Listen Live
Listen Live Graphics (Indy)

 

On the morning of the Paris attacks President was seen on ABC saying this:

Obama: “Well, no, I don’t think they’re gaining strength. What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq. And in Syria they’ll come in, they’ll leave. But you don’t see this systematic march by ISIL across the terrain. What we have not yet been able to do is to completely decapitate their command and control structures. We’ve made some progress in trying to reduce the flow of foreign fighters.”

A few hours later a series of coordinated terror attacks were carried out in Paris leaving 129 people dead and 352 wounded; 99 of them in very serious condition.

The radical, Islamist, terror group Isis eventually claimed responsibility.

Since ISIS began to gain prominence many on the political right and some on the political left have been urging the President to do more to stop the terror group.

Here’s Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein:

“I have never been more concerned. I read the intelligence faithfully. ISIL is not contained. ISIL is expanding. They’ve just put out a video saying it is their intent to attack this country. And I think we have to be prepared. I think, hopefully, France will go for a Chapter 5, which will bring NATO into it.”

A Chapter 5, more specifically an Article 5 of the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty) commits each member state to consider an armed attack against one member state to be an armed attack against them all.

It has been invoked only once, and that was after the 9-11 attacks.

As you can imagine, those who are running for President are also pushing for a stronger response to ISIS which includes war, ground troops; like Ben Carson.

Carson says, “We have to destroy their caliphate and you look for the easiest place to do that, it would be in Iraq”

Jeb Bush says, “The policy on containment isn’t gonna work, and it’s a policy of incremental, just kind of running out the clock so that the next President has to deal with this.”

Carly Fiorina says, “I am angry, our President, against all evidence, declared ISIS contained, and took a victory lap.”

Donald Trump has said he would bomb the “S” out of them and says, “I would take their wealth, I would take their oil.”

To all of that the President says this:

“Folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do,” Obama said in a news conference wrapping up a two-day summit of world leaders in Turkey. “If they think that somehow their advisers are better than the chairman of my Joint Chiefs of Staff and the folks who are actually on the ground, I want to meet them. And we can have that debate.”

The President says he will stay the course with more airstrikes, more nations involved in the bombing and more Kurds and Iraqis in the ground fight, but no more American troops.

In the meantime ISIS has just released a new video saying Washington, DC is in their sights and have tweeted, “And the American blood is the best and we will taste it soon.”

CNN terrorism and military experts told me last night that the strategy in its current form will take 10 to 20 years to work.

Do we have that much time to wait?

Don Lemon: ISIS Threatens America. Will Obama’s Strategy Protect Us?  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com