America Deserves Better

June 14 | Posted by mrossol | American Thought, Clinton

I think the WSJ is on to something here.
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Even amid a terrorist massacre on the scale of Orlando, the American people are getting more reasons to justify their unhappiness with the political class. By which we mean the day-after responses of President Obama and the two presumptive nominees, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The American people deserve a better strategy to defeat terrorism than they are getting.

Mr. Obama appears to be doubling down on the evasions of the last eight years, as he tries to prove to the last day that he isn’t George W. Bush. The killer of 49 people, Mr. Obama said Monday, “appears” to have declared his loyalty to Islamic State “at the last minute.” Meaning exactly what? Presumably on the Obama anti-terrorism scale of 1 to 10, we’re still not at 10 on his watch because the terrorist slaughters in Orlando and San Bernardino were “homegrown.”

Mr. Trump’s remarks, on various TV shows and in a speech in New Hampshire Monday, gave little evidence he has talked to anyone in the intelligence or foreign-policy communities about the substantive details of addressing the threat. He suggested on TV that some of the Orlando club-goers should have had guns “strapped to their ankles.” Mr. Trump devoted about 80% of his New Hampshire speech to restating and defending his proposed ban on Muslim immigration, with the proviso that it would be “temporary,” once we can “perfectly screen these people.”

But Mr. Trump’s thoughts on what exactly he would do to stop Islamic terrorism at its source in the Middle East weren’t much more than a footnote. On the one hand, he rightly said the goal must be to defeat Islamic terrorism by uniting the civilized world in the fight. But doing what?

His sustained assault on U.S. involvement in overthrowing Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and the “total disaster” of “nation-building” suggests Mr. Trump is more inclined to play to isolationist sentiments in the U.S. than discuss military options for what even he calls the need to “defeat Islamic terrorism.” An immigration policy by itself cannot end that threat.

Mr. Trump also made a great show Monday of calling out Mrs. Clinton and President Obama for not saying the words “radical Islamic terrorism.” Word matter but battle plans matter more against a terrorist enemy whose violence is nurtured in havens across the Middle East.

Mrs. Clinton’s response—in TV appearances and then in a prepared speech in Cleveland— was mostly a stage-managed walk through the aftermath of the Orlando massacre. More than anything, she used the occasion as a political opportunity to define her opponent as a divider and herself as a bipartisan unifier against “all those who hate.” She mentioned as always that she has a “plan” to fight Islamic State.

Earlier in the day, however, Mrs. Clinton did say one good thing about defending the U.S. from terrorist attack: “We have the resources, relationships and experience to get it done.” That is true, and that is the heart of the issue.

After Orlando, San Bernardino, Fort Hood, Paris and Brussels, the one question American voters need answered is which of these two candidates will deploy the enormous intelligence and military resources of the U.S., enlist its allied relationships world-wide and use what it already knows about terrorism to deter future atrocities on American soil. As of today, there is little reason to think either candidate would deploy this existing U.S. strength.

Most striking about the post-Orlando responses of the two presumptive presidential candidates is how carefully political they were. With 49 Americans dead at a terrorist’s hand, the moment calls for some sense of the candidates’ counter-strategies. But neither candidate appears willing to step outside his or her political comfort zones.

Mr. Trump, by his own admission Monday, has been promoting a Muslim immigration ban for months. But beyond that, where is he going? Mrs. Clinton’s supporters keep whispering she’s a closet hawk, willing to do more than Mr. Obama has to end Islamic State’s destabilization of the Middle East and Europe. So far, she’s left the impression that her policy would be Obama 2.0—more bombing, perhaps, but no real strategy to destroy ISIS.

The two presidential candidates sound like opponents in a college debate trying to score rhetorical points. Mr. Trump keeps saying, “We must find out what is going on.” We know what’s going on. We’ve known it since Islamic State rose to power during the Obama Presidency. The American people have about five months to be given a better idea than they have now of what Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will do about it.

Neither Trump nor Clinton are rising to the Islamic State threat.

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