In a recent interview with The New Yorker, President Obama referred to today’s al-Qaeda fighters as the “jayvee” team. “. . .if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.”
He’s right, just as being elected president of a nation doesn’t necessarily make one a leader. Obama’s wishful thinking doesn’t change the fact that al-Qaeda is just as serious a threat to the U.S. as it has ever been.
Obama also told the New Yorker that we “cannot stay at war forever.” A nice sentiment, but in the real world, war doesn’t end until both sides stop fighting. There have been at least 60 Islamist-inspired terrorist plots against the U.S. homeland since 9/11. Fifty-three of these were thwarted long before the public was ever in danger, due in large part to the concerted efforts of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence.
Al-Qaeda is different today than it was on 9/11, but the new decentralized version is not to be taken as lightly as Obama seems to. We are still at war, only now with an enemy that is harder to pin down. And the enemy has determination, numbers, resources, and capabilities that we have to worry about. In fact, CNN reported earlier this month that “al Qaeda appears to control more territory in the Arab world than it has done at any time in its history.”
Last week, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee held a hearing provocatively titled “Is Al-Qaeda Winning?” The answers that the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade received were profoundly unsettling.
Former Senator Joseph Lieberman, testified that Syria had become a key focal point of al-Qaeda’s efforts, noting that there are more foreign militants fighting in Syria today than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined over the past 10 years: “Put very bluntly, Syria has become the most dangerous terrorist sanctuary in the world today—and the United States has not coherent or credible policy for dealing with it.”
Frederick Kagan, director of the critical threats project at the American Enterprise Institute, warned that the Obama Administration has underestimated the threat posed by al-Qaeda’s ideology, which has inspired a global insurgency and assured the House that al-Qaeda’s “brand is spreading like wildfire, the groups affiliating themselves with it control more fighters, land and wealth than they ever have, and they are opening up new fronts.”
The “Arab Spring” has turned into a full frontal Islamist Winter with no end in sight. Al-Qaeda and other extremist Islamist groups have exploiting the destabilized Arab Spring uprising and are more than active in Syria, the northern Sinai, Iraq, Libya, Malia, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, and the Arab Peninsula.
Al-Qaeda and other Islamist totalitarians continue to pose an immediate threat to the United States according to a recent memo from the U.S. Embassy of Saudi Arabia. “Kidnapping and hostage events involving U.S. citizens have become increasingly prevalent as al Qaeda and its affiliates have increased attempts to finance their operations. . .Information also suggests that al-Qaeda and its affiliates continue to plan terrorists attacks against U.S. interest in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and in the U.S. using suicide operations, assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings, and bombing.” You can read the memo at this link.
To defeat the terrorist threat posed by al-Qaeda, Obama needs to drop the cute metaphors and start recognizing these terrorists for what they are.
