Fresh on the heels of his statements in Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Holder has announced that he is launching a criminal investigation into the beheading of journalist, James Foley, by ISIS in Syria. For those of you who do not know, James Foley was taken prisoner by ISIS in northern Syria about two years ago. In the wake of airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, the terrorist organization decided to execute an American hostage. As usual, the execution was by beheading and was recorded for all the world to see later on YouTube and Twitter. It was a particularly vicious beheading, using a knife instead of a sword or larger weapon.
The entire world was able to see the video. U.S. intelligence agencies have verified that the recording is legitimate and that Mr. Foley is dead. All of that notwithstanding, our Attorney General is going to "investigate" a "crime" committed by ISIS. It really begs a series of questions. What is your plan? Are you going to "arrest" the Caliphate soldier? Are you going to send a fleet of FBI agents over to Syria to capture him? Are we going to bring him to trial? What about his accomplices?
Asininity is usually the result of a failure to grasp the main concept behind a problem. Carrying around a fundamental misconception about an issue, and then wearing it like a badge of honor on your lapel, will always make you look foolish. The beheading of a journalist by Caliphate warriors on a foreign battlefield is an act of war. Indeed, it is a war crime. It is not a violation of U.S. federal law. While I am certain that our Congress could draft a series of laws making it unlawful to be at war with the United States, those laws are and would be laughable. Our enemies couldn't care less about our laws. Threatening to arrest them is not going to effect any change in their attitude.
The American Left, including the President and his Attorney General, have a fundamental misconception about the nature of conflict. War is not a tort. War is not a felony. It cannot be deterred by arresting the perpetrators and putting them in jail. It cannot be won by "investigating" and "extraditing" the enemy's leaders. Those who wish to treat war as a criminal matter cannot discern reality from fantasy.
And here is why there is a difference. Wars are fought over ideology, especially these wars in the middle east. There is a cause, and they recruit others to that cause, not for wealth and riches, but for dominance and control. Crimes are not motivated by ideology. Criminals do not recruit other criminals to follow them to the death for a great cause. The most violent criminals usually act alone and out of some deep mental sickness. They hide their misconduct because most of them do not want to get caught. While it is true that one could compare Jeffery Dahmer's sick actions to those of the Caliphate, their motivations are totally different.
In the final analysis, statements like the one Eric Holder made make us look weak and powerless. I have no doubt that Caliphate soldiers are sitting around as we speak mocking the United States and our leadership, in part because of statements like these. If we want to curb the violence or at least cause the Caliphate to slow its advance, they need to believe that we will violently extract from them a price that they are not willing to pay. Prison is simply never going to be a deterrent to Jihadis.
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