We're now walking a fine line between the non-aggression principle and playing witness to murder. While the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria hasn't attacked the United States homeland, neither were they ever libertarian-style freedom fighters simply trying to liberate Iraq from an occupying army. They themselves were a conquering and occupying army trying to form a new state!
While ISIS may not be an existential threat to the United States--they don't have the power to destroy America--they certainly are an imminent threat. They just keep growing and conquering and planting new cells in countries around the world. Worse yet, they efficiently murder civilians at an industrial capacity not seen since the Yugoslav Wars.
I believe in blowback. I believe that the U.S. government's actions abroad directly fanned the flames of Islamic terrorism worldwide. However, while not intervening in future conflicts will prevent future blowback, nonintervention does nothing to dissipate the blowback that already exists. So while the ISIS terrorist quasi-state may not an existential threat, they are an imminent threat and will one day directly attack Americans (and not in the Middle East).
I've seen what they do. I've read the numbers of the literally tens of thousands of civilians they've murdered, including women and children. I read the statistics of their murders and racketeering they boast about in their corporate-style Annual Report. One doesn't need to buy into false flag propaganda to objectively match words with action, history with current events, to deduce that this terror group is here to stay until totally destroyed from the outside.
Libertarians too often hide behind the concept of nonintervention. Well, here's the deal: no country or population ever hated the U.S. for saving people from being massacred. They hated the U.S. for sticking around after liberation and then dictating to the people how they would live, what type of government they'd have, and what corporations they'd do business with.
This is but one reason why the U.S. government should no longer intervene in the war in Iraq and Syria. Unfortunately, little good ever came from U.S. military intervention in the 21st century. But intervention by individual volunteers is a different story.
Many may say that the war against ISIS, now encompassing Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya, is not a war any libertarian should support. But here's my question to them: are you against a just cause and a just war, or are you specifically against the State intervening in foreign affairs? When I say "individual volunteers" I mean that government should be left behind and individual free people should do what they know to be right, not taking anyone's tax dollars to do so. There's a difference.
Many will say that ISIS was covertly founded, funded, and armed by the CIA. Others say they're the Mossad's baby. Most people accept that ISIS is the Al Qaeda splinter group--formerly Al Qaeda in Iraq--who broke away from Bin Laden's organization to wage sectarian war on Shia Muslims and establish a global Sunni state.
Frankly, it doesn't matter which government or entity is responsible for incubating this terrorist quasi-state. These butchers need to be stopped. As much as I loathe making this distinction, there's a huge difference between collateral damage in an airstrike that specifically targets a combatant, and deliberately beheading children for refusing to renounce Jesus. There's a huge difference between civilians being caught in the crossfire and for the enemy to routinely march 300 civilians at a time into an open field and mow them down.
Evil exists in this world and it must be stopped by We the People, especially if our own government is at fault.
The best people to stop the butchers are: 1) the armies of the countries ISIS invaded; 2) the various guerrilla groups and citizen militias in the invaded countries; 3) international volunteer combatants, and volunteer aid workers; and 4) private security contractors hiring themselves to guard populations or assets in the combat zones.
The international volunteers fighting ISIS are heroes to me, reminiscent of the American guerrillas who individually took it upon themselves to fight the British Army from Concord to Boston. The aid workers in this war also have a special place in my heart, reminding me of the missionaries in World War II who made it their mission to protect Chinese children from Japanese soldiers.
Keep the government out of Iraq and Syria. Let volunteers and the private sector change the war effort from an imperial proxy war to a libertarian people's war of international liberation. And when the day comes that ISIS is extinguished, let the international volunteers get the hell out of there and leave "nation building" to the actual nations!
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