Defense12 May 2015

Notes from Norm: America Hasn’t

It is likely far more Americans are aware the NFL suspended New England Patriot Quarterback Tom Brady for wrongfully deflating footballs  than are aware that the leader of the United States Cyber Command says the ideology of the radical Islamic terror group, ISIS, is “increasingly resonating” with Americans.

While Commissioner Roger Goodell is charged with protecting the rules and regulations of the National Football League, Admiral Mike Rogers, Director of the National Security Agency, is charged with protecting the safety and security of America.
When he calls the growing technology capabilities of ISIS a “great concern” to the NSA it’s time for Americans to let the air out of the Obama Administration’s lie that they have ever truly understood the proliferating threat of radical Islamic terror.

Puncturing the myth of an Administration skillfully dismantling the infrastructure of terror around the world under the steady and calm hand of a determined Commander in Chief is the first step in getting back into the fight against radical Islamic terrorism.

In an article published on CNN.com, Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Medal of Honor recipient, retired Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, USMC, and congressional counterterrorism adviser Michael S. Smith II, issue stark warnings on the current and growing threat of radical Islamic terror groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Three words that the President is unwilling to utter in a single sentence – radical Islamic terror -are at the root of his failure to effectively address the existential threat to America.

If you are unwilling to call Evil by its name you are incapable of defeating it.

Despite every evidence to the contrary the President and those around him see a world that doesn’t exist.  Just one they wish to conform to their reality.

So, while powerful American assets remain sidelined and valuable allies are pushed away or discounted, ISIS and Al Qaeda expand their territory.

As the authors of the articles write in CNN, “ISIS controls a large amount of territory in the Middle East, and the group is rapidly growing its ranks in places such as Libya and Afghanistan, while at the same time inspiring and plotting attacks in the West.”

It may have been comforting to believe that “…attacks in the West” meant somewhere “over there” – that is, West of the Middle East.

Not West as in America.

Yet, that is exactly the threat America faces.  Not in the future.  

Today.

If any doubt exists as to the clear and present danger of radical Islamic terror look no further than my own state, Minnesota.

After the arrests of yet more young Somalian men for seeking to link up with ISIS or Al Shabab, the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Andrew Luger said, “We have a terror recruiting problem in Minnesota…”

Minnesota’s terror recruiting problem is a terrorist problem for all of America.

Hoping the President wakes up to the storm that may soon rage within America has little practical value.

Nor does listening to his professorial rhetoric about what are successful tactics to employ against the terrorist groups that have infiltrated our country to recruit our youth to wage battle in faraway lands.

And, once trained in the terrorist craft of destruction and devastation, be recruited to return home to ply their trade in America.

This dystopian view of America is not science fiction or a summer fantasy movie blockbuster.

It is a very real possibility that is more probable today than any likelihood of Iran honoring an agreement to curtail its nuclear weapons ambition or the Castro Administration embracing democracy or human rights.

There remains time to get America back on the offensive.  To effectively partner with our allies.  

We can still unleash the arsenal of America’s democracy.

Diplomacy and soft power has a pivotal role to play in defeating the ideology and influence of radical Islamic terror.

So, too, does the unequivocal power of America’s military might when the only thing our enemies understand is the skill of our nation’s fighting men and women.

But there should be no mistake that we are at war with radical Islamic terrorists.

Our enemies have no interest in understanding what motivates America to cherish freedom and liberty and democracy.

They simply seek to destroy us.

America need not understand what motivates radical Islamic terrorists to cherish destroying our freedom and liberty and democracy.

We should simply seek to destroy them.

It remains to be seen if President Obama has lost the Global War on Terror.

America hasn’t.