By: Faisal Quyyumi, contributing intern (@_faisalguyyumi)

 

On Monday, July 6th, President Barack Obama delivered a speech about his mission against the terrorist group known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham). He first mentioned that there have been over 5,000 air strikes against ISIS militants throughout the Middle East. He then mentioned that there is a growing ISIS presence in northern Africa along with Southeast Asia.

One of America’s biggest priorities should be too partner with Afghanistan and Syria in order too determine tactical solutions on how to put an end to ISIS. Over the past few months, ISIS has done an excellent job at recruiting civilians not only around the world, but also in the United States. Whereas, large packs of ISIS use to cause massive issues for American troops, it is now the opposite. Lone wolf’s and sleeper cells are now the norms for ISIS. For those who are wondering, sleeper cells are identified as terrorists whose “members work under cover in an area until sent into action” (Merriam-Webster).

U.S. law enforcement and military intelligence has done a much better job at preventing large attacks, however, they cannot seem to prevent lone-wolf attacks in small, densely populated places. One of President Obama’s last points was that it is important to discredit the ideology of ISIS by proving to them that we are not afraid; “ideologists are not defeated by guns, but by better ideas.”

The President then did the right thing by telling the nation that it is important to realize that ISIS is in no way correlated with the religion of Islam. And as always, he concluded the speech by restoring faith in the American people. Since it was the 4th of July weekend he praised the world’s greatest country and stated that we have overcome a civil war, multiple economic depressions, communism, fascism, the attacks of September 11th, and many more hardships. However, everytime the nation has been able to rise to the moment and come together as one by not only enduring, but also by conquering the obstacle. There will obviously be several setbacks and difficult tasks, but above all, progress will help put an end to ISIS; “we will persevere.”