How to defeat ISIS? First, don't fall into the 9/11 trap

Maybe you saw Obama-Hollande's joint speech today about ISIS?

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/24/457224374/trying-to-build-robust-coalition-against-isis-hollande-arrives-in-washington

I think a recent poll showed that like 23% of Americans approve of how Obama has been handling ISIS so far. But his "don't do stupid shit" (aka don't make things worse) strategy takes a while to bear fruit, and most Americans lack the patience/long view to appreciate that. I think that's preferable to the alternative (the Bush way), and most in the media/politics never consider the lives and treasure saved (and diplomatic crises avoided) by Obama not engaging in a knee-jerk aggressive action. The French are all on board for whatever forceful response Hollande has in the works (they've already flown like 800 sorties against ISIS since 11/13), because like the US after 9/11, I guess people need the catharsis of knowing that you've swiftly hit back at the enemies who just surprised and hurt you.

Kerry seems optimistic that a "ceasefire" can be reached between the Assad gov't and the "moderate" resistance groups, if global powers can apply pressure on the Syrian players that they influence. NATO is reaching out to Russia to help, but I don't think Iran is at the table. If an agreement can be forged, then all parties can "unite" to take down ISIS. While that would be superior to the status quo, and would probably somewhat reduce suffering and the refugee crisis in the region, beating ISIS militarily is not the endgame. New ISIS'es will spring up even after we're all dead. It's just a matter of when/where the conditions are right for them to rise up (and it's in no short supply: corrupt gov'ts, wealth inequality, uneducated Muslim populace, marginalized Muslim immigrants, Islamophobia, provocative/aggressive Western foreign policies, etc.).

How about we consider other ways to beat ISIS? Whether or not it's true, there was an idea circulating that Osama wanted to use 9/11 to draw the US into a protracted Crusader-vs-Jihadist ground conflict in the Middle East that would serve as a great recruiting beacon and a means of sapping US power/influence in the region. Regardless of his grand plans, that is what happened anyway. Leaders like Bush and Blair fell into the trap - well "fell" sounds like an accident, they more like proudly leapt into the trap.

Terrorists can't beat conventional forces/gov'ts straight up - that's why they're terrorists. They win by provocation and propaganda: magnifying their influence/impact/perception from the victims' response to isolated terror attacks. Even 100 coordinated 9/11s would not bring down the US regime. It would be painful, but we would eventually recover. What Al Qaeda did on 9/11 had a huge multiplier effect for them. It triggered an increased dislike of Muslims by many Western peoples, which marginalized Muslim immigrants and drove thousands of them to militancy (more in Europe and Asia than the Americas). It triggered the US/NATO to invade or increase military presence in several Muslim nations, which upset the local populace and gave Jihadists the opportunity to launch thousands of new attacks on Crusader targets. We tortured and brutally killed thousands of Muslims (many innocent) - which was a gift-wrapped Xmas present to Osama.

So one historic terror attack (9/11) spawned thousands of other terror events, trillions of Western dollars wasted, and thousands of Westerners dead (and the creation of new terror groups like ISIS). Talk about ROI for Osama. Yes, Al Qaeda was decimated in the process, but that is compatible with their nihilist-martyr worldview, and their ranks will be replenished as long as the prevailing Crusader-Jihadist entrenched global hostility remains. It's now harder to execute new attacks against the US, but there are no shortage of Western soft targets to go after in less secure parts of the world like Africa and Turkey.

A successful terror movement depends on the terrorized power to freak out, overreact, and shoot themselves in the foot. We should learn from last decade and not grant ISIS the same benefit. ISIS wants us to be meaner to Muslims living in the West (pushing them away from our values and closer to ISIS types), to block the escape of moderate Muslims and desperate refugees from the Mideast, and of course to put vulnerable Crusader boots on the ground that they can launch new attacks against. Basically, ISIS loves the GOP agenda in response to the 11/13 attacks. This is when we need to think with our brains and not our balls (or our panic/fears). Yes, inaction is frustrating as ISIS gloats, but a short-term pain is worth a long-term victory - especially when you consider the alternative that I've just described.

