Terrorism

New York Times op-ed: To save Paris, destroy ISIS

Iraqi soldiers from the 1st Iraqi Army Division and U.S. Soldiers board a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter at Camp Ramadi, Iraq, Nov. 15, 2009, during a static loading exercise being conducted to prepare for upcoming missions. The Soldiers are assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Daniel St. Pierre, U.S. Air Force/Released)

An op-ed published Saturday at the New York Times says the only way to save Paris is to crush ISIS militarily.

“The only adequate measure, after the killing of at least 129 people in Paris, is military, and the only objective commensurate with the ongoing threat is the crushing of ISIS and the elimination of its stronghold in Syria and Iraq,” Roger Cohen wrote.  “The barbaric terrorists exulting on social media at the blood they have spilled cannot be allowed any longer to control territory on which they are able to organize, finance, direct and plan their savagery.”

“Enough is enough,” Cohen added, noting that the threat from ISIS is now global.

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“A certain quality of evil cannot be allowed physical terrain on which to breed. Pope Francis declared the Paris attacks ‘not human.’ In a sense he is right. But history teaches that human beings are capable of fathomless evil. Unmet, it grows,” he added.

Since Friday’s assault on Paris, ISIS has warned that more attacks are coming.

Pamela Geller said that ISIS has released a video encouraging all Muslims in France to kill the French in the streets by any means.  She posted a transcript of the call, translated from the French-language video:

If you are sincere to Allah in your worship and in your creed and are unable to make Hijra
Then operate within France. Terrorize them and do not allow them to sleep due to fear and horror.

There are weapons and cars available and targets ready to be hit.
Even poison is available so poison the food and water of at least one of the enemies of Allah.

Kill them and spit in their faces and run over them with your cars.
Do what ever you are able to do in order to humiliate them, for they deserve only this.

Leaders have called for stern measures.  Marine Le Pen, leader of the French Front Nationale, said the nation must re-arm its citizens and remove radical Islamists from the country.  Dutch politician Geert Wilders said national borders must be closed to stop the invasion of migrants now threatening Europe.

Poland is set to shun refugees, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel is holding fast to her position, calling for “tolerance” towards migrants in the wake of the Paris attack.

Cohen says the battle will be long.

“Islam,” he added, ‘is in a state of fervid crisis, riven by the regional battle of Sunni and Shia interests (read Saudi Arabia and Iran), afflicted by a metastasizing ideology of anti-Western hatred and Wahhabi fundamentalism, seeking a reasonable accommodation with modernity. The scourge within it can probably only be defeated from within, by the hundreds of millions of Muslims who are people of peace and are as appalled as any sentient being at the Paris slaughter. Their voices need to be raised in unambiguous and sustained unison.”

The key to victory, he observes, is unity.

“Disunity and distraction undermined past military efforts to defeat the jihadis,” he said. “Unity is now attainable and with it victory.”

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Joe Newby

A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Joe ran for a city council position in Riverside, Calif., in 1991 and managed successful campaigns for the Idaho state legislature. Co-author of "Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad," Joe wrote for Examiner.com from 2010 until it closed in 2016 and his work has been published at Newsbusters, Spokane Faith and Values and other sites. He now runs the Conservative Firing Line.

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