The passivity of the Obama Administration in regards to the religious genocide against Christians and anti-Western attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) must end. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal hit the nail on the head last week when he stated, “The country, the world, needs America to be strong and predictable. The world is getting more dangerous and less predictable because of a lack of American leadership.”
The barbaric actions of ISIS are unfortunately nothing new. The group’s hate-filled and absolutist ideology has resulted in beheadings, rapes, mutilations and mass murders that have plagued the Middle East for thousands of years. Their violence knows no bounds and is all in the name of extremist Islam.
In 2012, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, declared that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.” The Grand Mufti is a powerful religious man, with an influence over his followers that commands immediate action. Yet the Western world has largely let his declarations go unchecked. Mainstream media did not demand an apology or call out the Grand Mufti for intolerance. They largely ignored the statements, just as they ignore a great deal of the violence in the Middle East.
>>>ISIS has told Middle Eastern Christians to “convert to Islam or die”. Churches have been torn down and burned across the region, and thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes as they receive little to no protection from the government. The Obama Administration has attempted to push aside this religious genocide, leading the example for mainstream media to follow along and ignore the attacks. How can Western citizens possibly understand the full magnitude of the violence in the Middle East if the media is not doing their job to report it?
The horrific beheadings of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff have brought the reality of the Middle East to the Western world. The recorded beheadings were a definitive attack against the United States from ISIS. Yet President Obama’s responses were not the strong reactions the American public needed.
Just a few months ago Obama compared ISIS to the JV team. While his administration is now attempting to spin the comments from January, stating that he was not directly referring to ISIS, it is clear Obama is not taking this issue seriously. What unspeakable violence must ISIS inflict before President Obama will take up arms?
Vice President Joe Biden has screamed that the United States is going to “chase the ISIS to the gates of hell”, but Obama isn’t in a hurry. His solution is to work with the international community to curb ISIS’s “sphere of influence” to make the group more “manageable”.
“We know that if we are joined by the international community, we can continue to shrink ISIL’s sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable problem,” said Obama.
Manageable? This is not the strong, predictable leadership that Jindal says America needs. Sitting back and attempting to come to a peaceful agreement with a hate-filled group will never be successful. ISIS is on a global religious mission that will not be stopped through talk.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said in an interview last week that, “What we ought to have is a directed, concerted, overwhelming campaign to take them out. The focus should be Iraq, but the real focus should be taking out ISIS. Within Syria, it should not be our objective to try and resolve the civil war.” The Texas senator went on to proclaim that the president “has not demonstrated that he’s taking ISIS seriously” and that “we ought to bomb them back to the Stone Age.”
The hostility from ISIS to Christians and the Western world should not be taken lightly. In the wake of the 13th remembrance of the attacks of September 11, 2001, we must not forget what such hostility can lead to. The American people must voice their beliefs and force Obama into action. The world is getting more dangerous, the United States cannot afford to take the backseat.
By ALGOP Chairman Bill Armistead
