Dana Milbank worries that Barack Obama isn’t taking ISIS as seriously as Churchill took Nazi Germany.
The Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank (1/21/15) isn’t happy with the State of the Union address: It didn’t have enough terrorism in it.
Why, Barack Obama only mentioned “terrorism,” “terror” or “terrorists” nine times–hardly at all!
Milbank’s column begins:
In 1938, Winston Churchill published While England Slept, about Britain’s failure to prepare for the Nazi threat.
Let’s hope that, when the history of this moment is written, the 2015 State of the Union address will not be retold under the title While America Slept.
Yes, let’s hope that ISIS, which has taken over Mosul, Iraq, doesn’t turn out to be a threat comparable to Nazi Germany, which in one three-month period in 1940 took over Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and France. The chances of ISIS doing anything similar seem pretty remote.
But in Milbank’s view, “Not since before the 2001 terrorist attacks has there been such a disconnect between the nation’s focus and the condition of the world.” By this he means that there is not enough focus on the threat of terrorism–which may come as a surprise to consumers of US news media. The columnist runs through the threats he thinks we should be paying more attention to:
Thousands of foreign fighters have joined with Muslim extremists in Syria and Iraq, and their fanatical cause has inspired sympathizers across the globe: 17 killed by terrorists in Paris; terrorism raids and a shootout in Belgium; a hunt for sleeper cells across Europe; a gunman attacking the Canadian Parliament; an Ohio man arrested after buying guns and ammunition, allegedly with plans to attack the Capitol. Even Australia has raised its terrorist threat level.
And yet, when it comes to countering the terror threat in America, the State of the Union is nonchalant.
Christopher Lee Cornell, would-be jihadist and videogame addict.
Perhaps that’s because the only “terror threat in America” that appears in Milbank’s litany is 20-year-old Christopher Lee Cornell, described by the Washington Post (1/15/15) as “a big time video-gamer who rarely left home.” Should we be paying more attention to him, just in case he turns out to be the next Hitler?
Milbank complained that Obama’s SOTU “proposals were decidedly domestic: Increasing the capital-gains tax, boosting cybersecurity, encouraging paid family and sick leave, reviving free-trade deals, and expanding access to broadband and community college.” Note that Obama introduced his cybersecurity ideas by declaring that “no foreign nation…should be able to shut down our networks,” and “free-trade deals” are by definition with other countries. These proposals are only “domestic” in the sense that they don’t involve blowing anyone up.
Not that the speech lacked calls for violent military action: Obama promised to “continue to hunt down terrorists and dismantle their networks…relentlessly,” and “call[ed] on this Congress to show the world that we are united in this mission by passing a resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL.” Congressional authorizations of force are kind of a big deal; there’ve only been four in the last 50 years. But Milbank dismisses this literal call to arms as insignificant, saying it and the fight against terrorism “had small roles in the speech.”
Republicans are also chided for insufficient anti-terrorist zeal, with the GOP-led House passing “a purely symbolic resolution condemning the attacks in Paris.” It’s not clear what non-symbolic action the House should have taken; perhaps expansion of NSA domestic surveillance programs, as Milbank expresses alarm that a majority of Americans are no longer “concerned such efforts wouldn’t go far enough.” Along with the drop in the percentage of citizens saying terrorism is the top US problem to 2 percent, Milbank blames this on “national leaders averting their gaze from terrorism” (the kind of “averting their gaze” that involves killing thousands of people).
Milbank describes Obama as “full of swagger” and later as “downright cocky,” suggesting a desire to see an over-confident (dare I say uppity?) president taken down a peg. “If–God forbid–terrorists do here what they did in Paris and attempted in Brussels, the State of the Union in 2015 will be remembered as complacent,” he concludes.
If–God forbid–there should be an attack just like the one in Paris in the United States, that would kill fewer people than the 32 shot to death at Virginia Tech in 2007 or the 27 murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Does Milbank remember any of George W. Bush’s State of the Union speeches as being overly complacent about the threat of school shootings? Of course not–because it’s only when violence is associated with Islam that it’s never possible to be alarmed enough.
