A Contrary View Every issue has two sides at least. The CBC and other national news media are discussing only one side of the battle against ISIS. Here is the other side: First, even if ISIS had killed two of our soldiers this would not seem to justify our bombing ISIS in Iraq. In our law, for example, the fact that someone kills two RCMP officers does not justify bombing his/her town, camp or house. Where we are concerned, even murder does not justify sending out the air force to use high explosive bombs against those who may have encouraged or assisted in the killing. Bombs cause collateral damage to innocent civilians, killing, maiming and impoverishing them. Too bad buddy! doesnt cut it as an excuse for the killing of such innocents unless one is a racist, religious bigot or war monger. Im sure the point is obvious. You might set your moral compass by imaging that you are the parent of one of the pilots and had to face the reality that your son or daughter was going over there on a mission almost certain to involve the death of innocents, parents, children, the elderly. In the last few days two soldiers have been killed by people which the media now characterize as more or less insane. Well, bombing people in Iraq seems an exaggerated response to the problem of insanity leading to murder in Canada. Leaving aside the moral issues, it turns out that bombing of ISIS in Iraq is not a plausible way to deal with ISIS, so the practical issue needs airing as well. Experts agree that boots on the ground are going to be needed. The fighter jets we have sent do have the appeal that their pilots can kill ISIS personnel and others without risking their own lives and our rather expensive, high teck, aircraft. Its good that those who fly them are at little risk, so we are told, but if that is so then there will be no issue of heros if one of them does get shot down. Heros are people who perform acts showing courage. Finally, we have lots of evidence that neither fighter jets nor boots can defeat the kind of insurgencies boiling up in the Middle East and now spreading elsewhere. The problem is that both there and in Western countries there are thousands upon thousands of bitterly angry young men who have experienced or heard of the awful conditions of life in the Middle East and, with some justice, blame these terrible conditions on Western exploitation of their mineral wealth and labour, Western empire builders, and Western corporations. There are other causes of their wretched conditions/wars/famines/ religious strife, of course, but one can easily assign a huge part of the blame to the West, whatever the analysis. So much for critique, the question now is what we should do. My previous article contains the gist of an alternate policy, one which respects the lessons of the war in Iraq and numerous other disastrous Western military incursions in the area. The Palestine Police Force manned by the British after the Second World War is a particularly interesting and complex case. The Iran/Iraq war, George Bushs defence of Saudi Arabia against Iraq, his sons attack on Iraq, are other worthy studies, as is Israels long standing war with her neighbours. None of these wars went well for us. Each in its way has contributed to the appearance of super-terrorism in todays ISIS. Peoples in various geographic areas get to fighting and the killing soon becomes habitual and casual. The surrounding populations become impoverished, ignorant, sick and desperate. Eventually male youths, desperate, frantic and angry, turn to the only available moral compass, their religion. Thats where Islam comes in. Their religion du jour, ancient and warlike, suits the moment and is made the pariah. So the young aggressive males band together under Islams flag of convenience and ISIS is born. We are best to stay clear of the fighting, offer aid to all who are in distress, offer asylum (as we didnt to the Jews) to all women and children and the elderly, and hope that the violent young men will run out of steam as they did in our time in Ireland, in Cyprus, in Rwanda, and in so many other cases. How do we defend Canada from terrorism? Well, if it gets really bad then, as a temporary measure, we can track the movement of every person on Canadian soil so that we can quickly catch the miscreants. A loss of some freedom, and privacy, indeed, but much better than using military force where none will will work and many innocents will die. Thus armed and self-protected we can continue to develop Canada as the model of international civility.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 04:30:58 +0000
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