America is losing the war on terror because the Obama administration is taking "baby steps" to combat it, economist and actor Ben Stein says.
"We are losing a gigantic war with the terrorists. These are people who have cut off the heads of our people on the worldwide internet. These are people who are violating every norm of civilized behavior and we're hitting them with pin pricks," Stein said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
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"When we were fighting the Nazis we didn't say we were going to degrade their capabilities.... We said we're going to beat them, and this is something that this president doesn't seem to be able to get into his head.
"We're not going to do it in little baby steps, we have to take it seriously. It's a serious war. These guys are serious killers. They're highly motivated soldiers, they're extremely well-armed.... We've got to go in there as if we mean it."
Stein — a speechwriter for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and the "Dreemz" columnist for Newsmax Magazine — also said he lacks faith in the president over his handling of the Ebola crisis.
"I have no confidence in him whatsoever. Why do we need to have flights from West Africa to the United States of America?' he said.
"All these other European countries have stopped them. If people want to go to West Africa let them go there and stay there, but why do they need to go there and then come back and bring the disease with them?
"It's called Ebola, it's not called the common cold, it's not called a sore throat, it's not called a minor headache. It's called Ebola because it's a deadly, serious plague and we simply have to get it stopped."
Stein, who has appeared in such films as Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Frankenstein General Hospital," said quarantines should be enacted.
"There are all kinds of quarantines.... Even if you have to quarantine them for 80 days, that's better than bringing Ebola back to the United States of America," he said.
"This is a country that has not known a serious plague since the Spanish Influenza after World War I.
"This could be the next one and what do we need it for? So we can let a few people travel back and forth to the Firestone or the Bridgestone rubber plantations?"