And Obama’s approach to terrorism is disastrously flawed.
Is there any significant difference between the counterterrorism policies of the Obama administration and the ones that would be enacted by Hillary Clinton? And if there are no significant differences, why should Americans expect significantly different results?
There’s little reason to expect Clinton to deviate much from Obama’s approach to the threat of terrorism. Both Democrats worked together on foreign policy for four years, an era that covered the Fort Hood shooting, the underwear bomber, the Arab Spring, and, of course, the Benghazi attack. In Monday’s address in Cleveland, Clinton’s first major extended remarks about the Orlando attack, she offered a lot of pledges that she would do everything the Obama administration is doing, just . . . better.
She promised, “as president, I will make identifying and stopping lone wolves a top priority” — as if it wasn’t already a top priority — and added, “I will put a team together from across our government, the entire government as well as the private sector and communities, to get on top of this urgent challenge.”
Clinton’s “put a team together” plan sounds laughably redundant. There are currently no less than ten counterterrorism committees, advisory groups, advisory councils, coordinating councils, and partnerships just within the Department of Homeland Security. A 2011 Washington Post report calculated that “some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States” and “51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.”
RELATED: Obama Clings to His Unsuccessful Counterterror Strategy
The problem is not so much a lack of teams, but a lack of communication between them, as Clinton acknowledged: “Too often, state and local officials can’t get access to intelligence from the federal government that would help them do their jobs.” She didn’t, however, offer any solution beyond her previous call for “an intelligence surge to bolster our capabilities across the board with appropriate safeguards here at home.”
The proposal was first unveiled in a November speech at Stanford University, during which Clinton called for “an immediate intelligence surge in the region, including technical assets, Arabic speakers with deep expertise in the Middle East, and even closer partnership with regional intelligence services.” Those steps are all well and good, except the government can’t just go to a vending machine to get more Arabic speakers with deep expertise in the Middle East. Intelligence personnel need to pass extensive background checks — a process that takes several months, minimum, depending upon the backlog — and be trained for at least a year and often for longer. As for an “even closer partnership with regional intelligence services,” every president wants that. If she thinks some policy decision on President Obama’s part has frayed our relations with regional intelligence service and needs to be reversed, she should say so.
RELATED: Obama Would Rather Declare War on the English Language than Speak of Islamic Terrorism
In Cleveland, Clinton offered lots of “like now, but more so” suggestions. She said we should “keep the pressure on, ramping up the air campaign [against ISIS], accelerating support for our friends fighting to take and hold ground, and pushing our partners in the region to do even more.” She said she would “push our partners to do more” while simultaneously developing an “even closer relationship” with them.
That “closer relationship” allowed for an easy implied slam against Trump, who declared “NATO is obsolete” in March.
“We have to stem the flow of jihadists from Europe and Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and then back again. The only way to do this is by working closely with our partners, strengthening our alliances — not weakening them or walking away from them.” But while it’s conceivable a President Hillary Clinton might avoid replicating some of Obama’s gratuitous insults of our allies — returning busts of Churchill, skipping unity rallies with other world leaders after the Charlie Hebdo attack, etc. — it’s hard to believe that any major U.S. ally is, under Obama, deliberately dragging its feet about known terrorists crossing borders with the intent to commit terror attacks.
#share#This is not to say that the behavior of some authoritarian Middle Eastern governments who are technically U.S. allies doesn’t leave a lot to be desired, and Clinton took what sounded like a tough line on those governments:
It is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations. And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism.
It is not the first time an American politician has called on the Saudis, the Qataris, and the Kuwaitis to shape up. But it is probably the first time that the politician in question had a family foundation that accepted millions from those governments. Qatar gave between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, Kuwait gave between $5 and $10 million, and Saudi Arabia gave between $10 million and $25 million.
Why should Americans think that Hillary Clinton as president would be more effective at changing Saudi, Qatari, and Kuwaiti government policies than she was as secretary of state? Has Obama neglected to push these countries to stop funding extremist organizations?
EDITORIAL: Trump on Orlando, and Our Immigration Problem
(Is it fair to point out that these countries have egregious records on homosexual civil rights? In Kuwait, debauchery — which the courts define as male homosexuality — carries a sentence of up to six years’ imprisonment; in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Muslims who engage in homosexual activity may face the death penalty. “To all the LGBT people grieving today in Florida and across our country, you have millions of allies who will always have your back, and I am one of them,” Clinton said Monday. Does taking a big pile of money from regimes that execute homosexuals count as “having your back,” LGBT Americans?)
After Orlando, Clinton’s largely-forgotten speeches on terrorism at Stanford University and the Council on Foreign Relations sound like confused messes, a combination of wildly ambitious goals — “we need to lay the foundation for a second Sunni awakening” — and empty management-consultant buzzwords: “We also have to be smart and target interventions that will have the greatest impact.”
Perhaps Clinton’s most maddeningly empty blather came on the question of identifying terrorists among a mobile population: “Brussels demonstrated we need to take a harder look at security protocols. . . . We have to be smart and diligent about how we process people into our country.” No kidding. The glaring, red-siren revelation in recent terror attacks on American soil is that the perpetrators were so often briefly investigated by American authorities on suspicion of terrorist ties, and then cleared.
#related#The FBI interviewed Omar Mateen three times in 2013 and 2014, and he had been on a terrorism watch list during that time. He was subsequently removed. The FBI interviewed Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011. San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik passed the Department of Homeland Security’s counterterrorism screening during her visa-application process. Among the aspiring jihadists who opened fire at a Garland, Texas, “Draw Muhammad” contest was Elton Simpson, whom the FBI investigated for allegedly planning to join a terror group in 2010; he was sentenced to three years of probation for lying to investigators. The FBI never talked to the Chattanooga shooter, but his father had been on a terrorism watch list for suspicious overseas donations; he was subsequently cleared and removed from the list.
Is it that the caseload simply doesn’t allow the time for a thorough investigation or periodic reexamination of past persons of interest? In October, FBI Director James Comey said the Bureau had an estimated 900 active investigations pending against suspected Islamic State-inspired operatives and other home-grown violent extremists across the country.
The message from the Obama administration on terrorism for seven and a half years, currently echoed by Clinton, is, “Don’t worry. We’ve got this.” For all of his gargantuan flaws, Donald Trump is right to point out that all evidence suggests otherwise.
— Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent for National Review.