As the presidential race between GOP candidate Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton counts down to its final months, at least one clear issue divides the two candidates — their willingness, readiness and ability to talk about one of the greatest threats the nation currently faces: terrorism.
Specifically, terrorism of the type that we have seen recently in shootings in San Bernardino, California and Orlando, Florida, among numerous other places — shootings that in at least one case have represented the greatest instance of mass murder in the country’s history.
The fact that these incidents have only gotten passing interest from Hillary Clinton and barely more than lip service from President Obama (both of whom refused to utter the words “radical Islam” when referring to the incidents) tells citizens a clear story — that Democrats are soft on terrorism.
Their willful blindness could soon cost the country in blood if greater attention isn’t paid to root causes and to preventing similar incidents in the future.
In both of the above cases, the shooters had pledged allegiance to ISIS either directly prior to or during their attacks, and both killers were devout Muslims. Instead of focusing on the clear intention of ISIS to inspire followers, both Clinton and Obama have said that they would like to INCREASE the number of Middle Eastern and Afghani immigrants to the United States.
As opposed to putting firm controls in place to stop the flow of refugees completely as Donald Trump has repeatedly said is necessary.
As of the weeks following the attack in San Bernardino in December of last year, terrorism topped the economy as Americans’ greatest worry for the first time in more than a decade. If it’s issue number one, why won’t the Democrats address it in a more concrete manner?
The reason is likely that to do so would mean counteracting many of the planks in their party’s platform — especially those regarding immigration, guns, borders and policing.
The fact that terrorism wasn’t mentioned even once on the opening day of the Democratic National Convention speaks volumes. This is a dangerous blind spot that the same actors and networks behind the recent violence in Europe — such as the bombings and shootings in Paris and Brussels and the horrific truck attack in Nice, France in July — will surely see as an invitation that’s too tempting to pass up.
And there’s essentially nothing stopping ISIS followers in the U.S. from carrying out exactly the same types of acts that their brethren are committing in Europe — or worse.
In fact, it’s this “worse” prospect that should have any sitting president or candidate for the office sweating bullets. There have been open declarations by terrorist organizations from Al-Qaeda to ISIS that they believe it’s their “duty” to acquire weapons of mass destruction and to use them on the groups’ enemies in the West to the maximum extent that they’re able to.
The prospect of nuclear weapons being sold by underpaid Russian scientists, unstoppable killer viruses being grown in labs (and described in detail online) and/or materials for horrifying radioactive “dirty bombs” being stolen on a near-monthly basis (the most recent theft was in February in Mexico) have made the world a much more dangerous place than ever before.
Last year, the academic Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset its “Doomsday Clock” — a symbolic measure of how dangerous it believes the world’s political and security situation is at any given moment — to just three minutes to midnight, the closest the measurement has gotten to the stroke of apocalyptic annihilation in more than 50 years.
In fact, there are news reports that the ISIS terrorists in Belgium had surveilled a scientist who worked at a nuclear complex there, and at least one foreign ISIS fighter (now dead) had previously worked at a nuclear plant near Antwerp, Belgium’s most populous city.
Multiple U.S. studies have regularly concluded that nuclear power plants and radiological material sites are not highly secured enough to deter contingents of terrorists seeking to commit sabotage or deliberately cause a catastrophe.
Known risk countries such as North Korea and Pakistan are already nuclear-armed, with the former having stated on multiple occasions that it seeks to destroy the U.S. using nuclear arms. Both countries have more than once shared nuclear technology and secrets with unstable regimes such as Libya and Syria.
In fact, it was the administration of Bill Clinton that gave North Korea the nuclear reactors it needed to develop its first atomic bombs during the 1990s, and it was during his administration that Pakistan first tested its nuclear weapons.
Another state that has worrying nuclear ambitions is Iran. Under President Obama Americans were led to believe that Iran made promises about its nuclear weapons operations in its celebrated nuclear deal with the hardline Shiite republic in July 2015.
But afterwards the State Department listed the country as the number one sponsor of global terrorism, playing a direct or indirect role in as many as 11,700 terrorist attacks in up to 92 countries worldwide, causing at least 28,000 deaths and 35,000 injuries.
In the last few years, Iran has been promoting Shia Islam heavily in Latin America via 80 “cultural centers,” particularly in countries such as Argentina, Venezuela and Ecuador.
“As the foremost state sponsor of terrorism, Iran’s involvement in the region and these cultural centers is a matter for concern, and its diplomatic, economic and political engagement is closely monitored,” said General John Kelly, head of the U.S. Southern Command.
Recently, it was reported that the U.S. had flown a delivery of $400 million in cash on an unmarked flight to the republic as part of American reparations of $1.7 billion in previously frozen assets belonging to the state.
Apparently, according to the Obama administration, this is how you deal with the world’s biggest terrorist. “No one denies the reality of what’s going to happen with that money,” commented Republican Congressman Robert Pittenger of North Carolina.
“It’s a foregone conclusion. Look at their terrorism footprint in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and Latin America now and through their surrogates… We are placing them in an extraordinary position in terms of economic prowess.”
The Democrats, through their ignorance of the terrorist elephant in the room, are putting us all at risk. How many more attacks will it take before they acknowledge that, in the words of Donald Trump, “we’re at war” and that we can’t pretend that there are only a few bad apples amongst an influx of millions of refugees to Europe and prospectively the U.S.?
The risk of allowing 75,000 Syrians (Syria is commonly known as Iran’s closest ally) into our country, as Hillary Clinton has openly proposed, is just too great to ignore.
Fortunately, there are some sane people besides Donald Trump speaking out. In a recent interview, Milos Zeman, the president of the Czech Republic, suggested there are concrete steps he believes countries can take to deal with the threat that Middle Eastern immigrants pose.
“I really think that citizens should arm themselves against terrorists. And I honestly admit that I changed my mind because previously I was against [citizens] having too many weapons. After these attacks, I don’t think so [anymore]… [A gun], where necessary, will have to be ready for a situation where it has to be used.”
In addition to permitting his citizens to purchase new firearms, Zeman believes that people who already “legally hold weapons” should be allowed to continue to do so under EU law. The European leader also said he believes migrants who have been rejected for asylum should be deported with no delays.
This would have prevented the July terror attack in Ansbach, Germany whereby a rejected Syrian applicant for asylum pledged allegiance to ISIS and blew himself up at a rock music festival, injuring 15 people.
It also would have stopped attacker Abraham Ukbagabir in Sweden, who killed two people at an IKEA department store after being refused political asylum in that country.
President Zeman believes that the “large majority of the illegal migrants are young men in good health, and single” and therefore should fight for the freedom of their own nations rather than going abroad. Zeman has said he wants to block all refugees from entering the Czech Republic, without limitation.
Through a spokesman, he stated, “[The Czech Republic] simply cannot afford to risk terrorist attacks like what occurred in France and Germany. By accepting migrants we would create fertile ground for barbaric attacks.”
It would be wise of the U.S. to follow the Czech Republic’s example. Here’s hoping the American people can listen to reason and that the Democrats’ scant attention to this issue won’t result in America’s security bluff being called sooner rather than later.
