The defeat of ISIS In Mosul

The fall of Mosul feels good but could mean nothing long term. 

Those who grew up on the original trilogy of Star Wars movies will remember Obi Wan Kenobi fighting Darth Vader in the first movie. Kenobi threatens: "You can't win Darth, if you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." I had no idea what he was talking about during that scene, and through the trilogy Obi Wan pops up a few more times as a ghost to help Luke out.It would make more sense for the Islamic State to make such a statement.  It is rather unique for a terrorist organization to hold territory the way a state actor might. But at one time the territory of the Islamic State, or ISIS or ISIL, stretched across Syria and Iraq. A fairly well defined area. They even began operating like an actual totalitarian state, collecting taxes, and imposing laws. 

Driving these forces out of Mosul feels good. It means that the countries in which the Islamic State resided have fought back and are re-securing their territory. As a result, forces backed by the United States have reinstated order. However, as the New York Times pointed out yesterday, ISIS is still able to inspire global attacks. 

Even in the retaking of the city there is the same caveat that sleeper cells very much exist, and will cause problems down the road. 

ISIS had physical territory, but their real power was that they existed online. The reach of social media puts all kinds of ideas in people's minds, and the Islamic State has shown an incredible aptitude for recruiting. They target those most vulnerable to coercion by supplying much sought after affirmations and inclusion on those platforms. This tactic is how the group has established its foot hold in many western countries. The strategy is hard to track and almost impossible to stop.

For as long as the Islamic State has an internet connection, they remain a danger. They don't need Mosul, they don't need territory because they could be reaching in to your next door neighbor's house, or your kid's pocket. We can't fight this with guns alone. 

After World War II the United States government gave money to European countries to ensure they would remain Democracies, remain allies, and remain middle class. The countries that received money used it to rebuild after being ravaged by years of war. They ensured that their populations would have educations and futures worth looking forward to. 

Europe had been at war for a matter of years, arguably the last time peace has actually come to the Middle East could be measured in millenia. If the United States invested in the populations of the Middle East then we could begin to build those same bonds we enjoy in Europe today. This is adhering to Thomas Friedman's "Golden Arches Theory." Capitalist, middle class countries don't fight each other. People with jobs don't give in to extremism. If we create more middle classes, then we can trade, and trade in this context is the fuel of peace and prosperity.

We won't shoot our way to peace.  Now that Mosul has been recaptured, we should help them rebuild. Let's invest in businesses and industry in the new Iraq. To turn a phrase, if we employ them over there, we won't have to fight them over here. 

This Fourth of July

On this Fourth of July I intend to set off fireworks and drink beer. Like so many of my countrymen, that will be my outward celebration. Within my heart however, I intend to have a moment or more of solemnity.

This is a momentous day in the history of our country. The day during which we dissolved bonds with our mother country and struck out on our own, bonds which have been so hard to dissolve we remain in a “special relationship” with that colonial power today. So many have waxed poetic about it through our history; I will not try to top them. I will however, comment on how the American experiment at peoples governance was a revolution, not just against a colonial power but in ideals set forth by our Declaration thereof that are so aspirational we sometimes struggle to comprehend.

It is with this in mind that I will take pause. Remembering that the American Revolution should never end, should never stop seeking out those goals Thomas Jefferson laid out. We are closer now than we have ever been to living the truth that all men are created equal, and women too, for that matter. 

I implore you to listen to the words of Fredrick Douglass, as read by James Earl Jones, on his feelings regarding the Fourth of July. Take a moment to think for whom the American Dream has not yet been realized. Douglass' speech is from 1852, but it can still resonate today. We are not the same country as we were then, we have notably different laws, but have our hearts fully been changed? Perhaps not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tTkHJWxfP0 Douglass expressed his confusion at being asked to speak noting: “These blessing in which you this day rejoice are … shared by you not by me.” Equality was not shared by all our citizens even though our foundational documents promise that all shall be treated equal before the law.

My reflection on his powerful statements leads me to his contemporary, and sometimes friend, Susan B. Anthony. She, along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton proclaimed on the centennial of the Declaration, their own, for women. Writing:

"It was the boast of the founders of the republic, that the rights for which they contended, were the rights of human nature. If these rights are ignored in the case of one half the people, the nation is surely preparing for its own downfall. Governments try themselves. The recognition of a governing and a governed class is incompatible with the first principles of freedom. Woman has not been a heedless spectator of the events of this century, nor a dull listener to the grand arguments for the equal rights of humanity. From the earliest history of our country, woman has shown equal devotion with man to the cause of freedom, and has stood firmly by his side in its defence. Together, they have made this country what it is. Woman's wealth, thought and labor have cemented the stones of every monument man has reared to liberty."

This declaration, a century after Jefferson’s, notes our national failure to embody all of the principles of justice and equality. Before the law, at the very least, we have elevated all to a single class of citizenship. We still exist in a world where rampant inequality reigns. We are not the mobile society which we claim to want, we are not without our original prejudices. We can do better. I will set off fireworks to celebrate how far we have come, I will bum people out with this discussion to remind them of how far we need to go.

The War for Revolution is long past, the ideals set forth to fight it will forever need defending, though. The founding fathers concluded by pledging to one another to support their Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen States with their Lives, Fortunes and sacred Honor. We should do the same.