While French Slept, Europe Slept, and America is Sleeping

Winston Churchill in his Parliamentary back bench years delivered several speeches warning of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. He compiled and published them as “Why England Slept” in 1938. A Harvard student in 1939 titled his senior thesis “While England Slept.” The book became a best seller in1940. Slightly over two decades later the author, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was inaugurated President of the United States. Someone should pen a similar book today, While France Slept, or why America, or at least President Obama, is Sleeping. Radical Islamic terrorism has gone global. Europe alone has witnessed scores of attacks, many deadly. Russia is under periodic attack. Turkey has experienced Islamic terrorist attacks. Theodore Van Gogh was murdered on November 2, 2004. The Madrid train bombing killed 191 and injured over 1,800 on March22, 2004. Theodore Van Gogh was murdered on November 2, 2004. 53 were killed and over 700 injured on July 7, 2005 in e London subway and bus bombings. 40 died and 102 injured in the Moscow Metro on March 29, 2010. Stockholm witnessed a bomber dying and 21 injuries on December 10, 2010. A Frankfort airport shooting on March 2, 2011 resulted in two dead and two injured. France is a country which has blinded itself to Islamic fanaticism eventhough it has been the subject of terrorist attacks, including one the firebombing of Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters in 2011 and the killing of three Jewish schoolchildren rabbi, and three French paratroopers in Toulouse and Montauban on March20, 2012. IT has allowed the creation of 751 “no go” zones in which the police, fire, and other government authorities are barred from entering Muslin communities, which often practice Sharia law and will be a festering nest for future terrorist attacks. The French Government has exerted tremendous effort in recent years in destroying Roma camps and deporting the Roma, who do not pose the threat of Radical Islam. New York City has created an effective counter terrorism unit in the NYPD to prevent terrorist attacks. The City is under pressure to restrict the unit. Edward Snowden was celebrated by many for disclosing the NSA was collecting metadata on phone calls, which would allow it to quickly identify phone links and contacts in case of an attack on the United States. The attack on Charlie Hebdo and the kosher Hyper Cacher was not just an attack on France. The enemy is not France. Nor is it even the United States. It’s certainly not Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. The enemy of radical Islam is Western Civilization. And yet, Western leaders, especially President Obama and even today President Hollande of France deny the threat of radical Islam. You cannot form a strategy to defeat an enemy if you cannot recognize the existence of the enemy. President Hollande said “These fanatic terrorists have nothing to do with the Muslim faith.” President Obama Said “ISIL is not Islamic,” as vapid an inane a statement as any he has uttered. Radical Islam is attacking Western Civilization. Islam may be a religion of peace, but a virulent strain is metastasizing globally. The longer the core is left alone, the more severe the cancer will be. The threat is increasing daily: Lone wolf, sleeper cells, state sponsored terrorism, it's not going away while countries sleep. President Obama asserts “core Al Qaeda” is destroyed. He is either blithely naïve or disingenuous. Recent attacks have occurred in Australia and Canada. Political leaders do not understand that one can be anti-radical Islam without being an Islamaphobe. Yet Muslims in Europe will pay a high political price for the radical Islam terrorist attacks. President Hollande visited the family of the Muslin police officer killed by the terrorists. France is also recognizing the Muslim employee who saved 15 hostages at the kosher market targeted by the third terrorist. Muslims will face a backlash. Manuel Valis, Prime Minister of France, now calls it Radical Islam: “It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam ….” Forty world leaders marched arm in arm Sunday in Paris leading a parade of over a million protesting the terrorist attacks in Paris. Francois Hollande of France, Matteo Renzi of Italy, David Cameron of England, Angela Merkel of Germany. A photo shows in a line Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Ibrahim Boucacar Keita of Mali, Francois Hollande of France, Angela Merkel of Germany, Poland’s former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. President Hollande and Prime Minister Netanyahu visited the Grand Synagogue in Paris. President Obama was apparently in the White House with nothing on his formal agenda. Vice President Biden was apparently home in Wilmington, Delaware, with nothing on his agenda. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris, but didn’t go to the march, instead deciding to fly home. The President sent a message to the world. Where is the Churchill or Kennedy in western leadership? Not in the White House!