What is in a name? ISIS or is it ISIL or is it Islamic Terrorism or “The B Team?”

Quite frankly there is a lot in the name we use to refer to the newest and fastest growing state in the world. The official United States government’s name for this group of thugs, vandals, rapists, murderers and thieves is The Islamic State in Iraq in the Levant (ISIL). Call them The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or one of the nine or more other names they have operated under, al-Qaeda in Iraq being the most recognized, it does matter.

The Levant refers to an area in history that includes all or parts of Iraq, Syria, Cypress, Palestine, Libya, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. The President of the United States and the Department of State have given historic legality to the Islamic States claim to large parts of various nations; why? An experienced President, the smartest person to have ever lived, and a Secretary of State who touts himself as the most experienced and best qualified person to ever hold the office, should know better.

Abu Bakr Baghdadi, the self-appointed leader of the new Islamic Levant, can reference every speech our President and Secretary of State have made and use them as proof of the existence of his State, and can use their words to justify his actions and historic right to conquer and occupy large land areas to reclaim the Levant.

This tangled mess we now call our Middle Eastern policy could have been avoided with a small show of American military power in the early days of ISIL/ISIS; an armored brigade task force left in Iraq could have stopped all this from happening, but we decided Afghanistan was the good war and Iraq not a politically correct war, so we bugged out of Iraq. So be it; that ship has sailed, no sense looking back. The question is what do we do now?

Nothing succeeds like success and Abu Bakr Baghdadi is seen by the majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims as a leader of a new Caliphate — a new movement toward Allah, a rebirth of traditional teachings and devotion to the Koran. A Grand Mufti in the ancient mold who is a religious, social and military leader like Saladin in the 12th century, who ruled during the golden age of Islam. Every day, we as a nation do basically nothing for fear it will anger Iran and damage the administrations legacy, the dangers grow.

Like the pressure cookers that made up the Boston Marathon bombs, ISIS/ISIL is cooking a toxic mix of religious zeal and devotion in the millions of young Muslims who follow the black banner of radical Islam. The world will deal with the deadly seeds planted in the ISIS/ISIL training camps for generations to come. ISIS/ISIL has one advantage that al-Qaeda never had: a worldwide internet educational system that can twist a mind into justifying mass murder in the name of religion anywhere on planet earth.

The Islamic State has been in existence in its current configuration for two years now; in two years they have established a state, a government, schools, taxes, police, hospitals and courts and are settling in for the long run. They have graduated thousands from their training camps and sent them around the world to organize terror in the name of Allah. The civilized world has yet to see the impact of our see no evil, hear no evil foreign policy, but if we ignore evil it will not go away — it will grow stronger. 911 was the opening bell of a twelve-round fight, and we are in round two of this fight against Islamic Terrorism.

Sooner rather than later we need to defeat these people, and beat them badly; we must wage a punishing war on them not unlike we did to Germany and Japan. As we did in World War II, we then need to remain in the countries for decades, to ensure stability.

I can hear the cries of the left and right now, we cannot be the world’s police, we cannot fix the world’s problems, let the Muslims fix their own problems — nice thought, horrible reality. and for many generations to come.

ISIS/ISIL is a religious cult that is programming hundreds of thousands of followers and pre-positioning them around the world to await the call of God to jihad and martyrdom.

Never forget that al-Qaeda (the murderers of more than 3000 Americans) has disavowed ISIS/ISIL as being too irrational and radically violent. If they scare al-Qaeda, they should terrify us.