[learn_more caption=”Click here to learn more”]

President Obama spoke this evening about plans for dealing with ISIL (or ISIS) and to be honest really didn’t say a lot new. This would have been the case with any President speaking so it’s not a condemnation of him. Indeed I am not sure we *need* all kinds of details. There is such a thing as need to know. [icopyright one button toolbar]

Basically we’re going to work together to stop ISIS/ISIL

This would include air strikes, some more training forces (but no combat troops) and work with international groups to strike against the terror group

I did find his use of ISIL interesting. Jut to review ISIS is Islamic State of Iraq and Syria while ISIL is Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Levant being a broader term of reference to the general region) and there is debate over the proper term to use.

Chuck Todd seems to think Obama uses ISIL to avoid connections with Syria.

I thought the media reaction was interesting as everyone from Fox to MSNBC seemed to have some reason to be critical of the speech and policy as insufficient.

MSNBC calls it “Obama Goes to War”

Fox calls was a bit more sedate saying he authorized air strikes.

TMV’s Ron Beasley also offers some thoughts.

In fairness I’m not sure there is a solution to the situation.

I filled in for a friend on the radio yesterday (if you care here’s the podcast link) and a good part of our discussion was about ISIS and what to do with them. We looked to the major difference between wars today and those in the past. In WW2 for example it was easy to identify the enemy and the strategy.

Get to Rome, Berlin and Tokyo and you win.

Get Benito, Adolf and Hirohito to surrender and it’s over

With groups like ISIS there are no clear leaders or locations. We can send in air strikes but where do we send them and how do we know when we’ve won ?

The President did not offer a clear strategy but then I’m not sure there is such a thing in this situation.