The rich and poor of environmental wars

http://www.npr.org/2015/11/04/452555878/deep-in-the-amazon-an-unseen-battle-over-the-most-valuable-trees

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/06/140627-congo-virunga-wildlife-rangers-elephants-rhinos-poaching/

Despite more awareness of climate change and wildlife conservation this decade, rainforests and elephants are being destroyed at higher rates recently (maybe you also heard about the Indonesian peat fire that has blanketed SE Asia in smog, driven by deforestation to make room for corporate palm oil plantations).

But unlike pollution, habitat/species destruction may not be reversible. By some estimates, elephants will be gone in the wild in a few decades, at present hunting rates. Recent laws have slowed Brazilian deforestation, but globally we are still losing ~100K acres/day (mostly in Bra., Indo., and Africa).

When I was a teen, I knew species like elephants and forests like the Amazon were under threat, but I never imagined that they could totally disappear in my lifetime. The Amazon is so large and remote that it won't be totally wiped out, but we might lose enough to tip the climate change scales past the point of no return (deforestation is responsible for ~15% of total greenhouse gases due to burning/rotting, and disappeared forests can no longer absorb CO2). It's really scary.

So what is going on at the ground level? As you would expect, it's poor desperate people pitted against each other. In Brazil, indigenous forest communities tap rubber plants sustainably for their meager livelihoods. But others are paid by illegal logging operations to cut those trees down (mostly for export to the US). The Bra. gov't doesn't have the resources/interest to patrol the huge swaths of forest. So the "defenders of the forest" take up outdated arms to keep the loggers at bay and protect their way of life, but more of them keep coming and the trees are cut down much faster than replacement saplings can mature.

On the other side, economically marginalized Brazilians with few skills/prospects feel like they have no choice but work for illegal loggers to feed their families. They know it's wrong, but what choice do they have in that situation? When it comes to stealing vs. letting your baby starve, and the corrupt/uncaring gov't offers no solutions, what choice do they have?

Similarly in Africa, poorly paid/trained/equipped rangers are fighting a losing battle to protect elephants 24-7 (a daunting bodyguarding task) from the multiplying bands of poachers (who are getting more and more sophisticated). But these poachers are not getting rich either; they might fetch $100/kg from ivory smugglers, but the end product sells for ~$2K in China. They're just the foot soldiers fighting and dying over a luxury product that they will never use (same applies to rainforest hardwood, or some narcotics for that matter). $100/kg is relatively lucrative for the poachers, but the benefits wane when you consider the physical and legal risks they take. Again, they have very little education and other viable economic options, and live under gov'ts that are not able to lift much of the populace out of poverty.

We might pay more attention to the front-line fights because those are visceral and Hollywood-esque, but of course the root causes are less exciting and the economic perpetrators are not held accountable. I do not know the trade laws regarding rainforest timber, but Western importers should perform the due diligence to find out where the wood came from (like with blood diamonds), and boycott shadier sources. Builders/consumers should also scrutinize suppliers and call out/shame those who can't verify the sustainability/legitimacy of their sources. But likely illegal sellers offer lower prices, so foreign importers can pocket more profit if they pass it off as above-board. No one asks questions, and all we care about is the beautiful hardwood adorning our McMansions. Maybe gov'ts and trade orgs should demand that nations like Brazil curb illegal logging and make socioeconomic reforms, or face tariffs/sanctions (or even provide aid/counsel to help them reform). But the huge sums of money made by the powerful players on all sides of the trade is too important to let some trees and poor people get in the way.

Elephants are a protected species and ivory is illegal in many nations, but those laws are not well enforced in major consumption markets like China/Thailand. The US is an advanced nation, yet we are still a top importer too, so I guess we are not really in a position to criticize. Where is the education and stiff punishments for ivory smugglers/buyers to help dry up demand? Where is the global shaming/penalties on consumer markets and source countries? Int'l orgs and other bodies can influence African nations like Kenya to do more about elephant hunting. But even if they do, Asian buyers will just pay higher prices and enable poachers to defeat enhanced protections. We have to attack the demand, but then again no one wants to anger China because they are so economically important now. 

