I for one am tired.
Tired of hearing of another horrific act forced upon the innocent by those who have undoubtedly forsaken any semblance of decency and descended into the depths of depravity.
Beheadings and killings, torture, rapes and mass killings — they all reek of the animalistic cruelty we have come to know from the extreme terrorists who have captured the world stage and its imagination for more than a decade.
When I first heard of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or whatever name you want to give it, I was struck with a wave of depression.
We and the world had toppled a tyrannical government in Iraq and replaced it with a framework of democracy and liberty, purged insurgents from Afghanistan, killed Osama Bin Laden, and for lack of a better word, waged a war on terrorism virtually every day since the 2000s began.
Yet, here we were again confronted with the same evil in a new form as if all had been for naught.
It’s enough to make you sick.
Now, I don’t actually think all has been for nothing. Say what you will of our strategy, but I find it rather difficult to throw stones at our motivation and our goal.
Misguided as it may be in the sense of its possibility, (I think the current events are showcasing this) the hope of a free Middle Eastern state is a lofty, noble aim, and I am not ashamed of our desire to bring it to be.
If the greatest criticism of our foreign policy in the ?region is that we were and are too overzealous and hasty in our attempts to give others the immense freedom we ourselves have been fortunate enough to experience for more than 200 years, I think we can hold our heads high, all things considered.
Despite this respect for our aim, I am no fool.
I cannot help but believe it is time we reevaluate our entire paradigm of foreign policy in this powder keg region of the world.
There is a reason ISIS has been so successful so quickly, and until we fully unearth this reality, we will be stuck in a game of dropping a few bombs, sending advisory aid and running humanitarian efforts.
Not that these things are bad in and of themselves, but they don’t seem to bring us any closer to the end game.
Maybe our end game is wrong, then? I am not sure, and it isn’t for me to decide.
As a nation, we must have an honest and open debate about where we should stand, who it should be behind and when we get our stick.
My only fear is that we have come to suffer extremist fatigue in a sense and are so tired and sick of hearing these tragedies we don’t have the will or energy to have a serious discussion. We only want them to go away.
cgerst@indiana.edu
