by Mike Swetnam

I keep hearing from “experts” that ISIL is not a large current threat to our homeland. One commentator on the Sunday talk shows, a former Deputy Secretary of State, stated that they were not really an Al Qaeda-type group, they were more a conventional force that did not really threaten our homeland.

This is total disillusionment at the extreme! Not even before 9/11 did we so under estimate a severe and major threat to our homeland. ISIL states publicly every opportunity they get that they will come the to west, the USA and Europe; that our streets will flow with blood. Yet, in the past week the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center both stated publically that ISIL poses only a limited threat to the homeland.

I remember all too well statements by almost all government officials prior to 9/11 that AQ posed no real threat to the US. Yet, thousands died on 9/11! I suspect thousands will again die before our ‘head-in-the-sand’ leaders get the true nature of this global threat.

When are we at risk? When you combine leadership that believes there is a small threat with a dedicated and fanatical enemy focused on showing us to be weak and stupid. All too often we play into the hands of these enemies by being stupid.

This may well be a war in the Middle East but don’t think we are not part of it. Embarrassing the USA is the recruiting tool that builds these terrorist organizations. Stupid commentators in the USA state that when we attack them we help their recruiting. The opposite is true. When we sit back and look weak their numbers skyrocket! When we were attacking them all around the world their numbers shrank to almost zero. Since we have been pulling back and letting them behead our citizens, their numbers have grown to historic highs. The evidence is abundantly clear to all who choose to look and listen to what this enemy is doing.

ISIL is coming for us. It could be next year or the year after. Or it could be tomorrow! Since striking the US will empower them, I would look for them to hit us as soon as they can.

Isn’t it time our leaders started to actually listen to what the enemy is saying instead of pretending the world looks the way they wish it to be?