ISIS/ISIL -- Challenge or Opportunity | Russell Howard | TEDxBeaconStreet
I am an equal opportunity critic by saying that I am not a Critic of equal opportunity I just am a Critic of all of our political parties equally all right I'm going to talk today about the Islamic state is Isis is depending what you how you want to to call them and I'm going to try and leave you with the idea that despite what you've read in the Press what you see on television this particular enemy can be defeated and actually can be defeated with relative ease that's what I'm going to try and do but first of all I want to talk to you about me being a Critic so the day before our last presidential election and Nationwide media I was critical of President Obama and I criticized him for saying leading up to the election that Al-Qaeda was on the run and we shouldn't be worried about them in fact I said that Al-Qaeda is running but they're running to muck and I mentioned places in the world where they were actually increasing in their power not decreasing in this this article but I wasn't the only one to mention this in the press in fact cartoonists picked it up to by the way I'm 68 years old and an IRS had never audited me but after being critical of the president six weeks later I was audited and I have been audited even once again now I don't know if there's a cause and effect relationship there all right critical of President Obama I have also been critical of President Bush and his you can run but you can't hide policy so what happens if you're someone like excuse me zahiri here and you have run and you have hidden you run and you do hide what does it say about your policy shame shame on you shame on [Applause] you I didn't know there were going to be so many children in the audience yeah what happens if you run and you do hide I mean your policy is failed in my view so now we have both I'm critical of both Bush and the Obama administrations for the policy to deny Al-Qaeda sanctuary and the notion is that if you deny Al-Qaeda Sanctuary then they will not be able to regroup plan organize and hit the United States like they did on 911 and so eloquently talked about by one of your previous speakers so I think that policy is flawed and failed also and I'll tell you why think back to decades when Al-Qaeda did have sanctuary in Sudan we used diplomacy to convince the sudanes government to expel Al-Qaeda and they went to Afghanistan in Afghanistan we didn't persevere and they were able to set up organize and hit the United States however after 911 when they had Sanctuary we were able to use intelligence air power and US Army Special Forces to actually fa and easily and quickly defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan this is Special Forces team five 47 12 men along with 50 indigenous Fighters commanded by hekmat carai were able to be defeat near tarok in Afghanistan more than 2,000 Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters now you see they're all Barrel chested Commandos right I want you to know that 3040 even well 40 30 maybe 20 years ago I too was a barrel chested Commander my Barrel has slipped a little bit in retirement so the results of our denying Sanctuary policy is I'm sure you've all heard of whacka well we have a whacka terrorist Poli and so what happens when you when they turn up other places right so by not enabling to set up in sanctuary somewhere where you know where they are you know who they are you know what they have we have allowed them to disperse become amorphous and it's become exceedingly difficult to find them fix them and fight them and by adhering to this denying Sanctuary policy much blood much treasure and in my view failure so what do I advocate I'm going to use ISS Isis isil depending on what you want to call them as my case study for the reverse allowing a terrorist organization to gang Sanctuary for a while so let's imagine Isis has Sanctuary I'll show you another map these areas the colored areas are the areas that they either control or will control or soon control or have some control about the size of Colorado now and we see it as a challenge pundits uh critics uh academics say because they have oil they have wealth they can get money they have territory they have Conventional Weapons now and they're so brutal that they will be almost impossible to defeat and I'm going to try and convince you otherwise I view them Isis as an opportunity to fix a terrorist group in a location and address them so let me go through some ways we say that they have money they do they coar money out of their those citizens are trying to co-op they have oil I'll talk about in a second they have gold they robbed banks they took Banks and we think that the Corpus is about $2 billion but I will tell you that financial institutions are targets not just military targets such as this this is their their equivalent of their Fort Knox uh their Finance Center and rqa it's hard to tell from this graphic here but we hit the important parts of that building without hitting Parts where people were pretty precise but you not only can use sort of military assets to attack targets you can also use financial institutions uh that we did against Al-Qaeda we took their money away very quickly so there are things you can do economically to address this notion that they have money can move money have Banks it's not it's actually to our advantage if we use all the elements of power to do so they have oil they sell oil to Turkish and Syrian criminals at much discounted rates all right so what can you do if you know they have oil just what we've done now they were hesitant to do so because after Isis we want the local people or kurs or whomever to be able to use this oil for their own benefit so you don't want to destroy it entirely but we could if we had to the caliphate state that caliphate state if you put it out to its extremes would be about the size of Montana now about the size of Colorado or Wyoming all right but if you're going to have a state you have to have borders and you know how hard it is for us to control our borders think if they have a state and they try and maintain borders how difficult it would be for them to keep us out of their so-called country they call themselves a Proto State a Proto state has to have infrastructure you have to have uh buildings communication system Transportation Systems all Targets brutality Isis is one of the most brutal organizations on the planet but there's something in sociological science that says there is a plateau there is a level of brutality that an organization can reach before the citizenry of the area that they control will react in the United States actually it was in the 30s when we had gangsters in the United States and we get say they became so violent that citizenry in the United States not the bureau or police but citizens stood up well this is beginning to happen in areas controlled or around where Isis is operating now they have Conventional Weapons now they stole all the weapons that we gave to the Iraq IES they stole weapons that the Russians gave to syrians so I have all these Conventional Weapons two things the Conventional Weapons that they stole from Iraqis that we gave to the Iraqis were what maintained by American contractors so do you think American contractors are going to work for Isis I don't think so so they will fail Russian weapons a little bit less sophisticated a little bit easier to maintain but still they will break down So eventually these will all break down and if they don't break down that's what can happen to them charismatic leadership this is Al bagdadi we're not sure whether or not we injured him two weeks ago in a an attack we think we might have but eventually he will be a Target foreign fighters huge challenge particularly for you in this room and in the United States there are now more than 3,000 foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria no 30 did I say 3,000 or 30,000 I did go to Harvard but I'm not a math major okay 30,000 foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria 3,000 of those are from Europe carrying European passports and 150 from the United States of America fighting in Iraq and Syria so I mean the bad news is that they when they come back they have an opportunity to create Havoc here in the United States or their home country or adopted country better term however comma if we can get them there so that they don't return or get them when they do try to return which were becoming more sophisticated that doing I see it as an opportunity not necessarily a challenge timing is important timing is important what I have advocated about letting Isis set up gain Sanctuary has risk because if you let them have Sanctuary for too long then you don't run the risk of another 911 in the United States so we have to Be watchful care ful but we need to know pick the right time to engage them not with thousands of boots on the ground but with good intelligence air power Special Operations just like we did in Afghanistan just like we did in Afghanistan but we have to make sure that we do it when the timing is correct coordinated intelligence is the most important asset and what I'm advocating and finally there are some in our government Libertarians in particular who say that we should not engage in Iraq and Syria against Isis and I have to tell you that I am sympathetic to that argument States like the United States that get involved in other countries Civil Wars don't Faire very well but I will tell you I believe we have some moral obligation to those who can't fight for themselves particularly minorities particularly minorities in this area Christians AES and others who protects them who looks out for them so while I do agree that getting involved in more International Warfare is not is not in the best interest of the United States I do care for those who cannot protect themselves that's my pitch thank you very much