Blog: It Was Entirely Within His Power To Stop This Horrific Evil: Barack Obama Chose Not To Do So

Statement

Local eyewitnesses (along with Fox News, ARA News, and other outlets) are reporting that on Thursday last week in Mosul, Iraq, the Islamic State placed 19 Yezidi girls in iron cages and, before a crowd of hundreds, burned them alive for refusing to be their sex slaves. This is the state in which President Obama will leave the Middle East. It did not have to come to this, and would not have come to this if not for the serially heartless and incompetent decisions this President has made during his tenure as America's Commander-in-Chief. Tragically, this will be his true legacy.

Back in 2009, President Obama, in keeping with his campaign promise to pull all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq within "16 months" of his election, began maneuvering to withdraw U.S. forces. Unlike past wars, which saw the likes of Gen. MacArthur's staff rewriting Japan's post-war constitution for them before he accepted it, the White House took "NO" for an answer from a characteristically ineffective Iraqi government, and chose to use that as their proximate excuse for chaotically withdrawing our combat troops.

Vice President Joe Biden, in the midst of all the back-patting going on at the White House as they withdrew the U.S. forces pacifying the country, stated that Iraq would be "one of the great achievements of this Administration." Obama himself spiked the football on multiple occasions, and would become petulant when later confronted with the slowly deteriorating situation in Iraq and Syria (stating it was the Iraqi government's fault we left).

It will be difficult for historians to look back over the course of human events to find a more egregious example of a leader stealing defeat from the jaws of victory.

In the midst of his civil war, Bashar al-Assad unleashed the remnant of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) from his prisons to add legitimacy to his cause. This group, who had been utterly crushed during the Surge in Iraq (and numbered only 700 members), thrived in the Syrian chaos and mutated into the Islamic State. Mr. Obama, childishly drawing red lines he had no intention of enforcing, stood back and watched as Syria burned and Islamist radicals grew in strength until, in 2014, they exploded out of Syria to bring Hell on earth to the innocent men and women across the region.

The Islamic State captured approximately 3,000 girls and women and enslaved them to be used as sex slaves. That number is now 1,800 after years of murder, escape, and rescue. These women, many of them small girls, are raped daily, and tortured or killed if they resist the vile predations of their captors. In response to this utter horror, President Obama has presided over the most anemic air campaign in America's military history, launching fewer strike sorties per day than any other conflict in recent history. Unleashing American airpower, sending more Special Forces, and using conventional forces to create a safe zone would finally begin to restore some semblance of sanity to the region. President Obama has instead chosen to stand by with a golf club in his hand and wait out the clock. It is a despicable disgrace that Mr. Obama's callous inaction has brought such profound shame on this, the "Last Best Hope" of mankind on earth.

Source