It's tempting to believe, isn't it? Our mortal enemies in the Islamic State are so primordial, so primitive, so twisted that they have sex with barnyard animals. As evidenced by this drone video! Except it's bogus. Here's why.

It's no Desert Storm. It's not even Desert Fox. It wishes it was Desert Crossing. It can't be Operation Iraqi Freedom, since we've used that, although it could be Operation Freedom Is Messy. The point is: U.S. war planners now say they need a name for this thing that's totally not a war, but a "targeted operation."

In his introduction to the international scene Thursday, Iraq's new prime minister told a gaggle of journalists at the U.N. that his country had discovered an "imminent" attack plot by Islamic State fighters against "subway systems in United States and Paris."

Bill O'Reilly has the spittle of a young soldier and the wattle of an elder statesman, but does he have the intellectual or moral mettle of a war strategist? No. No, he does not.

As U.S. bombs fell in Syria for the first time last night, the "official spokesman of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham" reportedly released a far-ranging 11-page message to its fighters, American opponents, and Muslims worldwide. It makes a tough read, unless you've got a glossary handy.

The Daily Mail just mistook a charity worker for the notorious religious head of a jihad-happy Middle East terrorist network. It was a simple mistake anyone could have made, except that nobody else did.

Ted Cruz, Princeton '92 and creepy bathrobe enthusiast, is really tired of all these nancyboys who run the military, insisting that there must be political reconciliation and trustbuilding to forge stability in Iraq. Is he gonna have to go over there and bloody up some jihadi ass himself?

Reporters and pundits have noted how the new U.S. Iraq operation lacks much legal pretext, both internationally and domestically, for several weeks now. Which means it was time for crack reporter Eli Lake to write something up, too. With an extra heaping of hypocrisy.

Did you hear Barack Obama say last week that the U.S. would "not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq"? You may think that precludes U.S. foot troops from potentially leading Kurds and Iraqis in direct combat with Islamic State fighters. Don't think that.

Ha ha ha, these guys.

Three architects of the failed Iraq War strategy have written up a strategy to defeat ISIS that "will require as many as 25,000 ground troops in Iraq and Syria." Sadly, the document doesn't say "PEW-PEW PEW-PEW BOOOOM" when you open it, and it evinces no familiarity with Clone Wars.

Now that America's long war is getting longer, it's worth getting some outside perspective on what that war's all about, with all its twists and pitfalls. In short, it's worth asking George Lucas.

Operation OK Let's Go Back There And Maybe Clean Up Some Spots We Missed, But You Know We're Just Gonna End Up Making A Mess Again is a go. Too bad; we could probably have used that name next week, when the Libyan Republic of Jihad makes ISIS look like JROTC.

Much has been made of the return of America's neoconservative Iraq hawks to the media circuits since that country's slow descent into chaos became a fast descent into chaos. But now that war's coming back, Dick Cheney is having a real moment. Not just a moment: He's straight-up MacArthuring.

Want to get out of debt fast? Burnish your resumé? Have I got just the job for you. Did I say "I"? I mean "we," as in the Department of the Army and "Office of Security Assistance-Iraq."

Perhaps out of legitimate fears over ISIS's increasing power among civilians in the Middle East and jihadists far beyond, or perhaps just because it's an election year, one Republican congressman has unveiled legislation to declare a ceaseless war against at least six terrorist groups in multiple countries.

As the Islamic State's militants planned their brutal videotaped killing of a second American prisoner, one photographer in Turkey was describing for readers and other journalists how he was treated as a captive of the group—and how he almost didn't survive the ordeal.

The Islamic State has released a 2-minute, 46-second video showing the beheading of Steven Sotloff, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. Sotloff, an American journalist, had been seen in captivity in an earlier video of the killing of his fellow prisoner, James Foley.

Barack Obama talked to the media last week about U.S. action against the Islamic State and went off-script, saying offhand that the U.S. didn't have a strategy yet for defeating the fundamentalist dirtbags muscling in on Iraq. But what would a good strategy look like? How do you solve a problem like Sharia?