{"id":207313,"date":"2015-12-09T15:45:18","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T15:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/putting-the-isis-crisis-in-context\/"},"modified":"2015-12-09T15:45:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T15:45:18","slug":"putting-the-isis-crisis-in-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/putting-the-isis-crisis-in-context\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting the ISIS \u2018Crisis\u2019 in Context"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"220.10302788048\">\n<p>The hysteria over Islamic State terrorism is driving talk of a new U.S.-led ground war in the Middle East \u2014 this time an invasion of Syria under the guise of a \u201csafe zone\u201d \u2014 but such rash actions would only make matters worse, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-16587\"\/>By Paul R. Pillar<\/p>\n<p>Emotional and ill-focused reaction to the latest mass shooting in the United States, coupled with misguided but unfortunately well-entrenched ways of thinking about terrorism and counterterrorism, along with a political campaign featuring jingoistic appeals, is increasing the pressure on the U.S. administration to embark on costly and counterproductive new endeavors in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>A dominant theme in public discourse is that the so-called Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) is behind what has already become highly destructive terrorism in the West and therefore the United States needs to hasten to destroy the group in its stronghold in Syria and Iraq, and this means increased use of military force.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15395\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"34\"><a href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/1369949609000-jeb-bush-001.jpg?a9b630\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15395\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?a9b630\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/1369949609000-jeb-bush-001-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has joined in calling for a &quot;safe zone&quot; in Syria, a euphemism for invasion. \" width=\"300\" height=\"225\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15395\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/1369949609000-jeb-bush-001-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has joined in calling for a &quot;safe zone&quot; in Syria, a euphemism for invasion. \" width=\"300\" height=\"225\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has joined in calling for a \u201cwar\u201d with \u201cIslamic terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Republican presidential candidates have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/12\/05\/us\/politics\/gop-candidates-seize-on-shootings-in-california-as-proof-of-terror-threat.html\"><u>leading the charge<\/u><\/a> with heavy use of \u201cwar\u201d vocabulary, which is the lexicon of choice to convey toughness and to appeal to public fears even when specific meanings and implications of such terminology do not get spelled out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIslamic terrorism wants to destroy our way of life,\u201d Jeb Bush declared. \u201cThey have declared war on us, and we need to declare war on them.\u201d Chris Christie intoned, \u201cOur nation is under siege. What I believe we\u2019re facing is the next world war.\u201d Ted Cruz proclaimed, \u201cThis nation needs a wartime president. \u2026 Our enemies are at war with us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This approach disregards what the very incidents that have aroused the fears to which these candidates are appealing tell us about the sources of international terrorism in the West and what determines its extent and severity. It disregards the true nature of any connection between strongholds of extremist groups in the Middle East and terrorism carried out on other continents.<\/p>\n<p>And the approach disregards recent and glaring lessons about the&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/12\/09\/putting-the-isis-crisis-in-context\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The hysteria over Islamic State terrorism is driving talk of a new U.S.-led ground war in the Middle East \u2014 this time an invasion of Syria under the guise of a \u201csafe zone\u201d \u2014 but such rash actions would only make matters worse, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar. By Paul R. Pillar Emotional and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-207313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}