President Obama’s airstrikes in Iraq—unauthorized by Congress—have already triggered utterly predictable blowback. This time, it’s in the form of ISIS’s savage, videotaped beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley and the threatened murder of another U.S. journalist held hostage, Steven Sotloff, unless the U.S. ceases its bombing campaign. Both journalists were abducted in Syria, where Islamic militants have been armed and trained with indirect U.S. support—mainly through allies in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf monarchies and Turkey. As long as ISIS, al-Nusra, and other jihadi groups were focused on attacking Shia and Alawi populations in Syria, the United States allowed their proliferation. ISIS’s expansion in Iraq is just the latest unanticipated consequence of Bush’s 2003 invasion, which was endorsed by Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Joe Biden. As the New York Times reported, ISIS’s leader became radicalized after spending five years in a U.S. detention facility, and Bush’s war removed for ISIS the impediment of Saddam Hussein while serving as the group’s “ready-made enemy and recruiting draw” (j.mp/1oPW1Vt). The most frighteningly pertinent aspect of these developments, to me, can be found in the British accent of the ISIS executioner in the video. As another NYT report found, “As many as 3,000 Westerners are believed to have gone to Syria to fight,” with 70 from the United States. One of the jihadis from the U.S. who “had gone back and forth to Syria several times without being stopped” suggested that “Western governments could indeed have cause to be worried that the foreign jihadis in Syria might someday return home to carry out attacks” (j.mp/1rWnX7j). When Obama carried out airstrikes on ISIS with Congress on recess, in violation of the War Powers Resolution (j.mp/1uUY3pA), he was increasing the probability that ISIS—“a movement a hundred times bigger and much better organised than the al-Qaida of Osama bin Laden” according to Patrick Cockburn (j.mp/VEi8Bg)—would respond with terrorist attacks within the United States, using its cadre of militants with Western passports. One can only hope this doesn’t happen, especially given that another attack would empower the most reactionary political elements in our society and set us back another decade or two.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 14:59:21 +0000
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