News and Tribune - YOUNG: Our Global Imperative Must be a Concerted Campaign to End ISIS

Op-Ed

By Rep. Young

Paris, San Bernardino, Brussels, Orlando, Istanbul, Baghdad, Dhaka, and now Nice -- disparate cities spanning the globe now united by a shared sense of horror, of profound loss, of mounting fear and disbelief at the campaign of terror being perpetrated on our streets.

Skeptics throw up their arms at any suggestion that ISIS, and the mass casualty attacks it inspires, present an existential threat to our way of life or our democratic nations. President Obama says we overplay this terror threat, noting "handguns' "car accidents', and "falls in bathtubs' have killed more Americans than terrorists.

This is a straw-man argument, one that fails to consider the seriousness of these attacks. Such a myopic view of terrorism fails to appreciate the grave impact of chaos and disorder, and of citizens seeing their fellow countrymen brutally murdered during fireworks, or a concert, or in an airport.

ISIS does present an existential threat to the United States, to our friends and allies, and to every civilized nation with basic freedom and democracy at its core. And as a former Marine Corps intelligence officer, I know that you have to understand the true nature of your enemy before you can defeat them.

After each terror attack we grieve for the fallen and for the all the victims of ISIS. We express our condolences. We restate our resolve to never give into terror, to never surrender to the warped ideology of ISIS, and to stand united with our friends and allies. We pledge to "defeat, and ultimately destroy" ISIS. Then, when images of the most recent attack begin to fade from the collective memory, our leadership sticks to the same policies.

Our current counter-terror operations are disjointed. By employing a hodge-podge of reactionary half-measures, our strategy lacks clarity of purpose. Right now every head severed from the snake results in another rearing its evil head elsewhere in the form of a siege, a suicide bombing, or a mass casualty attack. It is clear airstrikes are not comprehensive enough to eradicate the threat that ISIS poses to our very way of life.

ISIS is not just at war with the United States, or with the West. As French President Francois Hollande said following the tragedy in Nice, France: "We have an enemy who is going to continue to strike all the people, all the countries who have freedom as a fundamental value." The ideology and aim of ISIS is to oppose modernity, freedom, human rights, and tolerance through intimidation, propaganda, bloodshed, and war.

This brand of terror does not have to be the "new normal." We must never accept an ideology that threatens the very foundations of our values, that slaughters children in the streets, and seeks to terrorize us. Instead, we must resolve to meet this challenge head on.

We must accept that we are at war with ISIS and we must win. We must come to terms with the nature of this enemy and resolve to utilize the full spectrum of our military, diplomatic, and economic power to eliminate the threat.

As I called for in House Resolution 814, the United States should join with our friends in the NATO alliance and invoke Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty. It would allow military leaders to develop a concerted and unrelenting campaign to defeat ISIS, with the United States taking a leadership seat the table.

Our enemy is a ruthless and determined one. ISIS is not going to stop conducting, directing, and inspiring these outrages if we do not take specific action to stop them. We must accept the burden of leadership and unite the civilized world against this terrorist plague.

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