Managing A Problem

This is probably old news to most of you, but I fell behind on current events over the Labor Day weekend and am just catching up.

Before we left I heard that empty suit posing as president openly admit that he didn't have a clue about what to do with ISIS.

President Obama is facing intense criticism for admitting Thursday "we don't have a strategy yet" for dealing with Islamic State militants in Syria...

It puzzled me at the time, because (1) it's not like they came out of nowhere - there have been reports about ISIS as far back as 2003 - and (2) the strategy for dealing with them can be stated in one word - extinction.

Now it turns out that obama has been receiving detailed intelligence briefings on the rise of ISIS for at least one year.

President Obama was given detailed and specific intelligence about the rise of the Islamic State as part of his daily briefing for at least a year before the group seized large swaths of territory over the summer, a former Pentagon official told Fox News.

The official -- who asked not to be identified because the President's Daily Brief is considered the most authoritative, classified intelligence community product analyzing sensitive international events for the president -- said the data was strong and "granular" in detail.

The source said a policymaker "could not come away with any other impression: This is getting bad."

So after ignoring the problem and hoping it would go away, then admitting he didn't know what to do, what's the best our fearless leader can come up with?

Make the problem 'manageable.'

Speaking earlier this morning in Estonia, President Obama addressed dealing with ISIS. He talked of making ISIS a "manageable problem" if the "international community" comes together.

In my experience the best way to deal with problems is not to manage them, but to eliminate them. And what's this BS about the international community? It's like he's already giving himself an out: "Well, I could have managed it, but the international community didn't cooperate."

That's the same international community he's managed to alienate over the past six years.

Of course, he also made sure to claim that ISIS is in no way representative of Muslims at large.

"This particular brand of extremism that is first and foremost destructive to the Muslim world ... they're falling behind because of this very small and narrow but very dangerous segment of the population."

I'm not an expert on Middle East religions. I also make no claim to any great insight regarding ethics, morals, or philosophy. But I did stay in a Holiday Inn last night.

No, seriously, I understand the reluctance to take extreme measures that might result in 'collateral damage,' a mild-sounding euphemism for dead women and children. But if I remember my history, we firebombed cities in Germany and dropped the atomic bomb on Japanese cities - twice - in order to defeat a great evil. So why the hesitancy and unwillingness to employ similar measures this time around?

Put another way, is it 'right' (moral and/or ethical) to undertake actions which will almost certainly result in the deaths of innocents in order to prevent the deaths of other innocents?

I know which way I'm leaning...