Obama Ignores Terror Threat at His Own Peril

Obama Ignores Terror Threat at His Own Peril

Communism is gone but Islamic radicalism and jihadism are with us.
President Obama will have to find an effective way to deal with this
new threat or the American people will find someone else who can.


In the wake of “11/5,” the attack at Fort Hood, Barack Obama faces a
tough choice--like it or not.

The 44th president must choose to confront an unpleasant reality, head
on--or else it will run him over. The issue is the threat of terrorist
violence, here on the homefront.

Terrorism, and the debate over how to respond to terrorism, was the
defining issue of the 43rd presidency. And now it’s apparent that
Obama, too, will spend the bulk of his presidency confronting terror,
from Afghanistan to new battlezones, such as central Texas.

Obama and fellow Democrats would rather, of course, talk about health
care. But over the next few years, the Fort Hood shooting is going to
be a bigger story, since it is connected to our relations, good and
bad, with the entire Islamic world, including nuclear Pakistan and
almost- nuclear Iran.

For his sake, and for ours, Obama needs to understand that sometimes
even presidents don’t get to decide the agenda -- the agenda is
decided for him. In such a situation, the question is whether or not
the president can adapt to the new era and its new challenges.

So this president needs to launch an aggressive investigation, digging
into every aspect of Thursday’s shooting rampage that left 13 dead and
dozens injured. How did it happen? Who bears responsibility? And, most
importantly, what must we change now? Otherwise, if Obama simply talks
about health care and “cap-and-trade” and “don’t ask, don’t tell” and
all the other staples of his 2008 agenda, he will be left in the dust
by the cyclonic events of 2009 and beyond. And in the wake of the 11/5
shootings, his presidency could be blown away by a whirlwind of
damaging leaks, embarrasing reports, and well-justified fears.

Obama will always have his base of support, of course, especially in
the media. Taking their cues, as ever, from the siren song of secular
liberalism, the Mainstream Media would rather talk about health care,
with an occasional digression into gay marriage. As documented by the
Media Research Center, MSM reporters are mostly loathe to draw
anything outher than politically correct conclusions about the
religious and ethnic dimensions of the Fort Hood mass murder.

Thus the MSM is likely to be left in the dust by more fearless, more
energetic media. Columnists Dick Morris and Eileen McGann were blunt
in their e-mail headline: “Ft. Hood Attack Was Terrorism.” And also on
Sunday morning, the top dozen headlines at WorldNetDaily, a popular
conservative Web site, dealt forcefully with Fort Hood. So while the
MSM is bemoaning “stress,” “PTSD,” and “over-extension,” WorldNetDaily
is offering an entirely different narrative, featuring headlines such
as “Muslims: ‘America’s chickens have come to roost,’ U.S. Islamic
street preachers declare Fort Hood victims got just desserts,” and
“Shooter advised Obama Transition: Fort Hood triggerman aided team on
Homeland Security task force,” and “Military jihadists fill ‘every
branch’: Ultimate 5th column penetration, warns best-selling ‘Muslim
Mafia’ [author]” One additional piece was penned by Joseph Farah, the
Arab-American editor of WND, whose headline blared, “PC sickness
killed our soldiers.” How will the commander-in-chief react to that?

Having bungled his first public remarks after the news of the killings
at Fort Hood, Obama is already on the defensive. So, most likely, he
and his staff will seek to change the subject as quickly as possible.

But if they try doing that, getting back to, say, “the public option,”
they will fail. Because the issue isn’t going away. As Georgetown
University terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman said over the weekend:

“I’m not saying it’s part of an organized campaign or a systematic
strategy, but we're seeing a sea change when we have once a month a
plot that is related somehow to Afghanistan, Iraq or what these people
see is a war against Islam. It's too easy to dismiss them as unstable
individuals when they have expressed strong religious beliefs with
politics. That's the essence of the radicalization we're facing.”

In other words, Fort Hood was not a random event; it was part of a
pattern.

The irony is that Obama could dominate the counter-terrorism issue, if
he wanted to. The president has the governing tools that might really
make a difference; he oversees the entire Department of Defense, the
Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department --
including the FBI. If he uses his vast authority to force a thorough,
let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may investigation, demanding full
accountability while chasing down every last lead and angle, the
American people, most of them, will feel reassured.

But if he allows the bureaucracy to cover its own collective
posterior, if he fails to force meaningful reform on the system, if he
accepts a “lone gunman” thesis, then America will be convulsed with
mistrust, even paranoia. Unfortunately, Obama, whose resume includes
no executive experience before becoming president, seems singularly
ill-equipped to ride herd over a sprawling bureaucracy.

And if the bureaucrats mislead Obama, and if he passes along their
misleading conclusions to the American people -- it will be Obama who
gets blamed. The buck stops with him. He won’t be able to hide behind
his TelePrompter.

Meanwhile, others, more determined to find answers, and less worried
about upsetting the apple cart, will be pressing ahead. One such
person who is already leading the charge is Sen. Joe Lieberman,
chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. He has already announced
that he will be launching his own investigation. Lieberman, a former
Democrat and now an independent, endorsed John McCain in the election
last year, in large measure because he mistrusted Obama on national
security. And for their part, the Obamans probably dislike Lieberman
more than any politician this side of Joe Wilson. So expect a
rancorous inquiry.

But to the American people, the issue isn’t Lieberman, or any
politico. The huge looming issue is security for America. We went
through a period similar to this in the 1940s, when Americans started
to fear that the establishment, led by a Democratic president, was not
being sufficiently vigilant about the threat posed by communism. Those
concerns, rational and irrational, soon cost the Democrats the
presidency; indeed, they vexed American politics for the next four
decades.

Now communism is gone, but Islamic radicalism and jihadism are with
us. Obama will have to find an effective way to deal with this new
threat or the American people will find someone else who can.

James P. Pinkerton is a Fox News contributor.

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