Presidential Letter

By David Mennillo

Topic: Radical Islamic Terrorism

Dear Mr. President,

Congratulations on your election into office, but I bring upon you a growing issue, Radical Islamic Terrorism. Around the 1970’s during the heat of the Cold War this very destructive ideology came about; Ever since the time of its formation the world has been threatened by these Radical Islamic groups, Al Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS and many more. These groups are a growing threat to the United States of America, they continue to grow in size and strength. Our government's inability to control or contain this issue over the past 8 years has increased this threat.

Since ISIS’s founding in 1999 they have been in the shadows of the Taliban and Al Qaeda but since Obama has been in office they have grown so exponentially it is hard to comprehend. Putting numbers out there ISIS in 2013 had only 1,000 troops which could’ve been easily crushed by our 2 million troops. As Obama stated “ I do not believe ISIS is a serious threat (Obama’s ISIS strategy designed to fail slowly)”and he didn’t do anything to prevent their growing and now they have a total of 80,000 troops as of 2016. On top of growing 79,000 troops in 3 years they are also the richest terrorist organization pulling in 3 million a day on just oil and are funded 2 billion dollars a year. With all of this in mind they are not only funded but they execute to keep fear instilled in the people who oppose them, they rob banks, capture villages, kill anyone that does not want to fight for them and behead people on camera and use it as propaganda. Some of these people include Americans, some names being James Foley, Peter Kassig and Steven Sotloff. Now where am I going with this? Well these numbers prove that ISIS is a serious threat towards our country and many other countries. Since their founding they have not yet made an all out terrorist attack on American soil similar to 9/11 but they have prove that they can make these attacks possible. In 2015 they left 130 people dead and hundreds wounded at Paris by doing the following, shooting up a concert, shooting cafes, suicide bombers and bombs dropped under cars or onto streets (Attacks in France). At Belgium in July 2016 a truck plowed through a crowd of people that were celebrating Bastille day killing 86 people and in November of 2015 during the Paris attacks bombs were set off outside a football match leaving 129 dead and 352 injured. These are just a few of the many terror attacks ISIS has claimed responsibility for. These numbers really do show the horrors of what ISIS has done, will do and will continue to do if it is not stopped. .

So why do these numbers really matter? Well if our government continues to do nothing to stop their growth then they will continue to drill for oil and continue to be funded by countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran. This will affect thousands if not millions of people if they continue to grow. In 2014, 7,087 Iraqi civilians died to ISIS, that’s when ISIS was only at around 40,000 troops, imagine what they could do with the amount they have now or more. Now there is evidence according to the New York Times that ISIS has lost main cities that they use to control, 56 to be exact. They have lost ground and the Turkish continue to push them out of main cities, oil fields and any other place of importance to ISIS. Thus evidence however, does not show the full strength of ISIS because as they lose some ground they continue to grab other places of importance and as soon as good forces leave the area they just gained ISIS takes it back. This is why we need to take action to stop them.

The cause to their unimaginable growth is really due to our government. Back in 2011 Obama pulled out thousands of American soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan which is proven to help the group emerge from the ashes of Al Qaeda. Not having a presence of force in the middle east has proven costly as Americans die every day to the terrorist group and a solution has to be made to stop ISIS. “They continue to claim the lives of our troops and will continue to do so if they aren’t stopped [...] in 2015 about 270 men and women have been killed in Afghanistan due to ISIS (U.S. servicemen killed)” said Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook.

The solution is actually quite simple just no one wants to be held responsible for pulling the trigger. Robert Gates who served as 22nd secretary of defense from 2006-2011 says that “carpet bombing will never work [...] the only way to defeat ISIS is to train Iraqi troops to fight their own wars.” Which brings you to my point. Carpet bombing will only work to an extent, it is a temporary pain reliever. As president, Mr. Trump I believe you should take these two things into consideration to help make your decision on what to do with this group much easier. One carpet bomb them and wipe out as much as you possibly can to disable them for an extent of time. Two while ISIS is disabled you need to send in you top troop instructors to train the Iraqi army so once ISIS regains its power the Iraqis can counter their power and contain this issue while keeping American soldiers safe. Sadly there is one flaw to this plan, that being the civilians. There really is no way around this unless you decide to endanger our American troops lives, but no matter what civilians will die, whether it is to ISIS or not there will be casualties but if we don’t take action more and more will die each year. America needs to take this risk to try and contain and stop ISIS once and for all.

ISIS alone is a growing threat towards our country and unless you take action our country will be consumed by this evil. We the people have put you in charge of our great nation and leave it in your hands to make this country great again.

Sincerely

-David Mennillo-