Chasing the Gingerbread Man: The GOP, ISIS and National (In)security
In the spirit of full disclosure, I
should say that I come to the discussion about terrorism as one who
realizes that the world society is a sinking ship that has hit the
icebergs of capitalism and political ignorance with all of its
occupants now fighting their way to the uppermost deck and many
getting thrown overboard into the freezing waters below. My homeless
advocacy is more about teaching people what led to this titanic
catastrophe than it is about averting disaster at this point.
It was a warm June day in Washington,
DC as I stood in the hospital room of homeless advocate Michael
Stoops and watched the news about Donald Trump's 2016 presidential
bid. Though he wields much influence in my birthplace of Atlantic
City (another sinking ship), I've never cared for his show “The
Apprentice”. However, when I knew he was running for the highest
office in the world, I began paying attention to him and jeering at
his outlandish statements; thereby bringing to bear the first two
parts of a Gandhi quote: “First they ignore you; then they laugh at
you; then they fight you; then you win”. (Let's hope Trump doesn't
win.)
That same month the Democrats were able
to make extreme poverty and income inequality into platform issues
and bring them to the forefront. I was elated. With me still
believing that Bill Clinton encouraged Trump to run as a way of
ensuring that Hillary would win in November 2016 (as I too hope she
does), I've watched Donald Trump steer the political discourse
whither soever he chooseth and told my associates that the one good
thing about him is that he forces the hard conversations to happen –
that being true as long as his assertions only jump start the
conversation and the more intelligent masses engage and take it to a
better end point. Then the Donald will have done a great service. All
to whom I've said that thus far have disagreed with me.
Fast forward to the December 15th,GOP presidential debate in Las Vegas. Various candidates came out
against Trump following his xenophobic anti-Muslim remarks. Trump
acknowledged that his outrageous antics are driving the conversation
and forming the debate's agenda. I believe he's right. Let's hope his
correctness and political advance stop there.
It's worth noting that the final GOP
debate of 2015 was a debate of extremes. Trump, who is doing best in
the polls, is raising the least campaign funds. Bush, who is doing
worst in the polls, is raising the most campaign funds. The GOP base
is evidently giving Bush their money and Trump their votes. (The
presidential candidates aren't the only dysfunctional people in the
Republican party.) Taken together, these facts lend themselves to the
conclusion that the GOP base is interested in non-establishment
candidates – which, in essence, narrows their choices down to
Trump, Fiorina and Carson. Then again, maybe they attribute Trump's
immense wealth to his awkwardness and hope to one day be like him.
Let's hope not. The world doesn't need another Donald Trump. That
said, the other seven over card candidates fall somewhere between the
extremes of JEB and Trump. Fortunately, most are closer to JEB. The
debate was extreme in yet another way: It was about extremism,
completely about extremism. So much for pulling the Repubs into a
public conversation about extreme poverty and income inequality. Then
again, We still have 10 and a half months before the general election
and Hillary might just pull it off.
I was able to fully appreciate the hard
line of questioning that was put forth in the debate. However, it
left much to be said about the ability of ISIS to out-maneuver the
administrations of Bush 43 and Obama and to out-think all of the 2016
GOP presidential candidates. It would seem that ISIS is pulling the
world society toward an intelligent conclusion to the conversation
that was begun by Trump's outrageous remarks.
The unspoken truths of the debate
include the fact that Republicans (with the possible exception of
Carly Fiorina) want an excuse for endless war, with the resurrection
of Al-Qaida in Iraq as ISIS and the weak leadership of Obama giving
them the ammo they seek. The attacks in Paris and San Bernadino
shortly before the debate are as much reasons for endless GOP war as
they are reasons for real concern. It's also true that Republicans
would much rather talk about the next foreign war than about domestic
poverty in one of the wealthiest nation's on Earth. The unspoken
reasons for the topic of the debate notwithstanding, the most
apparent but unspoken underpinning of the debate was the fact that
ISIS is smarter than the entire U.S. Government put together. They've
proven to be that gingerbread man who the U.S. government and
military can't catch.
