Under Obama, America is France’s jayvee

The Obama administration likes to boast about the thousands of sorties our Air Force has undertaken against ISIS in the past year-plus. But according to this report, if one takes into account the fact that only approximately 25 percent of our sorties result in the dropping of bombs, it turns out that we are striking ISIS from the air only around 11 times per day.

This pales in comparison not only to what we did to the Taliban in the aftermath of 9/11 but also to what we did in Kosovo, where we weren’t even attacking an enemy of the U.S. It’s also many fewer strikes per day (but about the same number of bombs dropped) than what we launched in Libya in 2011 when, again, we were not bombing an enemy of ours.

But the best evidence of the lack of Obama’s seriousness is found in the air campaigns now being waged by France and Russia. They have been pummeling ISIS for several days. Reportedly, the U.S. is helping identify targets for France by providing what are called “strike packages.”

How is it that, after more than a year of U.S. strikes, there is so much left for the French and the Russians to go after? If Obama had been waging a serious air campaign, presumably little would remain for them to target. If Obama had been waging a serious air campaign, we would already have destroyed the targets the U.S. is identifying for France.

Obama famously referred to ISIS as al Qaeda’s jayvee. He was colossally wrong about that. If there’s a jayvee in the picture, it is Obama’s America, with Iran and now France and Russia in the role of the varsity.

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