Can We Beat ISIS Without Doing Collateral Damage?

During the Republican presidential debate, a number of the candidates brushed against the key issues in the “War on Terror,” or maybe I should say, pussyfooted around them.
Muslim terrorists recognize no limits as they make war on us; they kill our non-combatants without an iota of compunction. The men, women and children killed in the 9/11 attacks were civilians. The Twin Towers were not  legitimate military targets. The Americans massacred at San Bernardino were non-combatants. The Inland Regional Center was hardly a military target. Under the Geneva Convention it is a war crime to knowingly make war on non-combatants.

Debate moderator Hugh Hewitt asked Ben Carson if he approved of carpet bombing to kill ISIS fighters, if it would cause civilian deaths: “So, you are OK with the deaths of thousands of innocent children and civilians?” The question should have been put to each of the candidates, and put again until they directly responded.

Rand Paul later warned that the Geneva Convention prohibited making war on civilians -- on non-combatants. Sen. Paul correctly pointed out that America was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and that we would first have to withdraw before we could undertake carpet bombing, if it would involve killing non-combatants. The senator’s remarks were a decent short-hand statement of our obligation. Donald Trump replied, “So they can kill us, but we can’t kill them?”


Mr. Trump’s rhetorical question, as well as  the moderator’s, were not academic questions. How does one kill enemy soldiers who do not wear uniforms, who blend into into the non-combatant civilian population, and who indeed take cover among the civilian population, knowing that America is bound by the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949?


It is one thing to carpet bomb an organized enemy army dug-in in the desert, as we did in the first Gulf War in Operation Desert Storm.  It is an entirely different thing to carpet bomb a city to kill the Islamic State fighters who are in the city operating and/or hiding among women and children.


Mr. Trump’s question more precisely put is really this: If the Islamic State is going to make war on our civilian population, are we barred from making war on their civilian population?


In World War II when the Germans bombed London and Coventry, Britain, and later the U.S. responded by bombing every German city conceivably aiding the German War effort. Additionally, we bombed Japan with conventional bombs, and culminated our efforts by dropping two atom bombs. Those two bombs destroyed Japan’s will to fight and resulted in their unconditional surrender.


In doing so, we didn’t worry about collateral damage or women and children. At Nagasaki we killed some 20,000 soldiers and perhaps 150,000 civilians. At Hiroshima we killed perhaps 280,000. In the process, we avoided the million casualties estimated in an invasion of Japan. In those days there was no 4th Geneva Convention. In the “Gathering Storm,” Winston Churchill asked how a democracy is to respond when attacked by an enemy who ignores the rules of war? He answered that question by writing five more volumes detailing what the allies did.


So how do we get at the Islamic State’s soldiers within the cities they control?


One suggestion is to send in foreign troops. But why would foreign troops fight for us, if we won’t send our own troops in to fight for ourselves?


Another is to send in either our special forces or our ground troops. If we do that, we are guaranteed dead, wounded and maimed American troops.


A third alternative would be to wait forever until the enemy is dumb enough to send its troops out into the desert to fight another “Mother of Battles” with us, and then for us to carpet bomb them into oblivion. But is ISIS stupid enough to repeat Saddam’s blunder?

The ultimate method would be to obliterate, annihilate, and/or wipe out all living beings in cities and town held by the Islamic State -- after “withdrawing” from the Geneva Convention.


I do not believe the American people are yet ready for that last alternative. But that could quickly change with a new president and another attack on the U.S., -- especially if that attack results in massive American casualties.


I cannot see President Obama saying to the Islamic State -- and meaning it -- that “unless you observe the Geneva Convention as to our civilians, we are going to withdraw from the Geneva Convention and kill your civilian population.


Three key questions went unasked:

-- Can we destroy ISIS by fighting a “limited” war, while they observe no such limitations and kill our women and children without compunction?

-- Would you carpet bomb cities held by ISIS if that resulted in massive collateral damage -- the deaths of thousands of women and children?


-- Would you do what is required by the 4th Geneva Convention, before doing so?

Posted: Saturday, December 26, 2015 12:00 am. QCOline.com

By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015

John Donald O'Shea

How Many Jihadist Refugees Are Too Many?

