Trump making 1 troubling mistake 16 years after 9/11
Top U.S. general reminds president: America can't actually defeat terror until ...
Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001
On Monday, Americans observed a solemn remembrance of the lives lost in the horrific terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney says victory will be tough to achieve unless the U.S. gets serious about specifically identifying the enemy as radical Islam and getting Muslim leaders to publicly condemn the perpetrators.
“We still have not identified the threat’s ideology; that is radical Islam. Until you do that, you can’t defeat the threat,” said McInerney, who rose to the number three position in the U.S. Air Force and also served as vice commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe.
He told WND and Radio America that President Trump did identity the ideology correctly on the campaign trail, but he has not been nearly as bold since taking office.
“We do not use the term ‘radical Islam’ very much in this administration,” McInerney said. “I’m a little disappointed in the Trump administration because the president was using it quite a bit and then has since restricted his use of the term.”
Another reason he can’t call the war a success is the volatile state of the entire Middle East.
“Now you have the Middle East,” McInerney said. “It’s the most unstable it has ever been in its history, so that’s why I’m not giving us high marks for being successful.”
Another major priority after 9/11 was the state of American intelligence capabilities. Here again, McInerney sees disappointment compared to what was possible.
“They haven’t identified these threats. They haven’t articulated the issues,” he said. “Our special ops are good at getting high-value targets, so our intelligence people are doing a good job with all of our censors, etc. But we haven’t bundled it in the proper way, so our leaders can properly express the threat and the ideology I talked about earlier.”
So how can the U.S. prosecution of the war become more effective? McInerney said it all starts with prominent Muslims clearly and frequently denouncing terrorism.
“The only people that can really defeat radical Islam are the Muslims themselves,” he said. “So we need fatwas out of Mecca and Medina. We need Arab leadership to declare those radical Islamists to be unholy warriors and that they will forever live in damnation for attacking the West.”
Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney: