Continued Legacy of the War on Terror

This week, a Sunni jihadist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), stormed the cities of Mosul and Tikrit while ill-prepared Iraqi police and military dropped their weapons and retreated. Taking advantage of their success, ISIS continued its drive by instigating sporadic attacks using weapons seized from Iraqi military installations that were once held by US military units.

Since the US withdrew from Iraq in 2011, violent attack on civilians and military installations have increased. The ISIS conquest is a reflection of the popular discontent that Sunni Muslims have for the central government under President Nouri Al-Maliki. Al-Maliki, a Shia Muslim, has put no effort into welcoming Sunni Muslims into his government. His government has faced blistering criticism from his blatant attacks on Sunni members of Parliament, including an incident where a Sunni MP was arrested at the request of the administration. He has also faced charges of corruption and nepotism.

The ISIS action is reflective of a larger legacy that started with the second Bush Administration and inherited by the current administration. The so-called "War on Terror" has transformed geopolitical conflict across a vast swath of land from the Middle East to Africa to Eastern Europe. ISIS is one of many groups that were formed to take advantage of unstable regimes to spread their jihadist message. Here are some regional highlights:

• In Africa, groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al Shabab in Somalia have carried high profile acts of terror that have left hundreds dead or wounded. Boko Haram continues to be a thorn in the side of the Nigerian government as it continues its attempts to rescue over 200 school girls kidnapped by the group.  
• A sustained rise in extremism in former Soviet territories led to one of the worst attacks on US soil since 9/11 - the Boston Marathon bombing. Fighters from jihadist groups in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and other Eastern European countries have joined the fight against Assad in Syria and have joined up with groups in Yemen to attempt to topple the government. 
•  ISIS has been considered so extreme that even elements of the rebels fighting Assad (who are aligned with Al Qaeda) have decided to fight them in addition to battling the government. ISIS continues to impose its extremist views on areas it controls in both Iraq and Syria, including carrying out executions for apostasy. 
• Western governments are facing the terrifying reality that those who were radicalized in their home country and decided to join the extremist side in Syria might return with those views. Belgium experienced its first incident when a French-born jihadist who had been fighting in Syria killed three people at a Jewish Museum. 

The War on Terror has grown exponentially in scope from its inception as a way to find and uproot the terrorists who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. It now extends from the former fiefdoms of dictators in the Middle East to the skies over Yemen and Pakistan to the streets of Boston and Benghazi and the Museums of Belgium. The US and its allies must maintain a military presence in order to ensure that the fledgling democracies in areas once controlled by dictators (including Sadaam Hussein) do not slip into complete chaos. It is through that necessity that the War on Terror continues to proliferate. 

The War that Will End War - 100 Years On

In 1914, Author and Commentator H.G. Wells published a number of articles in London newspapers that eventually ended up in a anthology called The War that Will End War. In his commentaries, Wells blamed the Central Powers for instigating World War I and that their defeat and a stop to German Imperialism would bring about the end of war. The statement was picked up by Woodrow Wilson as a way to characterize both the effect and brutality of WWI.

Industrialized warfare and the destruction of entire generations left the United States questioning its exposure to Europe. Entangling and anachronistic colonial alliances brought world powers into a intractable conflict that only led to mass slaughter. Two months after sending the military into Europe, President Wilson lamented the colonial ties that created the conflict and appealed for a settlement and a "peace without victory."

WWI introduced the world to mechanized warfare. The human element was washed away under the repeated firing of machine guns, the explosions of grenades and tanks, the sickly smell of mustard gas and the anonymous destruction brought by the millions upon millions of artillery shells fired and bombs dropped on either side of the endless labyrinth of trenches. Trench warfare was a zero sum game where one side gained ground only to lose it again.

The kinds of experiences that soldiers brought back from the front lines scared and appalled the public. The president who had won re-election on keeping the United States out of the war had to head overseas to negotiate its end. In the short time that the US took part in WWI, it sustained over 320,000 casualties. In all, casualties from the war topped 37 million.

