Radical Islamic terrorists have murdered innocent people in Paris, in San Bernardino, in Orlando, and they are likely the culprits behind Tuesday’s suicide attacks at an airport in Istanbul, Turkey. Yet, despite the widespread carnage, Secretary of State John Kerry thinks the terror cell is “desperate.”
Because ISIS has not waged a “full scale military offensive” and is attacking airports, it proves they have lost momentum, Kerry argued at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado on Tuesday.
“It has been more than one year since Daesh has actually launched a full scale military offensive, and that's because our coalition is moving relentlessly on every front," Kerry said. "Now, yes, you can bomb an airport, you can blow yourself up. That's the tragedy. Daesh and others like it know that we have to get it right 24/7/365. They have to get it right for ten minutes or one hour, so it's a very different scale.
"And if you're desperate and if you know you are losing, and you know you want to give up your life, then obviously you can do some harm,” Kerry added.
Of course, Kerry’s rhetoric is what we’ve come to expect from this White House. President Obama has called ISIS the “jayvee team” and even claimed that we had “contained” the group hours before they killed over 100 people in Paris.
The administration’s overly confident summary of ISIS does not mesh with the House Homeland Security’s assessment.
“This is an unprecedented pace of terror in modern times,” said Chairman Michael McCaul Wednesday on “Fox and Friends.” They are expanding beyond the caliphate now into Northern Africa… They are not on the run, they are on the rise.”
The White House’s inaccurate assessment of ISIS’ reach is compounded by their inability to name the enemy. They have a history of scrubbing references to Islamic terrorism because it is apparently too politically incorrect. As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on this very issue, we cannot defeat the terrorists if we can’t accurately define them.