We must recognize and stop ISIS' global threat
Published November 17, 2015
Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, November 17, 2015.
In the city named for the Marquis de Lafayette, we get the outrage, the sadness, the urge to strike back against the terror attacks last week in Paris.
Here in the home of the world's most powerful rapid-response military force, many know how to do it - and some would be part of it. There are, in fact, special-operations soldiers from Fort Bragg already on the ground in Iraq and Syria, aiding the battle against the Islamic State.
But this country's role in the battle against a terrorist force more potent than al-Qaida has largely been limited to air attacks on ISIS-held territory in Iraq and Syria. Russia, which recently joined the battle in Syria, has taken the same route. And in its initial response to the Friday night attacks that killed at least 129 and injured hundreds more, France took to the air as well, sending its jets to bombard the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State stronghold and headquarters.
But there appears to be a growing realization among Western nations that the air war has done little to stop the ISIS terrorists, who have established themselves as far away from their declared homeland as Afghanistan and northern Africa.
On Monday, an ISIS video celebrated the attacks in Paris and warned it has America in its sights. "As we struck France in the center of its abode in Paris," said a man identified as Al Ghareeb the Algerian, "then we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington."
As he attended an international economic summit in Turkey, President Obama rejected calls for sending American forces to combat ISIS on the ground. His critics - some of them Republican presidential hopefuls - are just "talking as if they're tough" and don't know what they're talking about, Obama said. But then, it was the president who last year called ISIS a "junior varsity," and just Friday declared the insurgents "contained."
Obama also said there's no evidence that ISIS is preparing an attack on Washington. But then, we didn't expect the Boston Marathon bombings in 2014, either.
While we don't want to see yet another round of seemingly endless deployments begin anew, we do believe that the president needs to join this nation's power with France and even Russia to remove the growing cancer. For once, we all have a common enemy - for it was most likely ISIS terrorists who planted the bomb that took down a Russian airliner over Egypt last month.
This time, we won't be fighting alone. But we can't dodge the battle, either, nor expect we can teach the unwilling and incapable to fight it.
ISIS is a global threat. Nobody is safe until it is gone.
