In the wake of the deadliest terrorist attack since 9/11, President Obama’s speech in the wake of the attack was sadly all-too predictable. Gosh, we don’t know what this hateful guy’s motivation could have been (never mind that he was a Muslim reportedly shouting “Allahu Akbar” as he shot his victims, and that he made a 911 call in which he pledged his allegiance to ISIS), but what we do know, Obama tells us, is that guns are the problem.
We’ll learn more as this unfolds, but what we do know is that the killer, 29-year-old Omar Seddique Mateen, was an American citizen and a Muslim (What? A young Islamic male committed a terrorist attack? Shocker) who at one time had been a person of interest for the FBI but was reportedly dropped due to a lack of activity. Mateen also had a Florida security officer license and a state firearms license. He purchased his guns legally.
If a doctor misdiagnoses an illness, the patient will continue to suffer. If a drug addict refuses to acknowledge her addiction, she will never get better. Had FDR not identified the Nazis as the enemy, we’d all probably be speaking German right now. And as long as our commander in chief refuses to acknowledge who our enemies are, the war being waged upon us by radical Islam will continue to kill and maim more Americans.
Our armed forces and first responders need specific missions and objectives in order to be successful. A fundamental component of mission planning and force structure is identifying who the enemies are, how they are armed, how they operate, and what motivates them.
Refusing to do that, or doing so incorrectly, vastly diminishes the effectiveness of our military and police forces who put their lives on the line to keep us safe. It should also go without saying that refusing to identify the threat puts all innocent Americans at greater risk.
In April of this year an Islamic scholar speaking in Orlando not far from where this attack took place, stated that homosexuals must be killed “out of compassion.” These are the teachings of radical Islam, carried out by a radical Islamist terrorist in the same city barely two months later. Guns aren’t our enemy President Obama, radical Islam is.
In fact, one thing that could have stopped or mitigated this would have been a good guy with a gun and the will to act who was also inside of the Pulse nightclub when Mateen walked in.
As we mourn the victims in Orlando, it is important that we stay alert in our communities throughout America. It is also critical to acknowledge, even if President Obama and Hillary Clinton won’t, that we are at war with radical Islam.
Say it with together with us, Barack and Hillary: “Islamist terrorism.”
Patrick Murray (colonel, U.S. Army, retired) was part of a military-diplomatic exchange program between the Pentagon and Department of State, where he served in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs in Washington, D.C. In 2005, Murray became the U.S. representative to the Military Staff Committee at the United Nations in New York under Ambassador John Bolton. After retiring from the Army in 2009, Patrick became the Republican nominee for U.S. Congress in Northern Virginia. He is the author of "Government is the Problem." For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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