The saddest part is that ivory and rainforest hardwood are frivolous products without much intrinsic value. Some fish are being driven to extinction too, but at least you could make the argument that it's for food (even if fish are mostly being consumed by the rich who have more sustainable protein alternatives). There are cheaper and environmentally-friendly alternatives to wood and ivory too, but the problem is that some buyers desire those status products specifically because of their rare/exclusive/controversial status (more so for ivory). "Look how rich/powerful I am; I can put ivory all over my home with impunity." I know greed and selfishness will always be a part of the human condition, but some societies do a better job of teaching better values to its people. That is the best enforcement because you don't even need the legal system - people will "self police" because they don't value those illegal items to begin with, so it's a moot point. Sweden and Canada are rich nations, but I'm pretty sure ivory is not a problem there.

Western reactions to the ISIS Paris attacks

And so we have to, each of us, do our part [for the refugee crisis]. And the United States has to step up and do its part. And when I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims; when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefitted from protection when they were fleeing political persecution -- that’s shameful. That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion. 


-President Obama


https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/16/press-conference-president-obama-antalya-turkey


http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/congress-fights-over-refugees-isis-strategy/


The predictable right wing knee-jerk reaction to the Paris attacks is still upsetting. Increase gov't surveillance powers, shut down mosques, close Schengen borders, block Muslims and/or Syrians from getting refugee status. And then there's all the discussion about how to crush ISIS.


Let's remember that MOST of the attackers from 11/13 were already on European security watch lists, because they went to the Middle East (allegedly to fight for ISIS) and then returned to Europe. That should have been a red flag, like "Bin Laden determined to strike the US." But like with 9/11, info was not shared effectively across nations and agencies. So while we do have to blame the attackers, we also shouldn't forget that the security infrastructure that was supposed to protect the French seemed to fail. They don't need extra powers and fewer Muslims, they just need to better monitor the high-risk persons that have already been flagged by normal methods.


Even "liberal" Senator Feinstein and others have called for tech companies to give the gov't backdoor keys into their encrypted systems. I thought Snowden convinced us that such access will not make us safer - many false positives and civil rights violation risks, and no evidence that attacks were prevented. Also, if the gov't warehouses backdoors into all major web services, then that is a huge gold mine for hackers to focus on (and the gov't doesn't have a great track record of preventing thefts). If we need a police-security state in order to be/feel "safe", then maybe we have to question whether this is the right society to live in.


But the worst reaction relates to the demonizing of refugees, IMO. Just because one major attack occurred directly from the Syrian and Iraq conflicts (which have gone on for over 10 years combined), now all of a sudden the refugees are the problem? The US has settled about 2K Syrian refugees in total. Even if they were all bad apples and killed 10 Americans each, that would still be less that the yearly pre-existing gun violence in America (or auto deaths). Where is the furor and urgency over the gun and car makers (and their lax regulators) - the real mass murderers?


So after one Paris attack (assuming other major attacks are not imminent or fairly mature in their planning), now the refugees are public enemy #1? But that is the bogeyman politics of xenophobia and intolerance. And let's remember that while the casualties in Paris were horrific, that number of people die at the hands of ISIS about every day in Iraq-Syria. Yet our outrage and hysteria are more muted (or nonexistent) when it's Mideast towns getting bombed and Muslims getting senselessly murdered.


Lastly, ISIS attacked Russian and French targets partly because those nations attacked them first. I'm fairly sure that Russian and NATO air strikes killed some ISIS "innocents" who were not combatants too (maybe the families of ISIS fighters, locals who unfortunately live in ISIS territory, or whatnot). ISIS is not attacking Burma or Chile. While we can't let them intimidate us into isolationism and denial of their threat, we have to acknowledge that if we choose to wage war on them, they will not appreciate that and try to hurt us back. If our societies don't want to pay that price, then we shouldn't get involved. Or do we expect that just because we're the "good guys" that we should be able to easily wipe our our enemies abroad and not incur any pains in the process?


