At War With ISIS

After Paris, What Next?——————————–

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

“The barbarians are inside and there is no gate.”  —Columnist Mark Steyn

France has been struck again by Islamic terrorists causing fear and panic, not just in Paris, but in other Western cities which remain equally vulnerable. Adding to the fear is the dreadful certainty that there will be more attacks. That’s a solemn promise made by Islamic State jihadists who vow that it is American blood they crave the most.

What, then, are we to do about it? Let’s begin by following the lead of French President Francois Hollande and actually declare that a state of war with Islamic State (ISIL, ISIS, IS) exists. Make it a formal declaration of war so that we can employ military tactics and strategies designed, not just to contain them or to punish them but to destroy them and all who shelter or even tolerate them in their midst, which will, sadly but unavoidably, include non-combatants. There is no other way to win this war. Mr. Hollande, in the aftermath of the brutal attacks, made it clear that France was at war with ISIS and that they would be shown no mercy. Would that our own president could be as forceful. Rather, he spoke again of crimes and bringing those responsible to justice, referring to ISIS as  ”simply a network of killers”.

But these are not merely crimes and the perpetrators are not simply criminals. They are enemy combatants and they have committed acts of war. And by attacking civilians with no military purpose and by beheadings and crucifixions, they deserve no mercy or protection under the Geneva Conventions. If captured and charged with war crimes, they should be tried by military tribunals, not civilian courts.

President Barack Obama will never agree to this, of course, so we are in for a long and dangerous year or so until we have a new commander-in-chief willing to acknowledge that this is a real war and not a police action and that it will take military action on a wartime footing to defeat this enemy. Meanwhile, our strategy, if it can be called that, will be more of the same. Wait for another attack, step up the bombing and drone attacks, work on improving and sharing intelligence, telling people to be vigilant and hoping for the best.

This is not a strategy for success. In fact, it is not a strategy at all. It is treating an existential, deadly threat to America from abroad as a domestic crime wave. The only way to defeat this enemy is to go on the offensive big time and it will require American leadership from up front where leaders belong, not from behind. Yes, I realize that this will be another unconventional, dirty and long war with many casualties but what’s the alternative? Waiting for the next attack to happen? Enduring the continued slaughter of innocents? We would share in the guilt if we allowed these atrocities to continue.

Mr. Obama may actually believe that ISIS is just a bunch of killers but, in fact, they control a land area larger that the UK and call it a caliphate which they plans to expand by force. ISIS has its own currency, a capitol city, operates websites, publishes periodicals, provides public services, produces propaganda, has a flag, maintains an army, raises taxes, recruits fighters and exports terrorism. Sounds close enough to a country to me. To defeat them, their territory must be taken from them and they must be neutralized by overwhelming military force under American leadership and with our military commanders under orders from civilian authority to win this war with whatever it takes. No more wars of limited objectives with politicians calling the shots from the other side of the world.

Until we get a commander-in-chief who is up to this difficult task and has the courage and ability to lead, we will have to be content with air strikes and the targeting restrictions from Washington which will severely limit their effectiveness.  There should be no infusion of American ground troops until the rules of engagement are changed so that they will not be fighting another dirty, bloody war with one hand tied behind their backs while politicians question their use of force and interrogation methods. In real wars, like those we actually won in the past, it matters less how you play the game as whether or not you win. If losing is unthinkable, then the end really does justify the means, doesn’t it?

We are at war, not just with ISIS, but with all radical Islamists who despise us and our way of life and who are at war with Western culture. They believe that God is on their side and that they are justified in committing any manner of atrocities against us. They are not afraid of dying and they will not be defeated by attempts to reason with them or by negotiations. They will only be defeated by finally convincing them that they cannot win and that their actions will cause immense harm to the religion they claim to be fighting for.

 

November 22, 2015

Mob Rule on Campus

Students United Against Free Speech———————————-

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

 

People my age will remember the turbulent 1969s and 1970s when college campuses, along with inner cities, erupted in demonstrations, many violent and destructive, almost all disruptive to normal university activity, including the formal education process. The issues then were primarily racial injustice and the war in Vietnam. ROTC units and military veterans and recruiters were prime targets of opportunity. Some ROTC facilities were burned or vandalized and many ROTC units were banished from campuses.

While attending the Harvard Business School in 1971, I was once dared by students to walk across Harvard Yard in my naval uniform. Military personnel were sometimes referred to in those memorable days as “baby killers” (probably by the same morons who started referring to policemen as pigs). A dorm mate, after a few beers, confessed to me that he was finding it difficult to forgive me for my involvement in the Vietnam War. Such were the times.

The racial wars on campuses gradually expanded to the broader cultural wars and gave birth to political correctness. College campuses, centers of learning where freedom of speech was formerly taught, cherished and defended, became centers of rigidly regulated speech where no speech is permitted that might possibly offend, frighten or distress anyone or even trigger memories that might provoke such reactions. Invited guest speakers were often shouted down, harassed and even threatened if they dared offer views that some students found offensive. On some campuses, students and their faculty facilitators insisted on vetting speakers to determine the acceptability of their views, resulting in some being dis-invited by gutless administrators. We mustn’t upset the students, lest they turn violent.  So much for freedom of speech and respect for the right to present dissenting views, a cornerstone of democracy.

Where were the adults in charge, the presidents, chancellors, deans and trustees, while all this juvenile nonsense was going on? Where were the state officials while the same things were happening on taxpayer-funded state university campuses? Why did the federal government continue to reward universities that banished NROTC units and military recruiters from campus with huge research grants and tax advantages?

