A Muslim named Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez opened fire at a Navy recruitment center and a Marine Reserve Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Thursday morning, murdering four Marines. It was yet another Islamic State attack inside the United States, emphasizing once again that the U.S. is at war, and that the war is here, now, on our soil.
Heavy.com said Thursday that Abdulazeez’s “motive is not yet known.” However, only the most blinkered and politically correct could fail to see it. At 10:34 on Thursday morning, an Islamic State supporter tweeted: “O Americans Dogs / soon / You Will see wonders / #Chattanooga / #USA / #ISIS.” The shootings began in Chattanooga, according to AP, “around 10:30 or 10:45 a. m.” The story, however, didn’t break for some time thereafter, strongly indicating that Islamic State operatives knew about the attack beforehand.
What’s more, it was just the kind of attack in the United States that the Islamic State has called for. Back in September 2014, Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani published a lengthy piece entitled “Indeed Your Lord Is Ever Watchful,” consisting largely of a call to Muslims to mount jihad attacks in Western countries. “You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the tawaghit [rebels against Allah],” al-Adnani wrote. Thursday’s was on multiple military facilities – a clear attempt to target soldiers and troops of the “tawaghit.” Al-Adnani added: “Strike their police, security and intelligence members....Knocking off a police, military or any other law-enforcement officer sends a chilling message to the so-called ‘civilians’ and fills their hearts with consternation.”
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez’s murders remind us yet again that the forces of the global jihad wish to strike here in the United States, and are able to do so. In response to this, the Obama Administration remains committed to a policy of fantasy and wishful thinking in regard to the jihad threat: it refuses to call it by name or acknowledge its motivating ideology, and has hamstrung the ability of intelligence and law enforcement agencies to understand the motives and goals of the jihadis.
This policy of unreality leads to numerous wrongheaded policies that damage U.S. interests and endanger Americans – with the Iranian nuclear deal being the most obvious and glaring recent example. Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, according to Heavy.com, is from Phoenix; although AP reported that he was from Hixson, Tennessee. If he was indeed from Phoenix, was he a member of the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix? If he was, he would have that in common with the jihadis who tried to commit mass murder at our free speech event in Garland, Texas in May, and two other jihadis. Has the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix been investigated? If not, why not?
Barack Obama’s statement on this attack, predictably, did not mention the Islamic State, or identify the shootings as a jihad attack. The Obama Administration’s policy of denial and obfuscation regarding the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat is costing lives. It is time for it to end, and if the President and his associates cannot be persuaded to do something that is in the interests of protecting Americans, then those who want to take his job on January 20, 2017 should make a linchpin of their campaign a pledge to stop Islamic State attacks on American soil, and to do whatever may be necessary to do that: instituting a moratorium on immigration from Muslim countries (Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez originally hails from Kuwait), sealing the borders, and calling upon American Muslim groups and mosques in the U.S. to institute genuine, sincere and inspectable programs teaching against the understanding of Islam that the Islamic State represents. Although Muslim groups in the U.S. ostensibly reject that understanding, no such programs currently exist.
None of this is going to happen, and that only ensures that Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez will by no means be the last Islamic State jihadi to murder Americans. Is there any limit to the weakness, fecklessness and refusal to face reality of America’s current leadership? Is there any limit to the willingness of the majority of the American public to put up with all this? This unreality and indifference is only going to grow more costly.
Update: As events have unfolded and more information has come to light, it appears that the ISIS tweet likely was tweeted after the shooting, not before, and Abdulazeez was from Chattanooga, not Phoenix.
