In case you missed the brief statement by the president on the beheading of an American journalist, James Foley, by the evil doers ISIS, here is a recap:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04[/youtube]

He had all the furor of losing a golf game, as in not much but a stern face, rather than a president that wants payback for an American that was butchered by the same militant terrorist group that he is currently not waging war against, or is he?

Today, U.S. officials said the military is preparing options to send in some 300 troops to provide additional security for our Baghdad embassy. That would bring the total troop/advisor level sent to Iraq by Obama to about 1,100. But he will not put boots on the ground.

Yes, he delivered his I’m-trying-to-look-tough speech at Edgartown Elementary School that sounded like a book report with a few facts about ISIL thrown in for good measure. You can read the whole speech here where I’ve taken a few quotes and inserted my comments in parentheses. For example:

Let’s be clear about ISIL. They have rampaged across cities and villages — killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence. They abduct women and children, and subject them to torture and rape and slavery. They have murdered Muslims — both Sunni and Shia — by the thousands. They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can for no other reason than they practice a different religion. They declared their ambition to commit genocide against an ancient people.  (I was glad he finally uttered the word Christians. Not sure if ISIL has killed more Muslims or Christians, but won’t quibble on his facts).  

So ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents.  No just God would stand for what they did yesterday, and for what they do every single day.  ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings.  Their ideology is bankrupt. They may claim out of expediency that they are at war with the United States or the West, but the
fact is they terrorize their neighbors and offer them nothing but an endless slavery to their empty vision, and the collapse of any definition of civilized behavior. (Mr. President, they are at war with the U.S. and the West and have expressly stated their goals, as in “see you in New York”.)

And people like this ultimately fail.  They fail, because the future is won by those who build and not destroy and the world is shaped by people like Jim Foley, and the overwhelming majority of humanity who are appalled by those who killed him. (They only fail when they are killed for the murdering barbaric sub-humans they are, not because the world condemns them with words.)

The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people.  We will be vigilant and we will be relentless.  When people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done.  And we act against ISIL, standing alongside others. (Have the families of those killed in Benghazi gotten justice yet? Does he know that an American was killed in Ukraine today? His words seem empty to me. And notice how he is standing alongside, not leading of course.)

The people of Iraq, who with our support are taking the fight to ISIL, must continue coming together to expel these terrorists from their communities.  The people of Syria, whose story Jim Foley told, do not deserve to live under the shadow of a tyrant or terrorists.  They have our support in their pursuit of a future rooted in dignity. (Communities? Does he mean like the burbs adjacent to a big city? Anyway, he is telling Iraq they are mostly on their own. And I’m shocked he brought up Syria since he used a red pencil with an erasure on his red line and now Syrians have our support?)
 
From governments and peoples across the Middle East there has to be a common effort to extract this cancer, so that it does not
spread.  There has to be a clear rejection of these kind of nihilistic
ideologies.  One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century. (In other words, don’t expect much help from the U.S. to extract the cancer of ISIS. Note to Obama and SoS Kerry: Stop using that stupid 21st century remark to describe your naïve world view onto murderous thugs that like living in the past- please!)

Ok, I can’t take anymore of his sophomoric attitude towards ISIS and his, we’ll stand by you other countries, but you go first and we’ll be in the back of the line as your cheerleaders.

As usual, he is leading from behind. Remember when he said ISIS wasn’t a threat since they were just a JV team? He was wrong and had a perfect opportunity to annihilate them when they first turned the corner from Syria into Iraq as they caravanned in broad daylight waving their black flags and guns. A quick shock and awe campaign would have stopped them dead in their tracks. Now he has languished that perfect target and as a result, the cancer of ISIS has spread.

It’s been reported that he literally went golfing after his remarks. Twitchy.com captured this NYT’s headline (that the Times has since changed it) that sums up the situation perfectly:

Will Obama avenge this terrorist act against an America, that the beheading of this journalist clearly is?

And will ISIS take the president’s words seriously or call his bluff? Time will tell but one thing that would help Obama’s credibility, is action not words that sound more like Charlie Brown’s teacher than the most powerful man on Earth.