Your Other Left: You Call Yourself A Liberal? Resist Left Wing L'appel Du Vide

Liberalism has long been conflated with the left in American politics. Ever since the civil rights era, the Democratic Party, traditionally home to southern white racists, has been the home of most left of center politicians. Before the sixties, the Republican Party was the party of civil rights. Both parties had social liberals and social conservatives in their ranks until the landscape shifted in the tumultuous decade the baby boomers won't allow us to forget. Over the next few decades the political migration of liberals and minorities to the Democrats and conservatives and southern whites to the Republicans settled into a status quo. The conflation of Democrat with left wing and Republican with right wing has made for a confused glossary of political terms.

Ideological orthodoxy is enforced along the lines of 'left vs right' and we no longer expect liberals to uphold liberal principles and conservatives to uphold conservative principles. In fact many liberals prefer the term 'progressive' nowadays, even though it is increasingly clear that these terms are not synonymous. Tribal identity politics has become the dominant force in much of western society, and the classic dichotomy of liberal vs reactionary has been shredded. So let's talk about liberalism and determine if that is what you are, shall we?

Liberals believe in the principles of individual liberty, gender equality, freedom of expression, secular government, and a right to life, liberty, and due process under the law. It can be said that "the rule of law" or the concept of "freedom under law" which was perhaps the most crucial phrase in the proto-enlightenment document: Magna Carta. From there we can trace the advances of civilization and culture to the radical liberals who fought for freedom of expression, equal and civil rights, secular values, and the establishment of democracy in place of monarchy and totalitarian rule. To be conservative was to be reactionary and support the status quo whether it was serfdom or somewhat more advanced. To be liberal was to be radical and change the status quo to remove power from the few and expand individual liberty.

Liberals tend to value science, education, and creative expression. They take a laissez faire or 'live and let live' attitude toward other peoples and cultures, a notion which, in theory, makes very good sense. While monarchs, tyrants, theocratic despots and later communists and fascists promised utopia, paradise, perfection and purity, radicals, enlightenment thinkers and Magna Carta liberals were fighting for and demanding liberty and functionality.

The status quo is always going to be imperfect for somebody because there is no perfect. By the time the enlightenment liberal revolution reached critical mass with the American and French revolutions, liberalism had a manifesto in Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, a declaration of principles in the Declaration of Independence, and an updated Magna Carta in the American Bill of Rights. Later in the twentieth century, representatives from nations who had benefited most from these liberal concepts drafted a document to be upheld as the liberal's grandest aspirational document: the universal declaration of human rights.

The liberal's greatest achievements include the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, the defeat of fascism in Europe, and more recently, the civil rights and women’s equal rights movements. Liberals believe that rights are universal and inalienable. They believe in gender equality, and standing up for women, homosexuals, minorities, and the physically or mentally challenged. If you actively support or apologize for people or ideologies that reject these rights, you are not a liberal. If you apply different standards to different people and societies for any reason, you are probably not a liberal.

Liberals believe that all people are entitled to dignity, fairness, and equal treatment under the law. If you believe people with different skin color, beliefs, or nationalities should be treated differently, infantilized, or held to lower moral standards, you are not a liberal. Principles are more important to liberals than identity. We cannot be equal if we are not equally free and accountable.

Liberals believe in secular democratic representative government, regardless of their own personal philosophical or religious beliefs. Yet many support or ignore those who actively and unapologetically espouse tyranny, theocracy, or even genocide. If you fail to see the hypocrisy in such behavior, you are not a liberal.

Liberals do not support aggression, violence, murder or ethnic cleansing. If you sympathize with those who espouse violence and terror as legitimate political weapons, particularly against innocents and children, you are not a liberal.

Liberals believe in freedom of speech and expression. Yet many who call themselves liberals support silencing those with differing opinions and beliefs simply because they disagree with them or are not partial to their nationality, ethnic background or religion. They very often denounce and smear their interlocutors as racists and bigots, without feeling any need to explain or justify such accusations, much less concern themselves with their consequences. These are not liberal, serious or ethical people.

