President Barack Obama is not doing enough to save religious minorities under the influence of the Islamic State.
There are millions of refugees from Syria and Iraq and while their situation is tragic, the horrors religious minorities face under the rule of the Islamic State are terrifying.
One of the religious minority groups facing oppression in Syria and Iraq are the Yazidis with their beliefs include elements of Christianity, Islam and shamanism.
According to the New York Times, 5270 Yazidi women and girls were captured in 2014. To this day, there are at least 3144 victims enslaved by the Islamic State. These numbers do not include Christians or Jews who have been abducted in these areas.
Male Yazidi were executed and put into mass graves in front of their wives and daughters. The Islamic State considers Yazidis unbelievers and devil worshipers. Because of this designation the religious doctrine of the Islamic state considers the rape of these women and girls as equivalent to worship and prayer.
The only way to describe these heinous acts of hatred and radicalism is religious genocide.
In August of 2014, more than 40,000 Yazidi and Christian refugees were surrounded by the Islamic State on the Sinjar Mountains in Northern Iraq. The Kurdish forces, assisted by international coalition’s air support were able to save the majority of the refugees but little assistance has come since.
The Obama Administration asserted there will not be troops on the ground to combat ISIS. I strongly agree with his assertion but why hasn’t the administration done more than offering advisors and air support to Kurdish fighters?
Steve Maman, a Canadian businessman, is succeeding in saving the lives of hostages.
Maman saved 128 girls from enslavement by funding hostage negotiators and humanitarian aid workers.
I oppose any notion of the U.S. following Maman’s example. While Steve’s heart is in the right place, paying off terrorist should never be an option.
The U.S. military has the technology and knowledge necessary to save women and children’s lives without deploying soldiers in ISIS territory. By using regional states as our boots on the ground, rescue missions could be deployed to return the hostages.
The spending required would be worth the lives saved and the damage caused to the Islamic State. The funding could even be based off of the public’s donations with federal backing and administration.
Obama should use his office popularize military and financial support. If Steve could raise more than 500,000 dollars, imagine how much more Obama could raise to support military intervention.
Will Obama be known in history as the president who halted genocide and murder, freeing those who have fallen into radical hands? Or will he be remembered as the president who watched as the private sector did what he could not – save human lives?
Garrett Marcel is a 21-year-old petroleum engineering senior from Houma, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @Gret419.