Published on December 20, 2015 in the New York Post is an
article that was written by Ralph Peters under the title: “How to crush ISIS ”.
And that's exactly what the article is about; it is what the
author wants the American military to do. In fact, in one of the ten points
whose rubric reads: “Accomplish the mission and leave,” Peters says this: “Go
in, do the job, get out … Surprise them; slaughter them; leave.” He could not
be more succinct.
The article is a comprehensive explanation as to why Peters,
who is a retired U.S. Army officer, felt it necessary to devise a war plan.
What follows is what he says in the first sentence of the article: “An American
president with no military experience, little grasp of history and an outdated
mental map of the Middle East … potentially a
Republican next year.” He is worried that the civilian overseers are getting in
the way of the military doing its job, and that the trend will continue even if
a Republican gets elected President next year.
In fact, under the rubric that reads: “Stop pretending that
war can be waged gently,” Peters says this: “Kill the enemy. Accept that there
will be civilian casualties and collateral damage. Get the lawyers out of the
targeting process and off the battlefield.” In other words, he says that when
it comes to war, you must trust that the generals will do the right thing. And
he could not be clearer and more in error than that.
The question is this: What then? What will come after the
crushing of ISIS if, indeed, that's something
that can be done? Surprisingly, the author answers this question. He does it
under the same rubric in which he counsels accomplishing the mission and
leaving. Here is his answer: “No nation-building … punitive expeditions, not
nation-building where there are no nations.”
And there lies the problem. It is not that nation-building
was ever a good idea; it is that messing with the borders of nations is always
a bad idea. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a bad idea. So was the destruction of
Iraq .
As well, the current discussion about breaking up Syria is a horrible idea. Worse is
the drive to create a Kurdish entity. In fact, the creation of Israel turned
out to be an ongoing crime against humanity that promises, by comparison, to
make the Holocaust a bedtime story for children.
All of that harks back to the bad old days when trouble
began to mount in the wake of the artificial drawing of the Middle Eastern map;
a project that was meant to serve the needs of the colonial powers of the day.
As to the current troublemaker, it's the little fart that is Israel ; the wannabe colonial power that's trying
to get there using America 's
muscle to achieve the miracle it cannot realize by itself.
The reality, however, is that messing with nations is at the
origin of what got us in the current mess. To try and mess with those nations
again under the guise of fixing the earlier mistakes, will only compound those
mistakes and create a bigger problem. That's because the most powerful element motivating
the people who would die to rectify the situation they inherited, is the sense
of grievance that was generated when the status of their homeland was messed up
by foreigners. Imagine how they will feel if history repeats itself – unfolding
this time under their noses. If you want to know, a fury in hell will by
comparison sound like a bedtime story for children.
Look at it this way: Some people are talking about a
percentage (ranging from 7% to 15%) of the Muslim population, which they say
supports jihad at this time. Forget these numbers because that many people will
not need to take up arms to mess up the world real bad. Think instead 100% of
the Muslim population that will profoundly and eternally abhor what is being
done to it.
Moreover, Islam is a billion and a half strong and growing
faster than any other religion. In addition, there may be as many as a billion
non-Muslims supporting their cause today, and the number is galloping as time
moves on.
That's what will result if the Ralph Peters war plan is
implemented as described. The only thing we can predict at this point is that
the more you fight the Muslims without solving the root cause of the problems
that feed their anger, the stronger they will get, and the more of them who
will seek revenge.