This morning Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey said he doesn’t think we should run airstrikes against ISIS militants in Syria until he figures out if they are a threat to the U.S. or not.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, speaking to reporters on board a military plane traveling to Afghanistan, said Sunday that he believes the Sunni insurgent group formerly known as ISIS is more of a regional threat and is not currently plotting or planning attacks against the U.S. or Europe.

I really hope he is wrong. I hope his definitive statement, made while on the way to Afghanistan for a change of command ceremony, doesn’t come back to bite him in the ass.

I’ve a few questions for Gen. Martin Dempsey. What changed since you made the following statement at a Pentagon briefing on August 21, 2014?

“because of open borders and immigration issues,” the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is an “immediate threat.”
In the context of this ISIL threat, Dempsey said he had had conversations with his European colleagues “about their southern flank.” He did not specifically mention the U.S.-Mexico border, which is the southern flank of the United States.

What changed since you said this the other day?

ISIS posed an “immediate threat” to the West, in addition to Iraq, because thousands of Europeans and other foreigners who have joined the group and have the passports to travel freely could carry the fight back to their home countries — including the United States.

Our HUMINT intelligence is thin on the ground in Iraq and I’d be willing to bet that we have little to zero HUMINT on the ground in Syria. So how can you be so sure that ISIS is not a threat to the U.S? If they aren’t a threat to the U.S, then it would follow that they aren’t a threat to the UK.

However, the UK has definitively stated otherwise. Check out the statements, requited below by Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond; which can be found here and here:

“It is horrifying to think that the perpetrator of this heinous act could have been brought up in Britain,” Mr Hammond wrote in an article published in this week’s Sunday Times. “It is an utter betrayal of our country, our values and everything the British people stand for.”
Mr Hammond also warned that IS was “turning a swathe of Iraq and Syria into a terrorist state as a base for launching attacks on the West.”

Or this statement by Prime Minister David Cameron:

“Let me condemn the barbaric and brutal act that has taken place and let’s be clear what this act is – it is an act of murder, and murder without any justification,” said Cameron.
“We have not identified the individual responsible, but from what we have seen it looks increasingly likely that it is a British citizen.
“This is deeply shocking. But we know that far too many British citizens have travelled to Iraq and travelled to Syria to take part in extremism and violence. And what we must do is redouble all our efforts to stop people from going,” he explained.
“To take away the passports of those contemplating travel, to arrest and prosecute those who take part in this extremism and violence. To take extremist material off the internet and do everything we can to keep our people safe. And that is what this Government will do.’

Again Sir, I ask you. What has changed? What makes you so SURE that ISIS isn’t a threat to our country? They have resources that we can’t even begin to quantify. They are brutal, evil, and have shown that they will stop at nothing to get their way according to their perverted beliefs. So I ask you, are you as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, really ready to state unequivocally that ISIS isn’t actively threatening our country? I sincerely hope you don’t regret this.