IS IS an international gang of CRIMINALS

To give this criminal gang the cover of religious justification is telling the wrong story.  They are nothing more than an international crime organization.  They have put on a cloak of moral justification as a guise to incite more of the anger and distrust they thrive on.  It's a very old strategy: divide and conquer.

ISIS takes cover for their theft of property, vandalism, murder and cruelty to individuals by selectively picking pieces of religious doctrines that they can twist to justify their actions.  Even though many of the gang members have clearly drunk the "koolaid" (to use a reference from another sadly misguided cult group) the leadership know the real value is to make as many non-Muslim people as possible think this is a Muslim problem creating distrust and anger against ALL Muslims. Don't be fooled.  This is not a religious problem, it is a criminal problem.  This is about a criminal gang trying to gain power and take over territory just like a drug gang or other crime gang uses fear and intimidation to build their power.

I applaud President Obama for refusing to use the term Radical Islamist in referring to the gang.  That is an enlightened position.  It is also clear that the opposition party, currently led by Donald Trump, will clearly get the ISIS Gang endorsement for president.  He is promoting exactly what they want: a fear based attack on an entire religion.  Divide and conquer.  The more fear and distrust aimed at Muslims, the more perfectly regular people of the Muslim faith will begin to have resentment - their anger will be justified - they are not criminal terrorists and, particularly if they are good Muslims, they may become very bitter to be thought of so unjustly.

Most important, we MUST NOT give in to the fear.  Fear is the ISIS objective.  They can only "win" if we do give in to fear.  We must focus on how we can help and support the everyday Muslims who are just regular people trying to live a good life.  We should welcome and embrace as many of the refugees as possible.  Even more, we should get in there locally and ease the pain in any way that we can.  We should let Muslims around the world know we do not believe this ISIS criminal organization has anything to really do with a their righteous and life supporting faith.  Let us not be the pawns of ISIS just playing their game of hatred and fear.

This is not to say we should do nothing.  We should pursue these criminals like we would any criminals but that should not be our main focus.  We must focus on sending visions of love and peace to all in the area.  We must not invest energy in hate for the ISIS gang members and leaders.  The followers have been duped into following a corrupt force like many blindly followed Hitler and other power hungry leaders of the past.  It is very sad to hear so many of our leaders cry out for death and destruction - they are just pouring gasoline on the fire like fools eager to have a brawl.  Besides being extremely poor global strategy, it is a primitive and highly unenlightened approach if peace and well being for the world was a real intent.