I just finished reading Mr. Rhoades letter to the editor offering another point of view to my column last week on ISIS. Normally I don't respond to letters because I don't want to get into a series of columns and letters going back and forth. I will just say that Mr. Rhoades absolutely makes some very valid points in his response.
In last week's column, I was very clear that I am not an expert on foreign policy and that it would probably not be good for me to be President of the United States during this trying time. In many ways I am a very simple person and live by a few principles that aren't real complicated. One of those is that we take care of our own. That means if one American is threatened or killed then we should respond.
Apparently the President does somewhat live by some variant of this code since he was willing to trade five known terrorists to get back one American whom, by all the reports of his fellow soldiers, is a deserter and traitor. In other stances he is busy golfing, attending fundraisers or mugging for the camera for some alternative news channel, while Americans are being beheaded by terrorists.
I fully know that we would anger some of the world by more aggressive tactics. But, this brand of terrorism is not like any that the world has every seen. This is pure evil and should be eliminated -- not just contained or offered jobs.
In this scenario we would not be trying to create some "Jeffersonian democracy." No, this would be purely and simply retaliation and retribution. This is standing up to evil and if you polled our military men and women, I would bet anything that the vast majority of them would be willing to march into the very gates of Hell to avenge these beheaded Americans.
No, I would not be a very politically correct President and will never have the opportunity to make the decisions. I understand that talk is cheap when you don't actually have to make the decision to put Americans into harm's way. Maybe I would make a different decision if I had more information. But, I would at least have a strategy that would be more than to offer economic incentives and hope that ISIS would stop their reign of terror.
Mr. Rhoades asked the question if we had learned anything from the past decade of folly. This is one thing I would take away from the last 10 years (that six of which belong to President Obama) -- never go into a war unless you are willing to do what it takes to win. Our past has shown what happens when we try to win a war from a political point of view and what happens when we go to actually win. The results have been dramatically different.
Maybe this is a war that we can't actually win. But, right now we know where ISIS is located and what do we do? We tell them our strategy. For some reason that just doesn't make sense to me but again, I don't understand foreign policy.
I wasn't planning on writing once again on this subject as I'm sure that you are tired of reading my ramblings. Next week I promise that I will get off this soapbox and I'll find another one to jump up on. But, I just wanted to acknowledge and thank Mr. Rhoades for his very thorough and well thought out analysis.
I read another column this morning who the commentator said the media is hyping the threat of ISIS beyond its real threat to our society. Tell that to the family in this country who had to watch their loved ones being killed in a barbaric manner by thugs thumbing their noses at the paper tiger called America. Or, tell that to those who, heaven forbid, may see loved ones die in an attack on a mall on United States soil as ISIS has called for.
Then maybe it will become a little closer to everyone. Or, we can take care of the disease where it is festering. It won't eliminate or eradicate all the evil but it will sure make a dent in it. And, we will be honoring those Americans who did not deserve to die in this horrible manner.
Community on 03/05/2015