Jace Brady
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This past weekend, we saw the devastation that ideological extremist can afflict on a nation and a people. The terrorism that occurred in Paris has extinguished the magic that can only be found in the City of Lights, but only temporarily. While the Eiffel Tower may have gone dark, this tragedy provides an opportunity to shed light on a potentially permanent crisis occurring in the Middle East.
Created from the mayhem in Iraq and Syria, with leaders brewed to extremism in U.S. military prisons, ISIS has possibly become one of the most powerful terrorist organizations ever to exist. It has conquered large swaths of lands across the Middle East and has committed vast atrocities, including the attacks in Paris. These attacks are established in ideology and focused on certain groups of individuals considered heretics or enemies of ISIS.
The Yazidis are a small sect in northern Iraq who are being systematically exterminated by ISIS. Men are killed and women and children either join their fate or are enslaved and given to ISIS fighters as rewards. The United States is currently considering joining the Holocaust museum and declaring the actions of ISIS genocide. The trivialities of whether ISIS can commit genocide without statehood are inconsequential and allow thousands more to die every month.
The Yazidis are not the only people being targeted by ISIS. Christians and homosexuals unfortunate enough to get caught in the crosshairs of the ISIS advance are being slaughtered without mercy. This deliberate killing of definitive groups of individuals must be declared genocide and managed accordingly.
Before World War II, the world sat idly by while world leaders quietly appeased a tyrannical leader who was methodically killing anyone he felt may taint his master race. The blood of millions is on the hands of those leaders who failed to act and protect the defenseless. After the war, when the world saw the devastation that had been done to the Jewish people and others in Nazi Germany, we made a promise that no action like this would ever occur again. The world promised to remain vigilant to the threat of genocide, that no people would be targeted in mass based on nationality, ethnicity, or religion.
The world has failed to preserve this promise, since World War II we have seen genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Darfur. With each genocide, millions more have died and the responsibility to prevent the next mass extermination has grown. We now have a decision to make, because every day more people are killed — will we be the generation that stands up and stops hate in its tracks, or will we join the ranks of history who promise never again in hindsight and fail to prevent it when the occasion for responsibility occurs? I have no answers on what actions need to be taken, or how the situation in the Middle East should be handled, all I know is never again is now.
