USA Today Calls for Ground Troops in Iraq on Anniversary of September 11 Attacks

They're not mincing words.

From the editors, at USA Today, "ISIL haunts 9/11 anniversary: Our view":

Fourteen years ago, the United States suffered a shockingly successful surprise attack by a little known Islamic extremist group based 7,000 miles away in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Since then, a U.S. invasion chased al-Qaeda out of its haven, and targeted strikes eventually eliminated most of its senior leaders, including Osama bin Laden in 2011. The danger from the group that killed nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, has waned.

Its influence lives on, however, through offshoot extremist groups that have eclipsed al-Qaeda — none more so than the Islamic State, the lightning spread of which through Syria and Iraq has been marked by medieval barbarity, adapted to the Internet age....

ISIL represents the embodiment of evil in the modern world, and it mustn't be allowed to establish a foothold from which to plot attacks against the United States or to inspire so-called lone wolf sympathizers to do so. But the U.S.-led effort to "degrade and ultimately defeat" ISIL has shown underwhelming results....

The administration asks for patience, insisting that with U.S. and allied airstrikes, and with the U.S. and its allies painstakingly rebuilding an effective Iraqi army, the tide will turn. Indeed, some metrics hint at progress; the administration says ISIL's movements have been effectively limited in nearly a third of the areas in Iraq it used to control. The U.S. has assembled a coalition of 62 nations and international organizations to counter ISIL, almost double the 34 nations that rallied behind then-President George H.W. Bush to push Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in 1991.

The struggle against ISIL is likely to be long, one that will be won not just by driving the group out of the territory it claims as its caliphate but also by countering the ideology that has brought the group so many followers despite its depravity. Unless the current approach starts to show better results soon, America should prepare to take more aggressive actions, including the use of Apache helicopter gunships to assist ground fights, and deployment of U.S. forces to act as spotters for airstrikes and to bolster Iraqi units.

If there’s one lesson the nation should have learned from that awful day 14 years ago, it’s that the United States cannot afford to ignore a rabidly anti-American terrorist group that has established a haven in a faraway place.

U.S. forces on the ground, "to bolster Iraqi units."

This should happen. But it probably won't. And that's a shame, particularly on this day, 14 years after the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor.

RTWT at the link.