A Trump mandate: We have to restore America’s military strength

Commentary by James Shott

Everyone knows that the U.S. military is critical to the nation’s security, and that it is also important how foreign countries perceive America’s strength. That perception of our military and its civilian leadership can encourage careful, thoughtful and peaceful behavior by other countries, or a cavalier, carefree “we’ll do as we please” approach.

Now that the Barack Obama presidency is over, we must begin restoring the military and the world’s perception of America’s strength, both of which have been severely damaged over the last eight years. The security of not just our nation, but also of the world to a large degree, depend upon a strong America.

Back in 2015 Obama stated that the U.S. is now “the most respected country on Earth” thanks to his administration. That comment drew ire and fire on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.” Host Bill O’Reilly and Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer both reacted strongly to the comment, with O’Reilly countering, “No, we’re not respected by Putin, we’re not respected by ISIS and other terrorists, so I don’t know what he is referring to.” Krauthammer wondered, “what planet he's living on,” and pointed out that “allies who’ve depended on us for so long are finding themselves left hanging in the wind.”

The rest of the segment detailed the many foreign policy failures of the Obama administration that contradict Obama’s delusional statement.

Two years ago The Heritage Foundation said this about funding for the military: “Consecutive years of across-the-board budget cuts have significantly weakened the U.S. military. The military will likely need several years of reinvestment to return to a sound footing.”

It is instructive to look at just how Obama’s eight years have affected the armed forces from the perspective of active members of the military.

A poll conducted by the Military Times and Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families was a voluntary, confidential online survey taken by 1,664 active members of the U.S. armed forces. 

The poll reflects that 51.5 percent of those responding had a generally unfavorable view of Barack Obama’s presidency, and that 29.1 percent had a very unfavorable view, the largest response of the five possible answers. Only 36.4 percent had a generally favorable view, and only 18.0 percent had a very favorable view.

The Marine Corps had the strongest level of disapproval at 60.3 percent, followed by the Army at 53.0, the Air Force at 49.6, and the Navy was the least disapproving at 45.9. Enlisted service members had a 52.1 percent disapproval rate, while 48.8 percent of commissioned officers disapproved.

Seventy-one percent think overall force levels are too low, and 43 percent think more deployed forces are needed, compared to 32 percent who think fewer deployed forces are needed.

Asked how the following “social” measures affected readiness, participants responded: Repealing “don’t ask don’t tell” helped, by 24 to 18 percent; gender integration within combat units hurt, by 30 to 15 percent; and transgenders in service hurt, by 41 to 12 percent.

Participants believe the U.S. is less safe because of drawdowns from Iraq (59 percent) and Afghanistan (54 percent), and less emphasis on large-scale overseas missions (42 percent), but more safe from greater reliance on special forces (58 percent) and training missions (51 percent). And they believe the top four significant threats to the U.S. come from the Islamic State and al-Qaida (70 percent), domestic Islamic terrorists (67 percent), China (64 percent), and Iran (49 percent).

They say the military is smaller and weaker, and the threats against the nation have increased.

In a campaign speech last September, candidate Trump outlined his view of the U.S. military, and said he planned to ask military brass to present a plan soon after he takes office to defeat and destroy ISIS, and that he will ask Congress to eliminate the defense sequester.

Among the goals he seeks are: Building an active Army of about 540,000; a Marine Corps based on 36 battalions; a Navy nearing 350 surface ships and submarines; an Air Force of at least 1,200 fighter aircraft; and developing a new state-of-the-art missile defense system. And he intends to offset the spending for these goals by cutting waste and streamlining the bureaucracy, rather than increases in the $600 billion or so spent each year on the military.

"I'm going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody – absolutely nobody – is gonna (sic) mess with us," he said in a video posted on his campaign website.

Along those lines, his choice to run the Defense Department is retired Marine General James Mattis, a man well respected for his service and expertise, and who is expected to operationally strengthen all armed forces.

A strong military is just smart: Better to have one and not need it, than to need one and not have it. Blessedly, we now have a president who understands that a strong military presence can solve a host of problems before they ever materialize.

And, a president who strongly and unwaveringly supports what is good for America is a great improvement over the weak and tragic performance of the last eight years.

Cross-posted from Observations

The Syrian refugee resettlement program: shortsighted and dangerous

Commentary by James Shott

Americans are sharply divided over the Syrian refugee situation. Compassionate impulses are countered by the need for due caution.

The White House, which thinks any of the Syrian refugees ought to be welcomed with open arms, reported the following last week:

·         -- The United Nations High Commission on Refugees has referred 23,092 refugees to the U.S. Refugees Admission Program.

·         -- The Department of Homeland Security has interviewed 7,014 of them since FY 2011.

·         -- Of that number 2,034 Syrian refugees have been admitted since FY 2011.

·        -- So far, none of the 2,034 Syrian refugees have been arrested or removed on terrorism charges.

