Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer the Italian police for taking out the Berlin terrorist, the Australian authorities for foiling a Christmas Day terrorist attack and those responsible for peacefully ending a hijacking in Malta. They also get a kick out of Harry Reid calling the DNC worthless and Joe Biden concluding that Hillary Clinton never figured out why she was running. And they applaud Donald Trump for getting Egypt to scrap a UN resolution condemning Israel after hearing the Obama administration might not oppose it.
Berlin
Three Martini Lunch 12/21/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to a Washington Post report suggesting the 2018 Senate map gives the Republicans a chance to hold a 60-seat majority. They also shudder as German authorities confirm they’re looking for a Tunisian asylum seeker as the one responsible for the Berlin terrorist attack. And they scratch their heads over the reasons some Democrats are giving for opposing Keith Ellison as the next DNC chairman, instead of the really glaring reasons he would be a terrible choice.
‘Stealth Invasion’
The Berlin terrorist attack may well be the result of poor immigration and refugee policies that threaten the population now and even more so in years to come, and the author of a new book on the subject says it’s already happening in many parts of the United States.
Leo Hohmann is a longtime investigative reporter. He is news editor at WND.com and author of “Stealth Invasion: The Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad.”
On Tuesday, authorities in Berlin released a man originally suspected of carrying out the attack due to a lack of evidence. Hohmann says it could be very difficult for the Germans to track down the perpetrator due to their own loose immigration policies.
“The German government has imported so many of these refugees and asylum seekers over the past two years, up to 1.3 million have come in, that they don’t know exactly who they have that they’re dealing with here,” said Hohmann.
And he says the longer the manhunt goes on, the harder it will be to find the terrorist.
“The real killer, they said, remains on the loose. The problem is with that many refugees in Germany, they have set up many enclaves. There are many, many safe houses that the killers could have escaped to and in which they’re being harbored,” said Hohmann.
He has no doubt this attack is an an example of radical Islamic terrorism.
“There’s no question about that. The only question in my mind is was it done by a refugee or could it have been a son of a Muslim migrant,” said Hohmann.
He reaches that conclusion by using the past as prologue in evaluating terrorism in the U.S. and abroad.
“They all have Islam in common and the other thing they have in common is that they’re all perpetrated by either Islamic immigrants or sons of Islamic immigrants. So you have a whole class of people who have isolated themselves in these western countries, come in through liberal immigration policies, live in enclaves, don’t assimilate and at some point or another get ‘radicalized,'” said Hohmann.
He rattled off a list of 10 recent terrorist attacks that fit the bill, from the Boston Marathon bombing to the Chattanooga military recruitment murders to last December’s attack in San Bernardino.
He says the liberal immigration policies in Germany have already reshaped that country.
“They’ve basically established a nation within a nation,” said Hohmann.
Hohmann says our media constantly treat terrorism as isolated attacks that share no common threads, thereby minimizing the threat. He says that has lulled Americans into not seeing the scope of the threat.
“The American people live in ignorant bliss and think that we’re really at a state of peace in the world when, as my book points out, we’re in the middle of World War III,” said Hohmann.
President-Elect Donald Trump drew political fire from many corners by calling for a temporary ban on all Muslim immigration. Hohmann believes that is the right policy. He says Trump’s updated call for “extreme vetting” won’t stop the threat.
“I’m not sure it would have caught a single one of the terrorists in this list of ten that I have on my page sitting in front of me over the past two years,” said Hohmann.
He says current vetting is worthless since U.S. officials only ask applicants if they are members of ISIS. But he says even much tougher scrutiny wouldn’t solve the problem.
“Say they answered all the questions correctly and we let them in. They does not preclude them from becoming radicalized after they get here. That’s what happens most often. Not to mention the second generation of migrants is more dangerous than the first generation,” said Hohmann.
But Hohmann says Muslim groups are playing a much longer game, namely changing societies as immigration continues.
“The violent jihad that we’ve been speaking about is only part of the problem and some could argue that it’s only the smallest part. There’s another problem and it’s a more long-term problem. That is civilization jihad,” said Hohmann.