Liberals believe in science, reason, art, music and education. If you support or enable those who wish to proscribe others from such pursuits or pleasures, you are not a liberal.

Liberals believe in the rule of law and that all people are innocent until proven guilty. If you support or sympathize with those who administer medieval justice, torture, or execute people in the public square without a fair trial, you are not a liberal.

Liberals come from a tradition of enlightenment principles which, above all, value the importance of the individual and his or her quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you believe more in the rights of groups than individuals, or that identity politics and political correctness are more valuable to the human experience than individual rights, you are not a liberal.

Granted, liberalism, by definition, will forever be an imperfect paradox, nebulous and in constant flux, expanding, contracting, and even collapsing in on itself. Lest we forget, from liberal we also get the word libertine, or one who lacks a sense of moral restraint. But for all its blemishes and imperfections, when it comes to fulfilling equality, human rights, and the aspirations of the common people, it’s the only game in town.

(Written by Rufus Chicolini and Keith Carbone, two liberals)

Your Other Left: Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

In Turkey it's become almost rote

That the Sultan just can't take a joke.

If the world were a dairy,

Deutschland is the canary,

But Europe, dear friends, is the goat.

                                                 "Let's show him what we do to jokers."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel seems to have abandoned western liberal principles. Her motivation may not be clear, but her choice to authorize prosecution of German comedian Jan Bohmermann for a satirical joke about the president of Turkey disqualifies her from political leadership positions in civil society.  Bohmermann is to be charged with violating an obscure law against contumely of foreign representatives, a ridiculous law which Chancellor Merkel said will be discarded by 2018.

"Before they hit the big time, Angie and Erdo met on the City Council in Peoria."

The querulous leader of the Justice and Development Party or AKP, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a burgeoning dictator, Ottoman nostalgist and EU extortionist rumored to be an avid lover of animals and habitual MDMA abuser.* Erdogan has a temper and he routinely takes time out of his busy schedule of ridding Turkey of its free press, dismantling its democracy, praising Hitler, sheltering ISIS, bombing Kurds, and counting Euros to round up children and journalists who criticize him.  It is a moral imperative that he be subjected to execration and obluquy on a scale no international public figure has experienced.
(*Help start this rumor by using these hashtags: #ErdoganSwine #ErdoganIsAPigDiddler #ErdoganBlowsGoats  #InsultErdogan)

"After one too many whip-its, they got that look in their eyes: they danced until dawn. At lunch time dancing was banned in Germany."

Merkel is only the most embarrassing of the many western milksop "liberals" currently doing everything they can to push people into the arms of the far right. The term regressive left is overused and often misused.  This is what it actually means: self identified lefties, progressives and liberals who embrace, apologize for, lie about and defend illiberal or fascist ideologies, actors and concepts for the sake of political correctness, identity tribalism or ideological motives; liberals who abandon liberal principles, intellectual honesty and objective truth for the sake of political orthodoxy or other unscrupulous motivations.

We don't need a new term for a bastard like Erdogan.  He is pure swine.

Your Other Left: Caligulan Populism: Deep Tedium 2016

The Grand Old Party has allowed their message and indeed every ounce of their base's energy to be transformed by the most reactionary and noisome con artists. They eagerly acquiesced and surrendered to their previously exiled mutants in order to rile up the hordes with rage, victimhood and paranoia. William F. Buckley purged the Klan and Birchers from the conservative coalition and the Republican Party.Now Buckley is gone and the benighted brutes are back and they're pissed.

