Barbaric

That's the most common word that has been applied to the burning alive of the Jordanian pilot captured by the ISIS thugs.   That seems to be a pretty good word.  Barbaric.  When I look it up in the dictionary the words that pop up are savagely cruel; exceedingly brutal; primitive; unsophisticated.  All those things apply.  Maybe unsophisticated is a tad gentle, but the rest are right.  




Even though they are all those things, it's difficult to comprehend the cruelty in this act.  Beheading is bad enough, but this is about as bad as anything I've seen.  Burning alive.  Think about that.  




So now what?  The whole world seems to be paralyzed in the face of these atrocities.  Oh, we're conducting a few airstrikes and launching a few missiles from drones.   But really ISIS is being left to do what they want.  The stories emerging of their brutality to their own people, including women and children, are almost beyond comprehension.  Burying alive, crucifying, cold blooded shootings, and on and on.  There is no check on these assholes so they continue their reign of terror.  


Jordan seems pissed off enough to take some action.  The King is clearly a stud.  But they are a small country with limited resources that are being stretched by 1.5 million refugees.  They are practically begging for American leadership and regional support.  And we're thinking about it.  Thinking about it.  As people get burned alive, we're thinking about it.




Now the story emerges that the UAE has stopped flying missions because the US refuses to move Combat Search and Rescue forces forward.  This is a story that is getting little play but is hugely important in the region.  Simply said, the UAE is the most progressive country there and could be/wants to be a good ally.  They are scared to death of Iran and have assisted us in countless ways since 9/11.  And we now turn our back on their one request.  




And what does our President and our government do?  Nothing.  Nada.  Today he went to the National Prayer Breakfast and chided us that many have been killed in the name of Christianity and that Slavery was terrible so we shouldn't be too hard on ISIS.  He also has gone way out of his way to not link these assholes with Islam.  Of course, they are all radical Islamists.  But no matter.  Whatever the anointed one thinks I guess. 




The thing is, this is an existential threat.  Most Americans aren't paying attention, but sooner or later this scourge will be here.  It's very akin to the Nazi movement.  The difference is that there is no government that they are related to so we seem paralyzed to confront them.  So we can either play an away game or a home game.  Away is much, much better.




There are things we can do.  The President and his sycophants clearly have no strategy, but there are things we can do.  We can use Special Forces.  We can use large scale bombing.  We can use the CIA.  We can use specialized capability like tactical FACS, civil affairs, public affairs, etc, etc, etc.  The State Department could contribute a lot in the diplomatic area.  And these are just a few off the cuff thoughts.  There are many, many more.  We could have a strategy that would make a difference.  And that strategy wouldn't involve a huge force on the ground.  One of the things that the new age of warfare means in many cases is that mass is not the most important thing.  That hasn't always been the case.  The conventional wisdom is that mass is required in any confrontation.  But the way of waging war has changed that.  But we're not even doing that.  The other thing we could be doing is provided both monetary and weapons support to our friends in the region.  But we're not even doing that.  Our President as Commander in Chief has terribly shirked his responsibility.  I cannot fathom that we are in this mess.  And if you think it's not our fight, you're wrong.  This isn't going away.

Here's another thing I can't fathom that our military leaders are not protesting and resigning.  Every day that they support this disaster of our own making, is a day that I lose a little more respect for them.