This information is intended to show the American people that the vetting process for these refugees works flawlessly, but even some government officials do not hold that view.

The pro-Syrian refugee crowd regards as anti-refugee those who cite reasons for being cautious about bringing refugees to the U.S. They say proponents of caution are engaged in religious stereotyping and scapegoating, and are afraid of women and orphans. Such rhetoric itself is a signal that caution is what the pro-refugee crowd fears most.  

But fallacies abound. While the U.S. is the most compassionate nation on Earth and helps people in trouble all over the world, it has no obligation to take in Syrian refugees. The U.S. didn’t cause the problems from which Syrians want to escape, and therefore it has no guilt to assuage by bringing them here.

Just because a lot of people somewhere experience a major crisis, that is no reason to invite them to come to America. It is a reason to start investigating all of the circumstances about the crisis and the people affected by it. After that, perhaps there will be good reasons to bring some of them here, or perhaps not. What follows are some very good reasons for exercising caution.

** Honduran authorities arrested five Syrians last week with stolen or doctored Greek passports that they said were headed for the U.S. Later, authorities said the five Syrian men were actually college students fleeing the war in their homeland. Note to the “bring refugees to America” crowd: Why would college students use fake passports to enter the U.S., and if they thought of using stolen or doctored passports, might not it be possible for terrorists to do the same?

** No less an authority than FBI Director James Comey has said that our government has no real way to conduct background checks on refugees. “We can only query against that which we have collected. And so if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing show up because we have no record of them,” he explained. This is why common sense needs to be applied to this situation.

** A recent U.S. Transportation Security Administration report by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General found that 73 aviation workers, employed by airlines and vendors, had alleged links to terrorism. How did they get past the vetting system and get hired?

** The brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013, killing three and injuring nearly 300 others, were not refugees, as their family sought political asylum in the U.S in 2002. Through the years the Muslim brothers became more and more hostile to the U.S., and Russia’s FSB warned the FBI about them in 2011, but the FBI found no connections to radical Islam. Yet two years later they set bombs at the Marathon in "retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq" as one of the brothers wrote in a note. Radicals can hide here, and people who come here as peaceful immigrants can evolve into radicals after they come here.

So, after considering these factors the question then becomes, “what amount of risk to the safety of Americans do the refugee advocates think is acceptable?”

It is certainly appropriate for us to try to help the actual refugees, but we must not expose even one American to a terrorist hiding among the refugees. ISIS has pledged to come here, and it is foolish to believe that terrorists will not use the refugee situation to infiltrate the US, as those students did. We must not ignore the weaknesses in the vetting process for Syrian refugees that some US officials are specifically concerned about.

Most of the refugees don’t speak our language, most or all do not understand our ways, and many things we do in the U.S. are at odds with the tenets of Islam. With such vastly different ideas about life and living, will they really be comfortable in America? And how can we guard against radicalization among some refugees after they come here, as occurred with the Chechen brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon?

There just is simply no good reason to bring them here when we can assist them to settle somewhere that is closer to their homeland, both geographically and culturally. They will be happier, and America will be more secure.

Cross-posted from Observations

What, exactly, is the real goal of the Iran nuclear agreement?

“Senate Democrats voted to uphold the hard-fought nuclear accord with Iran on Thursday, overcoming ferocious GOP opposition and delivering President Barack Obama a legacy-making victory on his top foreign policy priority.” So read the opening paragraph of the Associated Press story last Friday, identifying the Obama legacy as one product of the deal on Iranian nuclear aspirations.

A presidential legacy has been an elusive goal for Mr. Obama, as previous efforts have dramatically fallen by the wayside. He is succeeding in killing the coal industry in the name of environmental improvement, but the improvement is virtually non-existent, while economic harm and lost jobs dwarf any noticeable environmental improvement.

Certainly, no one will consider the Fast and Furious gun-running debacle that led to the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent or the incompetent handling of the Benghazi, Libya situation that resulted in the murders of four Americans, including our Ambassador to Libya, as the stuff of which a legacy is made.

And, the supposed jewel in the crown, the Affordable Care Act, which is affectionately known as Obamacare, is as bad as it is good, or worse.

One remaining possibility is to fashion an historic agreement to reign in the efforts of Iran, the world’s greatest supporter of global terrorism, to acquire nuclear weapons. A multi-national agreement – a treaty – led by the United States, bringing nations together to stop the rogue nation’s nuclear advances and save Israel and perhaps the U.S. from potential nuclear catastrophe.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines a treaty as “an agreement between two or more independent states,” meaning two or more nations, and Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution states: “He [the President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur…”

But there’s a problem. The agreement that these nations created has stark weaknesses that have produced strong, principled opposition.

