Analysis: Five Thoughts on President Obama's ISIS Address
President Obama is right to identify ISIS as a brutal and dangerous terrorist fighting force that threatens the region, the West, and the United States. He is right to ramp up our efforts to "degrade and ultimately destroy" this group. They are evil, fanatical butchers who only understand force, and must be stopped. Obama asserted that ISIS is neither Islamic nor a state -- but they absolutely act in the name of Islam (as do many terrorist groups), and their goal is to establish and expand an Islamist state, known as a caliphate. They've been frighteningly successful to that end, seizing vast stretches of land and major cities in Syria and Iraq, and amassing more money and resources than any terrorist organization on earth.
According to Obama, ISIS "has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way," but that isn't exactly accurate. They have a vision, and they've been carrying it out with appalling brutality and efficiency. This spreading "cancer," to borrow the president's term, did not pop up overnight. It has been building and growing for years -- a fact that the administration knew about and did virtually nothing to stop until Americans journalists were being beheaded on camera and the political winds shifted. The president even laughed ISIS off as the equivalent of a "JV" basketball team earlier this year. Now the US military is engaged in what White House officials are warning will be a years-long campaign against that JV squad. That disconnect and miscalculation is so embarrassing that administration officials are flailing to claim he didn't say what he plainly said -- and are convincing nobody...Also read:
McCain vs Carney overshadows the main event
Obama Will Fight ISIS by Arming ISIS
No comments:
Post a Comment