What’s it going to take for the world to come together and rid the planet of these masked cowards known as ISIL? How many more people have to be beheaded? Set on fire? Crucified? How many more girls have to be captured, raped and forced to marry these savages? How many more boys have to be brainwashed to be ISIL fighters?
Everyday, I read about another atrocity as the world sits by…
Our own President, the so-called leader of the free world, can’t even bring himself to call these barbarians what they are: Islamic terrorists. Yet, inexplicably, he refers to ISIL all the time when he’s speaking on the subject. Maybe someone should tell Mr. Obama that ISIL doesn’t stand for the “International Society of Intellectuals and the Learned” but rather the “Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant.”
The opinion Mr. Obama holds that no religion – including Islam – sanctions this type of brutality may be the reason he refuses to refer to the terrorists as Muslims or to associate them with Islam. But his opinion is irrelevant. These men identify themselves as “Islamic” and their violent acts are based upon their reading of the Quran – not Mr. Obama’s.
So, my question remains. What’s it going to take? Has the world become so numb to this type of violence? Our own President played golf minutes after he announced that one of our own, American James Foley, had been beheaded. Clearly, Mr. Obama felt nothing about the situation and no empathy for the Foley family, because, if he did, he wouldn’t so easily have gone his merry way to the golf course. A true leader would’ve been emotionally burdened with what just happened and would’ve instinctively said, “I just can’t golf today.” Not because of the “optics,” but because of his own pain of what happened. But, then again, maybe Mr. Obama is just too cool for school.
Are we so used to this kind of depravity based upon our movies, videogames, and books that we’ve become desensitized? Can we no longer distinguish between fiction and reality? Have we gotten so used to the legalized murder of 57 million babies in this country by abortion that a report on the killing of children in the Middle East has become just another 15-second sound bite on our 24/7 daily news cycle? Or are we a bunch of ostriches with our heads in the sand who don’t even know what’s happening because “the news is so depressing?”
What exactly was accomplished last week at the WH “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism?” (Could they have made the name any more politically correct?) I haven’t read anywhere that a single world-wide strategic plan, headed by a strong leader, was established to destroy ISIL. As far as I’m concerned, President Obama couldn’t rally a bunch of ants to a picnic.
Instead, the President ended the Summit by saying, “We are all in the same boat. We have to help each other. In this work, you will have a strong partner in me and the United States of America.” The world doesn’t need a partner, it needs a leader. It needs someone who is going to stand up and lead. Who would follow someone who doesn’t even know or refuses to whisper the name of his enemy? Above the cries and anguish of those tortured and killed by the jihadists is their laughter directed at an American President who’s afraid to call them by name.
Four years ago, I wrote a piece entitled “Let’s Ban Another ‘N’ Word” in which I wrote that the use of the word “Nazi” was overused and inaccurately used. Everyone was calling everyone a “Nazi” if they didn’t agree with them. However, today, we’re actually witnessing the rise of another type of evil.
In the 1930s, Hitler rose to power with the intent of imposing the insanity of a “master race” on the rest of the world. Today, with the rise of ISIL, and its intent to force its “master religion” on the rest of the world, lest we all be killed or forced into slavery, I have to wonder, yet again, what will it take for the world to open its eyes? Will another 6 million innocents be slaughtered before we mumble amongst ourselves over coffee some morning, “Oh, maybe we should’ve done something sooner …”
Mr. Obama doesn’t believe ISIL is an “existential threat to the United States” and for those who agree and don’t think what’s happening in the Middle East will never reach these shores or the borders of the European countries, think again, Gumby, and remember the words of the German Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller, a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, whose 1950s speeches were condensed into a few short lines:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu gets it. Jordan’s King Abdullah gets it. The Mayor of Rotterdam, Netherlands, Ahmed Aboutaleb, certainly gets it. I get it. Unfortunately, President Obama just doesn’t get it, and God help us all.
P.S. Mr. Obama, if you’re so concerned about getting jobs for the terrorists, I’ve got a great occupation for them – car crash dummies.
