James Baker: Iran May Be ‘Quietly’ Helping US Against ISIS

13 Oct

Could the stars be aligning for Iran’s hatred of the U.S.???

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Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 12:57 PM

By Greg Richter – Newmax

Iranian help would be tricky, partly because of the history between the two countries. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage in Iran for 444 days between 1979 and 1981, and the United States later backed Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. The United States currently is leading negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, which critics in the United States say is an effort to acquire a nuclear weapons arsenal. That said, Iran sees ISIS as a threat and has an interest in seeing it defeated. A senior Iranian official told the Associated Press over the weekend that Iran and the United States have exchanged messages over ISIS.

It’s the “religious component” that makes Iran an antagonist, he said. Baker said he is optimistic about the situation, and also thinks the United States will be able to re-establish ties with Russia. “I think that we will be able to handle ISIS,” Baker said.

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White House national security adviser Susan Rice, appearing live set, denied any such talks. “We’re not in coordination or direct consultation with the Iranians about any aspect of the fight against ISIL,” said Rice, using the acronym preferred by the administration. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger also was part of the interview with Baker and Brokaw. “As long as Iran is ruled by the ayatollahs and places itself on a sectarian philosophy, we have to be careful,” Kissinger told Brokaw. But, he added, “as a country, Iran is a natural ally of the United States.”

Despite longstanding divisions between the countries, Iran may be helping the United States in its fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), says former Secretary of State James Baker. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Iran is not helping us quietly,” Baker said in an interview with Tom Brokaw aired Sunday on “Meet the Press.” 

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OBAMA’S PLAN IS FAILIING TO DEGRADE OR DESTROY ISIS.

12 Oct

WE ARE LOSING THE WAR ON RADICAL ISLAM

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America’s plans to fight Islamic State are in ruins as the militant group’s fighters come close to capturing Kobani and have inflicted a heavy defeat on the Iraqi army west of Baghdad.

The US-led air attacks launched against Islamic State (also known as Isis) on 8 August in Iraq and 23 September in Syria have not worked. President Obama’s plan to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State has not even begun to achieve success. In both Syria and Iraq, Isis is expanding its control rather than contracting.

Isis reinforcements have been rushing towards Kobani in the past few days to ensure that they win a decisive victory over the Syrian Kurdish town’s remaining defenders. The group is willing to take heavy casualties in street fighting and from air attacks in order to add to the string of victories it has won in the four months since its forces captured Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, on 10 June. Part of the strength of the fundamentalist movement is a sense that there is something inevitable and divinely inspired about its victories, whether it is against superior numbers in Mosul or US airpower at Kobani.

In the face of a likely Isis victory at Kobani, senior US officials have been trying to explain away the failure to save the Syrian Kurds in the town, probably Isis’s toughest opponents in Syria. “Our focus in Syria is in degrading the capacity of [Isis] at its core to project power, to command itself, to sustain itself, to resource itself,” said US Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken, in a typical piece of waffle designed to mask defeat. “The tragic reality is that in the course of doing that there are going to be places like Kobani where we may or may not be able to fight effectively.”

Unfortunately for the US, Kobani isn’t the only place air strikes are failing to stop Isis. In an offensive in Iraq launched on 2 October but little reported in the outside world, Isis has captured almost all the cities and towns it did not already hold in Anbar province, a vast area in western Iraq that makes up a quarter of the country. It has captured Hit, Kubaisa and Ramadi, the provincial capital, which it had long fought for. Other cities, towns and bases on or close to the Euphrates River west of Baghdad fell in a few days, often after little resistance by the Iraqi Army which showed itself to be as dysfunctional as in the past, even when backed by US air strikes.

MILITARY AIR

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Mark Caserta: President paints inaccurate picture of nation’s economy

9 Oct

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Oct. 08, 2014 @ 11:40 PM

With less than one month until the midterm elections, President Obama is attempting to pivot the national conversation back to the economy after months of scandal and foreign crises.

During a speech last week on the campus of Northwestern University, President Obama told Americans they were “better off” now than when he took office.

