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Curtis Hess
Professor Dibble
Current Event
11/24/14
ISIS Crisis
The current event that I chose to evaluate is what is going on with ISIS and the United States.
The main reason that I chose this event is because it is a really big issues right now and frankly I
dont much about it at all so I thought Id take two bird with one stone by doing this assignment
and learning something while Im at it. In this assignment I will be looking at the same issue but
I will look at it through 3 different perspectives. I will look at this issue through 3 different news
outlooks; a conservative view (FOX), a Liberal view (NY Times), and an international view
(BBC). The way that I will choose which articles or stories I will compare what I am going to do
is google for reports from each news source and then choose the top result for each page. With
this being said ill start with my first article from FOX news.
In this article names ISIS threat: What Team Obama doesn't want you to know it talks
about facts about whats really happening that the Obama administration either doesnt know,
doesnt want you to know. It talks about how Obama is telling us one thing but reports are telling
us otherwise. Such as the number or terrorists being reported, First, the number of ISIS jihadis
in Iraq and Syria is much greater than we are being told. According to multiple sources in
Baghdad, Irbil and elsewhere down-range, there are upwards of 40,000 IS fighters in Syria and
an equal or greater number in Iraq. It goes on giving more stats but I think the most meaningful
and powerful point in the article was where it stated, Worse yet, says a retired senior
intelligence official, nobody in Washington seems to comprehend this is all part of the bloody

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holy war between Sunnis and Shiites thats been going on since the seventh century. ISIS is
gaining ground, recruits and military prowess because al-Baghdadi has succeeded in portraying
himself as the protector of Sunni Islam. He claims his Sunni Caliphate will prevent Shiites
from establishing a hegemon from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. His propaganda not
only shows IS fighters as brutally victorious, it also depicts the U.S. and the Obama coalition,
as allied with the Shiites in Baghdad, al-Assads Alawite dynasty in Damascus, Hezbollah in
Lebanon, and the Ayatollahs in Tehran. Thats why al-Baghdadi continues to attract Sunni
militants by the thousands from every part of the planet including the United States.
All with whom I have recently communicated about these matters agree its unlikely ISIS can
seize and occupy Baghdad at least for now. But they also say too little attention is being paid to
the risk of an attack on the largest U.S. embassy in the world; that ISIS ethnic and religious
cleansing cannot be stopped by undirected airstrikes alone; and the Kurdish Peshmerga are not
receiving sufficient help to make a difference. (Oliver North) AS we look at this it really just
sets up our answer on how we can relate this back to class. It talks about how this is actually a
holy war between the people showing that religion plays a large role in a lot of the major
problems that go in today. It also talks about the propaganda used in the strategies of the leaders.
In the second article titled U.S. Adds Planes to Bolster Drive to Wipe Out ISIS I could
tell that the view of this article was one that was in support with the allied nations and that it
supports the use of the drones and bombers that will help end ISIS and the other extremists.
Unlike the first article that in a sense was taking shots at our own government and what not this
was talking about all the good that this can promote and that what we are doing is right. Many
people might think what this article is trying to say is that we should go ahead and start dropping
bombs and shooting missiles at people but it gives a lot of reasoning and restrictions that go

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along with it as well. Such as where it states The targets are fixed sites like military
headquarters and communications centers, oil refineries, training camps, troop barracks and
weapons depots in short, everything the Islamic State needs to sustain its fight. And These
have been the top priority of the three-month campaign, even though only about one out of every
four aircraft missions sent to attack them has dropped its bombs. The rest of the missions have
returned to the base, failing to find a target they were permitted to hit under strict rules of
engagement designed to avoid civilian casualties. It talks about as well saying some targets are
automatically off-limits, such as dams, schools and hospitals. Several dozen come with
restrictions, like rules that say they can be attacked only at night, when presumably no people are
around. At any given time, there are fewer than 100 targets on the list that have been approved to
be hit. These shows were not just going in there dropping bombs on people. And then we come
to the third and final article. The title of the last article that I read was BBC: ISIS Losing Grip
On Syrian City Of Kobani. I was actually disappointed that this article didnt have more
information on the matter and actually only gave a brief explanation of what had happened and
what was going on. It had a picture to open the article that showed a city that had smoke rising
from it and was followed with this short passage. The Islamic State is retreating from the Syrian
city of Kobani, according to the BBC. ISIS and Kurdish fighters have been locked in a fierce
battle for the city on the Turkish border for a month. U.S. air strikes have helped turn the
momentum of the battle in favor of the Kurds, a Kurdish commander told the BBC.
Fighting does continue, however, and most residents of the city have fled over the border into
Turkey. This week, a Kurdish lawmaker in northern Iraq said U.S. airstrikes around Kobani will
not be enough to break the siege. I think what we learn from this is that what the US is doing
with things like the air strikes really are helping to fight against ISIS but like I read in a comment

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below the article a user states US needs to give heavy arms to Kurdish YPG and PKK ground
forces defending Kobani. Turkey must allow Kurds from Turkey to enter Syria to defend
Kobani. If this does not happen immediately another genocide, like the Ezidi genocide in August
is likely to occur to the Kobani Kurds. And I would have to agree with her on that. After
reading all of these articles it is interesting to see even the different vocabulary that is used and
how they approach the subject can be so different even when the subject is the same. I believe
that there are better articles to compare with each other but even with these you can tell the
difference between the conservative, liberal, and international views upon the subject. All in all
that is what humanities and th8is assignment are all about. Taking a subject or an event and
looking at it through the eyes and point of views of others to gain the best understanding
possible. I hope you enjoyed this as much as enjoyed your class.

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Citations
North, Oliver. "ISIS Threat: What Team Obama Doesn't Want You to Know." Fox News. FOX
News Network, 21 Oct. 2014. Web. 30 Nov. 2014.
Callimachi, Rukmini. "The Horror Before the Beheadings." The New York Times. The New
York Times, 25 Oct. 2014. Web. 26 Nov. 2014.
"BBC: ISIS Losing Grip On Syrian City Of Kobani." Here Now RSS. N.p., 17 Oct. 2014. Web.
30 Nov. 2014.
Schmitt, Eric. "U.S. Adds Planes to Bolster Drive to Wipe Out ISIS." The New York Times. The
New York Times, 26 Nov. 2014. Web. 29 Nov. 2014.