Add an “S” to “word” and you get “swords,” which is at least an actual weapon. That would be a vast improvement over the Obama administration’s current war against ISIS, which is a battle to win hearts and minds — a metaphysical war. Never mind that the terrorists are still hill-bent on collecting scalps.
“When it comes to ISIL (ISIS), we are in a fight — a narrative fight with them. A narrative battle.” So said White House press secretary Josh Earnest during an appearance on MSNBC Monday, the day after the U.S. suffered two bombings in the New York metropolitan area and an Islamic State-linked terrorist in Minnesota went on a stabbing rampage.
The comment was so sappy — so namby pamby — that it even drew a tweet of derision from liberal columnist Josh Kraushaar:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Oy vey: Josh Earnest (CNN): "We are in a fight with ISIS — a narrative fight."
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) September 19, 2016
The good news is that the New York bombing suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, is now in the hands of federal authorities, having been captured this morning while taking refuge in an industrial building in Linden, N.J. The bad news is that the Obama administration still refuses to recognize that Rahami and his ilk believe themselve to be on a religious crusade to restore the world to a dark-age Islamic caliphate. “Know your enemy,” Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote in “The Art of War.”
Obama doesn’t and won’t. Let’s just hope that innocents here and abroad don’t pay the price before Obama blessedly takes his leave from the White House.
