They put a Jordanian pilot in a cage, burned him, and videotaped it. They beheaded a little over twenty Egyptian Christians and videotaped it. They beheaded American soldiers and videotaped that as well. This group also sunk down to the lowest and grossest level when they sold the body parts of their captives for money.
According to CNN, this group has “crude, stomach-turning tactics when it comes to dealing with its enemy.” The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, is an extreme terrorist organization in the Middle East. Their goal is to set up an Islamic caliph, an Islamic state led by a powerful religious and political leader. It is, in my opinion, the most dangerous and brutal terrorist group ever to exist. There is an immediate threat to world peace. Until we can eliminate the threat of ISIS and their terrifying actions, we cannot focus on any other issues. Solving the ISIS issue needs to become our priority.
In order to combat ISIS, the United States of America needs to have troops on the ground instead of only utilizing air strikes. Yes, the air strikes have been somewhat successful, but in order to defeat ISIS as quickly as possible, we need to fight them face-to-face. If we have “boots on the ground,” we will be able to cover and protect our allies down there. “By just dropping bombs, it will either preserve the status quo, or they will make slight gains,” according to the Ohio Governor John Kasich. I agree with him: the air strikes are not really getting us anywhere, in fact, everything is just staying the same. Kasich is not the only person who thinks that we should put troops on the ground. According to a new CBS and New York Times poll, 57 percent of Americans do not think that President Obama is handling this situation properly and they do not think that he is being “tough enough” with ISIS. The more aggressive solution is to put troops on the ground.
Not only should we put troops on the ground, but we also need to engage the world community to address the economic and political issues that are creating an environment where terrorism can thrive. The Western and Arab worlds need to come together to come up with a plan to destroy ISIS as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Obama said that countries should “break the cycles of conflict, especially sectarian conflict” and ask the governments to “address the grievances that terrorists exploit.” Obama is basically taking a “do nothing” position. He is calling for other nations to come together to solve the economic and political issues, but we all need to come together and work together to fix this problem.
We need boots on the ground in order to defeat ISIS quickly. Just dropping bombs really is not doing anything, except for keeping everything the way it is. Countries also need to come together to form a bigger team to fix this huge issue.
As Senator Lindsey Graham said, “They’re not going to stop unless someone stops them.”