But credit Mr. Obama for recognizing those weaknesses and developing a strategy to minimize their effect on getting the deal approved: rather than submit the treaty as a treaty, he managed to maneuver it around so that it is merely an “agreement” that doesn’t require Senate approval.

But make no mistake: this agreement IS a treaty. And so is the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 13 other nations, that Mr. Obama also prefers to pass off as a mere “agreement.”

However, if the treaty clause of the Constitution means anything it must be applied to those two agreements because they are not simple agreements about an ambassador or similar routine matter; they will affect the nation for decades to come, long after Mr. Obama has gone on his way.

The Senate’s role is outlined on the Senate.gov Website as follows, in part: “As Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist no. 75, ‘the operation of treaties as laws, plead strongly for the participation of the whole or a portion of the legislative body in the office of making them.’ The constitutional requirement that the Senate approve a treaty with a two-thirds vote means that successful treaties must gain support that overcomes partisan division.”

Given the importance of the Iran agreement and the TPP, trying to call them something other than treaties so as to circumvent Constitutionally required Senate approval tells us a lot about the weaknesses of the Iran deal. And it says plenty about Barack Obama, who works hard to avoid the constitutional separation of powers for his own benefit.

Virginia’s 9th District Republican Congressman Morgan Griffith issued a statement last week that reads in part: “The President’s deeply flawed and misguided deal with Iran is a serious security matter not only for the United States, but also for our allies in the Middle East. I believe we must use all tools possible to stop this deal in its tracks and avoid placing our citizens and allies at greater risk.”

Further opposition came from three Senators from the president’s own party, who have vastly more experience than he does in foreign policy – Senators Chuck Schumer of New York, Ben Carden, of Maryland, and Robert Menendez of New Jersey –  who decided to oppose the Iran agreement. However, enough Senate Democrats like the agreement to defeat the Senate effort to stop it, which consisted of passing a resolution of disapproval, which Mr. Obama could veto. Democrats have enough votes to prevent over-riding the veto, however.

The deal includes lifting sanctions on $140 billion or so of locked-up Iranian funds, prevents American inspectors from participating in any inspections of Iranian facilities, provides for Iran to conduct all inspections at the Parchin nuclear bomb trigger development site, and provides for a 24-day delay in some inspection demands. And last weekend Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has previously said that Israel would not survive another 25 years and has pledged “Death to America,” urged radicals to launch lone wolf attacks against Americans.

What could possible go wrong?

This agreement may get Barack Obama the legacy he seeks, but will ultimately maintain the significant risk the U.S. and its allies face from a nuclear Iran. Is that a legacy worth having?

The $64,000 question: What in the world was she thinking?

Imagine your political party has won the recent presidential election, and the man elected to be president has pegged you to be Secretary of State. What an honor. Secretary of State is one of the most important and prestigious positions in the federal government; it is one of the most critical positions in the government, dealing with sensitive international matters, such as agreements and disputes, the communications associated with which often carry security classifications, such as “classified,” “secret,” or “top secret.”

There are processes and systems in place to facilitate your communications, both classified and unclassified, between and among individuals and departments within the government, and with officials of other governments, official systems and processes that track these official communications as a matter of efficiency, accountability, national security and historical record.

With this in mind, and after going through the FBI’s briefing on the official communications protocol, and swearing under oath that you have been briefed and understand the process and protocol and why it exists, you then decide that rather than utilize the official secured government communications system you have been briefed on, as your predecessors did, you will use your own private email server to handle official government business as well as your own personal email communications.

Question: What would be the reason for making the unusual and unprecedented decision to conduct official communications on a private system instead of on the official and secured government system, a system to which only you have access, and that denies the government the ability to have complete access to your official communications?

Eventually, this decision enters the public sphere and is predictably met with many questions, and very effectively fertilizes the environment for suspicion of your motives. Political opponents will be emboldened, and you are the one who has emboldened them, and questions will arise about both your judgment and the possibility of illegal activity.

This is the sticky wicket that Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State from January 21, 2009 to February 1, 2013, and now candidate for the Democrat nomination for President of the United States, created for herself with this curious decision as she assumed the position of Secretary of State.

Mrs. Clinton’s political opponents – the “vast right-wing conspiracy” – have indeed noticed this irregularity, and finally the mainstream media is also taking notice.

NBC News commentator Andrea Mitchell – no right-wing conspirator she – shared comments from intelligence officials who have told her that, “nobody can give an explanation for why a cabinet secretary would have a private email system other than to thwart inquiries, FOIAs [Freedom of Information Act inquiries],” which she mentioned recently on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.

Andrea Mitchell is not the only one interested in the question raised by those intelligence officials. And the new questions raised by those other interested parties go beyond mere curiosity about why a cabinet secretary would have taken this unusual step. The more serious issue is whether or not classified information passed through Mrs. Clinton’s private email system, a clear violation of federal law.

Mark Levin, former chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, also an attorney, author and talk show host, sees breaches of the federal Penal Code, specifically Section 793 of the Penal Code, Subsection (f).

