Bernard-Henri Lévy: This is War. Identify the Enemy

Bernard-Henri Levy, the French intellectual, philosopher and political writer, hardly a "poser," to use President Obama's label for those who would urge him to re-evaluate his Syria policy. Levy thoroughly demolishes President Obama's stance, and, without mentioning them by name, the refusal of the Democratic Presidential candidates to identify the enemy as Islamic extremists. His column was column published online in the Globe and Mail, and republished in edited form in The Weekly Standard online. Here is his conclusion:

This was the situation two decades ago in Sarajevo, when putative experts raised the spectre of the hundreds of thousands of ground troops that would have to be deployed to prevent ethnic cleansing from reaching its grisly apogee. Yet it turned out that a handful of special forces, backed by strikes, was sufficient. I am convinced that the IS hordes are much braver when blowing the heads off defenceless young Parisians than when facing real soldiers of freedom. Similarly, I believe that the international community possesses all of the means necessary to defeat the threat it faces, should it choose to do so.

What holds us back? Why have we been so stinting in assisting our Kurdish allies?

What is it about this war that the America of Barack Obama, at least for the moment, seems not to really want to win? I do not know the answer. But I know where the key lies.

And I know the alternative to using the key: No boots on their ground means more blood on ours.

If I were a College President, here is what I would say about Student Demands for Safe Places

If I were a college president or dean, I would say the following to current and prospective students:

"If you come to this college, you will be physically safe, but we plan to make you feel intellectually unsafe, disturbed and uncomfortable. We will try to force you to question or defend your most deeply held beliefs and assumptions. That is our responsibility to you. If that is not the education you are seeking, please go to college elsewhere."