"Intelligence and law enforcement agencies have disrupted countless plots here and overseas, and worked around the clock to keep us safe.

"I've ordered the Departments of State and Homeland Security to review the visa (waiver) program under which the female terrorist in San Bernardino originally came to this country." 

                            -- President Barack Obama, Dec. 6 Oval Office address.

In the wake of one Muslim terrorist attack after another, President Obama has two proposals: (1) Keep guns out of the hands of U.S. citizens, and (2) Bring 50,000 more Muslims "refugees" into this country. He promises they will be "thoroughly vetted."

How does the U.S. go about vetting refugees to insure that NONE are jihadist terrorists? Suicide bombers? Religious zealots intent on slaughtering American infidels?

A day after the president's address, the Trump campaign responded with this news release:

Syria is in utter chaos. Is it possible to get records from Syria? Can we rely on Syrian records to be accurate? Or do we have to take each refugee at his word?  Would a Muslim terrorist intent on killing Americans tell a fib to get into our country?

A day after the president's address, the Trump campaign responded with this news release:

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing '25 percent of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad' and 51 percent of those polled, 'agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.' Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won’t convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women."

It quoted Mr. Trump as saying, "Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.”

Do you recall the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center? The 9/11/01 attacks? The Ft. Hoot Shooting massacre? The Boston Marathon bombings? The Chattanooga Recruiting Office? The San Bernardino  massacre? Were all perpetrated by Muslim terrorists? All done in the name of Allah? All justified by Islamic religious beliefs?

The president calls those religious beliefs a "perverted interpretation of Islam." But is it? Or is it the very form of Islam that made war against the "infidels" throughout the Middle East, North Africa and as far into Europe as Tours and Vienna? That conquered Constantinople, the Balkans and Greece?

It's clear that not all Muslims adhere to this jihadist strain of Islam. But a great many do. AND,  there are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world! 

A Nov. 20 Pew poll concludes that 63 million Muslims support ISIS in 11 countries. In Pakistan, 9 percent support ISIS; in Turkey, 8 percent, in the Palestinian Territories, 6 percent. Additionally, there are another 287 million in those 11 countries who "haven't formed an opinion on whether they support ISIS or not." The survey did not cover Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq or Iran.

 Mr. Trump also cites a June 155 poll by the Center for Security Policy in which 600 Muslims living in the U.S. were interviewed and 51 percent of U.S. Muslims polled believe either that they should have the choice of American or sharia courts, or that they should have their own tribunals to apply sharia. Nearly a quarter believe that, “It is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam by, e.g., portraying the prophet Mohammed.”

Nearly one-fifth said that the use of violence in the U.S. is justified in order to make sharia the law of the land in this country.

Even the liberal Daily Beast says that worldwide "only about 12 percent of Muslims support terrorism."

So is Mr. Trump hysterical? Or is he rational? Consider:

If only 1 percent of 50,000 Syrian refugees come to America to make jihad" we would be admitting 500 terrorists adhering to what the president calls a "perverted interpretation of Islam"

Mr. Obama  ridiculed Republicans for fearing women and children. He assures us we can properly vet Syrians then concedes that the San Bernardino woman terrorist was properly vetted. If the government can't vet one woman from Pakistan, how can we be confident we can vet 50,000?

Two great values are at stake in this debate.

First, our forefathers came to America for religious freedom. Our constitution guarantees to people of all faiths, absolute freedom of belief, but limited free exercise.

That free exercise is rooted in toleration. Free exercise does not go so far as allowing a professed cannibal to eat his neighbor, or a professed Muslim jihadist to fly jets into the Twin Towers.

Second, the idea of admitting immigrants who come to bomb and shoot us, or to eat us is insane. Our constitution is not a suicide pact.

The difficulty is telling in advance which Muslims are entering the country to wage jihad. If one Pakistani woman can kill 14, and if 19 Saudis can kill 3,000, it makes no sense whatsoever to admit 500 potential jihadists. Or even 50.

It comes down to a question of probabilities and risks. Is it probable if we admit 50,000, that 500 are terrorists? 50? Two? If so, is it worth the risk?

I think this is what Mr. Trump means. I hope that is what Mr. Trump means.

