The ongoing effort to protect America from terrorism, specifically radical Islam, is a colossal undertaking. As witnessed at Fort Hood in 2009, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013, at a disability services office in San Bernadino last year, and now at a nightclub in Orlando, any place people gather can be a target.
Yes, law enforcement and homeland security agencies have made the security of the country the highest priority, but no amount of defense is 100 percent effective against a motivated and nihilistic attacker.
The evidence so far in the Orlando mass murder points to shooter Omar Mateen becoming radicalized, although a more complex picture of Mateen is emerging raising the possibility he had mixed motives. We do know, however, that he called 911 just prior to the attack to profess his allegiance to the Islamic State, and it has praised Mateen for the slaughter.
ISIS said the attack was “carried out by an Islamic State fighter” and that Mateen was “one of the soldiers of the Caliphate in America.”
The FBI knew about Mateen and even interviewed him twice as part of a ten-month long investigation, but they closed the case after apparently determining he was not a security risk. Director Jim Comey stood by the FBI’s decision.
“We’re also going to look hard at our own work, to see whether there’s something we should have done differently. So far, the honest answer is I don’t think so,” Comey said Monday.
If true, that’s even more terrifying since the FBI is trying to track hundreds of individuals who have raised suspicions of becoming radicalized.
The Islamic State is a particularly dangerous enemy. Graeme Wood’s comprehensive story in The Atlantic last year entitled “What ISIS Really Wants” said while al-Qaeda is more concerned about driving the West out of Muslim countries, the Islamic State “follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy.”
Wood explains that the Islamic State envisions a coming showdown between the “true” followers of Islam and apostates (everyone else). “For certain true believers—the kind who long for epic good-versus-evil battles—visions of apocalyptic bloodbaths fulfill a deep psychological need.”
Mateen’s attack came after ISIS called on Muslims around the world during the holy period of Ramadan to “make it a month of calamity everywhere for non-believers,” with a promise of even greater heavenly rewards for timely attacks.
How can we successfully protect ourselves from a sworn enemy whose own obliteration is critical to its divine prophecy, particularly in our country which constitutionally protects individual freedom and shuns excessive government intervention into the private lives of its citizens?
This has been the daily challenge since 9/11, and as we were tragically reminded Sunday morning, the fight is constant and ongoing.