“My point is,” Mr. Levin said, “when you set up an unsecured server in your barn adjacent to your home in Chappaqua, New York, you have intentionally – forget about negligence – you have intentionally bypassed the security process for that server.”

If a private system was her chosen method for email communication, both personal and governmental, even if she avoided sending emails containing classified information, how could she prevent classified information from being sent to her on her private system? In short: How could Mrs. Clinton not have had classified information on her private server?

Some offer the defense of intent, suggesting that it matters if she did not intend to allow classified information to be lost, stolen, abstracted or destroyed. But Mr. Levin says, “No it doesn’t, not with respect to this, Subsection (f).”

Former federal judge and Attorney General Michael Mukasey comments: “Once you assume a public office, your communications about anything having to do with your job are not your personal business or property. They are the public’s business and the public’s property, and are to be treated as no different from communications of like sensitivity.”

And this from McClatchy DC last Wednesday: “The inspectors general for the U.S. Intelligence Community and the State Department have disclosed over the last week that at least five emails, routed through a private server that Clinton used throughout her tenure as secretary of state, contained classified information, including two emails whose content is now deemed to be ‘Top Secret.’”

Even if somehow Mrs. Clinton escapes being charged with crimes in this incident, her behavior – from the idea of having her own private email server in the first place, to the elaborate cleansing process she utilized to clear all data from the email server, and the release of the email communications that she alone determined was relevant – raises important questions about her lack of judgment and what her motivation was.

“Coming to America” in the 21st century: Stupid is as stupid does!

Commentary by James Shott

A sanctuary jurisdiction is a place where people who are in the U.S. illegally may go without fear of being discovered and deported. Most of these people are just looking for a better life, but not all, and some are violent criminals. Regardless of their reason for being here, all are safe from being deported or jailed until they commit a crime, but then it is too late. Someone, likely a taxpaying, law-abiding American citizen will have been robbed, assaulted, raped or murdered.

If you come into the United States without proper documentation, without following the approved procedure, you are a federal law-breaker. If you come into the U.S. legally and over-stay your Visa, you are a federal law-breaker.

Both types of illegal immigrants are deportable under Immigration and Nationality Act Section 237 (a)(1)(B) which says: "Any alien who is present in the United States in violation of this Act or any other law of the United States is deportable.”

You are not an “undocumented immigrant,” you are an illegal alien, a law-breaker. Period. You are not entitled to any government benefits, you should not be able to get a job; you should not be protected by going to a sanctuary jurisdiction.

If you broke our laws to come here because of intolerable conditions where you came from, you have our sympathy for your situation, but we have a process for people like you to immigrate to the United States. In very dire circumstances you may be able to request asylum, but even in those dire conditions, there is a process to follow, and that process does not include crossing our borders illegally, living in the shadows, collecting benefits and avoiding immigration authorities. If you do that, you are a criminal, and should be deported. If you do it again, you should be jailed.

If an American citizen harbors an illegal alien, he or she is breaking the law and can be prosecuted. But cities and counties may do so with the blessing of the federal government, and get taxpayer funding to do so.

It’s not that most illegal aliens are criminals, it’s that far too many of them are. Even one illegal who commits a crime – especially a serious crime like armed robbery, assault, rape or sexual abuse, murder, etc. – is one more than we should accept.

Far too many illegals are up to no good. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records, “from January 1 to August 31, 2014, more than 8,100 deportable aliens were released after arrest in approximately 300 local sanctuary jurisdictions, even though ICE had issued a detainer seeking custody in advance of deporting them,” as reported by Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, writing in National Review. “Some 62 percent of these offenders had a prior criminal history,” of whom about 3,000 were felons. “Of the 8,100 aliens who were released to the streets instead of to ICE, approximately 1,900 were later arrested, a total of 4,300 more times, on 7,500 different charges.”


Kathryn Steinle, 32, walking on Pier 14 with her father in San Francisco on July 2, 2015, was shot and died in her father’s arms, begging him to help her. Ms. Steinle and her father were minding their own business, but she was nevertheless mindlessly shot and killed. And who committed this heinous crime? An illegal alien from Mexico named Francisco Sanchez who had seven felony convictions against him, four on drug charges, and had been deported five times.

“ICE had started the deportation process, but San Francisco asked for custody of Sanchez to pursue prior drug charges,” Ms. Vaughn’s report noted. “These were dropped, and in early April, instead of turning him back over to ICE for deportation, the San Francisco sheriff’s department released Sanchez, in keeping with the city’s longstanding sanctuary policies, without notification to ICE. Less than three months later, Sanchez shot and killed Ms. Steinle.”


