The nation’s counterterrorism strategy is in a state of "utter moral confusion," Andrew McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Monday.
Speaking to "The Steve Malzberg Show," McCarthy, who wrote "Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy," said the U.S. has not just raised a "white flag" in its fight against terror, but "a flag of confusion."
"Our counterterrorism strategy, to be effective, requires moral clarity about where we stand vis-à-vis the terrorists," he said. "And if you've created a situation where you have Sunni-Shiite or Sunni-Islamic supremacists who are members, say, of Shabab, who are committing terrorism in Kenya but . . . can get to the border of Syria and cross over [and then] they can be our allies rather than our enemies, then you've got utter moral confusion."
McCarthy also decried the support from both Republicans and Democrats for arming the Free Syrian Army "even though it's rife with al-Qaida elements and even though it systematically incorporates al-Qaida in its operations and we know that some guns will go to the bad guys . . ."
"We've lost the clarity that was really the backbone of our counterterrorism approach," he said.
"The American prescription against arming terrorists . . . includes material support to terrorism,” he added. “It's the backbone of our counterterrorism prosecution matrix and really the Obama administration has compromised it and they unfortunately had help on Capitol Hill from both sides of the aisle."
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