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From Sen. Ted Cruz, last night:
Tonight,
our close ally France is reeling from yet another major attack apparently
carried out by radical Islamic terrorists.
Let us
make no mistake about it: Europe is under siege. We must redouble our attacks
on the ISIS strongholds in Iraq and Syria, but we cannot deceive ourselves that
we can isolate ISIS and related terrorist groups in the Middle East. Thanks to
a lack of decisive action, that opportunity has passed. As America has focused
on limited regional air strikes, ISIS has been playing a longer game. They have
used the last two years to establish a network of militants around the world
from France to Bangladesh who are now coming to life. They may be in the United
States as well.
We have
to remove the blinders and recognize this for what it is: radical Islamic terrorism.
We need to stop radicalized individuals from coming into the United States. We
need to empower our law enforcement to target this specific threat, whether
imported or homegrown. After seven and a half years of the Obama administration
denying this danger, it is getting worse, not better. Willful blindness is not
a policy.
10 comments:
Military style trucks are far too prevalent and easy to get a hold of in this country and the world. A little camouflage paint would clearly define this truck. It is time to have reasonable truck control laws that will lessen their use agains't people. One truck equals over 80 deaths and hundreds of injuries. We must quickly ban the weapon used instead of blaming the the person responsible for the act and the ideas that underpin these terrible tragedy. Sorry I am busy ignoring the advice that General Flynn was attempting to appraise me. When you are so smart that you know everything there is no need to get briefings. Listen I am so great that I only mentioned myself 46 times at the memorial for the fallen police officers in Dallas. What me worry?
I am always amazed that each time one of these attacks happen we hear the same words, the same pray for the people, et al, but not a moments reflection on how we are going to address this problem. We are even afraid of addressing the ideas behind these attacks and are quick to blame anyone or anything that on inanimate objects utilized in the attacks. When the unnamed assailant uses explosives, nerve agents, dirty bombs, et al I wonder who the administration will blame then. It has to be the object used or a group of Americans who might disagree with the actions of the federal government. Wait I know what cause it......Some guy who made a movie that alienated somebody somewhere.
I will be so glad when Obama leaves office. He has done nothing be exacerbate every problem which then he tries to blame on others.
Dennis @July 15, 2016 at 5:48 AM:
"We are even afraid of addressing the ideas behind these attacks..."
But Dennis, "that's not who we are," and doing so would "betray our deepest values."
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gouAcayDwLM
You're talking about the "Religion of Peace." You know, the one that mows down civilians with a 25-ton semi... just because. After all, everything will be well when we all live under the peace of the Caliphate.
You should Shariahphobic. Shame on you. Remember: "The future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."
IAC,
i was demonstrating the ridiculous and ludicrous by being the same. Because there is a significant connection with reality is not my fault. If someone from another planet was watching this one could not blame them for feeling that this must be farce and satire. It is increasingly obvious why they don't contact us. We are NOT serious people.
Did I mention the Religion of Peace or slander the prophet of Islam? I wonder when Obama and Lynch are going to give us "The Lecture" on how we must be tolerant of those who would kill us? All we really need is love to soothe the savage beast. Remember MAD magazine? Increasingly every time I look at Obama I feel like I am living in the pages of that magazine and cannot unsubscribe no matter how hard I try. The problem is that every timeI wake up from the dream another 50, 100.......people are being slaughtered.
You're absolutely right, Dennis. It is absurd.
Every day is like The Onion with Obama and Shariahphilia. We have to like foreign enemies who want to kill us in gruesome ways, but we have to destroy our domestic political opposition. Obama reserves his true rage for us. We're the enemy. 188 days to go...
Do you think this link below reflects our Western un-seriousness?
http://heatst.com/uk/exclusive-france-suppressed-news-of-gruesome-torture-at-bataclan-massacre/
I wonder if we should've tolerated the Japanese during World War II. Anyone think that would've worked?
ISIS is not going to surrender. They must be destroyed. Kill them all before they kill us.
The problem here in part is that ISIS would seem to be a symbol as much as a reality. So ISIS can lose EVERY SINGLE BATTLE and still gain sympathy from lone wolves, or whomever needs a reason to express their own desire for brutality.
What's strange is that Ted Cruz's macho talk about carpet bombing until the sand glows contains the same indiscriminate will to violence as those he propose we attack.
If we're unable to tell "good guys" from "bad guys" among a general population of Europe, how does he propose we do this in places dominated by innocent Muslims who are being brutalized by ISIS?
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/press-room/view/poll-isis-has-almost-no-popular-support-among-arab-publics
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The self-styled "Islamic State" has almost no popular support in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon, a trio of public opinion poll commissioned by The Washington Institute has revealed. Only 5 percent of Saudis and 3 percent of Egyptians expressed a favorable opinion of ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham). In Lebanon, not one Christian, Shiite, or Druze respondent expressed a positive view of ISIS, and only 1 percent of Sunnis expressed approval of the Sunni jihadist group that has overrun portions of neighboring Syria and Iraq.