Kate Steinle is not the only American murdered by an illegal, only one of the most recent. It is a true scandal that Americans are less concerned with this serious threat to the safety of their fellow Americans as they are with whitewashing history by removing every existing Confederate battle flag from the land of the free and the home of the brave, and that the Obama administration is more concerned with global warming than with illegals streaming into the country, many of whom are violent criminals.

How many of those who like sanctuary jurisdictions and open borders and the other foolish ideas that constitute threats to Americans have the power of their convictions? How many would follow the same policies at their homes, leaving doors unlocked, allowing anyone to come in and live in their basement or garage, or their bedrooms? Very few, most likely. But they like the sanctuary idea because it makes them feel all warm and fuzzy with misplaced compassion, and they don’t really have to worry about the consequences.

Except they do. These vicious crimes are their responsibility. Wonder how would they feel if Kate Steinle was their daughter, wife, or sister? How would you feel?

Cross-posted from Observations

Should the USA Patriot Act be renewed, amended, or replaced?

Commentary by James Shott

Congress is trying to decide whether or not to extend the USA PATRIOT Act, and GOP presidential hopeful Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is so strongly opposed to doing so without at least substantial changes that he conducted a filibuster of sorts last Wednesday. In explaining his action, he said, “I’ve chosen to filibuster the Patriot Act because the Patriot Act is the most un-patriotic of acts.”

A little history: the Patriot Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, only a few weeks after that horrible day. Its title is a ten-letter acronym (USA PATRIOT) that stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001."

The Act originally was set to expire after four years, but three legislative actions, the first in 2005, another in 2010 and the last in 2011, have essentially preserved the Act. The current law is set to expire on June 1.

The chaotic mood of the country after nearly 3,000 innocents were brutally murdered by radical Muslim terrorists who crashed four airliners into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, led to a piece of hastily designed legislation to enable the government to better identify and stop terrorist activity. This crisis-driven activity brought allegations of opportunism to hurriedly pass a law that in calmer times would have triggered vigorous and lengthy debate. The bill was put together, voted on, passed, and signed into law only six weeks after the attacks. It passed by a wide margin in the House, and had only one dissenting vote in the Senate.

As Otto von Bismarck said, “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” Legislation born crisis is open to deliberate mischief, or damage resulting from its careless creation.

Sen. Paul’s libertarian tendencies lead to objections to breaches of liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, specifically the NSA’s mass phone call data collection program.

"They want nothing more than to keep the national security spy state growing until it tracks, traces and catalogues virtually every detail about every aspect of our lives," he said of the NSA program in a campaign email. "Once government bureaucrats know every aspect of our lives — what we watch, what we buy, what we eat, where we worship — it won't be long until they try to run them 'for our own good.'"

However, not all Republicans agree with this perspective. One of his potential opponents in the GOP presidential race, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, is not a fan of critics of the NSA program. “Let me be clear — all these fears are baloney. When it comes to fighting terrorism, our government is not the enemy,” he said. “They want you to think that there’s a government spook listening in every time you pick up the phone or Skype with your grandkids.”

And those two perspectives fairly well outline the opposing positions, one favoring strong methods to protect the citizenry, the other opposing strong methods that infringe, or have the potential to infringe on constitutional guarantees of personal liberty.

But this is not about what Gov. Christie thinks and what Sen. Paul thinks, this is about what the Constitution allows the government to do and what it does not allow. And the conflict between rooting out terrorists and terrorist plots before they occur, and honoring the individual freedom we are guaranteed is a tricky one.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Notice that it does not say, “unless Congress or the President says otherwise.” Mass collection of information about the citizenry fails that test.

Earlier this month the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the NSA’s phone data collection program “exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized,” according to Judge Gerard Lynch’s opinion for the three-judge panel, which does not address the constitutional aspects of the law, but says the NSA program exceeds Congress’ intention, which itself is likely unconstitutional.

We must not allow government to impose actions because of a crisis that in calmer times we would not tolerate. Once government gains a power it is next to impossible to take it away, and once a mechanism is available it is always available for mischievous application. Remember Lois Lerner?

These words, attributed to both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, must be heeded: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

We should do anything and everything within constitutional limits to fight terrorism, but we must not allow even small degrees of unconstitutional activity, not even to combat a known imminent attack. Once that threshold is crossed, reestablishing it will be virtually impossible.

Cross-posted from Observations

Paris attacks again call attention to the problem of radical Islam

Because they ridiculed the Islamic prophet, 12 employees of the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo were killed in an organized military-style attack on its office in Paris by three terrorists with military weapons. In another event, a gunman entered a kosher grocery in the city and took several people hostage. In all, 17 innocent persons were murdered in the violence.

The AP reported the following item on January 9 that was not widely published: “Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International suggested Friday is the ‘deadliest massacre’ in the history of Boko Haram.” One official said most of the victims were children, women and the elderly, who were unable to run fast enough to escape the savage attack.

