The Obama-mandated cover-up continues.
A pivotal yet overlooked action of the Obama administration was its purge of all mention of Islam and jihad from law enforcement counter-terror training materials in 2011 to heed the demand of U.S. Muslim groups and their allies. Since then, the U.S. has failed to identify, confront, and oppose the ideology that has enabled jihadis to behave more boldly and aggressively then ever. That ideology has spread unchecked in the U.S. in large part because Barack Obama didn’t want law enforcement officials learning about it: that would have been “Islamophobic.”
It is an adage as old as warfare itself: one cannot defeat an enemy that one does not understand. It could be added that one certainly has no chance whatsoever of defeating an enemy that one refuses to understand. Yet Obama’s “Countering Violent Extremism” program pointedly and ostentatiously avoided all mention of Islam and jihad in connection with terrorism. He did this in accord with the claim that investigating and speaking honestly about the beliefs and goals of jihadis would so mortally offend moderate Muslims that they would become “radicalized” and join the jihad themselves.
Will President Trump change this? We can only hope. But right now the denial is still firmly in place.
“Feds Still in Cover-up Mode: Ft. Lauderdale Airport Shooter Indictment Omits Terrorism,” Judicial Watch, January 27, 2017:
A grand jury in south Florida just indicted the Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter, but the feds are still in cover-up mode so terrorism isn’t even mentioned though an FBI agent testified in court that the attack was carried out on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Instead the gunman, who years ago took on an Islamic name, was charged with murder for killing five people and wounding six others during a bloody rampage in the airport’s baggage claim area earlier this month.
Days after the massacre that shut down one of the state’s busiest airports, Judicial Watch reported that the shooter, Esteban Santiago, is a Muslim convert who years before joining the U.S. Army took on an Islamic name (Aashiq Hammad), downloaded terrorist propaganda and recorded Islamic religious music online. A California-based investigative news site dug up the information while the mainstream media blindly repeated the Obama administration’s version of the facts though early on a photo surfaced of Santiago making an ISIS salute while wearing a keffiyeh, a Palestinian Arab scarf. This was disturbingly reminiscent of the Benghazi cover up, in which the president and his cohorts knowingly lied to conceal that Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. Special Mission in Libya.
The records contradict the official government version that Santiago is a mentally ill, Hispanic Army veteran who became unhinged after a tour in Iraq. Additionally, at a bond hearing in a south Florida federal court last week, an FBI special agent with the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) testified that Santiago carried out the attack on behalf of ISIS. The agent, Michael Ferlazzo, also said that Santiago had communicated with Islamic terrorists who were planning attacks on internet “jihadi chat rooms.” Regardless, the initial criminal complaint omits any reference to terrorism. It charges Santiago with performing an act of violence at an airport, using a firearm in the course of a crime of violence and causing death through the use of a firearm. It also reveals that he fired 10 to 15 rounds of ammunition from his firearm, aiming at his victims’ heads and walking while shooting on a methodical manner….