Catholic Leaders: We Must Wage War Against 'Islamic State' to Defend Christians

All fights have two sides, and sometimes, when the combatants have similar ideals, backgrounds, and goals, it can be difficult for observers to tell them apart.

This is not one of those fights.

The brutal terrorists of the Islamic State have risen from a small player in the Syrian civil war into a major cause of instability in the middle east. Led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whom the Obama administration released from custody in 2009, it now controls large territories in Syria and Iraq, and reports of its savagery against its perceived enemies have finally led even this indecisive president to order airstrikes to protect innocent lives.

Support for that military action now comes from an unexpected corner, according to one report.

The Vatican’s representative in Iraq, Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, called military action against the brutal terrorists, “something that had to be done” if the Islamic State was to be stopped. Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad went even further: “There is a need of international support and a professional, well-equipped army,” he said.

The Pope himself expressed “dismay and disbelief” about the situation in Iraq, adding that the Iraqis’ predicament “is going from bad to worse.”

A representative of the Episcopal Church was also smuggled into the town of Qaraqosh, where the Islamic State holds sway. He reported the town largely abandoned, with local Christian churches taken over by militants as administrative buildings.

Worse, he reported on the savage brutality of the Islamic barbarians–one woman’s “finger hacked off after she could not remove her wedding ring,” and a church caretaker’s five-year-old son “hacked in half as he watched.”

Rarely in modern times have church leaders called for military action, but this situation is unique. Reports of armored vehicles firing indiscriminately at civilians, savage decapitations, and other atrocities abound.

Arguments from Hillary Clinton and others that the chaos in Iraq and the rise of the Islamic State are the fault of President Barack Obama’s disengagement from the middle east are largely accurate, as are claims that he waited far too long to take military action, but that hardly matters now.

The point now is to utterly wipe out the radical terrorists of the Islamic State.

Those of us who still have them can point fingers later.