Let’s say that you’re the leader of an organization, for instance, the president of a company that makes cars. Let’s say that there’s a group of people who, for whatever crazy reason, hate cars and

people who make them. Let’s say that this group breaks into another car company’s factory and murders more than twenty of their employees. What would your response be?

Think about it for a moment. True, it wasn’t your employees who were killed, but it’s still a horrible, senseless tragedy. You have to say something; you can’t act like nothing happened. What would you say?

Personally, and I think I can guess that most if not all of you would agree, I would strongly condemn the violence and call for justice to be done to the murderers. Seem fair? (Nod your heads in agreement; good.)

Ok, let’s draw this scenario out one final time. How do you think people would respond to you if you were to say that the way to deal with people like the murderers was not to bring them to justice, but rather to give them jobs at the factory where they murdered the workers?

That…would be bad, for the understatement of the year. The families of the murdered would rise up and condemn you for being cruel, cold, and callous. You might even be expected of being on the side of the murderers!

Now, don’t worry; I know that none of you would do something this crazy. Unfortunately, though, there is a particular leader who, for reasons that I can’t even begin to fathom, did just what I described for you. Here’s the story.

You’ve all heard of the group ISIS, the radical terrorist group with the sickening marketing tactic of beheading or burning people and then posting the videos on social media. In their latest barbarism, the group lined up 21 Christians from Egypt and calmly knifed their heads off. (Forgive me for being so graphic; it’s ugly but necessary.) In response, President Obama strongly condemned the violence and pledged to help track down the terrorists.

As always, I have the facts first and then my opinion. In this case, however, I lied: that last sentence was completely false. President Obama did not condemn the violence and pledge to help track down the terrorists. Instead, he claimed that the best way to stop ISIS is…to give them job training and work opportunities.

Now, regardless of his religious beliefs, I strongly believe that President Obama should at least have stated that ISIS brutally killing Christians because they’re Christians (or for any reason, for that matter) is wrong. The President of the United States has a duty to condemn violence of this kind. But, like with the failure of our leader to attend the million-man march in Paris after the Charlie Hebdo attack, he was not willing to respond appropriately. Mr. President, start calling terrorists what they are: terrorists, not job hunters.