We need White House leader who knows we're at war

Look at these Muslims who think that shooting innocents is the pathway to paradise. I don't care what the apologists say, it is a sick religion that spawns even a small percentage of people who think this way. Except, I think the percentage may not be all that small.

Western thinking certainly has nothing to do with it, but make no mistake, Western leaders, primarily Barack Obama, have a lot of blame on their hands. From phony "red lines" in Syria to premature and excessive withdrawal from Iraq, to announcing time lines in Afghanistan, to treaties with Iran that enable them to get hundreds of billions of dollars for terrorism and a pathway to a nuclear bomb, American leadership has been either absent or wrongheaded for years now.

Terrorists and enemies have seen that, when they act monstrously, all they can expect from us is words. How many times have we heard them already: "heinous," "intolerable," "cowardly," "we will bring them to justice," "degrade and destroy." We speak loudly and carry no stick. Our enemies laugh and metastasize.

By the time we awaken, if we ever do, the challenge will have been made much larger and more lethal. Paris today can easily be Chicago tomorrow. It is not a matter of capabilities (after all, what is happening in Paris is just a few young monsters with AK-47s firing into crowded places), but of will and of timing. We need to get rid of this administration and its cowardly, foolish ideas and get grownups back in the White House, true leaders who have the sense and the nerve to see that we are at war, and to bring the war to our enemies, so that we don't have to stand by wringing our hands in grief when they bring it here.

Alan Wolfson

Lakewood Ranch

This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 5:50 PM with the headline "We need White House leader who knows we're at war ."