(Chris Jansing moderated, hosted really, "Meet The Press" this week and she does her format well, but it's not a format for this program. We'll touch on it throughout this week's post.)
Sir Peter Wesmacott, British Ambassador to the United States, said that his government,using sophisticated voice recognition, is close to identifying the terrorist who killed journalist James Foley. He further explained that the murder of Mr. Foley has pointedly focused the west's attention to ISIS and the threat they pose, and the threat is great. NBC's Richard Engel said that ISIS isn't really interested in negotiating with the west on any level, that it's simply about destroying it.
Gleaning information from today's program's guest sources, an overall picture of ISIS is that it occupies a third of Iraq and a good portion of Syria with the border between the two has been indeed erased. We know that they're capable militarily and they have the means to fund the Sharia, violence and propaganda by selling oil for cheap. They are a threat not only to the Middle East, including Israel, but also to western countries having recruited individuals from them. All this with the goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate, and they have seemed to get off to a good start.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) said that the United States has the capabilities to defeat ISIS but questioned the country's will. He also said that the United States' Department of Defense and our Intelligence Agencies are not configured correctly to combat ISIS, putting that failure on The White House. As the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, he must know that we have far more people on the ground in Iraq than has been made public, and like it or not that is going to have to increase. Even a strong Iraqi army coupled with the already well trained and organized Kurdish pesh merga complimented by U.S. air power is not enough the defeat ISIS on the territory it controls.
Also, if you take Mr. Rogers at his word, he's convinced that if not combated against, ISIS will commit acts of terrorism on United States soil. (The other thing we know about ISIS is that they want to expand their territory.) From what the congressman said, he's an advocate for escalating operations against ISIS. However, another Republican Rand Paul (in a too long propaganda segment about Rand Paul propaganda) tossed out a warning about electing a 'war hawk' like Hillary Clinton who would most certainly get the United States in another Middle Eastern war, according to him.
The point is that conducting two long simultaneous wars has left the United States weary and its leaders, regardless of party, conflicted about what to do. As Editor and Anchor of the PBS NewsHour, Gwen Ifill, pointed out, there hasn't been any word from the Hill or the White House on what to do. At the moment, the air strikes authorized the Obama Administration are achieving a status quo preventing ISIS from expanding, can hold up until Congress reconvenes but they can not go on indefinitely. And the United States can not long continue to go it alone.
All civilized countries are at a defining turning point here with ISIS, and they have to recognize it.
Sadly, the United States, to lead, needs a strong unified policy on how to combat and eliminate ISIS so that it can rally its allies and the rest of the world [read: China and Russia] around it. We say 'sadly' because you know why. A unified policy from the United States government is highly unlikely, but the United States can not keep operating on the 'president going it alone' strategy - Congress must engage. But again, sadly, they are only interested in the midterm elections.
Speaking of elections, Rand Paul is most certainly running for President of the United States in 2016, the entire segment was an illustrating photo opportunity just for that. As Citizens United documented the humanitarian purpose of the trip, Dr. Paul was also able to answer political questions from NBC. It has to be pointed out that one of Dr. Paul's answers to what happened in Ferguson was narrow and disturbing.
"Let's say none of this has to do with race. It might not, but the
belief-- if you're African American and you live in Ferguson, the belief
is, you see people in prison and they're mostly black and brown, that
somehow it is racial, even if the thoughts that were going on at that
time had nothing to do with race."
Senator Paul, in his libertarian ideology, is simply denying the existence of an institutional racism that still exists in the United States, the general human condition of African Americans in this country, and the overwhelming statistics of the double standards that exist in the justice system. And taking it back to Ferguson, you can bet that the black protesters that have been arrested have absolutely been charged with some crime, yet, the white police officer who shot an unarmed man six times (two in the head) with four witnesses standing by hasn't even been arrested.
And even if there are good reasons for those circumstances, just like The Washington Post's Michael Gerson said commenting on photos of President Obama playing golf while the press covered the murder of James Foley, symbolism matters. And in the case of Ferguson, that's no exception. In that context, it is of course easy to see the continued anger.
Due to Senator Paul's libertarian ideology, he does not seem to acknowledge the existence of racial inequality in the United States and if he were president that means he would take no action to improve the very real opportunity disparity that lead to things like what's happened in Ferguson. You have to have a very cold approach to the human condition to maintain an ideology.
It was good to hear Mr. Gerson, a conservative columnist, disagree with Senator Paul in his call to cancel all foreign aid. Mr. Gerson explained that ideology has consequences and the Kentucky senator is ignoring those consequences in that millions of children in poor countries would suffer and die without that aid.
This kind of ideological adherence isn't presidential material in the United States.
Guests: Rep. Mike Rogers, Amb. Peter Westmacott, Richard Engel, Helene Cooper,
Gwen Ifill, David Ignatius, Mayor Kasim Reed, Michael Gerson, Gov. Jay
Nixon, Rev. Al Sharpton, Sen. Rand Paul
Post Note: We were going to comment more on the poor format of the show (the awkward walk across the set by Ms. Jansing), but we'll give it a rest - it's the last week in August after all.
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