                Lately, protests at the University of Missouri, Yale and other so-called elite universities have made national news. At Mizzou, Students, mostly black, aided and abetted by liberal professors more interested in a cause than in actually teaching classes, backed by a hunger strike and the threat of a strike by the mostly black varsity football team (a little short on diversity there), forced the resignation of the university president and the chancellor of the main campus. The president’s offenses apparently included failing to react to reported racial incidents in a manner satisfactory to the demonstrating students and for not getting out of his car when it was surrounded by demonstrators. At Yale, students screamed at a dean attempting to defend freedom of speech, telling him to be quiet and demanding that he resign.

Complaints of racial injustice against African- Americans still get most of the press coverage in spite of the enormous gains in diversity, equal opportunity and sensitivity across America, including college campuses. Meanwhile, the alarming increase in anti-Semitism on campuses gets little coverage. Anti-Israeli speech seems perfectly acceptable on campus but otherwise, political correctness is enforced at all times.

Somehow we have managed to permit the transfer of authority on many campuses from adult administrators, deans and trustees to gullible, juvenile students and their leftist professors in search of a cause. Somehow we have allowed students, who are supposed to be exposed to different views, to determine which views they will permit themselves to be exposed to. We have allowed them to believe that they have a monopoly on knowledge and the right to demand that their views prevail. What were once temples of knowledge and free speech have been spoiled by political correctness, repression of dissent and regulated speech. Serious students, who pay dearly and incur enormous debt for a traditional campus degree program, have their education disrupted by naive, poorly-informed students with an inflated regard for their importance and wisdom. Perhaps they’ll decide that on-line programs are a much better deal and forgo the over-priced campus experience altogether.

The resignations at Missouri were tendered with a wish for healing and reconciliation. Not likely. More likely, they will encourage more of the same on other campuses until the adults in charge on these campuses, along with the trustees and the donors get tired of these student mutinies and say “enough”. Rather than cave in to student demands and appoint a new Dean of Diversity and Sensitivity, a better move would have been to suspend the disruptive students, fire the football team (which with a 4-5 record wasn’t very good anyway) and let the students staging a hunger strike lose a few more pounds.

November 11, 2015

The Reoublican Presidential Debates: Act III

The GOP Debates TV Show: Part III————————–
A commentary
By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

By far the best thing to come out of the third Republican presidential debate was the exposure of the blatant bias on the part of the CNBC moderators, on display for all to see. It was splendidly highlighted by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz who said: “The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. This is not a cage match. …How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?”

Some of those questions that Cruz referred to might have been asked of contestants in a beauty pageant or candidates for high school class president. What is your biggest weakness? Are you a comic book villain? Why are your numbers falling in spite of big donations? These and questions like them are not designed to frame the important issues or elicit the candidates’ plans for dealing with them. They were designed to embarrass the candidates and provoke a food fight. This was in sharp contrast to the love-fest staged by the moderators at the Democrat debate where they lobbed softball questions at Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and the also-rans. Ask yourself if any of these moderators would ever even consider voting for a Republican. They can scarcely hide the distaste they feel as they receive responses to their inane questions.

Visibly flustered by the alacrity of the Cruz response, the moderator tried to get him to answer the question but Cruz would not be interrupted, saying “I’m not finished.” Then when he did start to answer, the moderator pouted, “You used your answer on something else”. But that something else was something that needed to be said. The mainstream media is, in fact, terminally liberal and hopelessly biased against conservatives. Calling this for what it is, as Cruz did, entails risk. It can be perceived as whiney and defensive but there was nothing whiney about Cruz, a skilled, experienced debater, Princeton honors graduate and Harvard Law graduate with high honors.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also hit a home run when he responded to another moderator interruption by saying that it was rude, even by New Jersey standards. He followed that with an interruption of his own. In referring to another asinine question, this one regarding fantasy football, he interjected, “Wait a minute. We are $19 trillion in debt and you’re asking about fantasy football?”

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Reince Priebus had heard enough. In a letter to NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack, he said that the Republican Party was suspending its partnership with NBC News for the scheduled Feb. 26 debate citing bad faith and petty, mean-spirited, “gotcha” questions that were designed to embarrass candidates. Eager to keep the business, NBC reportedly offered to resolve the complaints, but the RNC should stand firm. They are unlikely to ever get fair treatment from NBC.

Millions of Americans get their news from the mainstream media and perhaps nowhere else. They tune in faithfully to the NBC, ABC or CBS evening news shows to watch and listen to the talking heads present their version of the news, interspersed as it is with those maddeningly-repetitious commercials mostly dealing with constipation, diarrhea and sexual dis-function. Unfortunately, many believe everything they see and hear on TV and form their political positions based entirely on this and on the political campaign ads designed, not to educate and inform, but rather to win votes.

The debates should be about the candidates’ views on the issues that affect Americans and the nation, not on the candidates’ views on trivial matters or about each other. The moderators too often act as if they are the stars of the show and that it is their job to provoke fights among the candidates for the entertainment value. Sadly, many in the TV audience buy into this for the same reason that some “sports fans” go to auto races and hockey games: to see the crashes and the fights.

The third debate accomplished something else. It provided further evidence that the political novices, Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina are now in over their heads and lack the experience to be considered for the most powerful office on earth. It’s time for their supporters to get serious about backing a qualified candidate. Government may be broken and politicians may be to blame but it will still take someone with experience in government and who knows how it works in order to fix it.

November 1, 2015