“It is indisputable that our economy is stronger today than when I took office,” Obama said. “By every economic measure, we are better off now than we were when I took office.”

It’s very telling that the president feels compelled to “convince” Americans they’re better off economically. Obviously, his advisors have their fingers on the pulse of the majority of Americans who are feeling the crunch of this president’s economic policies.

According to a recent Gallup poll, more than half of Americans said they had virtually no confidence in Obama’s ability to improve the nation’s sagging economy — the highest rate during his years in the White House. Only 42 percent said they believed Obama had the necessary economic skills to turn the economy around.

Here are some “indisputable” economic measures you’ll never hear from this administration.
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Under the ultra-liberal presidency of Obama and his progressive minions, poverty has soared while he has been president to nearly 50 million Americans, more than at any other time in the history of the Census Bureau tracking poverty.

Obama has become the food stamp president, with the number on food stamps increasing during his administration to a record high of 47.7 million, up 80 percent over the past five years as reported by the Department of Agriculture.

And while the administration boasts a recent drop in unemployment to 5.9 percent, they’re using the collapsing labor force and long-term unemployment as smoke and mirrors to deceive the American people. The number of people not participating in the labor force is the highest it’s been in 36 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the government stops tracking the unemployed if they haven’t looked for work in the last four weeks. Our nation’s true rate of unemployment, including the discouraged workers and those who have had to accept a part-time job for economic reasons, is 12.9 percent.

Despite calling George W. Bush “unpatriotic” for increasing the national debt by $4 trillion over eight years, Barack Obama has hypocritically increased the debt nearly $7 trillion in only six years.

And in perpetrating arguably the most nefarious scheme in history upon the American people, President Obama lied to Americans about nearly every aspect of Obamacare, which is now eroding the 40-hour work week for employees whose hours are being cut by employers who can’t afford to provide health care coverage as mandated by the president’s signature health care law.

Despite this president riding his promise to fight for the middle class all the way to the White House, the ironic truth is the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer under his ineffectual economic policies.

America needs to end this failed liberal experiment in November.
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Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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PANETTA: OBAMA HAS GIVEN UP.

7 Oct

 PANETTA

Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared President Barack Obama’s approach to be like a law professor, however without the aspect of rolling up his sleeves and to get the job done.

Instead he suggested Obama has given up.

Panetta said, “He [Obama] approaches things like a law professor in presenting a logic of his position. There is nothing wrong with that. We want to have a president who thinks through the issues. My experience in Washington is that logic alone doesn’t work. Once you lay out a position, you are going to roll up your sleeves and you have to fight to get it done. That is key in Washington. In order for presidents to succeed, they cannot just — when they run into problems, step back and give up.”

“There is a feeling and I have a feeling that the leadership and the president have given up on the big issues facing this country whether it’s immigration or a budget deal or infrastructure funding or trade or energy. there is a sense that you can’t deal with that. This country needs that. They can’t give up.”

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Race has national implications

6 Oct

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Oct. 05, 2014 @ 10:00 PM

JONATHAN MATTISE

CHARLESTON — When picking its U.S. senators, West Virginia traditionally has stuck with what’s most familiar.

For 55 years, the Mountain State has only sent Democrats to the Senate. Jay Rockefeller and the late Robert Byrd, for instance, spent about three and five decades respectively in the nation’s capital — long enough to have their names affixed to college buildings, airports and highways around the state.

As Rockefeller eyes retirement, the race for his job is fueling a shake-up in the state and the national political scene. Republican Shelley Moore Capito and Democrat Natalie Tennant are vying for one of a handful of seats nationwide that could sway a slim Democratic Senate majority.

The contest could symbolize how tides are turning in West Virginia. Capito is a heavy favorite hoping for a signature GOP win, as the historically Democratic state veers further right amid strong voter disdain for President Barack Obama.

Either way, the result will make history. Capito or Tennant would be West Virginia’s first woman in the Senate.

Capito and Tennant don’t hail from unfamiliar circles for West Virginia politics.