The U.S. is quite familiar with Islamic terrorism, but over the years since September 11, 2001 the level of violence of subsequent episodes of has blessedly not been on the same large scale as the 9-11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 innocents. Which is not to say it has been a level that we can, or will, accept.

Radical Islamic terrorism is a subject many prefer not to address. To some, it is like whistling past the graveyard; if we ignore it, maybe it will go away. Still others refuse to confront it for the reality that it is. But Islamic terrorism is a growing problem in our world, perhaps the most serious thing we have to face. Certainly, it is an urgent problem.

Muslim terrorists finally have done something that produced a substantial response. A huge group gathered in Paris to commemorate the victims of last week’s terrorist activity at the hands of Islamic radicals and to show solidarity against terrorism. Reports put the total number of participants between 1.5 million and 3 million. Among those attending were 40 world leaders, among whom were French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Italy's Matteo Renzi, Mariano Rajoy of Spain, Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey, and Jordan's King Abdullah II and Queen Rania. Notably, both Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were there.

Conspicuously absent was the leader of the free world, President Barack Obama. Instead of joining the other world leaders who were able to make the trip, Mr. Obama stayed home. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris, not for the march, but was meeting with Bernard Cazeneuve, the French Minister of the Interior. U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley did participate in the march. Where were senior cabinet members, like Secretary of State John Kerry, the most senior cabinet officer?

Mr. Obama did find the time to visit the French Embassy in Washington, sign a book of condolences, and speak with diplomats last Thursday, and at a Friday appearance in Knoxville, TN he expressed solidarity with the people of France, and offered assistance.

This behavior is in keeping with Mr. Obama’s proclivity for avoiding any connection to the term “Islamic terrorism,” in either word or deed. While nearly everyone else notes that the terrorists are “radical” Muslims, and that the radical element is only a fraction of the more than 1 billion Muslims wordwide, Mr. Obama refuses to connect these terrorist acts to Islam at all, saying that Islam does not allow such brutality.

It cannot be ignored, however, that those who carry out these savage, cowardly attacks believe themselves to be Muslims, and frequently shout “Allahu Akbar” (God [Allah] is the Greatest) when murdering innocent people, and the terrorists attacking Charlie Hebdo added, “We have avenged the prophet.”

Whatever the basis of Mr. Obama’s reluctance to adequately identify these acts as those of radical Muslims – he called the killing of 13 U.S. military personnel at Ft Hood by a Muslim psychiatrist praising Allah “workplace violence” – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, himself a Muslim, has no such reluctance.

As reported by CNN, President el-Sisi has called for a "religious revolution," asking Muslim leaders to help in the fight against extremism when addressing the group during the celebration of the birthday of the Prophet Muḥammad. "I say and repeat, again, that we are in need of a religious revolution. You imams are responsible before Allah. The entire world is waiting on you. The entire world is waiting for your word ... because the Islamic world is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost. And it is being lost by our own hands," he said.

If Islam is a religion of peace, if Islam does not endorse the sort of barbarism demonstrated in these and other terrorist attacks perpetrated by people claiming to be Muslims, then Islam has to take the lead in putting an end to it.

The United States must insure that Muslims are treated like everyone else in the U.S., and not give them special treatment, good or bad. We have to take a much more proactive role in wiping this scourge from the face of the Earth by rooting out the terror cells in America and focusing on the hotbeds of Islamist extremism around the world.

America’s Dilemma: Terrorism at home versus the high moral ground

A young pilot was flying a mission over enemy territory long ago and far away when defense forces badly damaged his plane, forcing him to eject. The ejection was violent, breaking both arms and one leg, and the young pilot landed in water, nearly drowning before enemy soldiers found him, dragged him ashore, crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt, stabbed him with a bayonet, and then hauled him away for interrogation. Badly injured, he was given no medical aid, but instead was put through brutal questioning sessions during which he was beaten.

He spent six weeks in a hospital where he received marginal medical treatment before being sent to another military camp. In a chest cast and being badly emaciated, he was expected not to last a week.

His condition improved slowly as time passed. But while he was ill with dysentery he was again subjected to interrogation and torture that included rope bindings and beatings every two hours, punishment so severe that he tried to kill himself to escape the brutal treatment. Eventually, he reached his breaking point, and cooperated with his captors.

A second story of actual treatment of an enemy involved the capture, interrogation and detainment in military custody that lasted several years. During this time the captive was subjected to sleep deprivation for a period of more than seven days, rectal hydration, forced standing for prolonged periods, and was water boarded five times. Eventually, the captive’s will also broke, and he cooperated with his captors.

While the treatment in the second example would certainly be unpleasant, it is less severe than the experience of the pilot in the first example, inasmuch as the captive’s life was never in danger. Some Americans, however, believe the two equally represent torture.

The pilot in the first example was now-Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., and he was shot down over Viet Nam, captured and tortured by the Viet Cong.

