San Bernardino

"If it doesn't happen to Americans, it doesn't count."

Too bad that person misses the fundamental point: Our war on terrorism is not totally about keeping America safe.

Right or wrong, our stated goal is ridding the world of terrorism.

 

I love this part too:

One of the best ways to discredit extremist movements is to make them look ridiculous, so that joining or backing them is seen as stupid, uncool, or embarrassing.Instead of constantly portraying the Islamic State and its ilk as cruel, cunning, fanatical, dedicated, dangerous, etc., we should spend at least as much time depicting them as ignorant, backward, inept, misguided, and absurd.
...
The broader point is that humor and satire are potent weapons that should be in our counterterrorism arsenal to cut these groups down to size, encourage morale, and discredit their message.

This is exactly what Charlie Hebdo was doing. They were slaughtered for it, and liberals saw a rationale for the slaughter.

Mocking Islamic terror was criticized as Islamophobic, and was criticized by liberals.

 

Well, it's not all our fault.

It's also THE JEWS fault:

We would also make it clear to the Israeli government that its treatment of the Palestinians is a national security issue for us, and we would make our “special relationship” conditional on the creation of Palestinian state and not just the usual empty promises (I know, I’m dreaming here, but our failure to take this obvious step just shows how unserious our policy still is).

 

You must not have gotten to the portion where he bashes the media.

 

Good analysis, YF, but wouldn't your time be better spent watching sports?

 

He's got another 100-plus posts budgeted for the day. He'll get there.

 

Three things:

-- "Humor" and "satire" can't marginalize the terror threat or "encourage morale" when the response to it is bloodshed. Because the bloodshed itself IS the terrorists' "message."

-- We portray ISIS as "ignorant, backward, inept, misguided, and absurd" at our own peril. No war was ever won by underestimating the enemy.

-- I do believe otherwise moderate/reasonably people drawn to terrorism are weak-willed. However, I'm pretty sure no one ever turned down membership in ISIS because it was "uncool."

 

He's the Redskins Facts of this place.

From the e-mail, the conservative take on the situation:
Speaker Paul Ryan Set to Fund Obama’s Muslim Invasion...
By George Rasley CHQ Editor
Speaker Ryan perversely and dangerously continues to work to get funding into the budget for the existential threat to constitutional liberty of Obama's Muslim refugee resettlement program. And many alleged conservatives in the House appear ready to go along with him. Please join us in demanding an end to this dangerous folly by signing our open letter to House and Senate Republican leaders.

 

Seems like you should use shorter words when appealing to the masses like that.

 

What possible "civil liberties concerns" could be involved in checking the public postings of a non-citizen, applying for a visa.

We have security theater, that's limited by political correctness.

So, we all have to take off our shoes at the airport, but no one checks an ISIS supporter's Facebook page:

The State Department today said that “obviously things went wrong” in the visa background check for one of the San Bernardino shooters -- comments that came in the wake of an ABC News report that said officials by policy generally do not check social media postings of applicants due to civil liberties concerns and therefore would not have seen purported evidence of Tashfeen Malik’s radicalization online.
...
Fearing a civil liberties backlash and "bad public relations" for the Obama administration, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused in early 2014 to end the secret U.S. policy that prohibited immigration officials from reviewing the social media messages of all foreign citizens applying for U.S. visas, according to a former senior department official.

"During that time period immigration officials were not allowed to use or review social media as part of the screening process," John Cohen, a former acting under-secretary at DHS for intelligence and analysis. Cohen is now a national security consultant for ABC News.

One current and one former senior counter-terrorism official confirmed Cohen's account about the refusal of DHS to change its policy about the public social media posts of all foreign applicants.
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Cohen said the issue reached a head at a heated 2014 meeting chaired by Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, other top deputies and representatives of the DHS Office of Civil Liberties and the Office of Privacy.

"The primary concern was that it would be viewed negatively if it was disclosed publicly and there were concerns that it would be embarrassing," Cohen said in an interview broadcast on "Good Morning America" today.

US: ‘Things Went Wrong’ in Shooting Suspect’s Background Check

 

You do realize not all Jews are Israelis, right?