This barbaric terrorist group who has taken advantage of the power vacuum in some middle east countries such as Syria, Iraq, and Libya is being trumpeted by those Neocons still intent on the U.S. inserting ourselves back into their business without having learned the lessons of our past mistakes. The U.S. media just amplifies the voices of ISIS and the Neocons as their executives need to fill up the air time.

There is a reason, President Barack Obama does not refer to these terrorists as Islamic extremists. His sound thinking is based on the premise of not playing with ISIS on their terms. Those within ISIS have been exceptional at playing the 24 hour media game in America. Their videos and propaganda have so outraged the American public so that the polls now reflect that a majority are willing to back U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq. Here’s the dilemma. The minute, the U.S. bites the bait dangled by ISIS by increasing the presence of U.S. troops in countries such as Iraq, then ISIS wins by being able to increase their recruiting goals tremendously. They can also expect donations to increase exponentially. Our  U.S. President Barack Obama gets this and so he is smart enough to ignore their claims that they are serving Allah by their despicable cruel activities.

I wish that our far right fellow Americans would internalize the concept that we cannot win by elevating ISIS in any way which includes describing them as representing the Islamic faith on any level. We cannot prevail by placing additional American military  personnel in Iraq or any other middle east country. Doing either gives ISIS or any media savvy terrorist group the winning hand. We will be mired in their internal affairs for a very long time which is exactly what will empower ISIS greatly. Why do you think that those within ISIS have embarked on this sophisticated media campaign?

The  U.S. goal should be to figure out how to stabilize the governing entities within countries such as Iraq, Syria and Libya to where there is constructive power sharing by all groups within these countries so that their peoples can experience hope, financial growth, safety and an infrastructure they can count on lasting for many years. These countries’ citizens will never develop a western style democracy in our life times because they have histories, traditions, associations, beliefs, cultures, families and tribes which date back thousands of years.

The surrounding middle east countries which should be worried about the aspirational expansion goals of ISIS should have their military boots on the ground so that the western coalition can play a strong supporting role at their bidding which would include air power and intelligence sharing. Unfortunately, we cannot count on the Iraqi military to stand up to ISIS based on their June 2014  failure when ISIS overtook Mosul even though the Iraqi Military outnumbered ISIS by a ratio of 15 to 1 and then they allowed ISIS to collect all the U.S. weaponry and equipment left behind. It is very unfortunate that our U. S. military generals were not able to train and develop a competent Iraqi military after over a decade of too many of our soldiers losing their lives or suffering serious injuries and hardships as well as the American taxpayers having paid out billions of dollars that we could ill afford. So, these surrounding middle east countries will have to provide the military personnel who are up to the task of successfully tackling ISIS.

We, as Americans need to back our President and to present to the world a united front when it comes to fighting terrorism. When ever our own safety is at stake, this should end being a left or right issue. Those in the U.S. Congress who are holding up the funding bill for Homeland Security by adding immigration restrictions when this bill is required to pass by the end of February, 2015, are displaying their unpatriotic contempt for our President and the safety of  our peoples by placing their need to cater to their base as their primary concern. Those who question President Barack Obama’s love for our country should take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror.

Personally, I like the way the Italians have responded to ISIS threats to attack Rome as per a 2/21/15 Sydney Morning Herald article, “The Islamic State threatens to come to Rome; Italians respond with travel advice,” by Adam Taylor. The author describes how the Italians have used the hashtag developed by ISIS to respond with  pictures of Italian traffic jams. He writes, ” As word of  “#We Are  Coming O Rome” spread across the Italian media, Rome residents took the opportunity to respond to the Islamic State. And they did so in an especially Roman way, starting with warnings about the traffic.” Then he reports that they continued by tweeting back with a whole load of general complaints about their domestic woes along with plenty of references to a recent soccer match against a Dutch team which resulted in widespread property devastation. This is a sample of a tweet by Cathy Crowley on 2/21/15:

In short the Italians’ humorous tweets in response to ISIS attempts to intimidate far outweighed the futile efforts by ISIS. However, anyone who has been  following my blogs know that I and two friends are planning a one month adventure in Italy, this coming May of 2015. Recently, I had to field a call from one of my very intelligent and sophistcated companions about how she was in a panic about being beheaded. I had to take her concern seriously as I explained that I had no desire to be beheaded either.

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