geared towards how far the US must go to defeat the militant group?
In fact, the question, “Can airstrikes alone win a war without ‘boots on the ground’?” has become the crux of the matter, and has engaged a large number of intellectuals on both sides of the debate. US media gurus, split between two war-mongering parties, are particularly opportunistic in the matter, seeking to discredit each other, as if waging wars in other countries is an exclusively American affair.
Those days are long gone when the US labored to establish coalitions to wage war as it did in Kuwait and Iraq in 1990-91, and to a lesser extent, again, in Iraq in 2003. Modern American war tactics seem to be more subversive but very real. Many Americans seem to be unaware of or oblivious to the fact that their country is actually fighting wars on several fronts, and is circuitously involved in others.
With multiple war fronts and conflicts fermenting all around, many are becoming desensitized. Americans, particularly and sadly, have swallowed the serum of perpetual war, to the extent that they rarely mobilize in any serious way against it.
In other words, a state of war has become the status quo.
Although the US administration of President Barack Obama has killed thousands, majority of whom were civilians, there is no uproar or mass protests. Aside from the fact that the Obama brand was fashioned to appear as the peaceable contrast to warmongering George W. Bush, there has been no serious change in US foreign policies in the Middle East in any way that could suggest that one president is “better” than the other.
Obama has simply continued the legacy of his predecessor, unhindered. The primary change that has occurred is tactical: Instead of resorting to a massive buildup of troops on the ground specifically directed at toppling governments, Obama has used airstrikes, targeting whomever was perceived to be the enemy, while investing in whomever he deemed “moderate” enough to finish the job.
Like Bush’s pre-emptive “war on terror,” Obama’s doctrine has been equally disastrous. Obama’s wars were designed to produce little or no American casualties since they were almost entirely conducted from the air and via unmanned drones operated by remote control, sometimes thousands of miles way — an approach that proved less taxing politically. However, it worsened the situation on the ground, and instead of ending war, it expanded it.
While Bush’s invasion of Iraq revived Al-Qaeda and brought it to the heart of the region, Obama’s aerial wars forced Al-Qaeda to regroup by employing a different strategy — it rebranded itself, from militant cells to a “state,” sought swift territorial expansion, used guerrilla warfare when facing an organized army or is bombed from the sky and carried out suicide bombings throughout the world in order to crush the morale of its enemies and to serve its propaganda efforts aimed at garnering still more recruits.
Considering that Daesh’s enemies are themselves enemies of one another, the group is rest assured that its existence, at least for the foreseeable future, is tenable.
The truth is that Daesh thrives on military intervention because that is precisely what it was born from. Its expansion is almost guaranteed simply because its enemies are not in unison, as each is serving agendas that are rarely concerned with ending war, but rather with seeing war as an opportunity to realize political gains.
With this logic in mind, one cannot expect the US’ “Operation Odyssey Lightning,” which officially began on Aug. 1 in Libya to achieve stabilizing results within the country.
How such “stability” could be projected if it were the US and other NATO members’ war on Libya in 2011 that has largely dismembered once a rich and relatively stable Arab country? Indeed, it was the vacuum left by subsequent conflicts that invited Daesh to Sirte and other areas. Now, the US — and other western powers, led by the French — are applying unwinnable war tactics to stave off a messy crisis they had created themselves when they waged an earlier war.
Even if Daesh is driven out of Sirte, it will find some other unstable environment elsewhere where it will spawn and wreak havoc. Sirte, in turn, will likely fall back into a state of bedlam where various militias, many of whom were armed by NATO, turn their guns against each other. Without a clear and holistic new approach to the problem, the conflicts will certainly keep multiplying.
There are few voices in US media and government that seem in some way serious about changing the perspective completely on the Bush-Obama war on terror. Sensible calls from the likes of Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president, that the root causes of terror must be addressed to end terrorism, rarely register in the halls of US government and Congress.
In January the cost of the war on Daesh, as estimated by US Defense Department data, has jumped by $2 million a day to a total of $11 million.
Expectedly, this is a great time for business for those who benefit from war. Concurrently, the cycle of war and violence is feeding on itself with no end in sight.
“Hope in aerial bombardment as the prophylactic for peace is absurd,” Vijay Prashad, professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, wrote recently about the futility of airstrike wars. “It has given us instability and chaos. Other roads have to be opened. Other paths seeded.”
I couldn’t agree more.
