The attacks on civilians in the center of Paris is horrific and barbaric and ISIS is, as Mike Whitney has been calling them, a group of "homicidal maniacs". I don't agree that you can't destroy a terrorist organization, though you may miss some individuals, as the idea is to destroy its operational function and ability to carry out attacks. That is nearly accomplished completely in the case of Al Qaeda.
The difference is that where Al Qaeda is a network, ISIS is a territorial entity, with a functioning governmental structure. Those acting on its behalf in Europe or outside of the areas it controls in Iraq, Syria and Libya are agents of that structure. Destroy it and it will be broken.
But, having said that, and I believe that needs to be done, because the world - Europe, America, the Middle East, Russia, etc. cannot go on living with ISIS as this horrible attack shows, we need to face some realities:
1) the US policy of overthrowing secular governments in the Middle East and North Africa is morally wrong and politically disastrous. In each and every case it has led to the rise of fundamentalist or extremist religious forces that are a genuine danger to us. The Iraq War was wrong both morally and politically and I said so at the time as did many others. It has led to one disaster after another. Those of us who said it was wrong were persecuted, demonized, we lost jobs, and faced threats. No one has apologized or admitted we were right.
2) US policy claims to be fighting ISIS but since the priority has been "Assad must go", meaning the overthrow of the secular government of Syria, and since the most powerful force in Syria opposing Assad is ISIS, fighting ISIS has been a low priority. Only since Russia, appalled at the refugee crisis created by the near-genocidal civil war there and angered at continuing efforts by the US, NATO, Turkey and Israel - the latter two bombing the Kurds who are actively fighting ISIS for their lives and bombing the Syrian army when it is trying to fight ISIS - to overthrow Assad, its ally, has intervened bombing the beejeezus out of ISIS AND the Al Qaeda and other extremist forces that the State Department calls "moderates" because they are also fighting against the Assad government, has the US stepped up strikes against ISIS: But it is only in the past two weeks for example that the US and France have bombed the source of ISIS' income - the oil fields in northern Iraq, because only since Russia bombed the highways and destroyed the bridges used to transport that oil, making it useless on the world market. This is after two years of NATO and the US being at war with ISIS.
In short, we have been conducting a phony war against ISIS until now, while now Russia, Iran and Syria have stepped up the real war against these monsters. It is time the US stopped playing with regime change, joined the fight against the terrorists together with those countries, made clear to Saudi Arabia and other "allies" that are financing ISIS that there will be real penalties for doing so, and to Turkey and Israel to stop bombing those fighting against terrorists. And then once ISIS is destroyed, to pull out forces out of the Middle East and Afghanistan, seek diplomatic solutions and stop de-stabilizing governments we don't like, which is what is leading to world anarchy and the barbarism growing around us.
We supported the overthrow of the leftist government in Afghanistan in 1979 and through the 80s and it produced Al Qaeda. We overthrew Saddam Hussein and it led to ISIS, we overthrew Qaddafi and it led to chaos in Libya and ISIS' gaining a foothold closer to where I live than Florida is to New York and now the US is trying to overthrow Assad in Syria while claiming it is fighting his enemies. Enough !
tridentric we hope your loved ones are safe today in Paris.