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I saw William Saletan had an interesting new article, about race and religion and taking sides.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/07/there_is_a_war_over_race_in_america_but_it_s_not_whites_vs_blacks.html
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This is the central thing to understand about what happened in Dallas: Black people who target whites are fundamentally allied with white people who target blacks. They’re on the same team: the race war team. It’s a lot like the global struggle over jihadism, in which Muslims who hate Christians collaborate, in effect, with Christians who hate Muslims. In the case of jihadism, the real struggle isn’t between two religions. It’s between people who want religious war and people who don’t. The same is true of race: Either you’re on the race war team, or you’re against it.
...
Nothing helps Roof, Breivik, Duke, and other white nationalists more than hate crimes by the people they vilify—blacks and Muslims—against whites, Christians, and police officers. No crime justifies such collective vilification. But as a social dynamic, haters and killers on all sides work together, by stoking feelings of group victimization and group vengeance.
...
hese visions of mortal struggle between a white West and its dark-skinned enemies mirror, almost precisely, the ideology of Islamic jihad. Look at Osama Bin Laden’s pronouncements over the years, and you’ll see a striking resemblance to the rhetoric of Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump. Both sides describe and promote a clash of religions, and this unites them in a global alliance against Christians and Muslims—including President Obama, former President George W. Bush, and King Abdullah of Jordan—who argue that the real enemy, terrorism, belongs to no religion.
Twelve years ago, in a video message, Bin Laden gloated that it was “easy for us to provoke and bait” the United States into doomed wars in Muslim lands. Last month, after the massacre in Orlando, Florida, Trump embarked on a spree of anti-Muslim demagoguery that played right into the strategy of religious polarization that had just been outlined by ISIS.
This is the war Micah Johnson joined in Dallas on Thursday night. He didn’t join the side of black people, any more than Bin Laden or ISIS joined the side of Muslims. He joined the side of tribal enmity and vengeance. He joined the side of Dylann Roof, Anders Breivik, and David Duke. It’s the wrong side. Reject it.
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Ares Olympus @July 15, 2016 at 12:01 PM:
Still more criticism and analysis... What would you recommend we DO about it, Ares? We're Americans -- we DO things, remember?
The problem is not that ISIS is a symbol. The problem is that ISIS is a radical, weaponized religious cult that wants to impose Shariah on the world. That is the problem. What are we going to do about that problem?
Last night's episode of Mohammed the Truck Driver showed us the latest iteration of ISIS's intentions, capabilities and results. When a semi hits human bodies, they are destroyed. That's not a symbol... that's real. You can't intellectualize a 25-ton machine hitting human flesh.
You're just like Obama: all talk, no rock.
And then you close with the typical Lefty meme: bringing it all back to race.
So predictable, so silly, so trite.
IAC,
When one lacks the intellectual capacity to present a well reasoned argument for their ideas then the fall back position is that anyone who disagrees with them is a racist, sexist, homophobic, et al. It would not surprise that Ares might live in the state with the most people trying to join ISIS.
IAC: Still more criticism and analysis... What would you recommend we DO about it, Ares? We're Americans -- we DO things, remember?
Dennis mentions Minnesota might be a high center for ISIS recruitment among our Somali immigrant population. That's a good place to look at what we can do.
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/09/09/438797658/minneapolis-unveiling-plan-to-counter-recruiting-by-isis
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...The effort is in response to the fact that Minnesota's burgeoning Somali-American community — the largest in the U.S. at between 15,000 and 20,000 people — has become ground zero for ISIS's U.S. recruitment push.
Law enforcement officials say between 50 and 60 young people in Minnesota have either successfully traveled to Syria, been stopped at an airport en route or are under investigation for allegedly planning to do so.
...
As a result, Minneapolis Somalis have been asking for programs to help their at-risk kids for years. The threat of ISIS appears to have focused minds enough that lawmakers, foundations and local corporations finally found the money to respond.
...
The move could also provide some assurance to the Somali community that the new programs aren't intelligence operations in disguise. Luger said the U.S. attorney's office has signed a cooperative agreement with Youthprise that keeps law enforcement at arm's length.
"This is not about law enforcement, this is about crime prevention, and it is about meeting the needs of the Somali community that were raised with us," Luger says. "I just had a meeting the other night with 30 Somali mothers who expressed a concern about radicalization in the teens in their families and others."
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Myself, I recall in middle school health class being introduced to run away teens, who talked about living on the streets, with drugs and sex and violence, and it was compelling. They were free to answer questions including positives like feeling free from abusive parents and gaining confidence in how they protected themselves, but of course it was not really attractive.
So I'm sure some of the youth who actually made it to ISIS and lived there awhile and saw the reality of the situation, they might make excellent community leaders who can oppose the slick narratives that attract youth, and show some of the reality of what that brutal world really looks like.
I can see a problem where youth feel rebellious and sometimes might talk big, but most won't ever act on that talk, so law enforcement on "talk" isn't going to work, while worried parents still need programs to help when they see things about their teens and young men that can't be ignored.
It is interesting how social media opens so many doors for good and bad. Manipulation and propaganda is easier, and yet if you're willing to look for context, you can find a more complete view of the world than could exist before these new tools.
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