The Undeclared War on the Military

The political hang-wringing has been shameful over what to call the vicious murders of five servicemen in Chattanooga.  No one dares label it terrorism.  Even the FBI employed gibberish to explain that procedural semantics dictated its reference to the killings as "terrorism."

But representatives of the federal crime agency went to tortured lengths to point out that it had no evidence that the premeditated killing rampage was an act of terrorism.  
   
The word-spinning would be almost laughable if this was not such a serious matter. Jihad inspired Muslims are plotting to kill U.S. military personnel worldwide.  This latest incident in Tennessee confirms what most in the intelligence community know.  There is an undeclared war on the military.

The combat is being waged by ISIS, a savage band of terrorists who have publicly called on sympathizers to kill those who wear the military uniform of the United States.  Despite the group's chilling mandate, the president and his government refuse to acknowledge the terrorist threat.

Although its own men and women are being murdered, military service branches have chosen procrastination over action.  The Army and Navy have studied the issue of violence for countless months without unveiling a single plan on how to protect its members.  The dawdling is disgraceful.

There no longer can be any doubt about the ISIS-motivated campaign to slaughter as many members of the U.S. armed forces as possible. The bloody carnage in Chattanooga was the work of a 24-year old Muslim who had been radicalized.  He left a trail of telltale signs all over social media.

Official reports emerged that the cowardly killer conducted Internet searches on martyrdom for several days prior to the shootings. Writings unearthed by investigators revealed the Jihadist was "displeased" with the U.S., particularly its former war on terrorism.

Within days of the Chattanooga massacre, police in Britain arrested two Muslim relatives who were plotting terror-related attacks against personnel at the largest U.S. air base in the country.  According to British prosecutors, one of the men was planning to detonate a suicide vest once inside the base.

There was no hesitancy by British authorities to identify the conspiracy as terrorism.

On the heels the arrests in Britain, a pair of ISIS collaborators were arrested in Italy for threatening to carry out a terrorist attack on a U.S. military base in the northern city of Brescia.  An Italian prosecutor said the men planned to travel to Syria for military training to prepare for the siege.

There was no demurral on the part of Italian brass in designating the scheme as terrorism.

How then do you explain the reluctance of the Obama Administration to call slayings of U.S. military personnel the work of Islamic terrorists?

There are some who attribute the denial to political correctness. Others postulate the president is secretly a Muslim.  The opinion here is that neither is correct.  This is about his conceit and the president's all-consuming desire for an inflated legacy.

The president wants to be able leave office touting his record for keeping the country safe from terrorism through dialogue and detente with Islamic nations instead of the use of force.  One of his first acts as president was to expunge the words "war on terror" from official pronouncements.

However, his approach has not made the country immune from Islamic-inspired assaults. Even when the evidence clearly points to terrorist attacks on the home front, President Obama has used deception and weasel-wording to avoid assigning blame where it rightly belongs.  

There can be no other rationale for an administration to brazenly lie to the American people when it labeled the Fort Hood mass murders "workplace violence."  The killings in 2009 were the work of an Army major and Muslim linked to the notorious Islamic terrorist Anwar al Awlaki.

Thirteen people were gunned down and more than 30 injured in a hail of gunfire.  Victims and family members sued the federal government for negligence in 2012 because it dodged legal and financial responsibility for the shootings by referring to it as "workplace violence" rather than a terrorist attack.

Until this president acknowledges the scourge of radical Islam, nothing will be done to protect America's military on its home turf or abroad. His stubbornness and callowness will increase the danger to those who serve the country while emboldening the enemy to launch more attacks.

The President of the United States has a sacred duty to safeguard those who voluntarily answer the call to protect the country.  If Obama is not willing to confront the enemy attacking the military, then Congress must step into the breech, demanding the president fulfill the duties of his office.

A country that won't protect its armed forces is a nation in moral and political decline.