IS THE ISLAMIC STATE PRAISING ALLAH THAT OBAMA IS PRESIDENT?

The grotesque terrorists of the Islamic State or ISIS beheaded American journalist James Foley last Wednesday (8/20).

British Prime Minister David Cameron broke off his vacation and returned to London to hold emergency meetings with the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence (Brits spell it with a ‘c’).

The President of the United States issued a brief statement from Martha’s Vineyard, where he is vacationing. He was back on the golf course within 20 minutes.

The president said the right things about the terrorists, said the editors of the New York Daily News, but he "signaled disdain for the gravity of the moment by going from the presidential podium straight to a vacation round of golf."

(The Islamic State) has no place in the 21st Century," Mr. Obama said.

That’s true. Islamists belong in the 7th Century, which they’ve never left. But here they are in 2014 murdering thousands in Iraq, which two years ago Mr. Obama said was "sovereign, stable and self reliant."  The editors of the Daily News, who endorsed him for president in 2008, want to know what he’ll do to stop them. He has a "duty to act," they said, but his remarks made them wonder if he would.

 "You had to examine Obama’s words closely to find a ray of hope he would deliver on promised justice – not today or tomorrow but, maybe, after building an internationally sanctioned campaign," they said. 

 "People like (the Islamic State) ultimately fail," the president said. "They fail because the future is won by those who build and not destroy."

That may be so, said the editors of the Washington Post, who endorsed Mr. Obama in 2008 and 2012. But "history provides too many examples of destroyers who hold power for long stretches of time and do not lose it until they are dislodged by ‘builders’ who are finally roused to action."

It will take more than words to stop the campaign of terror, the Post’s editors said. "Urging others into the fray will not be sufficient."

"No American president can survive if he lets Americans be beheaded on international television with impunity," said MSNBC talk show host Chris Matthews, who said he gets "tingles" when Mr. Obama speaks. "He has to strike back."

But Mr. Obama has already done all he has ever done. Talk. The only editor of the Harvard Law Review to never write an article for it; a lawyer who never tried a case; a state senator who voted "present" 129 times, and a bust as a "community organizer," his is a record remarkably devoid of any actual accomplishment.

If the journalists belatedly beginning to realize there’s no there there had been paying attention back when it mattered, we’d have been spared a lot of pain.

Most of our pain may be yet to come. IS vows to attack the United States. They’re already here.

Hundreds of ISIS members are American citizens. Doubtless more are among the thousands from terror producing states who enter the country illegally across the border the administration refuses to secure. "There is a lot of communication" between IS and Mexican drug cartels, said former CIA officer Mike Baker.

"This is beyond anything we’ve seen," said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel of the threat posed by the terror group his boss had likened a few months before to "a jayvee team."

 "They are coming and another 9/11 is imminent unless we act decisively," said Ali Khedery, a top adviser to the State and Defense departments.

Maybe Mr. Obama’s prompt return to the golf course will frighten IS, speculated MSNBC talk show host Joe Scarborough. They’ll think "Wow, that’s one cold bastard," he said.

He is indeed. The journalists who didn’t notice Mr. Obama is all hat and no cattle also overlooked his narcissism. And it’s escaped Mr. Scarborough’s attention that when confronted with difficult choices, this president is notoriously reluctant to make decisions. He was Ditherer in Chief before he was Golfer in Chief.

The problem isn’t so much people at the White House don’t understand what’s happening in the Middle East, "it’s that they don’t want to understand," said Mr. Khedery, who served longer in Iraq than any other U.S. official. "They just want it to go away."

So it’s more likely ISIS is praising Allah that Barack Hussein Obama, and not George W. Bush, is president of the United States.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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