Retired U.S. Army Col. Allen West says the United States has to lead the fight against ISIS by eliminating the threat of radicals coming to America, giving our pilots the freedom to inflict immense damage and protecting the second amendment rights of all law-abiding citizens.
West, who also served one term as a congressman from Florida, is now president and CEO at the National Center for Policy Analysis. He says the United States better wake up fast because the past few weeks clearly prove ISIS is expanding in power and in reach.
“They’ve been able to conduct command and control attacks outside the areas they control in Iraq and Syria; in Beirut, Lebanon, with the suicide attacks there, the attack that brought down the Egyptian airliner killing 224 Russian civilians and of course what we saw in Paris,” said West, who also pointed to the arrest of an ISIS recruiter in Minnesota and the ongoing probe into the contacts of the San Bernardino terrorists.
Recent days have been full of debate over various plans to limit immigration, from Donald Trump’s call for a complete ban on Muslim immigration until the system can be reformed to Sen. Rand Paul’s push for a ban on immigrants from nations with ties to terrorism.
West also wants to clamp down, but with a slightly different focus.
“First and foremost, we should say the United States is going to restrict the entry of military-age single males and now I think we need to look at military-age single females from entry to the United States of America. We have to make it relevant to what we are seeing occurring on this new 21st century battlefield,” said West.
He also believes it’s time for a a ban on spousal visas until further notice, but West also believes it’s vital to crack down on those already here who enable and defend terrorists.
“There are many different groups that are out there that are nothing more than front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood that are lobbying and advocating our federal government, one of them being the Council on American-Islamic Relations (or CAIR), that has an office right there on Capitol Hill,” said West.
West says it’s also high time for a radically restructured military campaign to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. West, who served in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, says President Obama’s insistence upon staying the course with our current air campaign and other tactics just isn’t working.
“That’s the pure definition, as Albert Einstein said, of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results,” said West.
He says out air campaign is not having much impact on ISIS, even after 16 months.
“This vaunted air campaign is anemic in and of itself. It started back in August of last year and we still have a very strong and viable ISIS that is rooted there in Raqqa. They still own terrain. We continue to see ISIS conducting daytime parades through cities they have taken over. That’s lets us know the air campaign is not being successful,” said West, who says there’s a simple reason our missions haven’t done more damage.
“Pilots have said that 70-75 percent of their ordinance has not been dropped because of the very restrictive rules of engagement that has been placed upon them,” said West.
In addition to American pilots being ordered to avoid civilian casualties at all costs, West says two other rules of engagement are particularly maddening. The first, he says, giving our enemies a heads-up that an attack is on the way.
“[They are dropping] leaflets for drivers who are driving these trucks to give them the opportunity to run away. They are not civilians. Those are people that are supporting ISIS,” said West.
He’s also furious over what he consider’s Obama’s politics trumping our national security priorities as pilots are ordered not to attack the oil infrastructure of ISIS out of environmental concerns. West says the U.S. was able to quickly put out fires in Kuwait after the retreating Iraqis set them ablaze in 1991.
“With the expertise we had in the oil and natural gas industry here in America, we solved that issue. To say that we’re not going to attack a major funding source for ISIS because we’re worried about environmental considerations, that falls in line with a president that believes that climate change is the greatest threat to global security,” said West.
West says another priority overseas should be to sniff out whoever is buying oil from ISIS.
“We should also find out the entities that are purchasing the oil and providing revenue to ISIS and put economic sanctions on them,” said West.
Another frustration for West is the president’s immediate push for new gun control laws after the San Bernardino attacks. He says Obama has it all wrong.
“It is amazing to me that in the wake of the terrorist attack that happened in San Bernardino, that the president would talk about disarming the American people when they concerned about their own safety and security. To me it would be the same if after 9/11, President Obama would stand up and say we’re going to ban all airline travel,” said West.
He’s says Democrats and their gun control allies have a reflexive response after every gun-related atrocity.
“That is part of the rigid, intransigent ideology of President Obama, the liberal progressive socialist left, Hillary Clinton, all of them, instead of focusing on the real issue of protecting the American people from Islamic jihadism that has infiltrated into this country,” said West.
