University discusses new terrorist movement ISIS on 9/11

On September 11th, 2014 in the Pomerantz Center, the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights collected a panel of distinguished experts from multiple backgrounds to discuss the law, ethics, and policy issues that come with the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The terrorist movement is theorized to be heavily connected with the events associated with 9/11, which shows how the Twin Towers terrorist attack is still impacting our country not only due to the lives changed and lost, but on a political level as well.

The power held in ISIS is different than other terrorist movements in the past, in that it has a strong system with multiple supports including: land control, significant sources of revenue, religion, and propaganda. The ISIS movement is considered a real power with an increasing status.

“It is the driver of the new crusade. As much as any example of history this relatively small movement has in a very short time, begun to establish a new kind of revolutionary legitimacy,” Honorable James Leach said.

The goal of ISIS is to reestablish the caliphate in the Middle East. They do this with violence and mass murder.

“My largest fear about ISIS is that genocide is happening under our noses. The media focuses on the western journalists that have been murdered but often fails to even comment about the mass genocide that is happening in Northern Iraq. Millions of Kazidis, Christians, and other religious groups are being displaced and murdered,” Adam Zabner ‘17 said. “I fear the just like what happened in Rwanda, we will let a mass murder go on without doing anything. “

The rise of the movement’s power is largely dependent on the people who are lured into supporting ISIS, which is perused with justification by religion by presenting itself as the most committed opponent of Sunni Islam and an enemy to the United States.

“The Islamic State has captured the imagination of rebellious minds in Europe and the U.S. as well as the Middle East,” Leach said.

Shams Ghoneim, a woman very integrated in human rights and muslim religion throughout the university elaborates on the issue of how ISIS uses religion as propaganda to recruit members.

“We need to disarm ISIS propaganda because they are recruiting very effectively in Europe and some in the U.S.. They prey on very impressionable people and those who feel that the West has continued to be against their faith islam and anti-muslim spirit,” Ghoneim said. “Islamophobia in the U.S. -I hate to tell you as a Muslim- is getting worse. After 9/11 it became the norm that any time a horrific act was committed by someone who calls themselves a muslim, the rest of us pay for it. These groups feed on that, it’s how they send their toxic ideology,” Ghoneim said.

Discrimination against a race, religion, sex, etc. based on one extreme group is how ISIS recruits members and working to diminish that could damage their tactics.

“Just like the fact that the crusades happened doesn’t mean that all Christians are evil, we need to remember that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and they are not all united. A couple radical extremists do not represent every person of the Muslim faith. I think that the largest cause of discrimination is always ignorance. When people don’t understand something they are scared of it. The best way to stop this discrimination is to educate the American people about Islam,” Zabner ’17 said.

Ghoneim then suggests how to abolish the group’s strategy and detach their movement from religion.

“They call themselves the Islamic State. Don’t ever say that about them; they’re not Islamic. We need to call them QSIS (Al-Qaeda Separatists in Iraq and Syria). We need to degrade the message by removing religion from their grotesque way of practicing – whatever they think they’re practicing. When we do this we’re already partially disarming their tactics,” Ghoneim said.

Leach discusses how our history has affected and assisted the development of ISIS.

“Man’s inhumanity to man is not new. What is novel in human affairs is the globalization of terrorism and the con commandment development of weapons of mass destruction leads to deliver them across the earth.”

The reaction America provided and military decisions from 9/11 are said to have been a major factor in ISIS today.

“Iraq was not part of 9/11. The case for attacking Iraq because of 9/11 is non-existent from a piscatory perspective,” Leach said. “When the case was made for weapons of mass destruction at a very high level that proved to be a failure of intelligence; but the greatest intelligence failure of all was our inability to understand the Muslim world. We all know we have set off forces that have taken us completely by surprise, “ Leach said.

The changes and diversity in the world play a huge part in how warfare is started and executed

“Now the world has become fractured in other ways. Smaller cities have co-opted the energies of a country. Religious differences have replaced ideological considerations or economic considerations as a driven basis of warfare. We have been caught off guard,” Leach said.

Nathan Miller, the Assistant Director, Senior Fellow in Human Rights and Social Justice lead the discussion regarding the legal aspects of America’s involvement in ISIS.

“ISIS is not a state, it is a terrorist group or it is an ideologically based group and that has a significant implication,” Nathan Miller said.

Against prior plans, the president has explicitly invoked authorization for the use of military force. AUMF was passed in 2001 allowing us to engage in military operations against Al-Qaeda and associated groups. The administration decided that now allows them to conduct military operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. This decision as well as its justification bring up a number of significant legal problems.

“First and foremost the authorization for use of military force (AUMF) which the president acknowledged himself is dated and needs to be revised but even if it doesn’t on it’s face the AUMF only authorizes the use of force against groups that are co-belligerents with Al-Qaeda against the us and our interests,” Miller said.

Earlier this year Al-Qaeda and ISIS split their ally relationship when ISIS refused Al-Qaeda’s request to leave Syria. Al-Qaeda then disowned ISIS and the two groups have had many clashes since then.

“The problem is there was a very public nasty and blood filled split between Al-Qaeda and ISIS earlier this year which cuts them out of the criteria.,” Miller said.

However, on September 18th The House passed legislation on Wednesday to allow the training and equipping of Syrian rebels, approving a key part of President Barack Obama’s plan for fighting ISIS in that region.

James Leach discussed the risks of getting involved in ISIS or staying out of the movement altogether.

“America is then faced with a challenge. If we don’t engage we can soon get attacked from a far away heaven like what had happened in 9/11. If we do engage we may be perceived as taking sides in a religious conflict and be attacked as a reaction,” Leach said.

America’s involvement then becomes a question with a solution that’s difficult to agree upon.

“I think that it is our moral obligation to do something about the events unfolding in Iraq and Syria, but there are obvious drawbacks. I think that as long as we continue with the path we are on—Using coalitions made up of diverse countries to fight ISIS- we will be able to act without looking bad or causing a reaction against us,” Zabner ‘17 said.

Last year, Barack Obama spoke about the war in Syria and many have brought this statement back to light in regards to handling ISIS.

“The choices we make about war can impact – in sometimes unintended ways – the openness and freedom on which our way of life depends,” Obama said.