The cynical GOP leadership gleefully staffed out the entire conservative platform to the personalities who could take them where the energy was.This makes some sense from a strategic marketing perspective, and the Democrats have had their own fringe message coup in an effort to compete.However attractive this enterprise must have appeared with each passing panic, the GOP establishment wishes they could hop in a delorean and stop themselves from engineering their own destruction.Examine the candidacy of Donald Trump from the perspective of the ordinary American citizens who have been told by our politicians that they can do things they simply cannot do.Resist the urge to revel in political schadenfreude because we need those establishment Republicans who the Trumpkins are so angry with if Western society is to right itself.The Bernie Sanders supporters are a different story.We never needed them before.They should return to the right wing pseudo-liberal Occupy tent with their poppers and wait for the next asinine fascist rally against free trade.

As much sense as this chorus of mouthbreathers operation may have made to the Republican country club set and Democratic consultant class who set it in motion, there doesn't seem to have been any doubt as to the wisdom or responsibility of this strategy on their part. It must have been irresistible if you consider the free messaging and organizing muscle that came with anger radio, and all the disciplined recruitment performed by televangelists, assorted Christian right media, and tabloid cable news that could tap into emotions, define issues and develop mass acceptance of political narratives for an audience who tend to vote without having to be begged or persuaded, unlike their liberal counterparts who incessantly vomit trite syllables approximating the deeply tedious half thought "lesser of two evils" sonnet. The right has a natural constituency of frightened and angry people who are quite good at following a routine.These lowest hanging denominators and the millions of indoctrinated Evangelicals make up the right wing coalition along with the young libertarian dudes and credulous conspiracy theory cultists that exploded onto the scene of a once silent reactionary counterculture. These are the people who suddenly dominate much of the national political conversation with more power than they merit and there is nowhere near enough sedative on hand to dull their malignant rage.Where there was once an establishment party of patriotic deal makers there is now flash, blustery belligerence and magnificently unapologetic hatred.

The working class and middle class, weakened and deluded by constant demagoguery, are feeling alien to their culture.They feel as though they are taboo in their country and they've been told to blame it on multiculturalism.These people are not stupid.They just have few alternatives to the sensory overload of clickbait media culture.This tabloid Saturnalia of sensationalism seems to have produced a psychotic political movement of paranoiacs at whose pleasure we now live.They're mostly in Congress.

The grown-up party of conservative, responsible, middle of the road, Alex Keaton type young Republicans, the unabashedly stuffy exclusive country club party of Poppy Bush and the Cold Warrior party that sheltered spooky Roy Cohn or E. Howard Hunt types is long gone.Those very stalwarts torched their reasonably successful moderate conservative brand of the "grown up" or "daddy party" and auctioned off their message to unscrupulous fiends who prey on credulous hordes.They now more resemble the party of your creepy uncle who still insists Ike was a pinko.

The old Republican establishment had such a reputation by the New century that Democrats were paralyzed and perpetually rattled by President Bush's popularity after September of 2001. They too fed their energy and enthusiasm deficit wherever they could.The progressive left, as it likes to be called, has an insatiable appetite for wish thinking and thought sanitation that is dwarfed by their compulsive cognitive dissonance and delusional dogmatism. The Democratic Party was infiltrated by naive pseudo-liberal progressives, 60's drop out nostalgists, failed spiritual seekers and social justice goose steppers who share the fundamentalist Chomskyite belief that motive can be discerned without evidence. When this crunchy lot of conspiracy theorists discovered that the mass media used populist white victimhood claiming hysterics to turn working men and homemaker women into diehard conservatives they saw diabolical sophistication where there was none. That mindset made for fertile ground for antisemitic mythology and it didn't take long to turn excessive white guilt and unfettered paranoia into mind reading.Did you know you're a racist? Now you know, and so does everybody else.

Welcome to 2016. After years of repetition, the phrase "lesser of two evils" is beginning to resonate, and the similarities, not between two parties as has been claimed for years, but between two mirrored edges of the ideological horseshoe are becoming rote, menacing and depressing.

The nation is divided between the two reactionary conservative factions of frightened and stubborn amnesiacs who are unaware of their similarities.The left and right are of one mind.They simply follow different politicians.Each day it becomes more and more difficult for liberals to align with the reactionary tattered edges of the horseshoe as they shout in unison what becomes a chant of "make free stuff great again."

