ONE of the most troubling tics of Team Obama is the frantic rush to de clare that every terror attack on American soil is carried out by an isolated individual with no connection to al Qaeda or other groups. It was the gist of their rapid response to the failed airline bombing on Christmas Day, to the Fort Hood shooter and, most recently, to the plot by Faisal Shahzad to set off a car bomb in Times Square.
On the surface, the aim is obvious: to minimize the fear that radical Islamic organizations have penetrated homeland defenses. The working assumption is that Americans will be less frightened of isolated individuals who appear not to be capable of large-scale mayhem of the kind that rocked the nation on 9/11.
It's a reasonable theory, but it has a problem. The claims have been dead wrong in all three cases. Each "lone wolf" was quickly shown to have had contacts with or received training from a terror group abroad. The result is the opposite of what the White House wants. Instead of calming fears, the links provoke suspicions that officials don't know what they are doing or are intentionally hiding the deadly overseas connections. Either option serves to ratchet up public fear and decrease confidence in the government.
The effect of this uncertainty has been dramatic in New York. The city has been on edge since the smoking Nissan Pathfinder failed to detonate on May 1, with routine events such as truck breakdowns and unattended packages drawing hundreds of emergency calls.
On Friday alone, parts of Times Square were cleared twice after reports of suspicious packages. Beyond adding to the jitters, the larger problem with the White House approach is that it reeks of an agenda. It is as though President Obama and his team are jumping to the "lone wolf" theory to vindicate their view that more engagement with the Muslim world is depriving the terror groups of anti-American fuel and neutralizing the jihadist movement. Again, it's a reasonable theory, but it, too, comes with a problem. It's not working because it can't.
From Iran to Iraq to Afghanistan, and now on the streets of New York, the make-nice policies have not slowed the savage killing or the attempts. With the attacks and plots increasing, we are no safer for our efforts over the last 17 months to engage the enemy.
It is time the White House faces the fundamental fact: The jihadist movement is not a rational response to American policies or life's vagaries. Nor are its leaders especially impressed by Obama's race or Muslim-heritage name.
Just as when George W. Bush was president, suicide bombers aren't looking for a seat at the negotiating table. They want to kill everybody at the table. This is the murderous reality of the war against terror, no matter how zealously Washington pretends it is otherwise. They are who they are, and it's not our fault. But it is our problem. And while Obama is entitled to have his theories and fantasies, he shouldn't confuse them with the truth or his duty as commander-in-chief. Like it or not, he is leading a nation at war. Increasingly, it looks like a generational war, meaning it will probably not end during his time in office.
Yet that can't be an excuse for lowering our guard for a single day. If America suffers a massive attack on his watch, especially after so many attempts, his legacy will be irreparable.
There really is no choice. If we don't kill them, they will surely kill us.
Michael Goodwin
Michael Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist known for never letting the political elite forget their job is to represent taxpayers. He started his career with The New York Times as a housing reporter and then City Hall bureau chief. He was the editorial page editor at the Daily News, where he directed a series of reports on the Apollo Theater that won the Pulitzer. A series documenting abuse of farmworkers earned the board the Polk Award. In 2000, he was named executive editor of the News and returned to column writing in 2004.
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