Ray Rice, Ferguson, and ISIS: The Power of Video
The last few days have been dominated by discussion of the NFL and former Baltimore Raven Ray Rice's domestic assault on his fiancée in an Atlantic City elevator. A month ago, when Rice received a two-game suspension for his actions, Geoff Brown thought the NFL could do better. A few others also felt the suspension was too trivial for a world-class athlete who had apparently knocked a woman out cold. But the NFL and its "Commissioner" Roger Goodell defendedthe suspension at the time, while some tried to shift blame to the victim. After a short burst of coverage in early August, the story blew over, the NFL instituted a new policy, and fans expected Rice back on the field for week three.
Then the video from inside the elevator surfaced and all hell breaks loose. The Ravens cut Rice outright, the NFL suspended him indefinitely and NFL owners pop up on ESPN to predict that Rice will never play in the NFL again. Many TV commentators took the NFL to task for waiting for the video to emerge, frequently asking the rhetorical question: "What did you think happened in that elevator Janay Palmer was dragged out of?" Suddenly neither the suspension, nor the new policy came close to what people wanted, which was for Rice to be jailed immediately. But the people calling for him to be jailed now (not back before the video came out) were the same people asking the NFL "What did you think happened in that elevator?"
Turns out that while it makes absolutely no difference to a person who gets knocked out whether it happens to be on video or not, it makes all the difference in the world to us. Hearing that Ray Rice knocked his fiancée out in that elevator bothered some people - "six games would have been better than two games" - but no one said he should never be allowed to work in the NFL again. But seeing Ray Rice throw those punches set our televisions on fire and took a sports story into the national news.
Also about a month ago, in Ferguson Missouri, a police officer shot an 18-year-old named Michael Brown six times, killing him. While conceding that Brown carried no weapon at the time he was shot, the Ferguson police department has suggested that Brown attacked the officer, who then acted in self-defense (no police report has yet been released). In the midst of protests in the streets of Ferguson, video again came into play. A surveillance film of Brown appearing to shove a store clerk and steal cigars was released by the police department about a week after the shooting. At the time this video was released, sentiment was running heavily against the police officer who shot Brown. But the video changed the conversation completely. As yet, no video of the shooting itself has come to light.
Described in print as an "unarmed teenager," Brown looked like a victim of clearly excessive force or even racism - the police department was in trouble. But seen on the tape, Brown looks huge, over six-three, and menacing to the store clerk. The video was released to change the conversation from "why would a police officer shoot an unarmed teen" to "look at this huge, dangerous man conducting a 'strong-arm robbery.'" The police claimed at the time the video was released that they had received so many request for the store video that they had to release it, a claim that later proved false. But that hardly matters now. The video had done its job and soon fundraisers were being held for the police officer's legal defense.
There are plenty of articles to read on who is right and who is wrong in Ferguson. Investigations continue and evidence and reports are being gathered. The police officer is entitled to the presumption of innocence, just as Brown would be, if he were alive. But for many, the video of Mike Brown they saw with their own eyes answers all the questions they have about the situation, and there may be nothing that changes those minds.
Which brings us to the last, and most important video in the news. In the last few weeks, a group calling itself "ISIS" released two videos of journalists being beheaded after reading coerced "confessions." The executioner in the video then taunted the United States in general and President Obama personally, grandiosely promising the defeat of America, the rise of a world-wide "Islamic" government under ISIS leadership, and more executions if America takes military action against ISIS.
If you don't know what ISIS actually is, you should. ISIS is some thousands of "fighters" that have armed themselves with machine guns, trucks and grenade launchers left over from the wars in Iraq and Syria. They have "reportedly" captured some pieces of serious military hardware, including some tanks, Humvees, and allegedly a few helicopters that they are probably unable to deploy, lacking pilots and the ability to maintain aircraft. ISIS has no economy, no manufacturing, no resource-extraction capabilities, no meaningful allies, no navy or air force and no plausible path to obtaining any of these things.
While reports vary, ISIS has been credibly reported to have fewer than 10,000 men, lightly armed. In June 2014, The Economist reported that "ISIS may have up to 6,000 fighters in Iraq and 3,000-5,000 in Syria, including perhaps 3,000 foreigners . . ." ISIS is often said to control an area "the size of Pennsylvania," in order to make them seem important, however, they are nowhere near Pennsylvania. All of ISIS' personnel are in northern Iraq and Eastern Syria, surrounded by their enemies in Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq itself and the Kurdish section of northern Iraq, every one of which has an actual military.
For comparison purposes, before the 1991 Iraq war, Iraq itself had nearly a million active-duty soldiers. It had over 5,000 tanks and men trained to operate them. Thousands of artillery pieces and hundreds of aircraft were fielded by Iraq at the time and while they proved no match for coalition forces in the 1991 war, they had sustained a major war against neighboring Iran for eight years in the 1980s. To give a present day example, Iran currently has half a million trained soldiers with real equipment they know how to use, an air force, a navy, ballistic missiles, an economy, allies, a nuclear program and a nation of over 75,000,000 people.
The point being, ISIS is nothing. But man, do they know how to do PR. Through the power of video, a tiny collection of thugs with Kalashnikovs and pickup trucks without friends in the world or so much as a ride out of the desert they "occupy," under a flag they made up just this year, is about to start a war with the United States of America. Just last week our counterterrorism czar, Matthew Olson, told us that "there's no credible information" that ISIS is planning an attack on America and " no indication at this point of a cell of foreign fighters operating in the United States."
Never mind; we've seen the videos. A U.S. Senator actually cited ISIS' claim that it would "fly its black flag over the White House" as a credible threat. President Obama addressed the nation Wednesday night to discuss a plan to "deal with" a trivial enemy that is in a position to do absolutely nothing.
But what about two murdered American journalists? Nearly 4,500 US servicemen and women were killed in the Iraq war. Some of them were captured and tortured to death and even beheaded. But these soldiers are only statistics to us now, while the beheading videos, created for the purpose of starting a war, are fresh in our mind, and having their intended effect. A crush of nightly news reports about this rag-tag band of incompetents has elevated them above nation-states with nuclear weapons trained on us, so here we go.
After eight years and thousands of deaths on our side, hundreds of thousands of deaths on the other side, and with nothing more that could plausibly be accomplished by our presence, the Iraq war ended in December of 2011. Some people there, and some people here, miss it so much they can't wait to start it up again. But they needed some compelling video to get it started.
