An open email to President Obama;

Mr. President,

Can you or someone in your administration tell me what moral line ISIS must cross before the entire world simply says, “Enough! Crimes against humanity will not be tolerated!” Obviously it didn’t happen when they caged a Saudi pilot and burned him alive, it didn’t happen with the public beheading of captured journalists, or with the public beheading of an octogenarian curator who refused to tell them where he had hidden antiquities. Now they have released a video of four captured Iraqis who were burned alive. There is growing evidence that ISIS has used chemical weapons, and will certainly continue to do so with any weapons of mass destruction at their disposal.

ISIS has instituted systematic rape of captured women and girls from ethnic minorities, and they are cataloging and warehousing them to be sold into slavery; some of the women have been fortunate enough to be ransomed back to their families, often with the help of a Canadian organization. Ransom proceeds are being used to finance their Jihad of terror, along with proceeds from captured oil fields, and the black market sale of looted antiquities. Archeological sites are being routinely destroyed, sites that date back centuries and even millennia, and are irreplaceable.

There are an estimated 4 million refugees from the conflicts in the Middle East; ISIS is not the only cause of that violence, but they are certainly a central player. And they do so without any ethical constraints. The world is at the point that Europe is being overwhelmed by terrified refugees, and people are drowning in the Mediterranean, trying to reach safety. And still the world stands by, even as the bodies of drowned children wash ashore.

I do not believe that America is or should be the world’s police force, but I do believe we have a moral responsibility to seek participation by the United Nations and put an end to this. Mr. President, you have sixteen months left in your Presidency; please be remembered as the President who led the world in ending this horror.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke

Thank you,
Donald Hunt
Copyright 2015