Dr. Thomas Sowell gives dire warnings about the world downplaying the ISIS threat

"Just recently, a State Department official in the Obama administration said that Americans have remained safe in a nuclear age, not because of our own nuclear arsenal but because 'we created an intricate and essential system of treaties, laws and agreements.'

If 'treaties, laws and agreements' produced peace, there would never have been a Second World War. The years leading up to that monumental catastrophe were filled with international treaties and arms control agreements.

The Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War, imposed strong restrictions on Germany's military forces -- on paper. The Washington Naval Agreements of 1922 imposed restrictions on all the major naval powers of the world -- on paper. The Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928 created an international renunciation of war -- on paper.

The Munich agreement of 1938 produced a paper with Hitler's signature on it that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waved to the cheering crowds when he returned to England, and said that it meant "Peace for our time." Less than a year later, World War II began.

Winston Churchill never bought any of this. He understood that military deterrence was what preserved peace. With England playing a leadership role in Europe, 'England's hour of weakness is Europe's hour of danger,' he said in the House of Commons in 1931...

'Not one of the lessons of the past has been learned, not one of them has been applied, and the situation is incomparably more dangerous,' Churchill said in 1934. And every one of those words is more urgently true today, in a nuclear age."

Read more at Townhall.com

The UN finally acknowledges ISIS war crimes and other atrocities

"There was a 'manifest pattern of attacks' by Islamic State on Yezidis as well as Christians and other minorities as it laid siege to towns and villages in Iraq.

The U.N. investigators also cited allegations that ISIL had used chlorine gas, a prohibited chemical weapon, against Iraqi soldiers in the western province of Anbar in September.

Captured women and children were treated as 'spoils of war', and often subjected to rape or sexual slavery, it said."

Read more at Newsweek

A look at ISIS's growing struggles internally and with competition for control over its targeted territories, including Al Qaeda

The ISIS, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, is definitely a rising force in the Middle Eastern landscape or, rather, in the political and social chaos presently prevailing in the region. It has reached its highest peak in terms of popularity thanks to the well-publicized brutality of its executions of foreigners and enemies, its ruthless use of the media and its military gains on the ground.

If, until now, everything has gone relatively smooth for Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's militias, the scaling up of the military interventions of the United States and its allies in Iraq and Syria will have long term negative effects on the extremists. A quick note on this: aerial strikes, missiles from warships and drones will definitely diminish the military threat, but unless someone regains the territories currently held by the ISIS, the war will never be completely won.

Until todat [sic] we have no idea of who will step up to this task: the Iraqi army or the Kurdish Peshmerga, an international or pan-arabic coalition, or the secular rebel groups waging their fight against Bashar al Assad? And the US forces? This is unlikely to happen during the presidency of Barak Obama, both because his Administration has been actively involved in putting an end to George W. Bush's military adventures, and because the deployment of the American army involves lengthy and costly preparations and is at high risk of human casualties.

If we look at the military side of the equation, there are serious doubts over whether Al Baghdadi's movement will be capable of maintaining, consolidating or expanding the territories under its control. The saying “the more enemies, the more honor” is certainly fascinating, but definitely constitutes an obstacle to the aspirations of the movement. There are too many fronts open for a militia that, according to a recent CIA assessment, can count on between 20 to 32 thousand fighters, in addition to the mass of sympathizers whose reliability is directly proportional to the military successes of the ISIS.

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Obama administration says economic freedom will reduce terrorism. The facts say otherwise.

State Department spokesperson Marie Harf is taking some heat over comments made this week to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews about the need for soft power in the fight against terrorism.

“We cannot kill our way out of this war,” she said. “We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that lead people to join these groups, whether it’s a lack of opportunity for jobs….”

Matthews countered that this isn’t a viable strategy since “There’s always going to be poor Muslims, and as long as there are poor Muslims, the trumpet’s blowing and they’ll join,” to which Harf replied that “We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people.”


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Slate: Conservatives Are Blasting the Obama Administration for Saying Unemployment Causes Terrorism. They’re Kind of Right.