Barack Obama famously told us that Al-Qaeda had been decimated, and were on the run. He felt confident enough in his enlightened policies to pull all U.S. troops from Iraq, despite the fact that his predecessor, George W. Bush, had warned:
Well President Bush was right. And that “even more dangerous enemy” is ISIS. And it’s coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
FBI Director James Comey estimated that there are “hundreds, maybe thousands” of potential ISIS operatives, already within the United States. He said they are receiving their inspiration and instructions through social media, and they are being encouraged to launch terrorist attacks within the United States.
Former Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and currently top Democrat on the committee, Diane Feinstein, said last week that the message being put out by ISIS, and received by these terrorists in America, is “kill, kill, kill.” She went on to say that “it’s a force that we really haven’t seen before, and we have to begin to cope more seriously with it… this is a matter of prime defense of the homeland.”
So how is the Obama Administration’s effort to combat the recruitment of potential Islamic terrorists in the United States by ISIS faring? Not too well, according to Democratic Senator Corey Booker. Using social networks as an example, the Senator says ISIS recruitment videos “are incredibly slick, fancy, and attractive.” He says the State Department’s counter campaign (mainly a Twitter account called “Think Again, Turn Away”) is so ineffective as to be “laughable.”
Obama’s head of the Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, was on a number of the morning talk shows this past Sunday. He also acknowledged that:
What I found particularly disturbing was that he referred to the people who want to kill us as “violent extremists.” Not a word about them being Islamic Jihadists, or radical Muslims. They could have been Catholics, or Baptists, or Tea Partiers, or NRA members, or FOX News watchers – who knows? The Obama Administration’s continued blind spot to naming who the enemy is, and why they hate us, is baffling, and dangerous.
The two gunmen shot dead recently trying to crash a free speech cartoon event in Texas in order to kill as many attendees as possible, were Islamic Jihadi terrorists. ISIS recently posted the names and personal information of 100 U.S. military personnel and encouraged their “brothers residing in America” to kill them. And even in our own community, a 20 year-old wannabe terrorist was arrested buying weapons to carry out his plan to set off a bomb in the U.S. Capitol, and then shoot as many people as possible fleeing from the building.
The first step towards defeating this enemy is to acknowledge who they are. They are all radical Jihadi Islamists. They’re not just “violent extremists” although they certainly are that. Their religion is a vitally important part of who they are, and why they do what they do. And refusing to acknowledge this, puts us in greater peril.
And once we acknowledge who they are, how do we defeat them? Limited air strikes won’t do it. “Degrading them” won’t be enough. A few drone strikes here and there won’t do it either.
We must defeat them both here and there. There being the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria, but throughout the region. Air strikes are important, but they should be dramatically intensified. And the damage done to ISIS by such strikes could be significantly improved if we had sufficient U.S. support on the ground, especially in targeting the air attacks. We don’t need significant numbers of boots on the ground, but we should have more Special Forces teams there to train indigenous allies, and in some instances to lead the fight. If ISIS is allowed to continue to expand and strengthen its grip in the Middle East, it’s only a matter of time before ISIS supporters in the United Sates will be killing considerable numbers of American civilians here on American soil.
And we must defeat the terrorists here. It’s challenging, because they can attack us virtually anywhere (at a shopping mall, at a ballgame, at a school) at any time. That means gathering as much intelligence on the enemy and his plans as possible, before an attack takes place. And we must do this in a manner that doesn’t trample all over the privacy rights of innocent American citizens. (Congress is currently working on achieving the appropriate balance in its reauthorization of the U.S.A. Freedom Act.)
Successfully prevailing over ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and other Islamic terrorist groups, and their wish to kill Americans on American soil, is without doubt one of the greatest challenges the United States faces today.
