True Faith and Allegiance

“People have a reasonable tendency to do one of two things when they listen to someone in the government warn them of a threat. They either tune out or they freak out. I don’t want Americans doing either thing. They need to understand there are real threats, but we are working with skill and diligence to remove these threats.”

Now the ABC chief national security reporter, Susan Hayes, said, “Americans have watched us fight against the Islamic State for much of your term. We have some Special Forces and some airpower over there, but so far we haven’t been able to stop them. Yes, they have shrunk in some areas, but if you look at a map of territory controlled by ISIS, you see it remains larger than many other Middle Eastern nations. Will you consider new steps to ramp up the war against ISIS in light of the fact they are over here now, killing people within our borders?”

Ryan considered this carefully, like a professor wanting to give his student the proper context for his answer. “When you see on television that ISIS has conquered a new city, it is important for you to understand what that means. The media portrays these events by showing a map with an ever-moving, and often expanding, red blob indicating the so-called borders of the Islamic State. The truth is, ISIS has fought weak enemies, many of whom have run without putting up resistance. We should not think of them as really owning much territory at all. They come in, scare local police and government away, set up roadblocks and send out a couple pickup trucks full of men, which serve as death squads. They aren’t governing, they aren’t turning these locations into real strongholds. They can roll a few more trucks up a local road, and then the next day someone redraws the map of their ‘borders’ to make it look like they’ve pushed their front line thirty miles overnight. They didn’t advance their front line. They drove a convoy of trucks from one village to the next without being destroyed.

“We have intelligence and special mission units in the area, so those of us privy to classified intelligence know the media reports are not accurate.”

A reporter from The New York Times called out, “Then why haven’t we defeated them?”

“Two words, Michael. Civilian casualties. Two more words, related to the first two. Human shields. ISIS lives and operates within cities and congested areas. We find a group of Islamic State fighters out in the open and we do our best to put an A-10 or an Apache on them as quick as our people can task them. But we aren’t going to shell cities, no matter who is in there that needs rooting out.”

Susan Hayes spoke again, this time without being called upon. “So are you saying there will be no new offensive against ISIS despite the fact they are now bringing the war to our cities?”

“Susan, nobody on planet Earth wants a massive U.S. invasion into Iraq and Syria more than ISIS. If we return to the Middle East in large numbers, the Islamic State knows their ranks will be flooded by recruits, extremism in the cities will skyrocket, and support for their heinous aims will go up. The average ISIS fighter, poorly trained, poorly equipped, motivated by nothing other than a vague hope of an Islamic State and a specific belief in exaltation in the afterlife… this guy doesn’t have a prayer of ever shooting down an F-18, seeing an American Special Forces operator in his rifle sight, or winning a fight with a drone or a smart bomb. But if we flood the zone, if we put a couple hundred thousand American men and women in their area, well… some of these guys just might get their sights on what they see as an infidel, and that is the best thing they can hope for in their life.”

Ryan shook his head slowly. “I have no intention of giving them the opportunity they crave.

“Now, the United States is at the vanguard of fighting this evil group, and we will continue to be there, leading from the front. If we see tactical ways to increase our involvement that make sense, we will do just that.”

Ryan took a few more questions, most along the same lines as the others. He closed with, “As soon as we have more to report, the attorney general, the secretary of homeland security, and the secretary of defense will be speaking publicly as the need arises.”

After Ryan left the press briefing room, Arnie Van Damm was there by his side.

Ryan said, “What did you think?”

“Not your best performance, Jack.”

“Tell me why.” Jack did not disagree, but he valued Arnie’s input.

“You were talking like a historian in there.”

“In my own defense, I am a historian, Arnie.”

“Do you think that’s what people want to hear? That what’s happening now is simply a long-standing insurgent tactic, and nothing to be alarmed about?”

“I didn’t say it like that.”