"A republic, if you can keep it," Benjamin Franklin once said in the early days of the nation founded on Thomas Paine's radical liberalism and Thomas Jefferson's pen, but can we keep it away from ourselves? 

HUMAN SOLIDARITY NOW

For more than five thousand consecutive days we have been attacked by an enemy that can never achieve their theocratic goals, but can and have contributed to our weakened condition. By "we" of course I am referring to civil society and the ordinary decent people in every nation and culture who want to live life free of the menace of barbaric suicide cults, theocratic bastards and ideological tribal bloodsport.  Civil society was viciously disrupted by the Bin Ladenist suicide cult on September 11th of 2001 and ever since then there has been confusion as to what is even happening.

 The unpleasant realities some people refuse to face is that we have enemies with which coexistence is impossible: the global jihadist insurgency, their booster club of Islamists, psychotic sectarian tribes, colluding criminal compatriots and the excrement that is the enabling reactionary regressive anti-western ideologues form the foundation of the totalitarian resurgence.  We need international human solidarity now.  We need to remember what binds us.  Destroy the bastards.

Comrade Communique: Do You Feel Plucky, Punk

By Ejder Memis, a plucky Kurd.

The Spectator article, "the myth of the plucky Kurdish warrior" is fine, I suppose, for a hatchet job.  It requires a rejoinder, and I might muster the pluck to take on the task.

For Kurds, Newroz signifies the birth of the nation. It has a mythology distinct to that of Persians. In Kurdish Newroz, the ironsmith Kawa defeats the tyrant Dehaq and saves children who become the ancestors of the Kurds. It is ignorant and preposterous to Kurds to suggest that we celebrate 'Persian New Year.'  This is elementary and it ought to be well-known to the author Paul Wood.

It is true that the Peshmerga forces stationed in Shengal fled before the Yazidi civilians, but it is also true that the YPG forces from Syria were the first to engage ISIS and open a corridor to the Sinjar mountain without any military assistance. The difference between the Peshmerga and the YPG was that the former had not been as battle-hardened as the latter.

Since Shengal, the YPG and the Peshmerga have been the only serious ground force to consistently roll back ISIS gains while the Syrian and Iraqi regime forces continued to lose ground in Palmyra and Ramadi. Neither the YPG nor the Peshmerga enjoyed the vast arsenal the US had bestowed on Iraq.

Still, the suggestion that Erbil, a city of 1 million, was nearly evacuated before several dozen ISIS 'technicals' is far-fetched and fanciful. The most ISIS achieved was to threaten Erbil airport with a few long range artillery pieces they had captured from the Iraqi army. Destroying those from the air hardly amounts to saving the city from falling. It was Kobani in Syria that was saved by the US intervention where the plucky Kurdish warriors' resistance reached mythical proportions.

The division among the Kurds and their loyalty to the political parties over and above loyalty to the nation is real and was aptly described as "neo-tribalism"  by David McDowell who authored "A Modern History of the Kurds". This is an ongoing blight on our reputation. Our national epic, Mem and Zin by Ahmede Xhani, is a metaphor to the endless divisions besetting the Kurds either by circumstance or by the actions of our nefarious neighbours.

It is also hard to re-reconcile Wood's statement, "The truth is that both Iraq and Syria long ago ceased to exist as nation" with his earlier, somewhat uncritical, re-statement of the West's insistence to preserve Iraq's and Syria's territorial integrity. It was not Kurds who ended Iraq and Syria; it was the sectarian Sunni, Shia and Alewite Arabs and their masters in Ankara, Riyadh and Tehran who did that.

