Weekly Columns
Earlier this month, a pilot in the Royal Jordanian Air Force was burned alive by radical Islamists.
That same week, the President released his National Security Strategy. While the Administration was putting the finishing touches on this document, the propaganda wing of the Islamic State group was busy too. The jihadist group was pumping out a video of this latest act of horrific brutality.
The Islamic State group holds a large swath of land in Iraq and Syria and represents one of the biggest threats to peace of an already unstable region. These terrorists are committed to establishing a new Caliphate, ruled by Sharia law, where all would be forced to convert or die.
If anyone embodies radical Islam, it is the Islamic State group.
Given the severity of the threat posed by Islamic State group, not to mention the continuing efforts of al-Qaeda to strike again, you would think a plan to take on radical Islam would be a focal part of the President’s national security plan.
It’s not. In fact, there is no mention of radical Islam in the document at all.
What is mentioned instead is global warming. Yes, global warming is discussed in the President’s national security strategy, but not Islamic extremism. Apparently that’s not a threat to the United States.
This disconnect that exists within this Administration is evident in more documents than just this national security strategy.
The President’s budget proposal for the Department of Homeland Security would allocate tens of millions of dollars to protect against climate change.
It does so while failing to dedicate funds for communities to identify and disrupt homegrown terror, despite the fact that Islamic State group is recruiting foreign fighters at a clip never seen before.
While the majority of them are from Middle Eastern nations, the Wall Street Journal reports that upwards of 20,000 foreign fighters have joined Islamic State group in the past two years.
The group’s savvy usage of social media and its highly orchestrated propaganda campaign has appealed to Westerners as well, bringing thousands of jihadis, with passports that allow them to travel with ease, to this terrorist group’s controlled territory.
Where they ultimately take the deadly skills they learn in Iraq and Syria remains to be seen, but these foreign fighters could return home or even come to the United States, giving the group the ability to strike on American soil.
The recent attacks in Paris serve as a vivid reminder that the reach of radical Islam extends far beyond the jihadi fighters on the ground in Iraq and Syria.
The President once characterized Islamic State group as the “JV team.” This is no JV team.
As the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee noted, Islamic State group is the “largest convergence of Islamist terrorists in history” that has created a “pseudo-state dead set on attacking America.”
Preventing the Islamic State group from achieving its goal takes a clear, forceful security strategy both abroad and at home. What the President has put forward is neither.