In what I think is his continuing effort to trivialize the threat to America posed by ISIS, Barry first implied that the threat that we now face is so insignificant that no strategy is even necessary in order for us to combat it. And now Barry has stated that the goal should now be one of simply reducing ISIS to being what he called, a "manageable problem." So now in the span of just seven days we’ve managed to go from where Barry announced that the United States did not yet have a strategy to combat the threat posed by the terrorist group ISIS, to where now Barry has said that the objective should be to diminish the threat to the point where it is manageable.
The comments, however, are raising further questions about whether Barry has a clear understanding or even a viable vision for countering the growing threat from the jihadists, after he also said the United States planned to "destroy" ISIS. Barry said during a speech, just today, in Estonia that Barry said, "We know that if we are joined by the internationally community, we can continue to shrink ISIL's sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable problem." So I guess it is Barry’s intention to take no action unless we act in concert with the "international community." That’s just nuts!
Barry also said in the speech that the administration's objective was to "degrade and destroy" ISIS in Iraq, and that the United States had already been "moving effectively" to achieve that goal. The remarks are already creating a stir among critics who argue that the comments are contradictory. Illinois GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger told "Fox and Friends" Wednesday that the president needed to decide whether the United States was going to "contain or crush" ISIS. He said, "That's the big question. Are we going to contain ISIS, or are we going to crush ISIS? And, the president has not answered that."
It was also during an appearance on "Fox and Friends" that conservative radio show host Laura Ingraham also took the opportunity to criticize Barry, saying his comments are nonsensical. "When you hear the president talk about destroy and degrade [ISIS], that makes sense. When you hear the president talking about managing the problem, that doesn't make sense." She went on to say, "I mean, we manage all sorts of problems in our daily lives, this is not a manageable problem, this is a force of evil." And she’s absolutely right. Which is why I say that Barry seems very determined to trivialize what the threat is that we face from this ISIS group.
The Pentagon, however, has pushed back, saying that the statements are consistent with one another. Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said, "It's actually both. And I know that sounds a little bit strange to hear." Kirby said the U.S. can degrade, disrupt, and destroy ISIS "targets" in Iraq but cannot destroy ISIS as an organization. He said, "The only way you're going to destroy an organization like this is by defeating their ideology." He added, "You can bomb them every day, and you're not going to get rid of the ideology that allows them to fester and to continue to get resources and to grow, to train and to equip."
This guy Kirby, who in reality is nothing more than a Jay Carney in uniform, also said, "There's got to be a broader-based strategy, and we're working on that right now." So I guess essentially we’ve moved from saying first that we intended to destroy this terrorist group, to then having no strategy to do much of anything to now, I guess, reducing it to being what Barry calls a "manageable problem", but only if we are joined by the "international community" in that endeavor. Look, even if Barry does intend to take some sort of action regarding this group by the time he finally decides what sort of action to take it’ll be too late for any action to be taken.
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