The Kurds in Iraq missed a historic opportunity to unify separate KDP and PUK civil administrations and security structures. The early departure of US forces from Iraq and Kurds' unanswered pleas for the US to set up a permanent base in Kurdistan are among the causes for the growing divisions and corruption in KRG. The US enjoys unparalleled influence on KRG leadership as well as the populace. It was the Washington agreement in 1998 that ended the Kurdish civil war stoked by Saddam. With a permanent US airbase in Kurdistan, the US could have continued to be a force for peace.

Nevertheless there is much to be proud of for Kurds, who are the only genuine pro-Western nation in the region, besides Israel, regardless of what the detractors say. Kurds' fondness and hopes for western style liberal secular democracy is a ground up affair. In human rights stakes Arabs do/did so much better under Kurdish rule than Kurds ever did under Arabs. There was for example no pay-back for Halabja or for the genocide inflicted during the Anfal campaign.

Unlike Kawa and Dehaq, the plucky Kurdish warrior is no myth; they may have lousy arms and training but pound for pound the Kurdish fighters' courage will more than match what our enemies throw their way. The Peshmerga and the YPG will continue to be a nightmare for the barbarian 7th century reinactors in ISIS and the multiple theocratic fascist cults turning the Middle East into a humanitarian disaster. Only a Kurdish re-birth, a fresh Newroz, can eliminate that threat to region and to the world. The Kurdish men and women fighting the islamists in Iraq and Syria have more mettle than weapons, and they deserve our gratitude.

Your Other Left: Magna Carta Liberalism VS Regressive Left & Reactionary Right

The phenomenon of Donald Trump is the product of the way both the left and right in this country have obsessively placed tribal identity ahead of principles.  When ideological orthodoxy trumps intellectual honesty, when social justice trumps personal liberty, when ideas no longer matter because our minds are already made up that's when our fringe elements become mainstream. That's when we get Trump.

 Fascism and Stalinism won't appear waving copies of mein kampf or pravda.  They'll seep into the mainstream through the eyes of regular people who are frightened and angry at a political rally for a populist celebrity stoking fear and arousing bigotry, and they'll be young college students snapping their fingers and hysterically shouting about their need for a "safe space."  We have to start countering this sinister folderol now by promoting our principles.  If we don't promote our enlightenment values: democracy, pluralism, freedom of expression, the rule of law, then the definitions get confusing for people and they will gravitate to the charismatic angry people who are speaking to them.

Dogmatism and orthodoxy stifles debate and leads to a bleak place.  Fascism comes in many flavors, but whether it's Nazism, Stalinism, Klanism, Nationalism, or Theocracy, it has these constants: it promises answers that cannot be questioned and a perfect society or paradise that cannot be achieved, and it provides people with enemies both inside and outside to keep the paranoia and barbarism perpetually boiling.  These ideologies are sadistic and suicidal.  The enlightenment revolutionaries did not promise utopia.  All they promised they demanded for themselves: freedom under law.  The open societies that adopted the enlightenment principles are not paradise.  They are not intended to be perfect, because people and ideas are not perfect.  The promise of the open society is only that my freedom and your freedom are one and the same and as long as we demand this, we have a chance at justice and we have a chance at a functional society where equality is inherent.  It is this delicate balance of freedom under law that holds up the center and keeps the radical fringe at bay.

 The progressive movement, the regressive left, the libertarians, modern conservatism and academia have failed us.  Today we have allowed the fringes in to our homes and they got drunk and won't leave.  The right is drunk on xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, conspiracy theory and idiotic tribal rage. The left is drunk on their own sense of superiority and their concept inherent injustice. They're both redefining words to suit their philosophy and insisting that only they may debate issues on their terms and by casting everyone who disagrees with them into one group of "racists" or "socialists" they devalue the meaning of words.

All across the political spectrum, there are true liberals who care about liberal principles and intellectual diversity.  Some if them call themselves conservative, some call themselves liberal or progressive.  Some are atheists and some are religious.  It matters that these people do not agree on everything because what they agree on is made stronger by their differences.  In the months since Ben Affleck appeared on Bill Maher's show calling both Maher and writer Sam Harris gross and racist for criticizing ideas like female genital mutilation, and since the privileged students at universities across the US and Europe have begun attacking free speech, there has been an awakening of sorts.  We who reject the regressive left and the reactionary right are not going to be silent.  It is time to defend our principles.  It is time for Magna Carta Liberalism.

