Then his lord summoned him and said to him, `You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ (Matthew 18: 32-35).
No one will say it, but human rights could be the real basis for fighting ISIS, not the pretended threat to American citizens. At the same time, we ignore human rights at the peril of our own people. The rise of Al-Qaida from an unstable region shows that the abuse of human rights is not local, but international.
Al-Qaida delivered its sucker punch to the Twin Towers in 2011 from an outpost where it might have been safely ignored till that moment in 2001. It was defined as a terrorist organization based on that attack, but its manifesto already had condemned the West and declared jihad with ruthless disregard for human life. It was prepared to do whatever was necessary to spread its version of Islam.
Since then the United States has found allies against such brutality. NATO moved into Afghanistan, governments in Yemen, Somalia, and Iraq have invited American intervention against terrorist armies. Even Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have supported military goals in Syria and Iraq. The lines between Sunni and Shia have blurred in the face of a ruthless, unprincipled enemy.
Certainly every nation has its own political agenda, but it is almost unimaginable that the political agendas of all of the stakeholders surrounding Iraq could coincide. There must be one other motive: human rights. An army which spreads its religion by coercion and brutality is anathema to all. The universal revulsion at the beheadings of two American journalists was not politically inspiring. It was the sheer disregard for justice and decency that inspired a coalition of the willing.
Human rights is both the highest and most entangled motive for war. If human rights were the first principle of U.S. military intervention, our armies would be scattered into every nook and cranny. And yet, what better reason to intervene in the tribal battles that divide and terrorize nations, but to defend justice and protect minorities? The image of U.S. helicopters rescuing a persecuted people from a mountaintop could not help but make American citizens proud. That is the image we wish to preserve during the complicated counter-terrorism in Iraq and Syria.
And armies will doubtlessly harm the innocent and commit their own atrocities in a declared war, so it is not always the high ground we claim. But the alternative, to let a brutal perversion of Islam conquer and coerce innocent people is unthinkable, indecent To allow a terrorist state to spring up in the heart of the Middle East is anathema, not only to Americans, but to every political entity in the region. So a coalition for human rights is formed.
It will never be acknowledged, because it is too ill-defined and too controversial, but the drive for justice and decency will push unnatural alliances together, even the most peculiar alliance of Republican and Democrat. And though Western intelligence can not foresee danger, we will feel more secure that such inhumanity is being challenged in another part of the world. As we learned on 9/11, we are not safe from such desperation, even a world away from our border.