In his final address to the nation, President Obama conceded that ISIS represents a “serious threat” to our national security but not a threat to our “national existence.”
I’d point out that the 60 percent plus of Americans who think we’re not winning the war on terror would be at a loss to explain the difference between a serious threat and an existential one. We’d tend to say: Pardon us, Mr. President. A serious threat is something we should be very afraid of.
Obama’s soft stance toward ISIS reminds me of the prologue to World War II with Nazi Germany. The Versailles Treaty, which closed World War I, prohibited Germany from building up a military force, including an air force. Yet Nazi Germany proceeded with development of a military machine, in blatant violation of the treaty, with no intervention from the U.S., Great Britain or France. Hitler ran a pilot project by inserting his Condor Brigade into the Spanish Civil War, with the democratic west failing to come to the aid of Spain’s democratically elected government.
In all, our western democracies seemed to take light of what Hitler was up to for too long. By the time WWII got underway, Hitler had built the military capability to occupy a good portion of Europe. In the end, the Allied war against Hitler cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
Sound familiar? Yes it does. Our president has repeatedly downgraded the extent of threat posed by ISIS – despite the fact that ISIS occupies large areas of Syria and Iraq and has effectively deployed an internationally active network of terrorists.
Even a cursory look at history shows that the time to eliminate tyranny is when it first rears its head. If we wait, the tyranny will grow, becoming more costly to overcome.
The next occupant of the Oval Office needs to assume and execute the responsibilities that fall on the president as commander in chief. Our next president’s job will be all the more difficult because of the passivity Obama has shown toward a “serious threat” to our security.
Tom Wright
Aztec