The person in the second example was Khalid Sheik Mohammad, the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and a foiled attempt likely aimed at the U.S. Capitol building or the White House, claiming the lives of nearly 3,000 innocent people.

Torture is the action of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, and has been practiced through the ages, and has included the most brutal treatment imaginable.

In interrogation sessions, some techniques are clearly torture, and some techniques are clearly not torture. Somewhere in the middle of these extremes, strong interrogation crosses the thin and fuzzy line into torture. Where that point is seems to be a matter of personal preference.

Having released a controversial partisan report on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee charges that the CIA’s techniques constitute torture.

The CIA vigorously disputes the Democrat leadership’s report, saying the methods were thoroughly analyzed and approved by legal consultants prior to their implementation, and that Congressional leaders were briefed on them and accepted the program. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is said to have encouraged the program.

The United States does indeed profess and uphold high-minded ideals, and most Americans oppose torture. And through this $40 million report and comments by individual senators, we are told that torture is always and forever wrong.

But is there never a circumstance where torture is justified?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., thinks not. “In the wake of 9/11, we were desperate to bring those responsible for the brutal attacks to justice. But even that urgency did not justify torture,” states the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The United States must be held to a higher standard than our enemies, yet some of our actions did not clear that bar.”

We learn that al Qaeda has placed a suitcase nuke in a major city set to detonate in a few hours. We have captured a member of the group and Sen. Feinstein questions him. He refuses to tell where the bomb is. “Okay. Thank you. Have a nice day,” she says. “After all, we are a people of principle and high morals, and won’t stoop to forceful interrogation.”

Who and how many American lives have to be at risk before those like Sen. Feinstein, clinging to the high moral ground, resort to forceful interrogation methods to save lives? Her spouse? Her hometown? Her Capital office? Or would she sacrifice American lives just to maintain the idealistic moral high ground?

You do not have to support routine use of torture to believe that in extreme cases, torture is acceptable. Many Americans believe nothing is too awful to use on an enemy in order to save lives.

So the issue is not that the United States can never use techniques generally agreed to be torture against enemies, but instead to clarify under what circumstances the United States will use those techniques, and how those decisions will be made?

Routine or indiscriminate torture is wrong. Any method used against knowledgeable enemies to save lives must be encouraged. Foolishly clinging to the high moral ground will get Americans needlessly killed.

Ebola infected West Africa – Will it now infect the United States

President Barack Obama said the following on September 16 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta: “First and foremost, I want the American people to know that our experts, here at the CDC and across our government, agree that the chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low. We’ve been taking the necessary precautions, including working with countries in West Africa to increase screening at airports so that someone with the virus doesn’t get on a plane for the United States. In the unlikely event that someone with Ebola does reach our shores, we’ve taken new measures so that we’re prepared here at home. We’re working to help flight crews identify people who are sick, and more labs across our country now have the capacity to quickly test for the virus. We’re working with hospitals to make sure that they are prepared, and to ensure that our doctors, our nurses and our medical staff are trained, are ready, and are able to deal with a possible case safely.”

Four days later the “unlikely” occurred: the first person infected with Ebola arrived in the U.S. from Liberia, where he had assisted an infected woman, become contaminated, but did not tell anyone about it in order to get on a plane and travel to Dallas, Texas. It took three different flights for him to get here and no one along the way apparently knew he had been in Liberia, or was able to determine that he had been infected, since he was asymptomatic until after he got here.

After developing a fever, he visited Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital was treated and sent home, despite having recently been in Liberia. He was staying with relatives in Dallas and as the disease progressed he got sicker and became contagious, and after that he returned to the hospital and was diagnosed with Ebola. Several days later, he passed away.

His relatives were exposed to Ebola, and the residence and outside areas were contaminated. Who knows how many others were exposed to the virus?

Mr. Obama said we can handle this, should the need arise. But the need arose, and a well-respected hospital didn’t handle the first infected person very well at all.

The first airport screenings began Saturday at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Other airports were to begin screenings this week. Screenings at African airports and another screening at U.S. airports, the president said, would make it unlikely that someone infected with Ebola will get to the U.S.

Given the botched handling of the first Ebola patient in our country, can we believe Mr. Obama? “No matter how many of these procedures are put into place, we can’t get the risk to zero,” said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Martin Cetron, director of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine. He told a news conference that these new measures wouldn’t necessarily have detected Ebola in the patient who traveled to Dallas.

Complicating an already unnerving situation, a second case of Ebola at the Dallas hospital has now been confirmed. A female nurse who had cared for the Ebola patient prior to his death was assessed on Friday, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said, and on Sunday it was confirmed that the nurse has Ebola.

The nurse’s infection is blamed on a breech of protocol. One report said that when removing the protective clothing she was wearing, the nurse inadvertently touched her cheek with her gloved hand, a glove that was contaminated with the virus. And now she has Ebola. And now, the disease has a small, but troubling presence in America.

