The use of U.S ground forces against ISIS

Edumund Burke famously said, "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." This simly means that people need to learn from their past mistakes, however often times people do just the opposite. A new crissis, a burning vendetta or a seemingly extenstential dillema cloud the other wise calm and rational minds of a people, leading to the reincarnation of the past. Joining into the middle eastern conflict against the terrorist group ISIS would do just that. We can look to the vietnam war, and the history of conflict in the middle east to guide us on what to, and what not to do concerning ISIS. In this argument I will posit that America cannot, at any reasonable human or monetary cost, destroy an ideology, nor can it drop enough bombs to rid the world of a culture. I will asert that America is not the world's hero and thusly that we should tend to the presseing and major issues within our own society rather than concerning ourselves with fueling the flames of hatred in the far off lands of the middle east. Finally, one of my main points will be that the logic behind putting boots on the ground is fundementally flawed and couldnt possibly yeild benificial results.My first point will be that the United States cannot possibly kill an ideology. throughout history we have seen that any attempt at squashing an ideology, especially one of scale, can only result in the furthering in longevity and intensity of that battle. In order to get rid of radical islam by use of force, America would have to initiate an onslaught greater than that of vietnam where between 200,000-250,000 vietnamese died and about 58,000 Americans died. The population of North Vietnam was 19,000,000 during the Vietnam, on the other hand the population of Iraq is currently over 33.4 million and keep in mind that the extend of groups like ISIS and Al-queda does not end within the borders of Iraq, ISIS now has "at Least 12 Military Allies in 9 Countries Beyond Iraq, Syria". We are seeing the same conflict as before, an insurgency and a conflict of ideologies. Where poorer and unindustrialized nations are having civil wars and where perhaps the worser side is winning. We have a heavily armed militia with a huge growth rate and no real enemy to fight. America cannot solve this problem. In its quest to try and extinguish a movement fueled by regional forces with deep seated and often legitimate grievances, America is jeopardizing whatever goodwill it still has with the region's masses, thereby losing the wider war for U.S. influence in the Middle East. Our secretary of State stated wisely that "We cannot kill our way out of this war", this is because of the fact that we are the invaders and the agressors in the eyes of the middle eastern people, our violent actions only push the people of the middle east towards radicalism. America has so far killed about 150,000 innocent citizens in Iraq alone, so do not be surprised at the growing enmity bubbling in the hearts of middle eastern families everywhere. In the end we can kill radical muslims, but we cannot kill radical islam. If we truely heed the wisdom that has been given to us by our predicessors, we must not repeat the past and thus we must not put boots on the ground in the middle east any more.My second point is that the United States has its own legitimate problems, we need to fix our problems at home before trying to fix an entire culture abroad. To name a few list of problems that take precedence here, we should look to the fact that the United States is ranked 14th in reading and 24thin math and science out of 34 countries, that America has the 4thlargest income gap in the world, that in the U.S. 46 million Americans live in Poverty, that education scores continue to fall, that in 2012, nearly half (46%) of adults ages 19 to 64, or an estimated 85 million people, did not have health insurance, that the unemployment rate is 5.5%, and that the national debt is over 18 trillion dollars and climbing at a rate of 2.35 billion per 24 hours. A new Quinnipiac University poll released from march 4th shows that Americans by a margin of two-to-one now support deploying more U.S. ground troops to fight and destroy ISIS. But why? Why is America so eager to jump into a conflict that it A, can't afford and B, wont win? Should we really spend trillions of dollars trying to fight another futile war and bloody war? I will have to contend absolutely not.My third and final point is on the very validity of a war overseas in the first place. What is our actual goal overseas anyways? How could we win the war on terror at all? The answer is very very simple, success will come through reestablishing the United States' moral authority and ideological appeal. Victory will come not when foreign leaders accept certain terms but when political changes erode and ultimately undermine support for the ideology and strategy of those determined to destroy the United States. It will come not when Washington and its allies kill or capture all terrorists or potential terrorists but when the ideology the terrorists espouse is discredited. Just as the Cold War ended only when one side essentially gave up on a bankrupt ideology, the battle against Islamist terrorism will be won when the ideology that underpins it loses its appeal. The Cold War ended not with U.S. forces occupying the Kremlin but when the occupant of the Kremlin abandoned the fight. If the U.S. joins the war it will simply get caught in a never ending cycle of chasing down terrorist organiszations, and killing innocents, furthermore even if we do somehow succeed in killing every terrorist we simply get left with the moentary burden of rebuilding and caring for a destroyed nation. For these reason, I cannot support putting boots on the ground to combat ISIS, thank you.Citations: http://www.debate.org...