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The world has known such evil before. But never has the evil so openly celebrated its own depravity. You might have expected that to make it easier to rally decent nations to take up the fight against this group. But no. Other than a half-hearted allied air campaign, which has only partially contained its spread, the world seems little interested in putting an end to ISIL’s rule over millions.

Talking points on the domestic barbecue circuit are of little help to the sex slaves of the Islamic States

Indeed, even as casualties mount and the rape camps remain much in demand, in North America, ISIL is treated as an issue fit only for domestic politicking. In the United States, Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush has been trading barbs with Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Both accuse the other of sharing responsibility for ISIL’s rise. Bush’s brother, of course, was George W. Bush, whose botching of the Iraq war left the country in no condition to resist ISIL’s spread. Clinton, in contrast, was secretary of state when the Obama administration too-hastily withdrew the last U.S. troops from Iraq, though many U.S. officials — including Clinton herself, she claims — believed Iraq still needed support from the U.S. military to remain stable.

In Canada, of course, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the tough-on-terror candidate, while the opposition parties squirm uncomfortably with every new ISIL outrage and try to explain why they would end even Canada’s relatively minor contribution to the allied effort. The Conservatives feel this is a winning issue for them, and hammer away at it often.