It has been said that “All wars are religious.”  In some instances this point is difficult to make. But in so many others, it is glaringly obvious. To suggest that religion is not integral to the current conflicts in the Mideast is folly of the highest degree. To stand before a nation and assert that ISIS is not acting on their beliefs is a gross misrepresentation.

There are some things in this world that seem to hold, and one such item is that terrorists tell you exactly why they are doing what they are doing. Their “cause” is of the utmost to them and they will do all to make certain that the “cause” is advertised in full. One does not have to believe they are correct or justified.  However, it is indisputable that they always want their “word” to be accurately portrayed. It is fundamental to their mission.

ISIS declares themselves soldiers for Islam. They seek a caliphate controlled Mideast, a state. To declare, as the President has declared, that something less is true belongs in the wishful thinking column. Just as Obama declared that the world owes so much to the Golden Age of Islam, he can’t grasp the fact that this war is a religious one.

Recall how we were told by Obama that the world, civilization, owes a “debt to Islam."

The debate on whether we in fact do or do not is one for a different time. But not so debatable is the fact that “if” there was some type of “golden age” in the Muslim world, it halted  long ago, abruptly and for inexplicable reasons.  Those who descended from the “golden age," as the President refers, routinely rely on a hole in the ground for a toilet, treat their women like an NFL running back does in an elevator, and decapitate non believers for video consumption.

President Obama has declared that ISIS (ISIL) is not really Islamic and that they really don’t have a “state." Apparently we are being prompted to drop those notions. 

We should know by now, almost 100 years after the Mideast countries were drawn up by fatigued post WWI authorities, that those of the region have little regard for lines drawn by unauthorized European heathens and infidels. For the President to declare ISIS has no state is to assume some definition of “state” that these people have little regard.

Obama suggests that Muslims, ISIS, making war in the name of religion is not the case in this instance.  What is the case, however, is that merely because the idea that ISIS is religiously driven is incompatible with the President’s belief system, it does not make it untrue.  Below is a list of Muslim conquests and dates.

The conquest of Syria, 637, The conquest of Armenia, 639, The conquest of Egypt, 639, The conquest of North Africa, 652, The conquest of Cyprus, 654, The conquest of North Africa, 665, The first Arab siege of Constantinople, 674–678, The second Arab siege of Constantinople, 717–718, Conquest of Hispania, 711–718, The conquest of Georgia, 736, The conquest of Crete, 820, The conquest of southern Italy, 827

One must wonder where Obama went to school.  He must have missed this lesson.  Muslims making religious war is nothing new to the world, and to pretend that this is not yet another instance is unrealistic.  The pretending that Major Nadal Hassan was not religiously motivated in his murders is now joined by another misguided imaginary perception. 

James Longstreet