“It’s a long-term plan by the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate American society from within, using liberal immigration policies and lack of assimilation, to build what is called a nation within a nation,” said Hohmann.
He says tightening immigration laws might solve part of the problem but there is also a clear path forward for addressing those already here.
“You have to start requiring assimilation. You have to stop giving special favors to Islam. As we’ll read in my book, we’ve not only invited folks here from these areas of the world that hate American values, but we’ve been kowtowed to their values and not expected any sort of assimilation,” said Hohmann.
‘Turkey Is Basically on the Cliff’
Terrorism reared its deadly head again in Turkey on Monday and an attack in Germany is also strongly suspected of links to radical Islamic terrorism, events that Act for America President Brigitte Gabriel says appear to be the latest indications of a bloody ideology fighting for power.
On Monday, Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov was gunned down while speaking at an art gallery in the Turkish capital of Ankara. According to reports, the killer then shouted a familiar Islamic refrain.
“God is great! Those who pledged allegiance to Muhammad for jihad. God is great!” he said, while also condemning the crushing of the Syrian rebels in Aleppo.
“Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria! Step back! Step back! Only death can take me from here,” he reportedly said.
Turkey has been inundated with terrorist attacks this year in addition to the failed attempt to topple increasingly radical President Tayyip Erdogan.
“Turkey is basically on the cliff of a complete collapse, between the forces of moderation within Turkey who feel they are losing the fight and the forces of the radicals who feel empowered and that they are winning,” said Gabriel.
She says the best chance for Turkey to reverse course has come and gone.
“I think it’s already too late for the moderates to turn the ship around. Unfortunately, the coup was the last straw, the last attempt at being able to take over the government . Moderates realize that Erdogan has literally driven the country, over the decades since he has been leading the country, into the abyss of radicalism,” said Gabriel.
“That basically killed any chance or any hope for the moderates to really take back their government,” said Gabriel.
She says it is a tragic departure from Kemal Ataturk, who less than a century ago turned Turkey into a secular Muslim nation.
“It is sad to see how far Turkey has come from being a beacon of moderation in the Islamic world in the last century under President Ataturk. He basically ended the Islamic caliphate back in 1924, less than a hundred years ago,” said Gabriel, noting Ataturk banned women from wearing hijabs or men from sporting long beards.
“Turkey went from being the example of what secularism under Islam looks like to being more radicalized now with the world heading back into the Dark Ages,” she added.
Hours after Karlov was assassinated, reports emerged of a shooting at an Islamic Center in Switzerland and a deadly truck attack at a Christmas market in Berlin, leaving at least nine dead and 50 injured.
Gabriel says while the tactics vary, the motivations are often the same.
“What is driving everything is the ideology that is bringing all the radicals together: the warning not only of the caliphate which was established, but the growth and power of the caliphate . And the radical Islamists now feel that the caliphate is under attack,” said Gabriel.
“They are using the attacks against ISIS as a rallying cry to basically recruit and mobilize anybody who believes the way they do,” said Gabriel.
She says inspiring jihadists is far easier now than it was on 9/11 thanks to the internet and the power of videos and social media.
“Any jihadi, regardless of what tongue he or she speaks, they can listen to these jihadi messages and they can feel inspired to carry on their own jihadi attacks and their own martyrdom operation,” said Gabriel, who says the inspiration is working because we can see many of the deadly suggestions being carried out.
“They are instructing people to go out and plow into people using a truck or a fast-driving machine, go out and slash people with a knife and cutting them, go out and carry out your own personal jihad. You can make bombs under your mom’s kitchen or in your own kitchen,” she said, noting many of the ingredients for explosives can be found in a grocery store or pharmacy.
Gabriel urges intelligence officials to be more aggressive in pursuing terrorism leads in order to avoid cases where advanced warning went unheeded, such as the 2009 Christmas Day underwear bomber or the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers.
She also says individual citizens can make a difference.
“On our website, ActforAmerica.org, we have a program called ‘Open Eyes Save Lives.’ We are carrying this campaign on social media, on Twitter. If you go to our website, we give tips as to what people can look out for, what you can do in the case of a terrorist attack, how to protect yourself, how to protect your community,” said Gabriel.