  Magna Carta Liberals who value enlightenment principles must challenge and ridicule this shit every single day.  Freedom under the rule of law and intellectual pluralism  is necessary for humans to have dignity, equality and justice.  What matters is not your tribal identity, but your ideas.  We should not apply different principles to different people.  We must begin with principle.

Your Other Left: United States & Turkey: an Exercise in Masochism

                   
The half billion dollar program to recruit and train a moderate Syrian rebel force to fight ISIS has been a failure. This is due largely to the fact that nearly everyone fighting in Syria is more interested in fighting Bashar Assad's government than fighting ISIS.  Its not like we in the west are fans of Assad (his biggest international fan is Vladimir Putin) but with the country in chaos and full of domestic and foreign warring factions, removal of Assad's government root and stalk would only perpetuate and worsen the chaos.  If some sense of order is restored then a new government would be a better prospect, especially if the civil servants, bureaucrats and military leadership can keep some semblance of continuity.  This is incredibly naive in light of everything we know about the Syrian civil war.  Assad is going to be removed and his government will be extirpated.  We cannot save him and we don't want to.  

Our alliance with regional players who are actively sabotaging our efforts makes the entire prospect of stabilizing Syria seem far fetched.  The United States relationship with Turkey is the most cringe-worthy example of this duplicitous trend. The willingness of Turkish officials to do business with ISIS and al Qaeda and refrain, until recently, to take any part in the fight against ISIS seems to have been forgotten.  The United States government seems to be ignoring the Turkish attacks on Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq and domestic police violence against Kurdish dissidents inside Turkey.  Turkish politics has descended into blatant authoritarianism.  The so called 'buffer zone' that Turkey wants between itself and Syria would be another in the series of new Berlin walls that are popping up all over the globe.  

This 'buffer zone' is least of all the distressing behavior of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  Since his party, the AKP, lost it's majority in recent elections, his covert support for ISIS and his unhinged paranoia about the Kurds and Assad have become more transparent and more well known.   We in the west can't even acknowledge the seriousness of ISIS as an enemy or measure our successes and failures on the battlefield since the administration, congress and the Pentagon have no coherent voice on this war. The assessment of this foe and the threat they pose has been delusional from the outset. The effort to motivate the various regional interests to work together against the Islamic State is a halfhearted approach to a serious problem.  Almost no regional party of importance is interested in the western objective which is eliminating ISIS as top priority



.

Turkey has worked hand in hand with ISIS and al Qaeda to fight the Kurds and the Assad regime and these relationships have not ended.  Saudi Arabia has been working with al Qaeda in Yemen.  Iran has a clear desire to fight ISIS, but they are terrible to the Kurds, supportive of terror groups in Yemen and have genocidal aspirations for Israel.  Iraq is just trying not to fall apart, but the Iranian influence has filled the void left by the US.  We can hope the new leadership can free itself from Iranian influence to some degree and make progress bringing moderate Sunnis back to the government. Iraq is still no accepting all of the arms the US has offered, and since they're the middle man between the US and the Peshmerga, this is an embarrassment.

The only people who are only interested in fighting ISIS happen to be the people who value pluralistic democracy, humanitarianism and equal rights above theocracy and tribalism.  The Kurds are eager to trade resources and ideas with any people that wish for such peaceful engagement.  Shouldn't the US policy be to double down on our support for the Kurds, who have been most effective at defeating and scattering ISIS from towns in Syria and Iraq, rather than this masochistic organizing strategy?