Capito has served in Congress since 2000 and was a state lawmaker before that. Her father, Arch Moore, was one of the most popular GOP governors in state history, despite serving 33 months in federal confinement for corruption felonies. In 1978, he lost a bid for the same Senate seat that Capito is seeking.

Tennant, the two-term secretary of state, was a TV journalist for 12 years. At West Virginia University, she once sported the Daniel Boone look — muzzleloader, coonskin cap and all — as the first female Mountaineer mascot. She marched in WVU’s homecoming parade Friday.

This is her family’s second run-in with Capito. Tennant’s husband, Democratic state Sen. Erik Wells, lost a 2004 U.S. House challenge against Capito. Tennant also lost a special election bid for governor in 2011.

In a race ensnared in energy policy rhetoric, Capito and Tennant talk plenty about protecting coal. They vehemently oppose federal regulations that would curb carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, an anti-global warming push that coal country advocates fear would cripple their hurting industry.

Both are fervent about firearms rights, occasionally arguing over who’s the bigger gun lover.

For West Virginia Democrats, the toughest hurdle isn’t even on the ballot. Obama lost all 55 counties in 2012, a harsh reprimand against his environmental policies on coal, gun control initiatives and other issues.

Tennant, who supported the president in 2008 and 2012, vows to buck him and the D.C. establishment on coal and other issues. Pundits say the anti-Obama wave is too overwhelming.

“(Tennant) has the kind of qualities that could make her an appealing candidate,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of The Rothenberg Political Report. “The problem is, she’s a Democrat in Obama’s second midterm with a president wildly unpopular in the state. It just never added up to her having a serious chance of winning.”

At an August rally in coal-centric Beckley, the GOP wasn’t subtle about its strategy. Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Capito and GOP congressional candidates spent 20 minutes almost singularly laying blame on Obama and Democrats for coal’s downturn.

Tennant, like other Democrats facing tough elections, says the race has nothing to do with Obama.

Democratic superstars including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have dropped in for fundraising events for Tennant. It has been a tip-toe act for Tennant to make clear what she supports from mainstream Democrats — minimum wage increases, college loan forgiveness, equal pay, financial industry pushback — and where she differs, like coal and guns.

“We don’t agree on everything,” Tennant said after the Warren event in July. “I’m building a coalition of what is first for West Virginia.”

Tennant has pegged Capito as the banking industry’s best friend in Congress. A Tennant TV ad claims the congresswoman was privy to insider information on the House Financial Services Committee and financially benefited from it. Capito’s husband is an investment banker.

“These allegations were batted back many, many times,” Capito said. “There’s no basis in fact. I really think she’s taken it to the gutter.”

Capito also had a head start in the race.

She announced her bid a couple weeks after the November 2012 election, before Rockefeller decided to retire in January 2013. Tennant entered the race 10 months after Capito, who started with $1.6 million from her House account and has maintained about a 3-to-1 money edge since.

More conservative groups, such as the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, signaled they weren’t thrilled with Capito’s slightly more moderate voting record. But a serious challenge from the right never surfaced.

CHARLESTON — Here is a look at where U.S. Senate hopefuls Democrat Natalie Tennant and Republican Shelley Moore Capito stand on key issues.

ENERGY/COAL: Both oppose a proposal to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. Both vaguely say they want an “all of the above” domestic energy policy that weans America off international energy dependence, but uses all types of energy production.

Capito sponsored the MINER Act of 2006, which became law. It requires mines to prepare better preparation and reporting for accidents.

Tennant criticizes Capito for voting against a failed mine safety bill in 2010, which was largely a partisan vote. The bill made it easier to shut down problem mines, increased penalties for serious safety violations and offered more protection for whistle-blowers. At the time, Capito said the bill was rushed, did little for mine safety, penalized businesses, added regulation and promoted lawsuits.

AFFORDABLE CARE ACT: Capito has voted with her caucus dozens of times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. She says she wants to replace part of the law allowing Medicaid expansion in states, a push that has insured about 150,000 West Virginians.

