We Have Met the Existential Threat, and It Is Us

[Akira Watts]

(Haven't been too active here - most of my online activity is via my phone, and DU isn't super mobile friendly. That said, here's my latest piece from BuzzFlash/TruthOut, and it isn't bad. )

Let me make a bold prediction. ISIS will never invade the United States. We will never have a Red Dawn moment, when jihadist troops parachute into sleepy, Midwestern towns. The Wolverines, alas, will never be called out of retirement. Not everyone seems to see it that way, as might be gathered from the fact that we are now bombing multiple countries, in the belief that an insurgency can be neutralized by purely military means. The circle of violence widens, as Israel has decided to get in on the fun, by shooting down a Syrian jet. Oh, and the bombing doesn’t really seem to be working.

Better writers than I have argued that bombs alone are not going to bring about an end to the situation in Iraq and Syria, so I will leave that argument aside, beyond noting that it would be neat if it could receive more than passing acknowledgement from our bold and fearless leaders. Instead, let’s talk about ISIS. As is standard in beginning such a discussion, insert the obligatory disclaimer about them being Very Bad People. They are to Islam what the Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity, were the WBC given military grade weapons. Very Bad People, yes?

You know who else is very bad? Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Myanmar was run by very bad people until they became a kind-of sort-of democracy and now we like them. Iran is very bad except in those cases in which we need their help and support and then we’re totally cool and high-fives all around. Bashar al-Assad is a very bad person and we’re definitely not on his side except we sort of need to bomb a few of those very bad people who are rebelling against his very bad government.

There’s a whole lot of very bad people out there, is what I’m getting at.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want this to turn into an isolationist argument, claiming that since there are so many bad people and states out there we really shouldn’t do anything at all. I may have a marked preference for non-military solutions to international issues, but total inaction is not my default setting. My question is, of all the bad people out there, why ISIS? Ah yes, they’re an existential threat.

“Existential threat.” Roll those words around on your tongue for a bit. Sure does sound well, you know, threatening. Problem is, once you realize, as few who utter the phrase apparently have, that words mean things, it all starts to fall apart. Existential threat. A threat to our existence. Our very existence is being threatened because ISIS is going to literally destroy the United States of America.

Right.

Refer back to my opening line.

There is, of course, no small irony in that the rise of ISIS was enabled by a series of blunders from our government. From the punch-yourself-in-the-face idiocy of disbanding the Iraqi Army, way back in 2003, all the way up to our current administration’s continued support of Nouri al-Maliki, whose treatment of Iraq’s Sunni minority gave ISIS fertile ground for rapid expansion, our fingerprints are all over this mess. We spawned what we now blithely declare to be a threat to our very existence.

<snip>

There’s an old H. P. Lovecraft story, “The Outsider,” which rocked my world when I was ten. It relies on pretty simple twist, but packs a bit of a punch. If you haven’t read it, take a look, since I’m about to spoil it. The gist is, a guy grows up, alone, in an empty castle. Eventually, tiring of his life, he escapes and wanders into a house where a crowd of people are having a dinner party. To his dismay, his appearance is met with screams and panic. Then he turns and, in a doorway sees a horrifying, decayed, parody of a man. Trying to flee, he inadvertently stumbles toward the thing and one outstretched hand brushes its fingers. The kicker, of course, is that he touches not fingers, but the polished glass surface of a mirror. He is the monster from which all have fled.

I would suggest, when we start raving about threats to our very existence, that it might do us good to take a long look in the mirror and see what stares back at us.

We have met the existential threat, and it is us.

Full piece here:

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/we-have-met-the-existential-threat-and-it-is-us

[JEB]

1. K&R

[snooper2]

2. traffic to truth-out getting slow?

You guys need to start doing video pieces like VICE-

print is SOOOOO 20th century LOL, Your YouTube channel hasn't seen any activity for over a year- jeez



https://www.youtube.com/user/truthout

[OneGrassRoot]

5. Serious question:

For outlets that can't afford VICE-like productions for videos, what do you recommend?

If video is the preferred outlet rather than print, and if one can't do a production news video, do you think there is interest in articles simply being narrated -- with applicable graphics?

And how does that differ from podcasts...lol...other than the obvious visual aspect, however limited it may be?

I am curious how people are shifting in the ways in which they consume content.

Thanks.

