ISIS

I am exceedingly disappointed with the U.S. response to ISIS.  So much that I’ve felt the need to write about it.

It is shameful that the most powerful country on earth would allow a bunch of evil thugs in the Middle East kill our citizens, threaten our country, and carry out attacks against others just for associating with America — without sending troops over to destroy them.  We are fighting a WAR on terror.  We’ve been fighting it since our towers fell in 2001.  For nearly 14 years, we searched all corners of the world to find Osama Bin Laden.  Our pursuit was tireless.  And eventually, we found him.  We killed him.  We threw his murderous body into the ocean.  And everyone in the world knew that, if you attack the U.S., we will never stop hunting you.

The Bush Doctrine is clear — we take the fight to them there, so that we don’t have to fight them here.  In my mind, it is a sound policy.  The biggest challenge we face in executing that doctrine is (1) figuring out who the terrorists are, and (2) finding them.  The war is hard to fight because we often can’t see our enemy.

Behold ISIS.  This is low-hanging fruit, people.  We have an army of tens of thousands of militants in plain view, carrying out attacks on Americans and their allies, and urging others to do the same.  We know exactly where they are.  Mosul, Iraq and Al Raqqah, Syria.  They control huge swaths of territory.

Why are we not there fighting them?

Airstrikes are clearly not enough.  The side effect is we are killing and maiming the victims who live under their rule.  It is clearly not slowing them down much.  Most importantly, the optics are terrible.  We say we are trying to “weaken” and “degrade” them, as they continue to plunder and terrorize on a weekly basis.  Weaken and degrade?  We don’t starve out or sanction terrorists, like we might do to an enemy sovereign.  We annihilate them.

Whatever the cost, we must bear it.  America doesn’t maintain the largest military in the world for show.  Not since Japan bombed Pearl Harbor have we had more reason to fight.  You don’t behead our citizens in broad daylight and live to see the new year.  An army promises to turn America into a “Muslim province” and we “degrade their capabilities”?  Please.

The American people are incensed, and they should be.  We are at WAR and our president is treating it like it’s someone else’s problem.  This is OUR problem.  They are killing Americans.  They are killing others in our name.   Six million American men, myself included, would be proud to put their “boots on the ground” in Iraq, if called.   We cannot let this cancer fester like the world did with Nazi Germany.  There is no “diplomacy” with terrorists, only eradication.

Hopefully the president will get the message soon and send a fighting force sufficient to wipe ISIS off the face of the earth in a matter of months.  There is no other dignified option.

As for the other countries, shame on them, too.  They allow their own people to be murdered and cower in fear.  Just today Italy said it would not take military action even though ISIS has threatened to invade Italy from Libya.  They do nothing while the enemy gathers its strength and plots its attack.  Just like with Hitler.  When will Europe get the message?  Freedom has a price.

When it comes to the War on Terror, the U.S. cannot try to “fit in” with the rest.  We must lead.  Like it or not, that has been our place in the world since the Second World War.  There is no question about the moral imperative to swiftly defeat ISIS.  People are dying every day.  The only question is, who has the courage to spend the money and give their blood to do what is right?  If we really are exceptional as we claim, the answer is clear.

We’ve seen the airstrikes are not enough.  They are like throwing darts into a bear.  It just makes them angrier and more vicious.  It is well within our power to destroy them, and we know it.  No more “summits” or negotiations.  When our interests and moral authority are clear, we don’t need permission from the rest of the world to do what is right.  There must be a full-scale invasion of ISIS territory to defeat this enemy.  Let’s roll.