I hear the drum beat. The hawks among us are posturing for war against ISIS. We didn’t know they existed a few months ago. Now they’re the scourge.
I have seen this before. It never ends well.
I have no doubt ISIS is evil and would kill Americans if they could. However, wholesale bombing won’t stop lone wolf attackers. We’ll kill civilians, create ill will and spend a fortune, but any threat that exists today will still exist, even if ISIS is defeated.
In the 21st Century there is some evil we’re just defenseless against. How do you stop the Tsarnaev Brothers at the Boston Marathon or American citizen Faisal Shahzad who unsuccessfully planted a car bomb in Times Square?
You can’t.
I said this before we went into Afghanistan (although I was kind of behind that one) and again before we went into Iraq. I don’t understand the compulsion we (and some other countries) have for grabbing a gun every time someone or something doesn’t go the way we want it to.
I remember years ago reading a piece where some clever folks did an analysis of war and human history and founs that in all of recorded history there were only something like 23 years where there was NO war ANYWHERE in the world. Only 23 years of COMPLETE PEACE in the thousands of years of human civilization. How sad is that?