ISIS on the March

We have idiot candidates whose idea of foreign policy is the adult equivalent of “I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue if you don’t ____.” “I’d never talk to Vladimir Putin until he backs out of the Ukraine and stops aiding the Assad regime in Syria.” “We should not allow Chinese President Xi Jinping in this country until he revalues his currency upwards, stops building a military island and owns up to the big hack of our governmental personnel records.” “We should not be dealing with Cuba at all until they install a form of government we approve of.” “I would never negotiate with Iran until they accept our demands of a true democratic government, agree to no threats against Israel, accept a release of all their political prisoners, destroy anything we deem a basis for nuclear development and allow us – their sworn enemy – open and immediate access to their military bases where nukes could be stored or developed.”

The notion of only dealing diplomatically with your allies, not dealing with those you believe are your enemies unless they unilaterally accept every demand you have ever made, is a pretty interesting approach to world affairs. China and the U.S. may never develop a close relationship, but not dealing with the second largest economy on earth is an incredibly stupid policy. For the record, despite cries from ignorant politicians to the contrary, China didn’t devalue their currency as a slap in America’s face; after their stock market plunged and their growth/productivity numbers fell, they decided that to save their own manufacturing sector and address the economic plight of over a billion people who are not at the top of the economic ladder, for internal reasons, by implementing a currency devaluation.

And how is “nasty” China reacting as a global player? “China's president on [Sept. 26^th] pledged billions in aid and said Beijing will forgive debts due this year in an effort to help the world's poorest nations, as world leaders begin to seek the trillions of dollars needed to help achieve sweeping new development goals.” AOL.com, September 27^th. Yup, stupid candidates, we sure don’t want to talk to that man! 

By engaging Iran (no, I do not trust them either) and Cuba (so much less of a threat than was Vietnam after that war, where we have normal relations with the same regime that fought us), and by releasing sanctions, there is a strong probability that their economies will grow to the point where they would have too much to lose to trouble us, that their new economic classes would have a stabilizing power on religious or doctrinaire anger, and the benefits to us would seem to outweigh the short term turn of political direction. We cannot trust Putin either, and the sanctions there might push his nation in the right direction. But with the boiling cauldron we call the Middle East, Russia military presence suggests that the removal of Bashir Assad will be a negotiated reality while Russian arms help counter an ever-victorious ISIS, a reality that does threaten us all. We need communication.

Our current efforts to curb ISIS and their allies are a joke. Despite aerial attacks and some hardware and training support, ISIS is not yielding back conquered territory, and the military aggregation against them is not remotely producing the results we need. Iranian-led/trained forces have had some success, and coordinating the anti-ISIS efforts with Iran, Russia and Syria are among our very few options in the region.

Here three recent stories that will tell you exactly how well our policies of non-engagement with these American enemies are working, as we try, once again, to impose our “solutions” to the region.

ONE: “Nearly 30,000 foreign recruits have now poured into Syria, many to join the Islamic State, a doubling of volunteers in just the past 12 months and stark evidence that an international effort to tighten borders, share intelligence and enforce antiterrorism laws is not diminishing the ranks of new militant fighters.

“Among those who have entered or tried to enter the conflict in Iraq or Syria are more than 250 Americans, up from about 100 a year ago, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.” New York Times, September 27^th. Yup, folks love us so much that they don’t go to ISIS anymore… right!

TWO: We installed a corrupt government in Afghanistan, not able to counter the Sunni extremists, the Taliban, allies to ISIS. Our efforts to support an Afghan military, from training to arms, fall woefully short. Take for example our recent supply of 16 MD530 Scout helicopters (pictured above) to the already-impaired Afghan military: “Col. Qalandar Shah Qalandari, Afghanistan’s most decorated pilot, recently took command of what was meant to be the building blocks of his country’s new air force: a squadron of shiny American-made attack helicopters, intended to solve the chronic lack of close air support for Afghan troops…

“[Colonel noted;] ‘I will tell the truth. This is my country, and these are my men, and they deserve the truth.’… He tossed a map on the table, showing the effective range of the helicopter from its Kabul airfield: It cannot even reach areas where the Taliban normally operate. In summertime, its maximum altitude with a full load of fuel and ammunition is only 7,000 to 8,000 feet, he said — meaning it cannot cross most of the mountain ranges that encircle Kabul, which is itself at an elevation of about 6,000 feet.

