Democrats
Don't Know ISIS
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the first of
your friends to like this.
Originally published under the title "Democrats Don't
Know the Islamic State."
|
President
Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton think American
words and actions offer ISIS powerful "recruitment tools."
|
With each new speech they make, the nation's two top Democrats
continue to reveal their profound ignorance of what motivates the enemy
both promise to defeat.
The White House trope that the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay must be
closed because it inspires, recruits and ultimately creates terrorists is
a stark illustration of the Obama administration's failure to understand
the threat posed by Islamism. Without offering any evidence, the
president tells audiences that "Guantanamo has been an
enormous recruitment tool for organizations like ISIL." He argues that GITMO "is part of how they
rationalize and justify their demented, sick perpetration of violence on
innocent people."
In reality the prison in Guantanamo Bay is not even a catalyst to the
growth of the Islamic State. And until there are credible reports of
jihadists, mid-attack, shouting "This is for Gitmo!" and
"Release KSM!" rather than "This is for Syria!" and "Allahu Akbar," no thinking person will
believe otherwise.
Contrary to the president's thinking, terrorists released from GITMO
have demonstrated a very high recidivism rate, even graduates of the much-exaggerated Saudi terrorist detox program. And
since so many of the terrorists released from GITMO have joined ISIS, their return to battle is a far more
potent recruitment tool than the camp's mere existence. After the
president frees captured and confessed terrorists from the military
prison, many go on to become recruiters for the global jihad.
Another illustration of the president's intellectual failing is his
fatuous assertion that he "cannot think of a more potent
recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric coming out here in
the course of this [GOP primary] debate."
But at his year-end press conference, the president made his most
ridiculous statement to date when he implied that Islamic State fighters
are motivated by their disillusionment with the American dream.
Does Obama really believe ISIS
will end its jihad if the U.S. begins 'living up to its professed
ideals'?
|
Explaining how American Muslims with "no criminal record or a
history of terrorist activity" are motivated to join the Islamic
State, the president pointed to a "notion of a gross injustice, that
America is not living up to its professed ideals. We know that. We see
the Internet traffic. We see how Guantanamo has been used to create this
mythology that America is at war with Islam. And for us to close it is
part of our counterterrorism strategy that is supported by our military,
our diplomatic and our intelligence teams."
Even Barack Obama can't possibly believe that the Islamic State
fighters would end their jihad if only the U.S. would change course and
begin "living up to its professed ideals."
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the second most influential
Democrat, seems to believe that Donald Trump is the chief motivator of
Islamic State fighters, declaring him "ISIS' biggest recruiter"
in the Dec. 19 primary debate. Is it wishful thinking on her part when
she concocts tales of Islamic State propagandists
"going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and
Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists?" Or has blaming
jihadist violence on obscure and unseen videos become habit?
Neither Obama nor Clinton ever mentions the three primary motivators
of the Islamic State: Islamic tradition, its own successes and American
weakness.
First, the desire to impose Sharia Law through a global Caliphate
adhering to Islamic tradition is the number one motivational force behind
the Islamic State. As it expands, the Islamic State is returning to the
7th-century practice of offering limited options to those it conquers:
submission (i.e., conversion to Islam), death or the third choice, dhimmitude — a Jim Crow-like system
under which the Caliphate forced non-Muslims to live in disarmed, captive
thralldom. The Democrats never speak the word "dhimmitude," let
alone explain ways that the Islamic State imposes
it on the conquered.
American weakness in the face of
ISIS expansion is a powerful recruitment tool.
|
Second, the phenomenal success that the Islamic State has achieved in
a relatively short time has inspired many to join. Even the New York
Times has recognized this fact.
And third, American and Western weakness in the face of the Islamic
State expansion is a powerful motivator. As Osama bin Laden liked to say, when people have the choice between a strong and
a weak horse, they invariably choose the strong one. Since Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi announced the restoration of the Caliphate, the
Islamic State looks like the strong horse while the U.S. policy of "leading from behind" seems the epitome of
weakness.
That the two most important Democrats fail to understand the enemy
they face is a terrifying development, one that should undermine the
public's faith in their leadership and honesty, if not their
intelligence.
A.J. Caschetta is a senior lecturer at the Rochester
Institute of Technology and a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East
Forum.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment