Dear Future President,

I am a junior in The Community School, writing to you about something I think deserves a lot more attention. ISIS. When I hear about their newest atrocity, or see a photograph depicting their actions, it makes me feel helpless and angry. I cannot do anything to immediately stop ISIS, or help their victims. What they have done is heinous and abhorrent, and an affront to human decency. One of their worst operations is the systematic destruction of the Yazidi people. According to The Guardian, in an article based off a UN report, there are about 700,000 Yazidis, mostly near the Sinjar region and central Iraq.

When ISIS attacks a Yazidi community, they kill every male over twelve years of age who refuses to join ISIS, and they sell the women and girls into sexual slavery. These women are bought and sold as human property, and many are raped daily, sometimes by multiple ISIS members. Many of them see no other option than to take their own lives.

Another crime they have committed is recruiting children as soldiers. In an article by the Fiscal Times, it claimed, “[ISIS]...uses the brainwashed children as human shields, as informants, and for blood transfusions for its own injured soldiers.” These children can be as young as nine years old. It is disgusting that any organization would use use children in this way. But it’s not enough that ISIS kills children, butchers men, and rapes women. They also destroy ancient cultural sites and artifacts. In the city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, ISIS bombed the public library, burning over eight thousand books and manuscripts, some of which were the original copies from the eighteenth century. These crimes are of a different nature than their genocide of the Yazidi people, but no less notable for their repugnant nature. The world cannot keep letting them get away with rape, torture and genocide. If we let diplomacy or fear get in the way, they will merely continue to spread their destruction in a wide swath, cutting down whom they wish without a second thought. I found that the U.S is targeting ISIS in Syria and Iraq with ground to air attacks. But we need to do more than attack from the safety of the air. And considering the horrible and intense nature of their crimes, I am rather surprised that we have not already. They are a blight on the face of the Earth, staining it red with the blood of both their victims and their own members. I hope for everyone who has suffered at the hands of ISIS that you, the leader of our nation, will do more to combat these terrible people. If the U.S. does nothing, they will only continue to grow in power. Something needs to be done to stop them before they attain that power.

Respectfully,

Audrey Cox

Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/16/un-condemns-isis-genocide-against-yazidis-in-iraq-and-syria

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/02/23/ISIS-Burns-8000-Rare-Books-and-Manuscripts-Mosul