Obama Bloviates on ISIS. Then He Goes Golfing.
On August 20, as news hit about ISIS's execution of journalist Jim Foley, President Obama gave a speech at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
He said the following. "Good afternoon, everybody. Today, the entire world is appalled by the brutal murder of Jim Foley by the terrorist group, ISIL." The President referred to ISIS as ISIL. "Jim Foley's life stands in stark contrast to his killers." I surely agree with that statement.
Let's be clear about ISIL. They have rampaged across cities and villages -- killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence. They abduct women and children, and subject them to torture and rape and slavery. They have murdered Muslims -- both Sunni and Shia -- by the thousands. They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can for no other reason than they practice a different religion. They declared their ambition to commit genocide against an ancient people.
They are, in short, just one more Islamic militant group. This is what radical Islamic groups have been doing for about 1500 years. The fact that they kill other Muslims is par for the course. There is nothing new here.
So ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents.
No religion? To say that this statement is historically unsupportable is not giving enough credit to just how far out of touch with reality Obama's speech was.
No just God would stand for what they did yesterday, and for what they do every single day.
Really? Then how did it happen? Was God on vacation or something? I get tired of secular humanists, which Obama is, making theological pronouncements.
ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt.
"Ideology" is a Western academic term. ISIS is not Western. It surely is not academic. It expresses a long-standing religious belief among Muslims that jihad is not only legitimate, it is morally mandatory. But President Obama prefers to ignore the obvious.
They may claim out of expediency that they are at war with the United States or the West, but the fact is they terrorize their neighbors and offer them nothing but an endless slavery to their empty vision, and the collapse of any definition of civilized behavior.
Correct. But there it is. And there it has been for centuries. He went on: "And people like this ultimately fail." Problem: "ultimately" can take a long time.
They fail, because the future is won by those who build and not destroy and the world is shaped by people like Jim Foley, and the overwhelming majority of humanity who are appalled by those who killed him.
This is a statement of religious faith. I happen to agree with it, but not because I am a secular humanist.
Then came the strutting -- words without the will to back them up.
The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people. We will be vigilant and we will be relentless. When people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what's necessary to see that justice is done. And we act against ISIL, standing alongside others.
You want to make a side bet on who will still exercise power after January 2017 -- ISIS or Obama?
The people of Iraq, who with our support are taking the fight to ISIL, must continue coming together to expel these terrorists from their communities.
And pigs must fly.
The people of Syria, whose story Jim Foley told, do not deserve to live under the shadow of a tyrant or terrorists. They have our support in their pursuit of a future rooted in dignity.
So, the people of Syria have "our support." Who, exactly, does he have in mind? What, exactly, does he propose? And who, exactly, will pay the price?
From governments and peoples across the Middle East there has to be a common effort to extract this cancer, so that it does not spread.
There has to be a common effort. There just has to be.
The United States invaded in March 2003. What have we got to show for it? What have the people of Iraq got to show for it? ISIS.
There has to be a clear rejection of these kind of nihilistic ideologies.
Rejection by whom? How? Enforced by whom? Paid for by whom?
One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century.
In my view, there is a very large place for ISIS. Obama needs to look at the map of the territory ISIS controls.
Friends and allies around the world, we share a common security and a common set of values that are rooted in the opposite of what we saw yesterday.
Who are these allies? What evidence is there that they will confront ISIS? When? Where?
And we will continue to confront this hateful terrorism, and replace it with a sense of hope and civility.
We will? How?
May God bless and keep Jim's memory, and may God bless the United States of America.
God bless America. Standard political ending. Always theologically meaningless.