“‘It’s unsafe to fly, the engine is too weak, the tail rotor is defective and it’s not armored. If we go down after the enemy we’re going to have enemy return fire, which we can’t survive. If we go up higher, we can’t visually target the enemy,’ Colonel Qalandari said. ‘Even the guns are no good.’… Each helicopter carries two .50-caliber machine guns, mounted on pods on either side of the craft’s small bubble cockpit. ‘They keep jamming,’ one of the colonel’s 10 newly American-trained pilots said.

“Colonel Qalandari is not the first Afghan official to complain about the woeful state of efforts to build an air force to replace the Americans in carrying out airstrikes, medical evacuations and transport missions in a country with poor and dangerous roads. United States officials have long seen the aspirations as unrealistic, while Afghans have complained that their allies have ignored their views about what they need to fight the Taliban.” NY Times. Smart or terminally stupid?

THREE: Remember that paltry force of 54 “moderate” Syrian rebels we trained to fight Assad and possibly ISIS… out of a targeted force of 5,000 (which we simply could not raise)? We equipped this tiny force and sent them into harm’s way. Seeking safe passage through al-Nusra (an al Qaeda/ISIS ally) territory, they immediately bought their safety by trading off a significant chunk of the weapons we supplied them: “A statement on Twitter by a man calling himself Abu Fahd al-Tunisi, a member of al-Qaeda’s local affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, read: ‘A strong slap for America... the new group from Division 30… handed over a very large amount of ammunition and medium weaponry and a number of pick-ups.’” Telegraph.co.uk, September 22^nd. Many other reports from the region seem to have confirmed these statements. “The items were apparently turned over in exchange for safe passage within the region and amounted to roughly 25% of the equipment assigned to that unit, US Central Command said.” TheGuardian.com, September 23^rd.

So while stupid politicians running for office parrot idiotic statements of how to conduct foreign policy, the world increasingly ignores the United States and its desires and priorities. The dumber our statements, the more what we propose fails, the less impact we have. Remember that Russian guy our candidates don’t think we should talk to? “For the second time [in September], Russia moved to expand its political and military influence in the Syria conflict and left the United States scrambling, this time by reaching an understanding, announced on Sunday, with Iraq, Syria and Iran to share intelligence about the Islamic State.

“Like Russia’s earlier move to bolster the government of President Bashar al-Assad by deploying warplanes and tanks to a base near Latakia, Syria, the intelligence-sharing arrangement was sealed without notice to the United States. American officials knew that a group of Russian military officers were in Baghdad, but they were clearly surprised when the Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Command announced the intelligence sharing accord on [September 27^th].

“It was another sign that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was moving ahead with a sharply different tack from that of the Obama administration in battling the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, by assembling a rival coalition that includes Iran and the Syrian government.” New York Times, September 27^th. The ill-informed babble, ignorance unbounded, of so many candidates for the highest elected office on earth should be shocking to voters. Instead, voters have slowly been seduced into believing that these sloganeering politicians have a viable plan.

Yup, we should only talk to powerful negative nations – in our perception – when they unilaterally kowtow to our litany of demands. Exactly how would you expect our government to react if China, Russia or Iran made similar-level demands on us? Yeah, exactly. That’s not how foreign affairs are conducted… or ever have been. You don’t need peace treaties with your allies….

I’m Peter Dekom, and the stupid foreign policy utterings of so many candidates would put the United States into serious additional jeopardy if they were ever implemented.