I won't revisit the missteps of theBush 43 and Obama administrations right now. However, I'm impressed
by how handily ISIS outdoes the U.S. Government. Let's start with the
fact that, following the Paris attacks on Friday, November 13th
a phone was found near a deceased assailant and used to track his
terror contacts. Nineteen days later, presumptuously after learning
about this phone's role in the Paris investigation, the San Bernadino
attackers smashed a phone in order to keep it from being used in the
same way. (I believe the chip was still readable.) They wiped other
electronic devices (possibly not knowing about deep dives that the
FBI can do on computers). Nonetheless, it only took 19 days for the
lesson learned by terrorists after one attack to bear itself out in
another attack. This leaves us to wonder what else future terrorists
will learn from the news coverage of various attacks. Terrorists with
a good learning curve – a scary thought (which is further
intensified in lieu of governmental stupidity).
During the debate, Carly Fiorina (my
personal favorite within the GOP field) highlighted the fact that
ISIS is keeping up with technology while our government is still
using surveillance methods that hearken back to 2001. She pointed out
that ISIS uses Facebook, Twitter and encryption to convey its message
without timely FBI detection. The former tech exec gave some very
good and basic low-tech solutions to problems that the average 10th
grader could resolve more quickly than the other GOP candidates and
she answered even the dumbest of questions with relative ease.
Wolf Blitzer asked her if tech
companies should be forced to cooperate with the federal government
in tracking terrorists. The fascistic leanings of the question and
the ignorance of asking a woman if anyone should be “forced” to
do anything notwithstanding, Ms. Fiorina pointed out that the feds
and Congress have yet to do something quite basic: to simply “ask”
tech companies to cooperate. (Taken together with her statements
about having been told “No” throughout her life, I'm left to
assume that it's not hard getting a “Yes” out of her if you just
ask.) She went on to tell the story of how she cooperated with the
NSA by turning one of her truck drivers around and having him
escorted to a federal facility when told that his load might be
compromised by terrorist activity.
Despite being 61 at the time, Ms.
Fiorina exhibited her ability to pull the U.S. Government forward
technologically and to make our terror surveillance techniques more
viable – even if she didn't fully address the moral aspect of such
ideas. It would seem that we should juxtapose the words of former
Defense Secretary Robert Gates who was reluctant to invest in greater
technology for the military and those of Carly Fiorina. Mr. Gates
said, in essence, that we didn't need more F-16's and higher tech
equipment to fight terrorists using sling shots and IED's. Maybe the
technology that needs to be upgraded is that which prevents attacks,
not that which responds to them. Then again, no technology can outdo
the power of the human foot or a cigarette lighter – both of which
can be used to destroy phones used by terrorists before and during
attacks.
Let's face it. Terrorists have begun to
buy single-use cell phones right before their attacks so as to ensure
that they might only be used to track a singular operative who was
called during the actual execution of the attack – but not to track
other operatives who were communicated with in the weeks and months
leading up to the attack. To prevent an attack by ISIS, the
government must develop methods whereby to carry out effective
surveillance and then they must get the legal authority to use it. To
prevent the U.S. from foiling a terror plot, ISIS just needs to do
like Mikhail Gorbachev and watch CNN to see how other terror plots
were foiled. It's also been said that, while the government needs to
get it right every time, the terrorists only need to get it right
once.
That brings us to the issue which the
candidates referred to as “political correctness” which, given
the context in which the phrase was used, came off as a substitute
for the act of obeying international laws such as the Geneva
Convention. Several candidates spoke out against the “political
correctness” of obeying laws that restrict surveillance and forbid
the killing of innocent civilians – casting such laws as
impediments to efforts to stop ISIS. Candidates suggested that we
carpet bomb ISIS into oblivion and that we kill the families of
terrorists – the latter of which would make the U.S. as brutal as
the enemy they seek to destroy.
