ISIS Kicking Sand In the Eyes of the Truth - Losers!!

Even in catastrophic tragedies, ISIS hurries to reap the wind of evil. The Russian airbus plummets from 31,000 feet down to the Sinai mountainous floor. More than 200 hundred Russian and Ukrainian tourists and crew head to a fiery death. Instead of heading home with lungs refreshed from the iconic resort of Sharm El-Sheik. The alternative capital of Egypt during Mubarak days.

So the world grieves for the human loss. Egyptian groups gather before the Russian Embassy in Cairo with flowers, candles and songs of condolences. Putin declares a national day of mourning. Egyptian-led teams of investigators descend upon the floor of tragedy seeking the inner secrets of the black box to reveal the actual cause of the tragedy. A hundred Egyptian ambulances carry the body bags to awaiting Russian planes to fly the victims home.

Everyone on the face of the earth bow their heads in a prayerful gesture of accepting the fate of that airbus and its occupants.

Except for ISIS!! Evil celebrates evil. In a transparent attempt to grab the headlines for publicity of a false victory. Even before the investigations by Egyptian, Russian, French and American reveal the real cause of that enormous human tragedy. ISIS celebrates: "We did it. Victory for our Sinai campaign." Yet no such celebration and "high five" are in order. The fact belies the ISIS premature claims of victory of evil over good. For at 31,000 feet high up over the Sinai sky, no ground to air missile is known to climb more than 20,000 feet. An airbus in flight at that altitude is not akin to a low flying helicopter, easily reached by a powerful and well aimed Kalashnikov.

These are facts. Not a barrage of lies spread by ISIS and its affiliates in the Sinai/Hamas regions. That is where the combined strength of the mighty Egyptian Second and Third Armies, concentrated by El-Sisi in the hands of one brilliant and battle-tested commander, is pummeling that evil. Gradually out of viable existence whatever time it takes.

Thus to ISIS and its so-called Caliphate at Raqqa, Syria, the Holy Quran, in Chapter VIII, seems to address itself to the anti-Islamic "Islamic State." Verse 37 is on point: "So that God may distinguish the corrupt from the Good, and pile the corrupt one upon another. And so heap them up together, and throw them into Hell. Those are the losers."

The losers keep on kicking sand in the eyes of the truth. The truth is that ISIS moves where there is no opposing movement on the ground. Moves into empty spaces; into where loyalties are split by the fiction of a Sunni Islam and a Shii Islam; into the void of authority; into the void of jobs taken away from half a million mighty Iraqi army, officered mainly by Sunnis during the reign of Saddam terror. That was a void created by an American lunatic called Bremmer at the outset of the great American war debacle of the Bush/Cheney war on Iraq.

We are still in an age of several voids exploited by the phantom Caliphate of an Anbar thug called Al-Baghdadi. Let us have a recitation of these voids on the US side, enabling ISIS to temporarily prosper on the oxygen of these voids which have to be likened to the underground tunnels. Previously dug by Hamsawis in an attempted underground invasion by the renegade Gaza enclave of mighty Egypt.

• No US coherent policy in regard to US war effort against ISIS;
• The US Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, is wedded to three R's:

Raqqa/Ramadi/Raids. But from the air. An air campaign cannot secure timely victory for on the ground campaign.

• Only 50 US special forces for Syria, and 3500 for Iraq. To do what?: "Advise and Assist!!" What does this mean in regard to ISIS in Syria? It means that the US has no reliable partner on the ground in Syria. But in Iraq, there is the Pesh Merga of Kurdistan, seeking through their collaboration to secure from within Iraq, the State of Kurdistan.
• But would Sunni Arabs of Syria acquiesce to a Kurdish occupation of Raqqa, following the expected defeat of ISIS? Of course no.
• So here we go again: A complicated battlefield. Lines keep on shifting; loyalties are measured only by the day. Your friend of today is your enemy of tomorrow. Thus the concept of "command and control" goes to hell.
• Add to this, the general policy, in fact doctrine of Obama of "no more US involvement in Middle East wars." This is the prevailing doctrine at the very time when ISIS needs a strong response.
• On top of that, add the absence of a legal framework for any robust US involvement. There is no declaration of war by Congress. Because? Against whom? Against the foes of selected bands. But how do you know that that selection endures? Especially when the US has no informants on the ground!!
• Have I just said "the absence of a legal framework for any robust US involvement?" Yes. But attorneys like myself have to be both credible and circumspect. So, OK!! There is one legal framework. It is a Congressional authorization that dates back to the tragedy of 9/11!! Thus it is no good for the age of ISIS. Obsolete. And in law, whatever is obsolete cannot be cited as credible.
• Also bear in mind that "an authorization" cannot be legally equated with "a declaration." You usually authorize another branch of Government, after its action has begun. And you "declare," no ipso facto. You legislate. And your legislation is upon request of either the legislature (Congress) or the Executive (the President in the Oval Office). And you fund what you legislate.
• And your legislation, when unfounded, becomes a dead letter. Unless stopped by a Presidential veto or an executive order. Provided that executive action can survive a Congressional over-ride of a super majority. Complicated? Yes. The story of the American system, especially when it comes to war. This is what we do as legal counsel in US constitutional issues: The process of unscrambling, which drives our students sometimes to mental exhaustion!!
• The pile-up of uncertainties is not yet complete when it comes to the US vs. ISIS. Because?
• There is a lack of attainable goals. The best result is to prevent the occurrence of the worst scenario.
• There are no clear limits of authority between Congress (where the Republicans have a majority in both houses), and the President who is passionately hated by the Republicans -the war party.
• Why not "a no fly zone?!" You must be kidding. No fly zone (NFZ) could protect those on the ground whose loyalties you don't know. NFZ needs to be defended. NFZ infringes sovereignty. Sovereignty which is still claimed by present-day super-killer Bashar. Who is supported by Russian military might, Iranian Al-Quds Revolutionary Guards, and Hezbollah, the only discernible ruler of Lebanon. So instead of Syria occupying Lebanon, we now have Lebanon occupying Syria!!

I still have more bad news, about the efficacy of America's war in Syria: the terms that have wavering meaning, or no consensual meaning whatever. Here are some: "The broader war;" "Boots on the Ground;" "War improvisation;" "Guiding Local Fighters;" "Covert Training and Equipping by the CIA;" "Ideological Spectrum;" and "Downward Slope."

I hope that the reader has not concluded from the above that ISIS shall eventually prevail!! They don't have the long breath, the enduring bond between themselves and their subjects, the mammoth weight of Islam as a faith, and their reliance on incidents of panic-creation not on the Rule of Law -any law. They are the proverbial losers!!

Back to the Quran: "Say, 'The pure and impure are not equal, though the abundance of the impure may allure you much.' So be God fearing, O people who possess minds, that you may be successful."

Thus with the US and Russia or without, ISIS and Al-Nusra and their nominal franchises wherever they may be, shall be proven to be the proverbial losers. For they are like bats, flying at night -the night of present-day Islam. 

Soon there shall be dawn!! Yes, ISIS for now can kick sand in the eyes of the truth. But truth is more durable than sand. Sand that falls apart with a good dose of cleansing water.