Iraq Vet: We Created ISIS—Now We Need a Plan to Defeat It
November 18, 2015
Alexander Lemons is a former Marine Scout Sniper and Staff Sergeant who deployed to Iraq three times.
Containment is our least bad option
Armchair generals, presidential candidates, military generals and our foreign policy officials are out in force in the wake of the Paris attacks offering angry responses. It’s difficult to watch the cacophony. I learned too much while fighting in Iraq over three tours not to offer a plea: Have we learned nothing in the last 14 years? Virtually all of the rhetoric from Main Street to Washington is to double down on a failed strategy.
The civilians killed in Paris seem to be pawn sacrifices in ISIS’ greater game to impact foreign policy and civil government. We have seen this strategy before in the ideas of Osama Bin Laden—conduct a devastating attack with the goal of eliciting a thoughtless military response that gets Western nations bogged down in a country where they are universally distrusted no matter how good their intentions are. Once embroiled there, the insurgency wears down the multinational force by proving that no matter how many insurgents you kill, their ideas or political objectives live on.
At the same time, the Western governments crack down on civil liberties while expanding the surveillance state and alienating sections of the population that look like potential terrorists. This harassment of our own Muslim populations only makes for radicalization.
ISIS is our monster. Our government picked the winners in Iraq, and our push for the 2005 national elections hastened the civil war from which ISIS grew.
http://time.com/4117585/paris-attacks-isis-war/
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