Tennant supports changing the Affordable Care Act, but also supports Medicaid expansion. She favors a provision that patients can be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions. She also supports delaying penalties on people for not having insurance and wants more insurance providers involved in West Virginia.

GUN RIGHTS: Both candidates have been outspoken gun rights advocates. Tennant believes decisions about criminal background checks should be made at the state level. She says the waiting period after a background check should drop from three business days to 48 hours, and after the background check system is in place for four years, the wait should only be 24 hours. Both opposes a federal firearms registry. Both say they oppose a failed bill sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, to expand background checks.

BUDGET: Capito has cast votes for several budgets by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin. The latest version, which passed the House in April and won’t advance any further, would cut more than $5 trillion over the next decade to balance the budget by 2024. It relies on domestic program cuts, like education and food stamps, and shifts money to the Pentagon and veterans’ health care. Future retirees would be shifted from traditional Medicare and toward a subsidy-based health insurance option on the open market. Social Security would be untouched. Ryan’s 2010 budget included an option for personal Social Security accounts, but Capito voted against it.

Last September, Capito voted to raise the debt ceiling only if the Affordable Care Act was delayed, changed or defunded. A government shutdown ensued. Later, she voted to end the shutdown by raising the debt ceiling in October. She supported a bipartisan budget deal in December.

Tennant supports a push to refinance some student loans by setting minimum tax rates on millionaires. She has criticized Capito for supporting Ryan budgets and for the shutdown. She opposes cuts to Social Security and efforts to change Medicare into a voucher program

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WHITE HOUSE NARROWS ISRAELI SUPPORT

6 Oct
Israeli leader: White House criticism un-American

Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister dismissed a recent White House rebuke of Israeli settlement construction, saying in comments broadcast on Sunday that the criticism goes “against American values.”

The tough words by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to deepen a rift with the White House over Israeli construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians as parts of a future independent state.

Israel came under fire last week after a Jerusalem city official signed the final go-ahead for construction of a new housing development in east Jerusalem. A day earlier, an ultranationalist Jewish group said dozens of settlers would move into six apartment buildings purchased in the heart of a predominantly Arab neighborhood of east Jerusalem.

Israel says east Jerusalem is part of its capital and considers Jewish housing developments there to be neighborhoods of the city. But the international community, including the United States, does not recognize Israel’s annexation of the area and considers construction there to be illegitimate settlement activity.

In a striking public rebuke last week, the Obama administration warned Israel that the new project would distance Israel from “even its closest allies” and raise questions about its commitment to seeking peace with Palestinians.

In an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Netanyahu said he does not accept restrictions on where Jews could live, and said that Jerusalem’s Arabs and Jews should be able to buy homes wherever they want.

He said he was “baffled” by the American condemnation. “It’s against the American values. And it doesn’t bode well for peace,” he said. “The idea that we’d have this ethnic purification as a condition for peace, I think it’s anti-peace.” The interview was recorded Thursday.

The White House declined comment

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Mark Caserta: Israel, as apple of God’s eye, important to US

5 Oct

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Aug. 14, 2014 @ 12:00 AM

God chose the nation of Israel to be the people through whom our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, would be born.

“For thus saith the Lord of hosts: After the glory hath He sent me unto the nations which despoiled you, for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye.”

These words, penned by the Prophet Zechariah, lend solemn perspective to the ongoing attacks on the Israeli people.

In Deuteronomy, God said, “Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish. You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them, those who war against you shall be as nothing at all.”

Just over 8,000 square miles in size, Israel is surrounded by enemy nations such as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iran. Tragically, the Israeli people live with a fear few Americans will ever understand. Radical Islamic organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Fatah are an ever-present force.

Unfortunately, the years of turmoil in the Middle East have many Americans disillusioned in recognizing the importance of Israel to the United States, not only as our ally but as the only beacon of democracy in the region.

Israel’s greatest ally has always been the United States. Yet, the relationship between the White House and Jerusalem has become dangerously ambiguous. Mixed messages sent by the Obama administration are providing the world reason to doubt U.S. commitment to our Israeli partners.

