President Barack Obama and Canadian leaders are ignoring the facts when they downplay the recent attacks that killed two soldiers on Canadian soil, says conservative commentator Mark Steyn.
Appearing Wednesday on Fox News Channel's
"Your World with Neil Cavuto," Steyn, who was born in Canada and currently lives in New Hampshire, was critical of
Obama's statement about the shooting of a soldier at the National War Memorial in Ottawa.
Obama referred to the shooting as "senseless violence," but Steyn said it is more than that. Steyn compared the statement to
Quebec Premiere Philippe Couillard calling the killing of another soldier on Monday as a "spontaneous act of extremism."
"The euphemisms we take refuge in are becoming more and more absurd," Steyn said.
"It is not 'senseless violence' when a man at the National War Memorial at … the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottowa puts a bullet at point-blank range into a Canadian soldier … and kills him at the War Memorial," Steyn said. "That is an assault on the Canadian state, just as it would at Arlington on the American state."
Steyn pointed out that it is believed that the 9/11 attackers had intended the fourth airplane that was forced down by passengers to hit either the U.S. Capitol or the White House.
The attacks are "symbolic assaults at the heart of the state," he said. "It's not senseless. It's not shooting up a liquor store.
"Unless you're willing to address this honestly, and not call it senseless violence," Steyn said, "you're part of the problem."