So what exactly does the president mean?

Posted: Saturday, December 12, 2015 12:00 am - QCOnline.com

By John Donald O'Shea


Copyright 2015

John Donald O'Shea

To Go to War or Not? For Presidents, the Question Isn’t Academic

I have often wondered what President Obama would have done had he been in President Lincoln’s shoes on the eve of the American Civil War.

Like President Lincoln, President Obama would not have had foreknowledge of the “magnitude or the duration” of the coming Civil War. Neither would he have known that 112,000 union soldiers would be killed in action or die of wounds; that 25,000 more would die in confederate prisons, and that 282,000 would be wounded and maimed.

Nor that when deaths from illness and other causes were added in, the total number of union dead would be 385,000. And he would not have known that confederate losses would be 260,000 dead and 137,000 wounded.

He would not have known the final cost to free the 4 million slaves, and/or to save the union would be a half million dead and 400,000 wounded.

So what would President Obama have done when South Carolina seceded from the union? When Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, etc., followed? When South Carolina demanded the evacuation of Ft. Sumter?

President Lincoln ordered the Star of the West, an unarmed merchant vessel, to carry federal troops and supplies to the fort. Would President Obama have done that much?

What would President Obama’s response have been when secessionist troops fired on the fort? President Lincoln declared a “state of insurrection” and called for “75,000 volunteers to enlist for three months” of service to quell the insurrection. Would President Obama have done likewise?

Mr. Lincoln ordered a naval blockade of all confederate forts. Would Mr. Obama have done that?

President Lincoln ordered federal troops to engage the confederate army in the first battle of Manassas. The union army was beaten and retreated. Would President Obama have ordered union forces into battle? Would he have continued the war, or would he have withdrawn to avoid further loses?

Fourteen months later, Lincoln’s union forces engaged the confederates in the battle of Antietam in which 2,108 union soldiers were killed, 9,540 were wounded, 546 confederates were killed and 7,752 were wounded. Would President Obama still have been pursuing the war? Would he have quit after the carnage of Antietam?

President Lincoln saw the war through.

If we speculate and assume that President Obama would not have fought the Civil War, or that he would not have fought it through to the bitter end, would his decisions have been better or worse than President Lincoln’s? More or less moral?

Was preserving the union worth 500,000 deaths? Over 400,000 wounded and maimed?

Was freeing 4 million slaves worth such casualties? Would the slaves still be slaves today, or would changing economic or other social conditions caused its demise by 1900? 1930? 1945?

Is it moral to kill to preserve a political union that supposedly is based on the “consent of the governed?” Is it moral to use deadly force to end slavery?

On March 4, 1865, 150 years ago, President Lincoln delivered a sober and reflective second Inaugural Address.

“On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it.

“Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. ....

“Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. ....

“The prayers of both could not be answered. ... neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ....

“If God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword ... it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

I cannot believe, given his unwillingness to make war shown during his years in office, President Obama would have called up troops and gone to war to preserve the Union.

Nor do I have any evidence to believe Mr. Obama would have embarked upon the Civil War to free the slaves. Consider his remarks when Russia intervened/invaded Ukraine: “Russia is on the wrong side of history.” Would he have said, “The Confederate States are on the wrong side of history in seceding, and keeping slaves?” Would he have chosen to employ for “diplomatic and economic steps” to isolate the Confederacy? Would he have been wrong? I don’t know.

Was it wrong or immoral to pursue a war that resulted in nearly a million casualties, not to mention the destruction of families and property, to advance in time the emancipation of 4 million slaves. At Galesburg, President Lincoln labeled slavery as a “moral, social and political evil.” He believed the use of deadly force was justified to end that evil, and to save the union.

Because I, like Mr. Lincoln, would not want to be a slave, and without the advantage of hindsight, I (to free the slaves) would have supported President Lincoln’s course of action. How about you?
To go to war, or not?

The question is not academic. It is the question that President Obama faces every time he is asked to make war, or put “boots on the ground.” But history shows that the euphoria at going to war soon is replaced by a generation-long misery for all those touched by the war.

Posted: Monday, December 7, 2015 6:44 am. QCOnline.com

By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015

John Donald O'Shea