Decorated war hero George McGovern (Distinguished Flying Cross) lost 49 of 50 states in 1972 for the sin of appearing soft on communism in Southeast Asia. In 1978, he called for armed intervention in Cambodia when the whole rest of the world seemed not to care.
From the Toledo Blade, 8/22/1978:
The South Dakota Democrat said military intervention should be considered only in the most extreme of circumstances and added, "This is the most extreme I've ever heard of. Based on the percentage of the population that appears to have died, this makes Hitler's operation look tame."
By the time McGovern made this statement, the killing fields had taken 2.5 million out of 7 million Cambodians, nearly a third of the population. Why the Hitler comparison? To remind the world that we had said "Never again!" and we were not living up to that standard.
What was the worst mistake of Bill Clinton's presidency? Failure to declare that the "acts of genocide" occurring in Rwanda were programmatic genocide, and to intervene. We could have saved 300,000 people, of the 800,000 to 1,000,000 killed. But as the late Alison Des Forges is quoted:
Rwanda was simply too remote ... too poor, too little, and probably too black to be worthwhile
Does anybody doubt that ISIL means it? That they want to kill those who don't pass their religious test? To behead anyone they see as opposing them? That their regime is inherently vicious, torturing, murderous, misogynistic, oppressive, genocidal?
Are we excused from action because we've already given expensive arms and training to feckless regional players? ISIL meets the George McGovern test for a legitimate American interest in intervention. We should use tools that we have, air power, against those who must be stopped. Don't get fooled into thinking that every call for intervention is Neo-con Kool-Aid again. This is not George W. Bush invading Iraq because Afghanistan's Taliban once sheltered Al-Qaeda. This is about watching a genocidal army out in plain sight grabbing cities and towns, and taking action to stop it.