Has America Become A Nation of Cowardly Wimps?

Obama apparently thinks so, and Putin seems to agree. Have you noticed that Republican wars, since World War II, have been very bloody, but winnable, while Democratic wars drag on until America has had a belly full, and then they bail. With the exception of Viet Nam, which was started by a Republican, drawn-out by two Democratic Administrations, and bailed out by a Democratic Congress, when they determined that the American people had had a belly full of it, and they simply cut off the funding of the war effort, which resulted in the shameless retreat of American forces, before they were about to run out of ammunition.

My point is not to make a political statement; but to point out that Putin and I.S.I.S. both view us as powerful enemies who do not have the stomach for war. That is why I.S.I.S. tries to frighten us with the brutal display of a beheading of a captured Journalist and the threat of more, if we continue our air strikes against their positions near the Mosul dam in Iraq. And now Obama is making gestures from the golf courses of Martha's Vinyard that seem to be preliminary to an announcement that he was kidding about no more American "boots on the ground" in Iraq, except for the original 300 advisers, and the additional 300 advisors. He must know that he has to kill I.S.I.S., and not deal with these murderous barbarians diplomatically, and the only way to effectively do that is by sending enough "boots on the ground" to get the job done. Either he will have to send enough weapons to the Kurdish troops, which will endanger Turkey due to their long-standing territorial dispute with the Kurds, or he will have to send American troops.

Either way, Obama will have to eat some political "crow" first, for his portrayal of I.S.I.S. as an Al Quaida "Jayvee", when his top officials now acknowledge that they are far more sophisticated then Al Quida was before 911, and for his blustering about the Bush Administration's dragging on of the war in his original election bid, along with his promises to end the war, once elected. He now finds himself in a precarious position of, "damned-if-you-do, or damned-if-you-don't", in deciding whether to send more troops, or not. It would be funny to watch him squirm, if the consequences of a wrong decision were not so perilous. And he has proven that he is eminently capable of making just that, if his Foreign Policy record is to be judged.

UPDATE: 5:00 pm. ET.

I posted the above at noon, today, and later heard the media reports that the White House is issuing statements that their efforts to stop I.S.I.S. will not be contained by borders. At first this did not register, but upon reflection, I realized that this was serving notice to Russian President Putin that they realistically mean to push the I.S.I.S insurgents back into Syria, and kill them there. This might be used as an excuse by Putin to send in more troops to Syria, Russia's Mid-East ally, to protect the Assad regime from imagined American aggression once the terrorists are defeated. This could further his plans to invade Israel from Syrian territory, Israel's neighbor to the immediate north.