Long before the mass murder in Orlando happened, I was in the process of writing this column. Obviously what happened early last Sunday has changed a lot for all of us. But it has not changed the fact of how ISIS has grown and prospered is the responsibility of President Obama more than anyone else, and that needs to be identified and he needs to be held accountable for that.
The impetus for this column was an article in the Wall Street Journal exposing the fact that ISIS fighters are returning to their home countries because they don’t like getting their butts kicked on the battlefield. They also did not find the way the leaders of ISIS treated them was as exciting and as glamorous as they thought it would be while sitting in their living rooms. You can be assured President Obama will be touting the decline in ISIS forces, but they never should have been there in the first place.
Way back when President Obama called ISIS the “JV team,” I and many others were hollering about how foolish that was. It is not because I am a military expert nor do I espouse that I am. But having read enough books on the working of power, I think I know how these things work. You need not have read Sun Tzu or Machiavelli to have questioned the strategy Mr. Obama had adopted. All you needed to have done was follow American sports or possibly sports anywhere to know he was being a fool.
It is called the “bandwagon effect.” True fans of a sports team see this all the time -- particularly ones who have suffered for years. The people of Kansas City have seen this the last couple of years; the ones who stuck with the Royals through some miserable years were all of a sudden being crowded out at games by bandwagoners.
In early 2014, ISIS was experiencing many successes and flaunting it with murderous videos. Their successes were being broadcast into our homes and they were spreading them through a sophisticated internet communication system.
I stated they needed to be crushed, and immediately. Obama, the reluctant warrior, refused to do what history had taught us. I even wrote comparing his action to the inactivity of France and Britain in crushing early actions of Hitler that emboldened him to take the next step and then throw the world into war. As Lincoln wrote to General McClellan: “If you don’t want to use the Army I should like to borrow it for a while.” At the time I said: “Please, Mr. President, let me use the greatest military force in world history. I will crush ISIS in the crib and you will thank me.”
Instead he dawdled. Sure he sent some drones in to make selective kills. Those drone strikes killed ISIS leaders, their associates, friends and family. Obama went after the terrorists with no regard for their families and then instructed his press secretary to chastise Donald Trump for calling for actions he was already condoning. And it was so he could avoid actually using the full force of the military we gave him to protect us. It is much easier to sit in a shed somewhere and push a button than confront terror face-to-face.
While Obama fiddled, ISIS grew in power. On the home front, our police (FBI) were fighting the battle attempting to protect us. But when their leader refuses to recognize the existence of the threat and name it as such, you can only imagine how hamstrung our protectors were. The government knew about Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, in San Bernardino. They likewise knew about Omar Mateen.
President Obama rails against guns, but what did he do here in a situation that should have been questioned? Mateen has been on the FBI watch list for some time, but he walked into a gun dealer two weeks ago and bought new guns. He went through a background check. Why was he not questioned? Because the system in place is inept? Or does the government not want to seem anti-Islamic? Instead of confronting the challenge at hand, Mr. Obama blamed law-abiding citizens for having guns and called for new gun laws. He labeled it home grown extremism.
Let’s be clear, Obama had zero desire for the massacre that occurred last week and he holds no responsibility for that particular act. But he has made decisions as to how to confront the evil that bred the horror and for that he is responsible.
Secretary Clinton will be more of the same. Sure she will blow meaningless platitudes our way, but not much will change. She has never called him out for not crushing ISIS. Sure her campaign sent out a cover-your-ass statement expressing sorrow about the event and talking tough, but not telling us how she will be different or expressing dissatisfaction with Mr. Obama and his policies. She did state we should do all this while “staying true to our values” which are code words for half-measures. She too labeled it home grown extremism. She wants us to believe this is a hate crime and nothing more.
Mrs. Clinton swears solidarity with women and gays. But she has taken millions into her slush fund charity from governments that abuse and denigrate women and murder gays. How can we trust her to change the policies of the government she endorses and of which she was a big part? Is the Congenital Liar now to be believed?
Was Lincoln not true to our values? Was Roosevelt not true to our values? They realized that we are at war and the time for half-measures was over. It has come to our shores; the great oceans can no longer protect us.
Things need to change folks. More of these murders will go on until they do. The sad thing is much of this could have been prevented if Mr. Obama did his job. This in on his head.