Forums → WEPR → Obama's Stance On Terrorism

Obama has been launching air strikes against ISIS for a while now. But since the beginning, they have always been labeled as limited air strikes. What does this mean? It means that the United States launches about seven air strikes a day against ISIS, usually after various different groups verify that the targets in question are indeed being used by ISIS. This means that the United States has a good insurgent to civilian death ratio. Does slow and steady win the race?

Compare that to the air strikes launched against the Iraqi forces after the 9/11 attacks: Over 1100 air strikes a day. The Iraq War has always been criticized for it's large number of civilian deaths, but we managed to topple the country's government, killed it's leader and shattered the insurgents that
had rose to prominence after the death of Saddam Hussein.

What are the air strikes against ISIS doing? According to Obama, they're keeping the terrorists in check and preventing them from growing stronger. According to everyone else, they're being used as a smokescreen to create an illusion that the United States is actually fighting ISIS. In reality, shortly after Obama had defended his actions (or lack thereof) against ISIS, a large attack perpetuated by ISIS had left 130 people dead in France.

What was Obama's reaction to this attack? His reaction was to defend his strategy against the Islamic State, and to reject a coalition with France and Russia to destroy ISIS for good, or at least do some real damage against them. Obama doesn't care about ISIS or the thousands (over six thousand innocent people were killed by ISIS last year) of people they're killing. All he cares about is creating a 'legacy' of his presidency before passing the mantle onto the next president. He's launching an insignificant amount of air strikes against ISIS to create the illusion that the United States is actually combating the terrorist group. Meanwhile, Russia and France are having their stadiums and commercial planes attacked.

Will Obama be persuaded by the other world leaders to do more, or will the United States have to suffer a terrorist attack (several cities are already bracing for an attack) before he wakes up from his stupor and realize that his strategy isn't working? At this trajectory, a terrorist attack is inevitable.