It's time for political correctness to take a backseat to acknowledging that Islamic terrorists are on a mission to commit jihad in Western nations, according to Rep. Peter King of New York, the former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee who appeared Thursday on
Newsmax TV's "America's Forum."
"When you see a person who is a Muslim convert carrying out an attack two or three days after another similar type of attack, after ISIS has called upon individual Muslims to carry out these attacks, then we have to realize that this is a real issue and not something we can hide under this cover of political correctness," King said, referring to two deadly attacks on Canadian soldiers this week by separate homegrown Canadian jihadists.
"Anyone who thinks this is a coincidence is crazy," he said.
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On Wednesday, Canada native Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, believed to have been "radicalized," gunned down an unarmed ceremonial guard standing watch at the Ottawa War Memorial before firing his way through the parliament. And on Monday, another purported jihadist, Martin Couture Rouleau,
ran down two soldiers near Montreal, killing one of them.
Intelligence is required to get ahead of the terrorists, something that groups more concerned with political correctness than stopping crime have hampered, according to King, a Republican whose 2nd District runs along the South Shore of Long Island, including parts of Suffolk and Nassau counties.
"We can have all the technology in the world, but we have to find out what's happening on the ground in these Muslim communities — what the NYPD used to do, but those morons at the New York Times Editorial Board and the American Civil Liberties Union went after them," he said.
"We have to find out what people are thinking and what's going on in the mosques, which often are incubators of
this type of terrorism. We have to go all out with surveillance and be quick to call it terrorism."
King said it is incumbent on President Barack Obama and his top officials to set the tone, characterizing
terrorist acts for what they are, instead of allowing them to be couched as workplace violence or random acts of violence.
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"The administration should come forward, starting with the president, and should say that this is Islamist terrorism," King said. "There are killers and murderers in all races and nationalities and just because a person happens to be Muslim, doesn't mean that's why they carry out the attack.
"When you talk about Muslim converts, when they're acting several days after one another, whether it's in response to a demand or an order from ISIS to carry out these types of attacks, we have to put political correctness aside and accept the reality that this is most likely a murder carried out by a person who has been influenced by radical ideology and that's what we have to look at."
Electronic surveillance, a highly controversial subject since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked thousands of classified documents about phone and Internet surveillance, is also essential to stopping terrorist attacks before they happen, according to King. It's especially vital in order to effectively monitor the United States' porous northern and southern borders.
"I strongly believe without in any way violating the Constitution we can have effective security," he said. "It's very appropriate for police to monitor local organizations and look through their sources to find out who in communities can be dangerous or have terror leanings. Electronic surveillance should be done with court supervision, but in many ways it's the only way to find out what's happening."