World War III

Everyone but the President of the United States seems to understand that the civilized world is in an all-out struggle with evil as represented by the Islamic terrorists. Nor is it less clear that Daesh [ISIS or ISIL] is gaining ground and consolidating the various Islamic terrorist groups around the world into an increasingly formidable foe.

Pres. Obama’s speech on Tuesday March 22^nd was directed, he said, to the Cuban people as well as their Communist leadership and the American public. Well and good; it was a call for a new era of communication and hoped for collaboration with the Castro regime which remains in power. Most of us who know the history of U.S.-Cuban relations object to his innuendo that before 1969 the U.S. tried “to control Cuba”, something he charged in a throwaway line in his continued apology for world leadership. In fact, the U.S. after the Spanish-American war was critical with the venerated revolution leader Jose Marti in setting up Cuban independence, even at a time when some Cubans wanted amalgamation into the U.S.

Furthermore, one can only anticipate instability with the approaching departure of Raul Castro [88] and the crumbling economic and political regime with its old Soviet sponsor long since gone. Obama’s policy has helped rescue what will be an unstable continuing dictatorship. Throwing new political prisoners into jail and beating up the wives of current imprisoned dissidents on his arrival was hardly a good omen, nor were petty childish gestures by Raul Castro himself.

But whatever the long-term result of the President’s Cuba visit, one is struck by his insistence on delivering a formal prepared speech at a moment when a new horrendous episode of terrorism had erupted in Europe. There is hardly a terrorist expert who does not believe that the U.S. is inevitably doomed to more violence imitating that in Europe. For security reason the FBI and other intelligence units of our government are secretive about the number of plots that have been discovered and thwarted. But the Boston marathon bombing, the incestuous murders at Fort Hood, the shootings at military installations in Chattanooga, and the savagery of the attack at San Bernardino in California are only a foretaste of what will inevitably be our Paris and now our Brussels massacres unless the root cause of the problem is eliminated.

Obama’s 51-second acknowledgement of the Belgian atrocities was certainly not commensurate with the importance of the attack. Counter-terrorist officials in Belgium, the capital of Europe which made the attack all the more significant, in France, in Germany and in Britain all admit unofficially that they are overwhelmed with their problem. The sophistication of the weaponry and the coordination of a multi-targeted attack in Brussels prove that Daesh and its followers are gaining on the largely defensive effort of the U.S. and the Europeans.

In Iraq and Syria, Daesh’s headquarters operates an increasinly highly nuanced campaign using all the tools of the new digital world. The American response has been a limping incremental effort to bring the terrorists to heel, but with no long-term strategy and effort to end their existence as soon as possible. That kind of all-out goal is the only one which can turn around what is an essentially defense effort of the West to defend itself.

Hopefully, the President – as he enjoys a much more sympathetic atmosphere in Argentina where the leadership has turned in the U.S. direction – will begin the preparation for what must be a massive and immediate effort to destroy Daesh. Whether it is indeed World War III as Pope France called it months ago, it demands the full intellectual resources at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the mobilization of a new military effort in the Middle East, as weary as the American public is of armed encounters there. Leadership is, after all, not only the acknowledgement of problems but a determined effort to solve them.

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