A key element of Donald Trump’s popularity as a presidential candidate was his willingness to stake out policy positions that made establishment politicians cower in fear. His success as President will depend upon his willingness to do the same thing. Among his most important tasks will be to take the hard steps necessary to establish a sane and realistic stance for the United States toward the global jihad threat. To do that, he should implement measures such as these:
[1] Suspend (as promised) immigration from nations that are hotbeds of jihad terror activity.
While excoriated as “racist,” this proposal is a simple matter of national security. No one who opposed Trump’s proposal ever offered an alternative way to keep jihadis out of the country. (Of course, the problem of those who learn jihad inside the U.S. is also acute, and must be addressed). Some glibly opined that Trump should ban “Islamists,” not Muslims as a whole, yet never suggested a reliable way to distinguish “Islamists” from ordinary Muslims. Indeed, the Islamic State has instructed its operatives to appear secular -- to avoid ostentatious displays of Islamic piety that might arouse suspicions of “radicalization.” Can America really afford the national security risk of importing whole Muslim communities from Iraq and Somalia, as is happening now, without even making any serious attempt to screen out potential jihadists?
[2] Tell the truth about Islamic jihad and supremacism.
Ever since 2011, it has been official Obama administration policy to deny any connection between Islam and terrorism. This came as a result of an October 19, 2011 letter from Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates to John Brennan, who was then the Assistant to the President on National Security for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism, and is now head of the CIA. The letter was signed not just by Khera, but by the leaders of virtually all the significant Islamic groups in the United States: 57 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations, many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Relief USA; and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
The letter denounced what it characterized as U.S. government agencies’ “use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam.” Despite the factual accuracy of the material about which they were complaining, the Muslim groups demanded that the task force “purge all federal government training materials of biased materials"; “implement a mandatory re-training program for FBI agents, U.S. Army officers, and all federal, state and local law enforcement who have been subjected to biased training"; and more—to ensure that all that law enforcement officials would learn about Islam and jihad would be what the signatories wanted them to learn.
Numerous books and presentations that gave a perfectly accurate view of Islam and jihad were removed from coounterterror training. Today this entrenched policy of the U.S. government ensures that all too many jihadists simply cannot be identified as risks, since the administration is bound as a matter of policy to ignore what in saner times would be taken as warning signs. Trump must reverse that. He has spoken about the threat from “radical Islamic terrorism” on the campaign trail; he must follow through as President and remove the prohibitions on allowing agents to study and understand the motivating ideology behind the jihad threat.
[3] Remove all those linked with the Muslim Brotherhood from any position of responsibility, and end all government agencies’ interaction with groups linked with Hamas.
This shouldn’t even have to be said, but there has been evidence of Muslim Brotherhood operatives having influence in the U.S. government back to 2012, when Representative Michele Bachmann called for an investigation of that infiltration. It’s high time that investigation was actually conducted.
[4] Enforce existing laws.
Section 2385 of the federal criminal code states that “whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government...shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.”
It may be that the proviso in this statute that the overthrow of the government must be planned as taking place by “force and violence” may prevent this law from being applied against Muslim Brotherhood groups that are intent on subverting America from within. Legal minds should study that issue. But surely – somehow -- working toward “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,” as the Muslim Brotherhood has stated its own strategic goal for America, ought to be a prosecutable offense.
[5] Reclassify Muslim organizations.
The U.S. government should call upon Islamic advocacy groups in this country to renounce, any intention now or in the future to replace the Constitution of the United States with Islamic Sharia. This renunciation should be backed up with transparent action to teach in mosques and Islamic schools against this intention, and against the elements of Sharia that contradict American freedoms. Those that refuse to do this, or are found to be teaching these aspects of Sharia, should be immediately closed and prosecuted.
[6] Reconfigure our international alliances.
Such that no state that oppresses women or non-Muslims in accord with Sharia provisions gets a penny of American aid, or is considered a U.S. ally.
The swamp needs draining indeed. These measures, if adopted, would go a long way toward putting the U.S. back on dry land.