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After months of questions, comments, pleading, and reporting about the intense persecution of Christians across Africa and the Middle East, our esteemed Commander in Chief has put down his five-iron long enough to take action. Friday on Twitter I rhetorically asked, "Did Obama just come off the back nine to find out that Christians were being brutally persecuted in northern Iraq?" Indeed, Christians of every stripe have been routed and untold numbers savagely killed by the burgeoning radical Islamist caliphate there. First forming and now operating in the vacuum created by the Syrian civil war and the untimely and ill advised departure of the American military from Iraq, this sizeable force of Islamist butchers known as "ISIS" has been busy literally crucifying Christians, raping and enslaving their women, and even beheading their children. Once in ISIS' grip, the only worldly recourse a believer has is to deny Christ and confess Allah, converting to Islam - something that Christians understand entails far worse eternal consequences than even the most horrendous physical death.
Arming ISIS Well
The ISIS army is indeed armed very well and unusually well organized. Though the Kurdish Peshmerga have been the most courageous and effective force in resisting ISIS, the Iraqi military has been a near catastrophic failure. As you may have read, when ISIS invaded across the northern border from Syria the Iraqi army fled time and again rather than face ISIS in battle. In their nearly unfettered advance, ISIS forces captured dozens if not hundreds of U.S. made Humvees and other assorted armored vehicles including Abrams tanks, and over 50 Howitzer cannons, all of which had been left in the "capable hands" of the Iraqis - or so stated our naive president. Already well armed with weapons and munitions brought from Syria (via Benghazi?), some estimate that, besides Israel, Iran, and Turkey, ISIS currently presents the most formidable and best equipped ground fighting force in the region. They appear to have the means to fully finance their goals too as they control Syrian oil fields, Iraq's second largest city, and according to the UK Guardian ISIS thugs have robbed and stolen everything of value in their path including 8,000 year-old antiquities and booty from bank robberies to the tune of more than two billion dollars thus far. There is little doubt that they embody the most blood-thirsty, ultra-radical Islamist element anywhere in the world today and they are gaining fighters, finances, and resources at an alarming rate. A very disturbing wild card is that an estimated 1,000 of the ISIS fighters are said to be holders of Western European and American passports, allowing them to seamlessly travel to plan, organize, and possibly carry out attacks elsewhere. This is why conservative commentators and politicians in the West have been sounding an alarm for weeks that ISIS represents a very real danger to not only the people in its current path but also to Europe and North America.
ISIS is not seeking political dialog. ISIS doesn't want discourse or compromise. They aren't after a seat at the United Nations. And, like most jihadists, they do not care if they live or die while attempting to achieve their goals which are to intimidate, subjugate, or to simply kill each and every person they possibly can who refuses Islam. In short, they are just following and carrying out the edicts of the Qur'an - a fact that with few exceptions our corrupted media and disingenuous politicians have yet to voice.
A Show of Force???
Now about that action the president has taken over the weekend. Believing that ISIS does not yet possess air power to oppose us, Mr. Obama sent a U.S. Navy F/A-18 on Friday in the first air strike against ISIS. That is not a typo. According to initial media reports Obama sent ONE single F/A-18 to bomb ISIS positions in northern Iraq. Can you say "news byte?" Rush Limbaugh would rightly call that "symbolism over substance." Before I boarded a flight toward Minneapolis (on which I wrote this piece), I stood in the gate area at SeaTac Airport in Seattle and observed some of the most ridiculous political pontificating - disguised as TV news coverage - that I've ever seen CNN's Wolfe Blitzer offer up. (And folks, that's really quite a statement considering how much fodder Blitzer has offered up through the years.) Based on the report that the raid on ISIS positions was carried out with a single plane (we now know that two F/A-18's actually were involved), Blitzer bloviated "In a show of force President Obama..." blah, blah, blah. The way it was reported you'd have thought we'd just carpet bombed the entire ISIS force! Granted, an F/A-18 is a powerful fighter jet capable of carrying a sizable weapons payload and our pilots are head and shoulders above the crowd, but is one jet or even two going to somehow intimidate and scatter thousands of crazed radicals bent on the destruction of anyone not pledged to their demented religious ideology? I'm not sure how many other missions will be flown or how long or extensive this yet unnamed operation will be, but I can't help but ask, why now? Mr. President, what tipped the scales and jolted you to act now? Even between 18-hole rounds of golf or before jogs on the beach, you must have heard of the desperate situation thousands of Christians have been in for many months at the hands of Boko Haram, ISIS, and other radical Islamists. Yet you did nothing - NOTHING - that is unless you perceive that Michelle's sad "frowny" face while holding up a sign recently saying "Let our girls go" is sure to cause terrorist thugs in Nigeria to quake in their boots after kidnapping 300 school girls. No, Mr. President, your lack of action hasn't escaped the notice of some of us, but what exactly prompted this pretty little and certainly pretty late action last Friday? Perhaps allowing Christians to be slaughtered isn't such a heinous thing in someone's mind, but again, why act against ISIS now? I'm sure the Kurdish Christians would like to know. Ten years ago there were over 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. Now the estimate is 400,000 and dwindling fast.