Time and again, Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have shown a propensity to pressure Israel and to somehow morally equate a Jewish state that seeks peace and respects human life with radical murderers who would rather eradicate Israel than create a future for the Palestinian people.

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Let’s be clear. This has always been a battle between those who celebrate life and those who champion death. Hamas’ ruthless “human shields” policy where rockets are fired from civilian sites including mosques, schools and hospitals, is well documented. This strategy, by the rules of war, make these institutions legitimate targets.

Israel has every right to protect her sovereignty. While anti-Semitism is connoted as the longest, deepest hatred in human history, it is rooted in the hatred of God and His Word. But of Israel, the Bible says “God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.”

But Jehovah Nissi is an omnipotent God who needs no help protecting His covenanted nation. And His favor over the Israeli people is not contingent upon other nations’ choice to support them.

Israel is, indeed, the apple of God’s eye. But God’s Word clearly says those who bless Israel shall be blessed, and those who don’t will be cursed.

It’s in America’s interest to protect our relationship with God’s chosen people.

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Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Gallup: Voter opposition to Obama at 16-year high, worse than Bush, Clinton

5 Oct

By Paul Bedard | October 5, 2014 | 1:07 pm

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Angry and frustrated voters are planning to use the midterm elections in one month to tell President Obama they oppose his agenda, the highest “no vote” percentage in the last 16 years measured by Gallup.

The polling outfit found that 32 percent of voters want to send a message of opposition with their vote, compared to just 20 percent who are sending a signal of support.

That is 13 points higher than in 1998 when former President Clinton was headed to impeachment for lying about his sex affair with a former White House intern and even a smidge higher — 2 points — than in 2008, when Americans were tired of President Bush’s military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unusual question was first asked by Gallup in 1998. It reads: “Will your vote for a candidate be made in order to send a message that you SUPPORT [Barack Obama], be made in order to send a message that you OPPOSE [Barack Obama], or will you NOT be sending a message about [Barack Obama] with your vote?”

Not surprisingly, Republicans want to use their vote as a megaphone of opposition. Said Gallup:

“A majority of Republican registered voters, 58 percent, say they will be sending a message of opposition to Obama with their vote this fall. In contrast, 38 percent of Democratic voters say they will support the president. Rather than supporting Obama, most Democrats, 53 percent, say they will not be sending a message with their vote.

“Democrats are a bit less likely now (38 percent) than in 2010 (45 percent) to say they will be sending a message of support to Obama, while Republican opposition to the president is the same.”

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.

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GOP Slams Obama Economic Speech, Calls for ‘Real Leadership’

4 Oct

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By Todd Beamon

 Republicans blasted President Barack Obama’s economic speech at Northwestern University on Thursday, charging that his remarks merely sought to deflect criticism from his administration’s many debacles and only promoted policies that have set Americans back on several fronts.

“The president can talk about an improving economy, but try telling that to those Americans who are suffering so much in the Obama economy,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “What about the poor and middle-class who can’t find jobs or whose wages have barely budged during the Obama administration?”

Tennessee Rep. Diane Black reference the now-infamous question Ronald Reagan posed that carried him into the White House in 1980.

“When President Reagan asked Americans if they were better off now than before he took office, he did not have to answer the question for them,” Black told Newsmax. “The reason President Obama has to try and convince Americans that they are better off under his policies is because Americans know otherwise.

“Our country continues to suffer from joblessness, stagnant wages, and while the president touts his economic recovery, Americans continue to show great anxiety about our country’s future,” Black added. “Another speech will not change this. The president needs to show real leadership.”

In his speech, President Obama argued that the American economy had improved during his six years in office. He said that the nation had made steady progress and blamed Republicans for rejecting steps said would help American families.

“These truths aren’t incompatible,” he said in a speech coming just four weeks before the congressional elections. “Our broader economy in the aggregate has come a long way, but the gains of recovery aren’t yet broadly shared.”

Obama defended policies ranging from bailing out the automobile industry to Obamacare — adding that his economic policies are on the ballot in November.

