The Patriot Post® · On the Cusp of War -- Whether We Like It or Not

Last week in a move that defies common sense, the State Department ordered the Marine Security Force evacuating the American embassy in Yemen to destroy their own weapons before leaving the nation. They were leaving because Obama's self-described counter-terrorist “success story” was overrun by the Houthis, an Iranian-backed, Islamist terror group. Over the weekend, an Islamic terrorist in Copenhagen killed two people at an event promoting free speech and a synagogue. Five police were also wounded in the two separate attacks. Also over the weekend, ISIS released another horrific video depicting the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians. They also paraded 17 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in cages through the city of Kirkuk, Iraq, promising to burn them alive like Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh. ISIS has also reportedly seized the town of al-Baghdadi in Iraq’s Anbar Province, putting them 5 miles from an air base staffed by U.S. Marines. In France, hundreds of Jewish tombs were desecrated at a cemetery.

Obama’s reaction to this plethora of savagery and anti-Semitism? He took a three-day golf vacation in Palm Springs that included two rounds at a private course owned by Oracle founder and billionaire Larry Ellison.

Earlier this month, Michael Steinbach, head of the FBI’s counterterrorist division, admitted that it’s impossible to track every American who might travel abroad to join terrorist groups like ISIS. “I’m worried about individuals that we don’t know about that have training,” he said. “We know what we know. But there is a number that’s greater than that that we don’t know.” Around the same time, the AP reported that jihadist wannabes are “streaming into Syria and Iraq in unprecedented numbers to join the Islamic State or other extremist groups, including at least 3,400 from Western nations among 20,000 from around the world.”

And on Saturday, in an unintentional bit of comic relief that underscores the bankruptcy of progressive denial enabling every bit of this ongoing tragedy, the New York Times published a story whose title says it all: “Islamic State Sprouting Limbs Beyond its Base.”

Ya think?

Not to worry. Last Wednesday our intrepid president presented Congress a proposal for the authorization of the use of military force (AUMF) against ISIS. Unfortunately, it epitomizes two things, namely his slacker instincts and his determination to ignore reality. In case the GOP can’t figure it out, the premise of the AUMF is simple: slacker Obama wishes to fob his Constitutionally-mandated power as Commander-in-Chief off on Congress in order to make them accomplices in his disastrous foreign policy agenda. Denier Obama is revealed by two clauses in the resolution itself. One “does not authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces in enduring offensive ground combat operations.” The other states that “authorization for the use of military force shall terminate three years after the date of the enactment.”

National Review’s Andrew McCarthy aptly describes Obama’s real agenda:

“An American strategy that focuses only on ISIS, pretends that al-Qaeda has already been ‘decimated,’ and regards Iran as a potential ally rather than a mortal enemy is doomed to fail. When it does, Obama wants congressional Republicans to share in the ignominy.

"Obama’s second rationale involves his legacy hunting. Uniquely in American history, Obama is building a presidential legacy that is not about his contributions to the United States but his place in the movement Left as the man who tamed America.”

Not that Obama isn’t busy confronting his adversaries. Despite claiming that his reason for refusing to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he comes to address Congress next month is his desire to remain neutral in the upcoming Israeli elections, Obama’s 2012 campaign operatives are currently in Israel working to unseat Netanyahu and his right-leaning Likud party, according to a confidential memo obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

In Obama’s twisted mind, Netanyahu remains “problematic” because he’s about to inject a dose of reality into the president’s fairy tale pursuit of a no-nukes agreement with Iran, despite ten years of failure in that regard. It is a failure also steeped in denial in that it completely ignores the nihilistic imperative that animates the Iranian mullahs. It is their heartfelt belief that they must facilitate the re-emergence of the Twelfth or Hidden Imam, an Islamic second coming that requires a period of worldwide chaos to engender that re-emergence. Obama and his equally myopic “allies” that comprise the P5+1 negotiating team, namely the U.S., Russia, China, the UK, and France, plus Germany, have dismissed that religious imperative as nonsense.

Here’s another video that needs to be seen. NRG news correspondent Zvika Klein walked the streets of Paris wearing a yarmulke (kippa) and religious tassels (tzitzit). “Go f— from the front and the back,” “Viva Palestine,” “Hey you, with the kippa, what are you doing here?” are a few of the phrases to which he was subjected. Last month, Petter Ljunggren, who wore a yarmulke and a Star of David necklace walking the streets of Malmo, Sweden, experienced a similar reaction.

Following the murders in Copenhagen, European leaders, including French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt sought to reassure Jews that they are safe in Europe. Thorning-Schmidt inadvertently put the lie to that assurance. “This is a conflict between the core values of our society and violent extremists,” she said. “I want to underline that this is not a conflict between Islam and the West. This is not a conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims.”

Really? “And we will conquer Rome, by Allah’s permission, the promise of our Prophet, peace be upon him," said an ISIS jihadist speaking American-accented English, just prior to beheading the 21 Egyptian Christians. That atrocity took place in Libya, where Obama’s "leading from behind” strategy led to the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and the disintegration into another terrorist stronghold that followed.

Anyone still remember when this feckless administration was bragging about producing an “Arab Spring?”

We have a coward in the White House. He is matched by an equal group of cowards among the heads of the Europe, all of whom cling desperately to the idea that we are not engaged in WWIII – even if it means tolerating beheadings, human incineration, the rape and enslavement of women and children in the Middle East and Africa – along with a “tolerable” level of domestic carnage to maintain that despicable fiction. Thus we get boilerplate condemnations to address the former atrocities, and a steaming pile of “lone wolf” dung flung in our collective faces, every time another gunman inspired by ISIS love – or Jew-hatred – perpetrates another atrocity on the streets of Western nations.

And make no mistake: only feckless cowards prefer oh-so “sincere” denunciations and domestic atrocities to the heavy lifting of military engagement – including troops on the ground – that this war between civilization and barbarism absolutely requires.

And please, spare me the garbage about the Arab world not doing their fair share. While they are most certainly culpable in that regard, it is utterly nonsensical to wait for them to get their act together, even as this gigantic threat to American national security not only remains viable, but continues to grow. It is even more nonsensical to address the problem on the wrong end, intensifying our efforts on the streets of Paris, Copenhagen, Sydney or New York, even as ISIS remains a viable fighting force, and far more importantly, a recruiting and propaganda machine. One that is drawing in more fighters than we are killing. “Unless we do stop something to stop the flow of foreign fighters, this conflict has the potential to go on indefinitely,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Daily Beast earlier this month.

I know the refrain. All together now: Americans are tired of war. Too bad. War is not tired of us, and the longer we wait the bloodier it becomes.

And that’s the upside. It’s astounding how many Americans have “moved past” 9/11, as if we’re not facing a threat every bit as lethal today, if not more so. Do feckless Western leaders need something akin to that level of carnage to move the military needle? Or will it take a nuke exploding over a Western city? Think about that scenario the next time some leftist blowhard talks about how much money we’ve “wasted” fighting Islamic terror. Really? What would it cost to completely re-build Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles – in different locations no less, because of radioactivity?

The time for pretense is over. We either wipe out as many Islamists as we can, while we can, or we will pay a price beyond imagining. I have no doubt many people will disagree with that assessment. All well and good. But don’t ever say you weren’t warned. As radio host Mark Levin likes to say, the stench of the 1930s is in the air. And just like the 1930s, those who seek appeasement will reap the whirlwind.

Again.

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