The key to stopping radical Islamic terrorists in the United States is engaging Muslim reformers to help change the twisted ideologies that lead to violence and promote the American way, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum, tells Newsmax TV.
It's a much more effective solution to the problem than Homeland Security's Band-Aid approach, Jasser said Wednesday to J.D. Hayworth on "America Talks Live."
"Americans are just sitting on edge always wondering when the next one is going to happen and sadly this is the whack-a-mole program that has become Homeland Security and yet we still don't learn our lesson," Jasser said.
"All we're focusing on is that last step when they want to pick up a knife, drive a truck into a crowd like they did in Nice … We have to promote Americanism within Muslim communities and America is not doing any of that right now in our Homeland Security operation."
Jasser's remarks come two days after 18-year-old Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an Ohio State University student, plowed a car into a campus crowd and stabbed people with a butcher knife.
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Artan, who was shot dead by police after injuring 11 people, had earlier posted on Facebook: "America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially Muslim Ummah [community]. We are not weak." Authorities say he may have been self-radicalized.
"These types of soft targets to populations like universities and others are going to be seen more and more and we need to be vetting not only of those coming into this country but Muslims that are already here," Jasser said.
Jasser, author of "A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot's Fight to Save His Faith," published by Threshold Editions, added:
"As [President Ronald] Reagan used to say, peace through strength, when talking about arms. It's peace through strength when talking about the battle of ideas against theocracy and Islam.
"I hope President Trump will have this commission that he talked about against radical Islam and that commission will focus on changing the access from countering violent extremism to countering violent Islamism and engaging Muslims reformers to release this battle at the frontline."
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