U.S. needs to act quickly to prevent atrocity
If you happen to have even glanced at the news over the course of the past few months you will have by now heard the term ISIS. You may have gathered that they are yet another militant group located in the Middle East driven by fundamentalist Islamic values, but in reality they are much more than that.
In fact, ISIS is the greatest single threat the United States has ever faced out of the Middle East.
Most commonly, ISIS is compared to al-Qaida by most of the major media outlets, but already ISIS has surpassed their better-known counterparts in the area that matters most: effectiveness.
Throughout their more than two-decades of existence, al-Qaida has maintained one main far-reaching theme, to unify the entirety of the Middle East under one Islamic state.
However, they have failed to accomplish this goal in every single aspect. Largely, the only thing that al-Qaida has accomplished is the incredible number of people they have killed. This has allowed them to be written off and ignored by an overwhelming majority of Muslims.
ISIS is different.
The goal of ISIS is directly stated in their name (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), and they have done a much better job of accomplishing this goal. As of today they control half of all territory in Iraq and Syria, they control Mosul, which is Iraq’s second largest city, and recently captured a strategic air base in Syria.
Along the way they have performed and recorded mass executions, live burials and genocide on whichever group they deem unfit. They have tanks and other tools of modern warfare. In late June, ISIS officially declared themselves a caliphate, a government ruled by a man that can only be described as “mad,” which now provides welfare to its subjects.
What makes this group so dangerous is the fact that they accomplished their goal of establishing an Islamic state in the Middle East, an objective that many Muslims support.
This accomplishment has given them much more respect among more moderate Muslims, resulting in increased recruitment. Exactly how effective is their recruiting?
Already two Americans have died fighting for ISIS, and several more are believed to still be fighting. These men have American passports. Experts have projected that within weeks ISIS will attack a target in Western Europe.
In mere months they may attack the United States. We must stop them now, before they inevitably grow strong enough to lash out across vast bodies of water. If we do not, we may very well be forced to watch another tower fall.