We have a moral obligation to defeat ISIS

Last week, we heard the president ask for authorization for Congress to go to war with ISIS. The details are still pretty vague, which is why so many Congresspeople are on the fence, but he has promised it wouldn’t be a prolonged war like we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan (in fact, it won’t last more than three years).

Now, ISIS is undoubtedly a bad group of barbaric, subhuman Islamic terrorists that kill anyone who doesn’t abide by their sick and twisted views. They behead innocent civilians, they round up gay people, throwing them from the roofs of buildings, they sell children – at least the ones who they don’t savagely behead for watching soccer or not denouncing Jesus. This weekend, we learned ISIS posted a video of the beheading of 21 Christians and today we learned they reportedly burned 45 people to death.

When dealing with this kind of evil, the question for me is whether or not the US has the moral obligation to go to war (whatever that may mean) and ultimately defeat ISIS.

The question for Congressman Jim McDermott is can he put aside his vehement anti-war views to look at this Obama request with an open mind. The Seattle progressive was on with Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross on Friday to discuss this.

“We set off in 2001 on this war on terror…” he said. “Here we are 14 years later asking, where are we? What are we doing now?”

Remarkably, McDermott said that he is unaware of the US’ accomplishments during the war in the Middle East. Then he requested of Obama, “I want to know what it is you’re going to do and how you will know when you’ve reached the conclusion.”

To pretend to not know our accomplishments is silly and indicative of a lawmaker who doesn’t have an open mind on this subject. McDermott won’t actually support this war because he’s always anti-war. It’s a position I understand. No one wants to go to war. But the question is if we can actually enact some kind of moral change, should we? I think the answer is yes (though I’m open to the details on the war strategy – we don’t have to take the lead, for example).

We’re in a privileged position as a super power and our action will lead to saving lives and helping to stabilize a region. What good is being a super power if we we refuse to enact meaningful change when it matters most?