Thanks to a say-anything media, hawkish politicians and an Orwellian administration, a war-weary public is terrified. Are there any red lines anymore or just launch buttons? According to previews of Obamas Wednesday speech, the very airstrikes the public has been scared into supporting will reportedly expand fast not only in Iraq but into Syria. Photograph: Bixentro / Flickr via Creative Commons Did you know that the US governments counterterrorism chief Matthew Olson said last week that theres no theres no credible information that the Islamic State (Isis) is planning an attack on America and that theres no indication at this point of a cell of foreign fighters operating in the United States? Or that, as the Associated Press reported, The FBI and Homeland Security Department say there are no specific or credible terror threats to the US homeland from the Islamic State militant group?
Probably not, because as the nation barrels towards yet another war in the Middle East and President Obama prepares to address that nation on the offensive phase of his military plan Wednesday night, mainstream media pundits and the usual uber-hawk politicians are busy trying to out-hyperbole each other over the threat Isis poses to Americans. In the process, theyre all but ignoring any evidence to the contrary and the potential hole of blood and treasure into which theyre ready to drive this country all over again.
Facts or consequences have never gotten in the way of Congress lust for war before this political body was, after all, George W Bushs chief enabler in Iraq the last time around and this time its no different. Sen James Inhofe (R-OK) recently said Isis militants are rapidly developing a method of blowing up a major US city and people just cant believe thats happening. (Maybe because theres no proof that they are?) Sen Bill Nelson (D-FL) said, It ought to be pretty clear when they
say theyre going to fly the black flag of ISIS over the White House that Isis is a clear and present danger. (Again, who cares if theyre not?)
The White House declared on Tuesday night that it neednt bother to ask Congress for war powers, and Congress is more than happy to relieve itself of the responsibility of asking for them or, you know, voting. Members of both parties have actually been telling the president to ignore the legislative branch entirely as well as his constitutional and legal requirements. It seems so long ago now that presidential candidate Obama said, The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
What if it comes over and you cant pass it? asked Sen Lindsay Graham, as though he wouldnt want democracy getting in the way of a nice war. The aforementioned Sen Nelson said he thinks the president should go ahead and strike Isis all he wants, but added that there are some legal scholars who think otherwise, so lets just put it to rest. Those pesky legal scholars with their laws and that Constitution of theirs, always slowing things down.
Meanwhile, the media has been busy arguing whether Obama is talking tough enough, how closely Isis resembles the Nazis, and how much military strength the US is going to unleash to destroy Isis never pausing to question whether thats prudent or even possible (or maybe that its exactly what Isis wants).
How many people wake up and ask themselves, I wonder what Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger think about Isis? Outside of a few TV bookers, absolutely no one does but with war on the horizon, the nations most awful surviving warmongers get to go back on the television circuit and address members of Congress, explaining that, if we just drop a few more bombs, itll actually work this time! (Unlike all the other times.)
Thanks to this wall-to-wall fear mongering, a once war-weary public is now terrified. More than 60% of the public in a recent CNN poll now supports airstrikes against Isis. Two more polls came out on Tuesday, one from the Washington Post and the other from NBC New and the Wall Street Journal, essentially concluding the same thing. Most shocking, 71% think that Isis has terrorist sleeper cells in the United States, against all evidence to the contrary.
So where to from here? Well, those airstrikes the public have been scared into supporting, which already numbering the hundreds, will reportedly expand fast not only in Iraq but into Syri. The White House even has shiny new euphemism for such military attacks, as the Wall Street Journal reported: Mr. Obama could green-light the new sovereignty strikes in his address on Wednesday. George Orwell would be proud.
And the president is said to favor a multi-pronged approach that also relies on our partners like the repressive Saudi Arabia to train and arm the moderate Syrian resistance army that is fighting both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Isis in Syria. (Yes, thats the same Saudi Arabia which, as the Daily Beasts Josh Rogin reported, have been accused of funding and supporting Isis, and the same Saudi Arabia that beheaded 19 people in just the first half of August, including eight for non-violent offenses.)
Its also strange that we are unquestionably calling the Free Syrian Army (FSA) the moderate opposition and putting our faith in their abilities, despite many actual experts claiming theyre far from moderate and far from a cohesive army. As George Washington Universitys Marc Lynch wrote in the Washington Post recently, The FSA was always more fiction than reality, with a structure on paper masking the reality of highly localized and fragmented fighting groups on the ground. The New York Times reported two weeks ago that FSA has a penchant for beheading its enemy captives as well, and now the family of Steven Sotloff, the courageous journalist who was barbarically beheaded by Isis, says that someone from the moderate opposition sold their son to Isis before he was killed.
The only red line when it comes to Isis, or at least the red line claimed by Secretary of State John Kerry, seems to be no ground troops. Of course, there are already ground troops in Iraq, fighting alongside the Kurds we just call them advisors, which is another innocuous euphemism for special forces. And as Glenn Greenwald writes, its inevitabley only a matter of time until there will be a clamoring from the chattering class for that, too.
So how, exactly, will the administration accomplish destroying Isis, when no amount of bombs and soldiers have been able to destroy al-Qaida or the Taliban in nearly 13 years of fighting? The administration openly admits it has no idea how long it will take, only that it wont be quick. It may take a year, it may take two years, it may take three years, John Kerry said.
He didnt add, it might take another 13, but he might as well have.