How ‘The Wire’ Explains America’s Fight Against ISIS

[Capt. Obvious]

“The Wire” is one of television’s crown jewels and remains a cultural touchtone, but it’s not just a closely detailed vision of how institutions in an American city are failing individuals that gives it such a place. David Simon, writer and director (pictured, left, next to Wendell Pierce who played Detective Bunk), also threaded through his drama clear allusions to our ventures into the Middle East, and strangely, as we reenter the chaos of Iraq and confront the rise of ISIS, these allusive yet potent metaphors are still playing out.

Season three began with the demolition of two of Baltimore’s public housing units central to the previous two seasons. In a post 9/11 world, it was not possible to watch the depiction of people running from the enveloping dust of two towers without knowing how this sets the scene for our path to Iraq. It is important to note the metaphors David Simon offers are not intended to be perfect: Baltimore drug dealers are not Middle Eastern leaders, and Baltimore’s hardest streets are not quite Baghdad. “The Wire” is directing us to something else: the perils of trying to accomplish good in a world we don’t understand. What exactly those cautions are, we will get to in a moment.

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By the end of the season, Avon is headed to prison and Stringer is gone forever. Though it is not shown to the viewer, the final episode of the season was entitled, “Mission Accomplished.” The demand for drugs is unchanged, and the police inadvertently created a power vacuum. That status will not stand, and, shades of ISIS stepping into the turmoil of a new Iraq, that vacuum will soon be filled by someone far worse than the police ever dreamed of: Marlo.

The city’s horror at Marlo’ disregard for human life is equivalent to how America feels when they are presented videos of James Foley being beheaded on the news. The old drug rulers took lives too, but they also maintained a certain order that preserved some rules, such as generally killing only when they felt strategy compelled them to. Marlo is unbound by such conventions. He intends, in fact, to flaunt them. Marlo tells an ill-fated security guard, “You want it to be one way. But it’s the other way.” He is speaking to us too on how our power reaches its limits to change the world to the way we want all to be.

TPM

[Capt. Obvious]

1. I thought this was a fascinating read

and now have to watch The Wire since as most shows go, I didn't watch its original run.

[seveneyes]

2. Don't try opening an Amsterdam under Islamic rule

The head shops will have no bodies.

[kwassa]

3. Omar comin yo.

that will take care of everything.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

4. Interesting take.

Given my screen name, I had to check it out.

[Capt. Obvious]

5. All this time I thought you were Tommy Vercetti

I feel like quite the fool.