[snooper2]

6. There are millions of people producing content on YouTube, just need a couple hundred for decent cam

And yes, I follow some YouTubers who just narrate, The Young Turks have been pretty successful. That operation can't be too expensive to run

[OneGrassRoot]

7. TYT...that's true.

For many stories smaller outfits can't physically get to the places to interview people or cover the hyperlinks they include in the article, so I see it as two separate types of journalism, I suppose.

One is investigative journalism (like VICE) and the other more traditional journalism, researching facts and presenting them via a more editorial mode.

Thanks.

[msanthrope]

9. Indeed. One could have merely posted the whole piece here, but needs must, right? nt

[Akira Watts]

12. YouTube

Can't speak for anyone else, but my speaking voice is less than impressive. I come off far better in print, as you can imagine my words spoken in the mellifluous tones of a Peter Dinklage.

[seveneyes]

3. existential photo

[cali]

4. I wish people would stop making the comparison to Westboro

I realize that doing so is an attempt to stay away from demonizing Islam and I'm all for that, but ISIS and fundamentalist Islam is an actual force within Islam itself. much more akin to regular old fundamentalist Christianity than to Westboro.

One thing I wish people would address, is all the freakin' money spent on homeland security over the past 13 years. This isn't pre-9/11. The threats purportedly posed by such groups as ISIS should be mitigated by the security put in place.

The other thing I'd like to see discussed is the possibility that ISIS' growth is self-limiting; it has very little support. It's kind of like a virus that isn't well adapted to survive.

You say the existential threat to us is.. us. I agree, but as that was your title, it would have been helpful if you had actually gone into what you believe constitutes that threat.

I wrote this this morning:

We don't want to believe that our greatest threat is internal
I suppose that's just human nature, and it's much more complex, involves more complex analysis, presents less straightforward "solutions".

I'm not saying that ISIS isn't a threat, though I see its threat directly to the U.S. as not being a huge one. I'm not even convinced that the threat is that great to the middle east. I think, and yes of course I could be wrong, that ISIS' growth is self-limiting. But we have clear visuals of what ISIS is and does. We don't have those clear visuals about other threats, be they disease, corporate control, climate change, right wing ideology right here at home. We don't have images of helpless men on their knees awaiting a dreadful death, stuck in our minds, from those other threats.

ISIS arose out of our military and political interventions in the middle east and those interventions were about oil and the money to be made as much as anything else. Are we just going in frenzied circles when we use military force, and fueling radical groups when we keep doing the same thing again and again?

I see ISIS as a distraction as much or more than a threat, and our reaction to ISIS as a potent threat in and of itself. Want to bet that military sequestration cuts are reversed? that the military budget gets a big boost from this? How about the odds that our projected years long war with ISIS/other groups, results in budget cuts for social welfare spending and infrastructure and bolsters the privatization movement?

What is the threat to us from being on a perpetual war footing? What is the threat to our civil liberties from believing that we are constantly under the threat of evil hordes? What more are we willing to give up in order to be safe? And what about the billions and billions spent protecting the "homeland" over the past 13 years or so?

I don't know. I don't have any answers, just unsettling questions.

[J_J_]

8. "I see ISIS as a distraction" Wasn't Israel just bombing the crap out of Gaza?

That was looking pretty ugly, Israel losing all credibilty and support committing war crimes/collective punishment against the Palestinians...

So Instead of taking any more heat on that, the US will commit war crimes and collective punishment against other innocent people.

Outrage redirected, and yet we are still doing what Israel has been requesting all along by attacking Syria.

[Akira Watts]

11. Unsettling, yes

Don't really have any answers to your questions myself, but moving back to a perpetual war footing doesn't exactly seem implausible at this point. And that, getting back to my initial point, is unlikely to play out well. The history of our intervention in the region is unpleasant and, barring some sort of remarkable breakthrough, escalation is a distinct possibility. And that, I submit, will lead to blowback that is more of a that to us than ISIS ever was our will be. Which will, I imagine, be used to justify further escapades.

[J_J_]

10. MLK "The Greatest Purveryor of Violence in the World Today, My Own Government"

They think we are idiots!

They think we will believe anything they tell us and do what we are told.

Are we so battered and abused that we can no longer stand up for ourselves?




Call me shocked. Counterterrorism Experts claim ISIS threat "distorted" and "a farce"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025520587