The response of our State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, to the murder of two U.S. Airmen and the wounding of two others in Germany was firmly noncommittal. Crowley was unwilling to call the incident terrorism.
After all, he said, you wouldn’t call the shooter who killed federal judge John Roll and five other people and who seriously wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson a terrorist, would you?
According to many witnesses, the assailant in Germany yelled "Allahu Akhbar" (Arabic for "God is Great") as he gunned down the young American servicemen, who were in uniform. The killer is a Kosovar Muslim, news reports confirm, but Crowley didn't want to jump to any conclusions.
This invertebrate response is of a piece with this administration's entire worldview. Remember, the Defense Department's "report" on the Fort Hood shootings managed to go to great lengths to avoid mentioning Islamist terror. In fact, the words Islamic, Muslim, and jihad appear nowhere in the reports on the Fort Hood killings issued last November by all services in DoD.
Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan also yelled "Allahu Akhbar" as he unleashed his murderous assault on his fellow Army personnel. Hasan and his family had been under surveillance since 9/11. Government investigators questioned people in Virginia about them.
Hasan himself was outspokenly disloyal to this country. While in uniform, he openly attacked the government he was pledged to serve and vocally expressed his support for the enemies of our country. His treason was winked at by higher ups in the Army. And his murders were whitewashed by the DoD reports.
Secretary Janet Napolitano famously referred to the War on Terror as "overseas contingency operations." There is a serious avoidance of the plain fact: We are at war.
Under persistent questioning from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) last May, Attorney General Eric Holder repeatedly avoided stating that Islamic extremism just might be a motivation for the acts of terror that are being perpetrated against Americans at home and abroad. It was embarrassing to watch Holder's weaseling responses.
Now, with the attack in Germany, we have yet another example of weakness. It's as if this administration requires that any assailant be a certified, indisputably confirmed member of Al Qaeda. If they are not clearly linked to, and trained by Al Qaeda, the Obama administration is unwilling to call them terrorists.
Do they have to have a Terrorists Union card? The Obama administration seems to be unaware of the new world of the Internet. Nidal Hasan exchanged emails with Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical Muslim cleric holed up in Yemen. So far as we know, Hasan never visited Awlaki (although they had attended the same Northern Virginia mosque, apparently.)
Hasan spent years in college and medical training at U.S. taxpayer expense. He was coddled in the Army by senior officers who heard his disloyal statements—and flagged him ahead anyway.
Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have now issued a report on Hasan. It’s titled “A Ticking Time Bomb.” It needs to be seriously considered. And we need a thorough accounting from Army brass about how such an obvious warning signs could have gone unheeded for years.
Another key question arises for the Obama administration: What about the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA)? Even now, Hasan is being charged with thirteen, not fourteen, murders. The Unborn Victim of Violence Act requires that the unauthorized killing of an unborn child shall be regarded as a homicide. This act applies to all federal enclaves, including military bases like Fort Hood.
The failure of this administration to enforce the UVVA must be noted. The Constitution requires that the President of the United States "shall take care that the laws be faithfully enforced." Is UVVA being enforced? Clearly not, under the Obama administration.
It’s ironic that Western Europe is far ahead of the U.S. In recent weeks, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have all come out with statements saying that multi-culturalism has failed.
Candidate Obama was the first White House aspirant to campaign in Europe. In 2008, he spoke to adoring crowds in Germany and France. Then, he seemed to be a “citizen of the world,” one who wanted to bring our U.S. policy into line with the enlightened views of Western European elites. Now, he seems to be dragging his feet in recognizing the clear failure of political correctness and multi-culturalism to keep democracies safe. Tolerance has its limits. Tolerating terrorists leads to the death of democracy. Didn’t we learn that in the Weimar Republic?