Obama's Newest Dirty Little Secret
Observers of all political stripes are now admitting that indeed the various actions, and particularly the timing, of many of them by the current Administration are often without rhyme or reason. This fact helps to make the timing of last weekend's "big" news less noticeable - that is unless you're an observer who's become aware of the position that Obama and company have projected concerning where they perceive Christians deserve to be in life's pecking order. This could serve to explain why the plight of an obscure sect known as the Yazidis finally pushed Obama to scramble an F/A-18 or two - an act that for him must be as philosophically uncomfortable as a root canal or kidney stones.
According to Thursday's (August 7) Washington Post, the majority of the world's Yazidi population (over 500,000 of an approximate 700,000 total) is at this moment on the run from ISIS in northern Iraq. An estimated 40,000 of them have been stranded on Mount Sinjar dying of hunger and thirst. It goes without saying how incomprehensible that awful scenario is to the majority reading this. Imagine, a peaceful people, living at best in third world conditions, in a region where war has been normal for millennia, and where you are disdained and hated by those of the majority religion around you. Add to this an invading force that is bent on robbing you, occupying your community, burning your home, torturing your family and friends, and whose end game is to kill you and anyone else who doesn't convert to their religion. Wow.
Contrary to some of the news reports that have circulated, the 40,000 Yazidis who've been stranded as the fled from ISIS are not Christians. Instead, they are exactly the kind of people in the kind of situation that we Christians are known to rally to on behalf of providing aid, food, and medicine, etc. Religiously, Yazidi beliefs are partially based on Sufi Islam - a sect rejected by both Sunni and Shia alike. Adding to Sufism, the Yazidis incorporate reincarnation and elements of Zoroastrianism (the Persian predecessor of Islam) and even embrace ancient Mithraism. Interestingly, they are monotheists with an extensive caste system; however, their concept of god is not from Abrahamic tradition but originated in the 11th century. Spiritually, we would correctly call them a cult.
When I first began writing this on the airplane Friday afternoon I didn't intend to include many of the details here, although I hope they've been educational. My desire was to point out that Obama stood by (or more accurately, rode by in a golf cart) month after month as Christians throughout the Middle East and Africa have been mercilessly slaughtered. The driving question I had was what, if any, action would the President now take if those 40,000 beleaguered folks stranded on Mount Sinjar were actually authentic, conservative, Bible-believing Evangelicals? No one except Barack Obama can answer that unequivocally. However, thus far he's had ample and numerous opportunities to at least attempt to stem the recent persecution of Christians but hasn't bothered to do so. Considering his track record and the manner in which he has operated with a constant eye on political gain, would he see fit to raise a military finger to save the Yazidis were they actually blood-bought believers? Now don't misunderstand, I am grateful some innocent lives are likely being spared the ISIS atrocities because you finally saw fit to act, but Christians are being crucified on crosses, their children dismembered, and their wives raped and enslaved. So, Mr. President, I am compelled to ask again, what about the Christians?
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