Fighting ISIS Round 2

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John,

I would love to put your opposition pieces to these up.  If you want to reformat them, to make them look a little cleaner (but please don't alter the content.) I would happily post them here as well.  Or I could just paste your response in here as I have it.  Nothing without your permission of course.

Here is my reply.

OK, I finally have time to sit down and try to arrange my thoughts. Let's try this.

I find it interesting that you consider me naive. Because I think that you aren't taking this problem serious enough. First, the secure areas controlled by the UN? I think that is an outstanding idea. I also think we ('Murica) can't be seen as the lead agency in this. Then it is just another imperialist, racist powerful white Christian culture oppressing a poor brown Muslim country.

Why is this important?

What does ISIS want?

They want world war three. They want apocalypse. The longer we make it easy for them to portray themselves as the heroes, the longer this fight continues in a global capacity. If we set the narrative to them being barbaric, psychotic, assholes, this can stay a regional conflict with a particularly barbarous enemy. Their tactics are so radical they will burn themselves out unless we continue to feed them new recruits. I think this is already happening. As it should. The Muslim community at large is condemning ISIS and is a short step away from actively fighting it.

Now, let's talk about those immigrants. It does all tie together. One of the main reasons I am not worried about the immigrants is because I think there are plenty of radicalized Muslim extremists already here. I think attacks are inevitible. And yes, I say this from Washington state, a place that plans on accepting refugees. I will be staying here and supporting the intake of refugees. And I think we can just go ahead and send the young males wearing bandoleers and carrying really heavy vests back. And about this wall idea. HA. Logistically speaking alone I think it is absurd. Tunnels, catapaults, demolitions, ladders, the whole wall technology has been surpassed for a few centuries now. Our country is huge. And supposing we were able to build an actual formidible wall that magically couldn't be tunneled under or climbed, what about our coastlines or airspace? I don't think there is any legitimate, feasible way to prevent a small group of highly determined people from getting into this country. We have to stop the actual group.

Again, I have no illusion that we can negotiate with ISIS. What we can do is keep them from resources, the most important being new recruits. Their casualty rate is much higher than their numbers can sustain for long. Unless we drive more recruits to them.

So, what drives a person a person to support ISIS? Well, you can just happen to be there and support them at the point of a blade. Plenty of that is happening, but we all know conscripts are not stereotypically the most loyal soldiers. You like to talk about Taqiyya, let's talk about Takfir. Their own fire will burn them out. Another possible reason is the same reason Hamas became so powerful. The government in the area was corrupt and not taking care of the people. When people are desperate, they align with those who help them. It worked for Hamas, it worked for street gangs in New York and LA, it worked for the mafia. If you don't have food and someone gives you food, you like them. Watch that Frontline about ISIS in Afghanistan. ISIS is paying around twice what the Taliban is paying and the government forces are buying their own ammunition. If we can spend the money we would spend on arms and spend it on bread, a lot of the people who might turn to ISIS or Hamas or whoever, might not feel they have to. I get it, those that are already converted aren't chaning. What we have to do is keep the rest from converting.

If ISIS manages to keep bringing in fresh recruits, it just might reach a tipping point where Muslims (and Christians...both Abrahamic religions with an apocalyptic branch.) start to believe this is a war between the religions. If you pit 1.3 billion Muslim against 2.2 billion Christians, you get a lot more dead than the Paris attacks. You probably get a lot more dead than the population of Paris. War itself is the enemy here.You aren't after a war between Islam and Christianity...are you?

When we went into Iraq to overthrow Saddam, we were told we would be greeted as liberators, it would be a short conflict and democracy would spread like wildfire. Don't pretend now that we expected a continuous presence there from that point on. It is provably untrue. Remember Mission Accomplished? Accomplished means finished. If we go in there with a heavy military hand, we prove that what ISIS is saying about us being evil oppressors is confirmed and we deliver them fresh recruits plain and simple. People remember who kills their family. For too long that has been us. We have been responsible for the death of too many middle eastern Muslims. Let the people there start their Jihad against the people who are killing them now...ISIS. Let them be the bad guy. We cannot stay out of the area, we have created too large a mess. But we should be responsible for as little death as possible and be seen as helping people. We can't keep ISIS out of the US, we can't stop the people that are currently ISIS, the only way to stop them is to let them become the bad guy to the people that would otherwise be tempted to join them. I know America is strong enough to withstand a few terrorist attacks, as horrific and terrible as they would be. I know we are compassionate enough to help the people that need help even if it is dangerous.

Now let me go reread your message and see what I missed.

No, I personally wouldn't take the refugees you mentioned, that is a pretty specious argument. Nobody is asking any family to do that. Refugees would be screened and no one family would be asked to take in 2.5 times their number. No family, I think, would be asked to take in anyone. The worst homeless shelter we have in this country is better than the trying to live in a war torn country. That's why they leave. I'm not saying we have to give them jobs, how about a little security and food. Hopefully, the idea of the American Dream is attractive enough that they would integrate and become productive members of the country. Far fetched I know, but it has actually happened. As for your suggestion that Sarah dress in a Burqa. Come on...this type of hyperbolic rhetoric damages what credible points you do make.

A nuclear Iran is a grave danger, I don't recall ever suggesting they weren't serious in acquiring and using nuclear weapons.

I looked up thighing, like you wanted me to and...well that's weird. Of course, Muslims have not cornered the market on bizarre sexual practices. Especially if you are a religious fundamentalist. If you live Mormonism or Christianity by the letter of the founding documents, you would be just as ostracized. It isn't about the religion, it is about an area of the world where people have been kept down so long that their specific version of their culture hasn't been allowed to evolve into something more peaceful. Let's help change that.