Fighting the Islamic State

Back in the 1960s, Republic Senator Everett Dirksen, when looking at the federal budget back then, once quipped: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon, you’re talking about real money.” In a war-torn era, there are monetary costs, political risks, health challenges and of course the numbers of human beings simply referred to as “casualties” – some are our own, some are not. And whenever despicable actions arise, from Hitler’s genocide against Jews and gypsies to Turkish atrocities against Armenians or Stalin’s pogroms, humanity has to decide whether or not to intervene. Increasingly, in the modern era, the United States has become embroiled in most, but hardly all (think: Rwanda’s tribal struggles), of such larger-scale genocidal explosions.

The moral outrage, the beheading of innocent American journalists and humanitarians, and the instability acceleration in an area already challenged with conflicts that threaten to push the entire world into another massive war… al Baghdadi has declared the intention to expand his global Sunni “caliphate” across the Middle East and beyond, declaring Shiites, Jews, Christians and all Western “non-believers” unworthy of life itself. Less than human. Vermin to be eliminated. ISIS, ISIL, IS, the Islamic State – whatever you want to call it – also threatens each and every oil-producing nation in the region. Oil? Oh… again! By any measure, the Islamic State has got to go.

But having failed to establish a viable nation-state in Iraq and clearly failing to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan as we exit, the U.S. track record in the region is abysmal. Corrupt and relentlessly ungrateful regimes with zero loyalty to American interests cling to the tiny vestiges of control that remain to them in their beleaguered capitals. We put them there, established their form of government and sent our military and their bevy of well-armed contractors to fight on their behalf, losing thousands of American lives and spending trillions of dollars simply to fail, having destabilized the region like no other.

So now, pretty much every American’s definition of extreme evil has reared its profoundly ugly head in Iraq and Syria, thriving in the rich terrorist soil that American efforts fertilized with their destabilizing regional military directives. We hate them. They hate us and have sworn to kill us wherever they can. They crave a direct regional conflict with “the Great Satan” (the U.S.), and if they don’t get that wish, they are plotting and scheming on how to bring massive 9/11-like attacks to our shores.

So we have danced around “on-the-ground” involvement by adding “advisors” to one of the most corrupt, ineffective and ill-led armies on earth – the Iraqi military. As the few good Iraqi units around join forces with effective Kurdish fighters, signs of “a little progress” against IS is evident. U.S. air strikes – death angels relatively safely above the fray – support the assault on the Islamic State. NATO ally Turkey stands idly by, their President making inane speeches at feminist gatherings about the innate inequality of women in society, seemingly embracing that same Sunni extremism that defines IS.

So even at this nascent stage of our involvement in the war against the Islamic State (Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul wants a formal declaration of war), what is it costing and likely to cost in the immediate future… in hard dollars? There isn’t a single line item in the request budget for this military response, but the November 25^th Washington Post took a crack at aggregating the budgetary allocation requests:

“The Obama administration’s request to Congress for an additional $5.6 billion is needed to begin paying for operations against the Islamic State for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1… The estimated cost to the Pentagon of fighting the Islamic State — put at about $8 million a day and rising — hardly gives the full picture… The Air Force, for example, is seeking an additional $1 billion in fiscal 2015 to meet operations, maintenance and personnel costs, according to a 34-page Nov. 10 letter from Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). The guided attack missiles and other bombs being used as air support for ground-based Iraqi forces will cost $70 million.

“The Army is also seeking another $1 billion to pay for its added operations, maintenance and personnel costs in the fight. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Wednesday that the decision to reduce the Army’s end strength from 490,000 to 450,000 by 2019 needs a second look. ‘We made assumptions that we wouldn’t go back into Iraq — and here we are back in Iraq,’ he said at the Defense One Summit…

“The Islamic State package also includes $464 million for added intelligence capabilities, including data from satellites and other collection activities, plus $39 million in equipment for the Special Operations Command, including intelligence programs… The sum of $544 million in added Air Force procurement is listed for ‘classified purposes.’ Whether that is pass-through money for CIA or National Security Agency intercept operations is not indicated. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. disclosed Friday that another $1 billion was being added to his overseas contingency request for the current fiscal year, an indication that it, too, was to meet spending in the fight against the Islamic State.

“Then there’s the $1.6 billion for the Iraq train-and-equip fund, to pay for tens of thousands of rifles, machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers, body armor and other equipment… About $1.2 billion will go to the Iraqi army to help train and equip nine brigades, according to a Defense Comptroller paper sent to Congress this month… Some $353,871,161 is destined to equip three Kurdish peshmerga brigades, while a separate $24 million is to support Sunni tribal fighters in Anbar province battling the Islamic State.” And so it begins. How do you spell “tip of the iceberg”? Really?

This is going to be a long rough ride caused by our stupid pursuit of wars over a decade ago we did not properly evaluate, in lands we did not understand, with schisms we did not appreciate. And by dribbling in the financing, we just might be prolonging this battle for a vastly longer period.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the United States has become the post-child for blowback and unintended consequences.