Handle the ISIS threat with caution

Most CSC students weren’t even in high school when the U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003. It’s likely then that few of us remember the rhetoric that drove us into the nearly nine-year conflict.

Leading up to the Iraq war, the American public was convinced by a White House propaganda cell that urgent intervention was the only way to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring and employing weapons of mass destruction. Diplomacy would take far too long, and fear that “the smoking gun would be a mushroom cloud” drove us to act without fully weighing the consequences of our actions.

According to Reuters, the Iraq war cost more than $2 trillion dollars, but greater still are the human costs. More than 134,000 Iraqi civilians and 4,489 Americans were killed, with millions more still struggling to cope with the physical and mental trauma war inevitably leaves behind.  These scars carry a lofty price tag that can hardly be quantified.

However, the recent beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steve Sotloff have shaken the western world, and the threat posed by the Islamic State has again put us into a situation where fear might drive us to act before we fully weigh all of our options.  There’s no question that we have to do something, but what that “something” entails seems to be elusive.

One thing that the western news media has paid significant attention and analysis to is Islamic State militant’s use of social media. Twitter and YouTube have been used as both a propaganda outlet and a recruiting tool to attract foreign fighters who are sympathetic to their cause.

But the shock factor is something the west needs to identify and hold at arm’s distance. It’s cliché to say that history will repeat itself, but there is one lesson we should have learned from our last foray into the Middle East. When we let emotionally charged messages generate fear and dictate our actions, our judgment becomes clouded.

The last thing our nation can afford to do is let our fear of terrorism dictate our next move.  We know that it’s unwise to hastily proceed alone into another un-funded conflict. We should not try to combat Islamic fanaticism without a strong coalition and clear plan for how we intend to mitigate and neutralize the threat ISIS poses.