Out of the conflict came a framework and a start to the end of total warfare. Wilson, with the backing of the country, went to Paris to negotiate a peace. Wilson's 14-points included some of the most innovative and progressive post-war solutions that still hold as much legitimacy today as they did 100 years ago. Ideals like freedom of the seas, self determination for all countries and the formation of a unified body of peacekeeping countries were all included in Wilson's plan.

But, much like the war dead, his points became victim to colonial revenge and entitlement. Britain, France and Italy all exacted revenge on the Central Powers by slapping Germany with $300 billion in reparation payments, sending its already tattered post-war economy into a tailspin. The rise of extreme nationalism and Nazism can be directly connected to the effects that the war debt had on the country. While the US-made Dawes Plan tried to strike a compromise for repayment, the extreme deflation of the Deutschemark had done enough damage to the economy.

Despite the toll of the war, the roots of peace and open trade were fostered in Versailles. The League of Nations was created, which eventually spawned NATO and the United Nations. The Allied powers worked together to pass armament reduction treaties which included the Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons and a limitation on the number and size of warships. The Allied powers also signed the well-intentioned, yet ineffective, Kellogg-Briand Pact which renounced war as an instrument of national policy.

Wilson, who failed to get the United States Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, tried to sell the League of Nations to the people. Opponents of the League of Nations, the "Reservationists" and the "Irreconcilables," fanned the flames of isolationism and the loss of American sovereignty. They only had to point to the violence of the war and the "pound-of-flesh" that colonial powers exacted from Germany to turn the Senate against the treaty. Wilson's uncompromising push to include the US in the League of Nations blinded him to the less controversial points of his plan and he eventually sold them away only to see the US turn towards isolationism and anti-European sentiment.      

100 years on, the effects of the Treaty of Versailles that ended the war are still pervasive. The rise of National Socialism, the beginning and end of the Soviet state, the Great Depression, the United Nations and Middle East conflicts can all trace their roots back to the splitting up of the Central Powers' colonial holdings after the war and the investment that the US made in European powers to rebuild their post-war economies. Borders were drawn without regard to ethnic, racial or religious ties, leading to future conflict. Post-war investment in Europe employed for debt repayment instigated the beginning of a World Depression.

On the Centennial of the Great War, Europe and the US should return to some of the lessons of Versailles and the messages ingrained in the 14-points, especially when current conflicts reflect both the legacy and the failure of the treaty.

Hobby Lobby, et al vs. Its Employees

Next week, the Supreme Court will take up the next challenge to Obamacare - Hobby Lobby, et al versus the Contraception Mandate. At the center of the their argument lies one dangerous point - do corporations have religious rights? Hobby Lobby, et al argues that the contraception mandate violates their corporate religious conscience. If the Supreme Court were to rule in their favor, it would have wide-ranging consequences.

The right to free exercise of religion, enshrined in the first amendment, was created to ensure that the government or some sort of governmental entity (local, national, state, etc) does not favor or impose on its citizens one religion over another. It is the great equalizer when it comes to free expression of religious values. Corporations do not have the characteristics of an entity that would be able to express religious beliefs. As Davis Gans wrote in the LATimes this week - corporations do not express religious sentiments, no matter what form they come in. Corporations do not pray, they do not show devotion to a higher power and they do not have religious conscience. The major characteristics of a corporation, like limited liability and the going concern (unlimited life) make it characteristically (and legally) separate from the owner. To apply this religious protection to a secular, for-profit corporation would, as David put it, simply make no sense.

Beyond religious rights, the case will also tackle whether or not corporations have the right to impose their beliefs on their employees, and as a result restrict their access to federal programs that conflict with the owner's religious inclinations. Hobby Lobby, as Gans points out, is a large corporation that hires from all faiths, and to deny any employee access to contraceptives if access to such services do not conflict with that employees faith is, in my opinion, a violation of their rights.

If Hobby Lobby, et al. gets a favorable ruling, who would protect employees from being retaliated against for using services that are in conflict with the corporation's "religious conscience?" Could an employee be fired to not complying with religious-based directives from upper management? These questions must be considered when weighing the rights of Hobby Lobby's employees against the religious inclinations of the owners. Moreover, the Supreme Court should not extend religious rights to the corporation.