Thursday, November 19, 2015

ISIS and the World Community


Well, well, well. Russia’s plane is bombed in flight; 224 souls killed immediately. Paris attacks slay 129 souls with 99 hanging on for dear life, and 253 more in hospital with injuries. Somalia reels. Syria reels. Deaths one at a time or enmasse. Terrorism takes its toll plodding onward, ever onward.

And now France feels threatened, so too England, Germany, Spain, Turkey and the USA.

Allies before. Allies against ISIS over the past few months. Now focused allies waging war against the lawless and unconscionable perpetrators of something the rest of us don’t quite understand. But that’s OK. We don’t need to understand just at this moment. What we need to do is protect and defend.

So, 118 fuel trucks have been blown up. Perhaps the ISIS headquarters town should be leveled? What is the proper response? Don’t know just yet, but we are working on it. Working on it.

Stop the flow of bombs, guns and bullets to ISIS. Where are they getting this materiel? Who is funding it? Two new targets: the weapons flow AND the money flow. How hard is this to find and block?  Not my field of endeavor so I don’t know this. Who does? Are they working on it this moment?

Meanwhile, where are ISIS camps, offices and domestic locations? Bomb these as they would do to ours. Have done, really. And their pledge to continue to do this. So, we must respond in order to defend our own.

Meanwhile, another step to take. Close down Syria completely. Russia, America and all allies stand together to stop Syria, Libya and the Sinai from being misused against the peace loving world. Our response must be relentless.

The refugees. What to do about them? Feed them, house them. Educate and nurture them. Find new homes. Monitor communications to track nefarious schemes by ISIS, but otherwise treat them well. Now is not the time to make martyrs of the already homeless. No nation understands this better than America. That is our history. So let us not shirk our duty in this department!

Presidential campaigns are noise and distraction. Only experience need apply, and agile minds focused on the largest of problems. That is governance. The rest is and has been useless window dressing designed to keep our eyes off of what others want from our way of life.

Surely we won’t be stupid at a time like this? Well, who knows? Who would have projected Trump being so popular or even Carson, a vacuous nonentity without any experience except in hospitals? That is not the hall of congress. It may be more civil than congress, but it doesn’t teach you how government works behind the scenes and needs to  transact the business of a nation of 330 million souls.

Yes, governing is hard work. It is blended history, philosophy, values, intellect and policy formation. It is hopeful while transacting the work we need to have accomplished for us. It is leadership. It is application of heart and mind intelligently.

So far republicans continue to argue for no Syrian refugees, all along party lines. Thirty two republican state governors; 26 of them claiming no refugees. They don’t have the constitutional authority to do this, but they do have the right to make political noise and they have done so in concert with their party. Shame on them. And now the presidential candidate puppets are doing the same.

I’m most disappointed with Jeb Bush who I thought was more intelligent and thoughtful. But no; keep out strangers! Don’t trust anything Obama does or has done. Don’t provide any helpful suggestions on what to do. Don’t give us your policy template and direction for the future. Just complain and gripe about what the other party has done. Even when they did not create the policy nightmare that has given rise to ISIS and its horrors.

Let’s remember what we are about and keep on track. We must defend, nurture and build a fresh generation of tomorrows.  Will noise keep us from this most important task? Will America remember who she is in time not to make really stupid emotional mistakes like the Japanese internment camps of the 1940’s?

Let us pray not!

November 19, 2015



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