The creepy crawl of the Turkish state towards fascism and their known terror sponsorship should negate the longstanding relationship with the west, at least until democracy is restored and the police violence is stopped.  The various parties in the  region are more worried about Assad returning to power, greater Iranian or Saudi influence over Iraq and Syria, and Kurdish territorial expansion or establishment of a Kurdish state than about ISIS. Our efforts in Syria, Yemen, Iran and the region at large have put us on both sides of many confrontations.  Our support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen has helped al Qaeda. Our dealings with Turkey have hurt our Kurdish allies and helped ISIS and al Qaeda.  We don't need to cater to these regimes and double agent diplomacy serves only to drag this war

This absurd strategy is steeped in our geopolitical identity crisis.  Do we in the west care about preserving our principles and confronting undemocratic ideas? Might we forge new alliances with people because they share our values instead of the double agent diplomacy we've been mired in with burdensome friends like Saudi Arabia and Turkey? The fear of a Kurdish state is inspiring the Turkish collusion with ISIS and al Qaeda as much as the fear of Syrian Baathists returning to power.  The Kurds in Syria and Turkey, to their credit have said they do not want a state of their own but rather self determination and autonomy within existing states. 

While the Kurds have taken territory from ISIS, they've been hospitable to inhabitants and refugees and tried to deliver basic services.  Maybe what we ought to be doing is promoting the Kurds as an example of democratic ideals and altruism. A Kurdish state would be a strategic victory against the theocratic fascists and corrupt regimes in the middle east.

I think we ought to arm, support and equip the Kurds to completely secure Kurdish territory first.  From there we have several options and nine are certain to be available.  One possible outcome is that the Kurds defeating ISIS savagely and decisively will decimate the morale of ISIS fighters, dry up their recruitment and encourage others to fight ISIS in other territory.  Ultimately this whole fight requires unwavering leadership from the US and allies.  Part of that leadership may be to encourage Kurdish and international volunteer fighters to go beyond Kurdish territory simply to remove ISIS, free slaves and confiscate weapons and resources.  If the coalition is more committed to defeating these monsters, then the Kurds and other allies may be encouraged to take ISIS controlled territory for humanitarian purposes, not to hold the territory or annex it.  This means the forces fighting ISIS beyond Kurdish territory cannot fight under a Kurdish flag or Kurdish militia emblem.  A new regional force like NATO, if not NATO itself, including Kurdish, Iraqi, Syrian and international volunteers could take the remaining ISIS territory and hand it back to locals once peace is restored.  This is not too likely a scenario, but at the moment no good ideas seem likely.  Leadership is needed to defeat ISIS.  We need to forget this exercise in futility of begging others in the region to fight this enemy.  The US and UK have been in the middle east for so long that it's silly to pretend we can extricate ourselves while conducting air strikes and diplomacy.  We have alienated Arabs just by being there.  Lets go all in with the Kurds to defeat ISIS quickly, surge style, rather than continue a strategy that accepts ISIS as a long term reality.

Counter insurgency expert and pillow talk media source David Petraeus has been suggesting that the coalition work with the Syrian al Qaeda affiliate, al Nusra Front against ISIS since they are indeed more moderate than ISIS and he has successfully recruited al Qaeda militants in Iraq to assist US forces briefly in the past.  First of all, it isn't necessary to work with al Qaeda against ISIS since we are already working with both al Qaeda and ISIS through our masochistic relationship with Turkey. There is only one available option that would not indirectly aid at least one jihadist group, and that is to go all in with the Kurds to take and secure the Kurdish areas and remove ISIS from Iraqi cities. If we have military success and effectively diminish ISIS territory, the humiliation will start to dry up their recruitment and it will only be a matter of time before ISIS is isolated in Raqqa. At that point, everyone who was reluctant to help before will smell blood in the water and begin fighting over who will take Raqqa. In the meantime we will have killed a good amount of barbaric thugs and freed some slaves. Every minute we are not freeing slaves is a minute we are complicit in the slavery, rape and torture we have the means to stop. And nobody is going to tell me we have to work with al Qaeda to get this done.