RUSH: Now, it’s official. I’ve got the audio sound bites coming up, but I wanted to tell you the secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, told a House hearing this morning that we are gonna bomb ISIS safe havens in Syria.

Now, those of you who are old enough, you might remember all the grief Richard Nixon got for bombing the North Vietnamese safe havens in Cambodia and for bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Now, I can’t wait to see the media’s outrage over this. I’m kidding. There won’t be any outrage over it.

Chuck Hagel told a House hearing that we’re gonna bomb ISIS safe havens in Syria. We have told Syria, “Hey, don’t shoot down our airplanes.” We are also gonna put, what is it, 3,000 boots on the ground in West Africa. We’re sending 3,000 soldiers to fight Ebola. We are sending more soldiers to fight Ebola than we are sending to fight ISIS or other Muslim terrorists. Snerdley, I didn’t know you could shoot a virus. Did you? This the first I’ve heard that that is possible.

Now, apparently we’re also told, don’t worry, there’s no risk of any of these 3,000 soldiers contracting Ebola, and there is no risk of any of them bringing the virus back to the US with them. Otherwise, Obama surely wouldn’t be sending them over there, if there were any risk at all. So now, in addition to the world’s policeman, we are the world’s doctor. After we’ve apologized, how many times by President Obama in the last six years, where does the world still turn for solutions to crisis-proportion problems? Where does the world still turn for help and solutions in disasters?

I ran across a stunning statistic the other day. I think I knew it. I just had never thought of it in these terms. Talk about American exceptionalism. Do you realize the United States of America is responsible for 50% of the world’s wealth? And I don’t mean rich people. I’m talking about we are responsible for 50% of the world’s wealth. That’s how economically superior our system has been to any other ever devised. In other words, half of the world’s wealth is the United States of America.

Now, granted, it’s under assault, and this is a great point, because the current Regime resents that number. It’s exactly the point. The current Regime resents that the United States is that big, that powerful, that successful. In their view — and I’m speaking of Obama — that isn’t fair. That can’t be legit. I mean, there’s no way, particularly under capitalism? Capitalism itself is inherently unfair and biased and prejudiced. It can’t possibly be true. We’ve had to steal it from people. We’ve had to purloin it. We’ve had to cheat people. There’s no way, in their worldview, that that can be legitimate. But it is.

Now, I said yesterday toward the end of the program, you would think that a community organizer — and Obama was a great one by his estimation and by those who know the work of community organizers. Obama was said to be one of the greatest community organizers ever. And thus, you would expect a great community organizer to at least be able to organize a coalition of nations against ISIS. But he apparently can’t do it. He doesn’t even seem to be able to organize a coalition against Ebola, much less ISIS.

How’s China helping to fight Ebola? How’s China helping to fight ISIS or any other nation? Saudi Arabia? Are they involved in any of this? Why is it always us that has to all the heavy lifting? And the answer is we are pretty much it. We are pretty much the only ones who can. That fact is why so many of you, and me, so many of us are cringing over what’s happening to this country. It’s it, in a nutshell. The attack on the US economy, economic system, the attack on the American institutions and traditions which have created this greatness, the assault is unending.

We are the only ones who can do anything that really matters for lots and lots of people around the world. And yet how many Americans look at this country with disgust and blame this country and suggest that America is the problem in the world and not the solution?

Back to Iraq for just a moment, Chuck Hagel told that same House hearing that US troops could reach a total of 1,600 under Obama’s plan. Then General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of chief joints of staff said he may well recommend we send in ground troops if the air strikes don’t defeat ISIS, which they won’t. And that’s not to put down air strikes. It’s just a fact of military warfare. It is ground operations that secure, unless you’re gonna drop nukes, which we are not gonna do. That would win it, in a manner of speaking. So we are gonna be sending in ground troops. The take away is that we’re gonna be sending in ground troops once the Obama plan is shown to be ineffective and doesn’t work.

Now, both Dempsey and Hagel asked Congress for authorization to train and arm moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIS. Okay? Fine and dandy. But didn’t we train the Iraq army for 10 years? We gave ’em the best military equipment money could buy, and they still couldn’t beat ISIS.

What makes anybody think a bunch of moderate Syrian civilians are gonna be able to win a two-front war against ISIS and perhaps Assad if they have to? But anything so that Obama can say, “We’re not going back to Iraq.” Anything, so Obama can say, “Oh, no, no, we’re not sending troops back. Oh, no, no, we’re not going back to war.”