Obama, Clinton in Denial Over Terrorism

Early Sunday morning, 29-year old Omar Mateen, a U.S. citizen born of Afghan parents, committed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history when he killed 49 and injured 53 in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

This is a wake-up call for America. We desperately need a comprehensive strategy to defeat the global jihad movement (which many refer to as radical Islam) and its global ideology of Shariah to promote Islamist supremacism.

The Center for Security Policy has such a comprehensive strategy.

There’s no question this deadly shooting was motivated, if not directed by ISIS. Mateen swore allegiance to ISIS during a 911 call during the massacre. He also had been investigated twice by the FBI for possible terrorist links.

President Obama called the Orlando shooting “an act of terror and an act of hate.” He also said, “we must spare no effort to determine what — if any — inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups.”

Although these comments were an improvement for Obama who has been strongly criticized for referring to similar attacks as “radical extremism” or “work place violence,” the president proved he was clueless about what the Orlando massacre represented by refusing to say it was motivated by radical Islam and by using the attack to press for gun control.

Hillary Clinton’s comments about the Orlando shooting also were an improvement but still fell short. While Clinton called the shooting an act of terror and said it showed the importance of "defeating international terror groups,” she failed to mention radical Islam and also used the shooting as opportunity to press for stricter gun control.

Obama and Clinton are in denial what massacres like the Orlando shooting represent. This is not a war against terrorism or terrorists. It is not just a war with ISIS. It is a war with a movement that wants to destroy modern society and impose its radical ideology of Shariah on the world. Until they admit this and put forward a comprehensive strategy to defeat this threat, it is certain to grow worse.

On Feb. 11, 2015, a week before President Obama held an absurd summit against “violent extremism” in response to the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris, the Center for Security Policy held an alternative summit — the Defeat Jihad Summit — to announce a comprehensive strategy to defeat the radical Islamist threat to our nation, The Secure Freedom Strategy to Defeat the Global Jihad Movement.

Drafted by a group of leading American national security experts, the Secure Freedom Strategy defines the threat from the global jihad movement, discusses the record of the United States in confronting this threat, and describes how the U.S. government must be re-organized to defeat it.

The Secure Freedom Strategy is designed after the Reagan Administration’s National Security Decision Directive 75 (NSDD 75), a strategy to defeat the totalitarian threat of President Reagan’s time: the Soviet Union. Similar to NSDD 75, the Secure Freedom Strategy is a plan on how the United States can best employ diplomatic, military, economic, and cyber intelligence tools to understand the threat doctrine of global jihadist groups like ISIS and defeat them.

Implementing the Secure Freedom Strategy is long overdue. How many massacres like Orlando will it take before our leaders recognize that we need a comprehensive strategy which recognizes the true threat this violence represents and dedicates our security, military, diplomatic and intelligence resources to defeating it?

Sadly, I believe it is unlikely that President Obama or Clinton will set aside political correctness and admit the Orlando shooting was caused by radical Islam or the global jihad movement. Instead, I expect more lectures from them on Islamophobia, tolerance, and the need for gun control.

This is why the threat from radical Islam has proved to be such a potent issue for Donald Trump who has consistently said it is a global ideology at war with modern society and probably will implement a plan like the Secure Freedom Strategy if elected president.

This is why polls show most Americans view Trump as the better candidate to protect our nation from terrorism. It also is the reason why the threat from the global jihad movement could put Trump in the White House.

Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst, followed the Iranian nuclear program for the CIA, State Department, and House Intelligence Committee. He is senior vice president for policy and programs at the Center for Security Policy. Read more reports from Fred Fleitz — Click Here Now.