That shouldn't surprise anyone, given
the fact that our nation has been involved in war somewhere in the
world for all but 22 of its 239 years of existence thus far. It is
also important to recognize that all three Abrahamic religions either
have or have had their share of brutes and Christianity even goes so
far as to encourage martyrdom. God, in the Old Testament, commanded
the Hebrews to conquer various lands – many of whom had done
nothing to the Hebrews. God, being almighty, decided He would take
from the Amorites and Hittites and give to His chosen people.
(Farbeit from me to oppose God.) God empowered Samson to become the
first-ever suicide bomber and kill 10,000 people in the temple of
Dagon. The Torah is relatively parallel to the Old Testament. Emperor
Constantine brought Christianity at the edge of a sword, effectively
turning the enemy's other cheek instead of his own. I don't think I
need to describe the brutality of Muslim terrorists. That said:
The war encouraged by the Old Testament
and the Torah plus the martyrdom encouraged by the New Testament
equals ISIS.
Maybe what we need is a religious
summit in which the leaders of various religions and denominations
compare notes so as to find where their ethos overlap and where they
differ. The objective of such a summit should be to objectively
determine what religion, if any, is correct (or most accurate). All
belief systems that prove to be grossly irrational should then be
outlawed. Even if we stop short of outlawing religious ignorance, the
results of this religious summit might give us a better way of
measuring the rational abilities of our presidential candidates (from
any party). In the meantime, ISIS seems to have a better idea of
where it stands that the U.S. Government has of where IT stands.
The entire GOP field failed to address
the gravity of the situation created by ISIS' ability to inspire
attacks anywhere in the world. Candidates discussed the fact that
ISIS is expanding its geographical holdings. However, the San
Bernadino attack (which was being planned before ISIS' 2014 rise to
dominance) was inspired by terrorists thousands of miles away. All of
the surveillance in the world won't catch every lone wolf who is
inspired by ISIS to carry out attacks. Maybe that's why the terror
ORGANIZATION named its magazine “Inspire”. They understand that
inspiration will work even more quickly than organization and a
geographically contiguous caliphate to increase their power and
spread their influence.
The terrorists successful propaganda
campaign flies in the face of Bush 43's assertion that we must go
after all who preach hatred. Even if we were to start now, it would
be too little and too late. ISIS has already shown itself to be
smarter than the U.S. Government (which is not a very high bar) and
to have well-defined goals. The GOP candidates were more capable of
describing the goals of ISIS than they were of describing their own
goals and stances on the issues. That's not to speak of the fact that
the terrorists are as willing to die for what they believe in as a
soldier is to die for what he or she believes in. ISIS holds the
belief that three Muslim armies will fight the forces of the infidels
in the Middle East and that most of their Muslim fighters will die,
leaving a tiny remnant to carry out the goals of Allah. After all,
ISIS was formed from the remnants of Al-Qaida in Iraq – proving its
ability to rise like the Phoenix from the ashes.
The objective of this post is to
disparage the GOP presidential candidates, Bush 43 and Obama for
their inability to adequately think through their approach to
terrorism. It is not to laud ISIS or any terror ORGANIZATION. That
said, I'm “afraid” that ISIS will soon develop the technology to
create a two-way detonator switch with a pull string and a
pulse-sensing electrode so that if the suicide bomber is shot before
pulling the chord, the bomb will still explode once the electrode no
longer senses a pulse. Quite honestly, given their apparent
intelligence, I'm a little surprised that I haven't already heard or
read such reports. How else will ISIS outsmart U.S. presidents and
candidates?????
ISIS seems to be that ever-elusive
gingerbread man. Maybe, before the U.S. Government chases the
gingerbread man, they should sit, think and develop a better strategy
that incorporates the lessons that ISIS taught them. If they ever
defeat ISIS, their victory will be indicative of their increased
intelligence. Don't hold your breath waiting.
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