Soap Box

I have learned in my life that there are certain situations that you sit back and let develop and come to you and those, which require your immediate reaction before the seed germinates and the problem grows bigger and more threatening, and sometimes out of control.

I learned these valuable lessons the hard way and have suffered many times by hoping that a situation would just take care of it's self or go away completely, only to have, what would have been a fairly minor problem if nipped in the bud, turn into a serious irritant, requiring a lot of time and energy to deal with.

The dire situation that is developing in Iraq and Syria is unlike any other we've ever faced. It grows bigger and more cancerous every day and has a morbid attraction to those who are attracted by bloodlust and fatalistic adventure as has been proven by the enlistment of young men from nations around the world, including our own, carrying passports that could enable them to resume life in America, bringing with them the dangerous knowledge and fanatic devotion to Radical Islam that could create chaos in our streets.

ISIS is a fast growing, metastasizing cancer well led, well armed and well financed, that will gobble up the entire Middle East if it is not stopped and when I say stopped, I don't mean contained, reduced or slowed down, but destroyed from top to bottom.

We simply cannot view ISIS as just another rag tag bunch of wide eyes zealots with a Koran in one hand and the trip switch to a suicide vest in the other. Oh, there are plenty of young fanatics who are willing to give their lives in the quest for the cause, but they will be aimed and directed at the points where they can do the maximum damage, instead of going into a random crowd to the behest of some deranged Imam.

These people are smart and dedicated and have a nucleus of organization and planning that has heretofore been missing in the jihadists we've faced so far.

It has recently come to light that, somewhat at odds with the White House version, American intelligence did indeed inform the Obama administration about the increasing military abilities of ISIS, in fact well before they even got started in Iraq, and while I'm sure the administration "studied" the problem, but basically stood back prognosticating while ISIS over ran the Iraqi army and gobbled up more and more territory declaring them a part of the new Caliphate and institutes Sharia Law and Islamic enforcement which seems to go as far as hacking off the head of an innocent child to make a point.

Obama has made the statement that ISIS is an Iraqi problem but the truth of the matter is that, unrestrained; the ruthlessness of ISIS will not be contained in Iraq, or the Middle East for that matter. Jordan is ripe for the pickings and with the ever-increasing momentum of the ISIS army it takes very little stretch to imagine the complete fall of Syria and any other Middle Eastern country they set their sights on.

Cunning without conscience is a terrifying thing and the cruelty of ISIS out does even Hitler's Gestapo, they know no fear, no boundaries and no limits and like a killer virus it has to be completely destroyed for planet earth to ever breath another easy breath.

You cannot negotiate with them, their goals leave no room for negation, with them it's all or nothing and the "all" means unadulterated conversion to Wahabist Islam or die, and all who oppose them are blood enemies to be destroyed.

So, we will meet ISIS on a battlefield somewhere, whether it's on the deserts and villages of the Middle East or on the streets of the major cities in the Western World and that decision rests with the powers that be, whether they pursue an aggressive or passive policy, whether they go at ISIS with both barrels blazing or some silly hand tying rules of engagement, whether they truly destroy the head, tail and body of this snake or leave a piece to return and haunt us.

The time for action is the present, not next week, not next month. The time for bold decisions is now.

There is no time for empty threats or imaginary red lines and every word has to be backed up with immediate action and it must be quick and decisive, no quarter given.

The season of domestics and symbolism has long passed.

It's them or us.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels