The President Phones It In

     In this time of national malaise there have been two recent stories that seem to be incongruous with each other. One was the FBI Director's comments about Americans who fight along side ISIS and return to this country. The Director said that they could not keep these fighters from re-entering the United States. The other story was about an Illinois 19 year old who was stopped and arrested before leaving the country with the intent to travel to Syria and fight along side ISIS.
     Does any other normal intelligent person think that these two postures by the U.S. authorities is 180 degrees out of phase? To me it is like arresting a bank robber on his way to the bank, but a robber who actually commits the crime and is heading away from the bank is given immunity by the police. And maybe the Director of the FBI has not been paying attention, but the government has been able to restrict the sale of certain types of light bulbs, compel citizens to by health insurance, and force those opposed to gay marriage to participate in such ceremonies by taking photographs or baking cakes. But are we to believe that same government can not prevent those who have fought along side our enemy from repatriating?
     The Obama administration's action against ISIS to secure the safety of the United States and our allies has been analogous to a professional golfer trying to win a tournament using only his putter. The bombing missions that the administration has crowed about being so successful have been waged against the rear of the fighting, and not the front lines where the majority of ISIS fighters could be eliminated. So far we have taken out a few armored personnel carriers and a tank or two, but not much else.
     God forbid we bomb too close to the Turkish border and risk upsetting that weakest of all allies. The Turks are trying to stack the deck in their favor by giving lip service to the U.S. airstrikes against ISIS, while turning a blind eye to the terrorist group. Recently, Turkish authorities ignored ISIS fighters selling their group's memorabilia in the public spaces of Istanbul. But it will only be a matter of time before the group that the Turks hate somewhat less than the Kurds, turns their wrath on them.
     Meanwhile, everyone who has even an inkling of honest intellectualism can surmise that President Obama is doing the absolute minimum he can to satisfy his duty to protect the security of the United States, while keeping the lid on his radical anti-war base by "phoning it in." Problem is that with more and more American ISIS fighters returning to the United States from their terrorist education abroad, and who knows how many ISIS members taking advantage of the Obama open border policy in the South, the president's feckless and lackluster defense of this country will create a security risk long after his tenure in office expires.