It's a powerful metaphor. Super-effective strategy.
Well, the thing about this metaphor is that, "anything goes". If
your leg is gangrene and this is the Civil War, you have to
amputate as quickly as possible to save the patient.
The problem is this:
ISIS isn't a leg. It's a name representing a group of people.
This group of people do what this group of people do.
However, the people who consider themselves enemies of this
group of people like to talk about this group of people, being
represented now by a leg with an infection that must be sawed
off or it will kill the patient; the patient being...
...the patient being...
hm. I guess the patient is... humanity? Decency? Christianity?
America? Western Civilization?
I don't know who the patient is.
The thing is, it's a metaphor. They're not a rotten leg.
What's been infected is the way we think about people, and the
way we justify our actions against other people we don't like
for whatever reason.