This second error at this hospital has put other hospital personnel at risk, and may have infected one or more of them. Raise your hand if you believe the U.S. healthcare system really is prepared to deal with Ebola patients.

Even without these errors in handling Ebola in Dallas, it simply makes no sense either to bring potential or actual Ebola patients here, or allow people from countries where the disease exists to come here. Why take the chance of exposing Americans, particularly healthcare workers, to this vicious disease?

Columnist Thomas Sowell outlines the situation: “There was a time when an outbreak of a deadly disease overseas would bring virtually unanimous agreement that our top priority should be to keep it overseas. Yet Barack Obama has refused to bar entry to the United States by people from countries where the Ebola epidemic rages, as Britain has done. In other words, the safety of the American people takes second place to the goal of helping people overseas.”

President Obama has a giant blind spot when it comes to protecting the country from illegal entry of who knows who through the southern border, and now that blind spot extends to failing to stop people potentially infected with Ebola from coming into the U.S.

In situations like this one, we need to be smart, not compassionate. We can help the unfortunate West Africans by sending medical supplies and assistance without needlessly putting ourselves at risk. And we must.

Congress must address the serious immigration problem. But first …

Commentary by James Shott

When illegal immigration is the subject, a large faction keeps saying that immigrants contributed greatly to building America into the greatest nation on Earth, and that we should therefore give all those illegals citizenship or some sort of legal status. And it is true that smart, dedicated, hard-working people who came here for a better life made tremendous contributions to the American success story.

But those people came here the right way, by following immigration procedures. Right now, there are some 4.5 million people following in their footsteps waiting to come to America legally.

Currently, however, there are some 11 million people inside our borders who did not come here the proper way. About 40 percent of them are foreigners who arrived legally, frequently on tourist Visas, and simply didn’t leave when they were supposed to.

Most of the other 7 million illegals are low-wage workers and their families who sneaked over the southern border, and even though they did not enter the country honorably by obeying immigration laws are people who are here for honorable purposes. And then there are the punks and thugs bent on committing vicious crimes, including murder, against American citizens.

For every 100 actual American citizens there are roughly 3 people residing in the country illegally, and that is a huge problem.

Actually, there are two separate problems: One problem is what do we do with the people here illegally, and the second, and most important, is how do we remedy the circumstances that allowed this intolerable situation to develop so that it never happens again?

Our immigration system has been both neglected and mismanaged, and as a result the country has endured substantial harm. This situation has been the genesis of frequent and strong calls to reform the immigration system. But the immigration system is not what failed; the people in positions to competently operate it and enforce the laws have failed – and in some cases, refused – to do their jobs.

So, the question is: What do we do about the fact that we have 11 million illegals now in the country?

Perhaps past history will be a good guide as to how we should proceed. What the bipartisan US Senate “Gang of Eight” is proposing today is very similar to what was done in the 1986 amnesty when Ronald Reagan was President.

According to Mr. Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese, writing in the Heritage Foundation’s “The Foundry”: “The path to citizenship was not automatic. Immigrants had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam, and register for military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible.” That is quite similar to the “Gang of Eight’s” idea.

When the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 was enacted, there were approximately 5 million illegal aliens in the country, and about 2.7 million of them benefitted from the IRCA. What has happened since then is that the number of illegal aliens has more than doubled.

What went wrong after that compassionate act to grant legal status to those illegal aliens that caused not a decrease in the number of illegals, but a dramatic increase?

“Well, one reason is that everything else the 1986 bill promised—from border security to law enforcement—was to come later,” Mr. Meese said. “It never did. Only amnesty prevailed, and that encouraged more illegal immigration.” Had we done all that the IRCA required, we likely would not have the problem we have today.

In fact, Mr. Meese writes, the failure of the federal government to implement all of the elements of the IRCA to protect the nation from people entering illegally in the years after its passage caused Mr. Reagan to regard the amnesty as the greatest mistake of his administration.

Now that we see what happened after 1986 when we failed to prevent people illegally entering the country, and this time we have to make sure that does not happen again. We therefore have to yield the strong demand for securing the borders and putting improved control programs in place before doing anything to provide legal status of any kind to any illegal alien.

We have to become more sensible and less ruled by compassionate impulses. The country and the states cannot afford amnesty for 11 million illegal immigrants, or for half that number, no matter how nice they may be.

What must happen first is to do whatever is necessary to secure the borders. After that – but only after that – whatever steps we take must protect the interests of the United States before considering the interests of illegal aliens. And we must honor the 4.5 million who are waiting to come to America the proper way before helping illegals.

If you steal food because you are hungry, you have a good reason, but you still broke the law. If you want a better life and sneak into a country that offers promise for a better life, you have a good reason, but you still have done something wrong.

We must not endorse wrongdoing by rewarding it.

Cross-posted from Observations