ISIS has claimed responsibility for the June 12 early-morning terror attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Terrorist Omar Mateen murdered at least 49 people and wounded 53. He held hostages for three hours, until a police SWAT team killed him.
Mainstream media have focused on Orlando’s proximity to Disneyland. A war is on, you idiots. Look toward nearby Tampa and MacDill Air Force Base, U.S. Central Command headquarters. U.S. CENTCOM is currently supporting anti-ISIS coalition forces in Iraq that are engaged in combat operations against the Islamic State. Welcome to Battlefield America.
The Orlando attack adds to the deadly list of Islamist militant terror attacks committed since 2009 on targets in U.S. territory. 2009 was the year President Barack Obama dispensed with the Global War on Terror and began describing U.S. counter-terror operations as an Overseas Contingency Operation. He was strategically stupid, but that was the political narrative he simply had to sell. Remember Bush Lied, People Died?
Well, Obama lied and Americans continue to die. At least the president didn’t call this slaughter “work place violence” or some other feckless politically correct euphemism. Though he called Orlando “an act of terror and an act of hate” he still can’t bring himself to name Islamist militant terrorism as the source, much less the cause of the attack. Instead, he insisted we have “no definitive assessment on the motivation” for Orlando’s massacre.
ISIS media arm AMAQ disagreed: “The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando … which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an Islamic State fighter.” On June 13, an ISIS radio outlet called Mateen “one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America.” ISIS regards Mateen’s nightclub slaughter as an act of war — war as waged by the Islamic State. Remember, Islamic State thugs rape Yazidi women, execute Iraqi soldiers, behead Libyan Christians and burn Jordanian pilots alive.
Moreover, Mateen confirmed he fought for ISIS. Before attacking, he called Orlando’s 911 services and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader, Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He also mentioned the Boston Marathon bombers.
It takes narrow, politically blinded minds to believe Mateen perpetrated the Orlando slaughter because he’s suffered micro-aggressions dealt by Islamophobes or because the U.S. Constitution gives American citizens the right to bear arms.
Mateen waged war on America. The Caliph was his commander. He was a traitor — use that word. An Orlando nightclub — down the road from CENTCOM headquarters — was his battleground. His premeditated massacre was another Islamist militant terrorist operation against America conducted with the same war aims as the 2013 Boston terror bombing.
The FBI called the Orlando massacre an act of terrorism. However, its investigators have not yet determined Mateen’s precise motive. The FBI’s qualification strikes me as a weaseling political kowtow to Obama. Mateen was a “known wolf,” an individual identified as a potential violent terrorist. The FBI investigated him in 2013 and 2014. Other police and security agencies were aware of him.
Could the Orlando attack have been prevented?
Yes. Major Nidal Hasan’s November 2009 Fort Hood, Texas attack that left 13 dead could have been prevented as well. Hasan was a known security risk who frequently expressed harsh anti-American views and was a committed follower of Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, like Mateen, a U.S.-born traitor.
Mateen and Hasan demonstrate that politically correct regulatory strictures and mainstream media nostrums stymie effective police surveillance of potential terrorists and citizen participation in defense against terror attacks on U.S. soil. Say the “wrong” thing — meaning you disagree with the “politically correct” enforcers — even give one of these censorious leftist puritanical clowns reason to believe you think “wrong” and, presto, you’re a bigot, racist, genderist, etcetera.
That’s got to end. It’s also time for President Obama to admit the Global War on Terror is a global war and America is one battlefield. That will remove at least one politically correct stupidity, which hinders our war effort.
Austin Bay is a syndicated columnist and author.
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