Maybe since the Iranian Revolution, this "clash of civilizations" between "Jihadists and Crusaders" feels more and more like an irrational blood feud than a traditional strategic geopolitical conflict. As as we know from history, blood feuds are messier, protracted, and with more senseless losses on both sides.

"Why would ISIS attack Paris?"

http://www.vox.com/world/2015/11/14/9735512/paris-attacks-isis-why

Obviously the events in Paris are sickening, and our thoughts are with those affected.

If you happened to read this thread from Feb (wow, time flies and I think most Western leaders believed ISIS would be finished by now), G Woods felt that ISIS was not that concerned with attacking the West vs. solidifying their caliphate in the Mideast and carrying out their apocalyptic vision. However, recent events may have motivated ISIS to change their tune, or Woods was wrong from the start.

One factor could be ISIS' "competition" with Al-Qaeda for recruiting and waging violence against "the enemies of Islam". While many have come to Iraq/Syria for the allure of joining ISIS ranks and fighting enemies on Muslim lands, maybe it is a sexier recruiting tool if ISIS brazenly attacks the homelands of its enemies or other soft targets - to a lot of media coverage (they are recently implicated in the Russia plane bombing and suicide attacks in Lebanon). While their focus is still fighting enemies in Iraq and Syria, it seems plausible that they would allocate some attn/resources towards overseas plots.

Which leads to the second point - maybe ISIS has found that "victory" in Iraq-Syria is not within its grasp, and it's getting harder and harder to hold onto land and withstand constant coalition air attacks (especially with Russia now directly supporting Assad, although it has not targeted ISIS much if at all until the Egypt bombing). But now that ISIS has supposedly maddened the bear, they might be in for a tough slog with NATO and Russian air forces gunning for them. They are believed to desire a face-to-face showdown with Crusaders on their home turf (like the Mujahadeen/Taliban in Afghanistan), but it's possible that they bit off more than they can chew. Though as we already know from several past wars, bombing alone won't defeat a foreign army (but it might bring them to the bargaining table, as in the case of Serbia), and I doubt that we will see boots on the ground even after the Paris attack. Even if we do successfully invade a-la-9/11, it may not "defeat" ISIS. Their key members will melt into the populace, just like the Ba'athists and AQI leaders did last decade. We will eventually leave, the gov't we put in place will be a mess, and an ISIS-type movement will rise up again in the chaos. "Defeating ISIS" is just a GOP campaign slogan at this point, though of course I hope I am wrong.

The most tragic part of this is that one of the Paris attackers seems to have had a Syrian passport that was stamped in Greece as part of refugee asylum. Yes, there were concerns earlier that terrorists were infiltrating the West as refugees. But one known example out of millions of deserving refugees does not make the security junkies right. The majority of the 9/11 attackers were Saudis, but we didn't do anything to that country. We made immigration/visas tougher, and maybe that is a valid thing to do with Syrians now, but we didn't close our doors to them 100%. I hope we remember it is possible to be humane and give help to refugees, while also maintaining tight security re: who we grant asylum and how they are monitored once accepted.

Sure, conservative leaders on both sides of the pond are predictably "blaming" the EU's open door policy (it is hardly that), or the refugees themselves, for the Paris attacks, but they're missing the bigger point. ISIS wants Europe to close its doors, so that the masses have nowhere to flee to. It makes ISIS stronger and scarier - is that what we want to enable? I'm not saying we should accept our current policies and feel that everything is fine (e.g. better internal monitoring of at least fighting age male refugees is needed), but we shouldn't play into ISIS' hand either. Remember that 99.99% of the refugees hate ISIS and are fleeing from them. Do we want to cut them off, and force them into potentially serving or supporting ISIS against their will at home? Do we want to risk their families getting radicalized and recruited because they were unable to flee?