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“I am not on the ballot this fall,” the president said. “Michelle’s pretty happy about that. But make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them.”

He charged the GOP with blocking such initiatives as increasing the minimum wage, refinancing student loans, and extending unemployment benefits — while pushing for bigger tax cuts for the wealthy.

“When push came to shove this year, and Republicans in Congress actually had to take a stand on policies that would help the middle class and working Americans — raising the minimum wage, enacting fair pay, refinancing student loans, extending insurance for the unemployed — the answer was ‘no,’ ” Obama said.

“When nearly all the gains of the recovery have gone to the top 1 percent, when income inequality is at as high a rate as we’ve seen in decades. I find that hard to swallow.”

Ignoring that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has passed more than 40 economic proposals that have stalled in the Democratic-majority Senate, Obama charged that “a true opposition party should have the courage to lay out” its platform for improving the economy.

“If there were any credibility to the argument that says when those at the top do well, eventually everyone else will do well, it would have borne itself out by now,” the president said.

Republicans responded quickly and decisively to President Obama’s speech.

House Speaker John Boehner’s office released his remarks two weeks ago to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington that included a program for “resetting” the American economy.

The agenda included repairing the tax code, cutting government spending, reforming the legal system, reining in regulation, and strengthening education.

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“The president’s economic record is beyond dismal, and families and small businesses are literally paying the price,” Kevin Smith, a Boehner spokesman, told Newsmax.

“Republicans are offering a different approach — and that’s why Speaker Boehner outlined his five-point plan for resetting America’s economic foundation.

“It’s also why House Republicans have passed more than 40 jobs bills, but they’ve been rejected by Harry Reid’s do-nothing Senate,” Smith said.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune called Obama’s speech “a familiar pivot back to jobs and the economy” and released data from a new report by Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee that detailed “the true state of the Obama economy.”

The document reported a $3,000 average yearly decline in household income — and included statistics showing that 9.6 million Americans remained jobless and that gas prices had risen 82 percent during Obama’s years in the White House.

“Congressional Republicans have remained focused like a laser on passing legislation that would help the middle class by creating jobs, growing the economy, and increasing take-home pay,” said Thune, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. “Unfortunately, those solutions are stuck in the Democrat-controlled Senate.”

McConnell accused Obama of “throwing a wet blanket over the economy with its focus on spending, borrowing, taxing and regulating — and those things clearly haven’t worked.

“What about Americans who work in industries that liberals in Washington don’t approve of, like coal?” the Kentucky senator asked. “Congress needs to pass legislation that helps create jobs instead of smothering economic opportunity.”

Meanwhile, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus released the GOP’s own agenda — “The Principles of American Renewal” — that he said would seek to unite the party on such issues as national defense, immigration, and conservative family issues.

“If the American people hire us, we’ll be ready on day one,” Priebus said at the George Washington University in Washington. “People know what we’re against. I want to talk about the things we’re for.”

On immigration, Priebus called for stronger border security.

“We must fix our broken immigration system,” he said. “We can’t reward those who break the laws and punish those who lawfully wait in line.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Mark Caserta: Islamic terrorism is a religious war

2 Oct

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Oct. 02, 2014 @ 06:55 AM

Radical Islamic terrorism is rapidly tightening its clutch on our American livelihood.

When I wrote last week on potential “lone wolf” attacks on American soil utilizing the barbaric methods we’ve witnessed during the rise of the Islamic State group, or ISIS, I had hoped it would never actually happen. But last week, in Moore, Oklahoma, the U.S. may have seen the beginning of our worst nightmare.

Officials with the Moore Police Department say the FBI is now involved in the investigation related to a brutal attack of workers at a food distribution plant. Sgt. Jeremy Lewis says the alleged suspect, 30-year-old Alton Nolen, a convert to Islam who now goes by “Jah’Keem Yisrael,” had just been fired when he returned to the plant’s front office area where he confronted 54-yearold Colleen Hufford and began attacking her with a knife, “severing her head.” “Ms. Hanford’s cause of death is decapitation due to multiple sharp force trauma to neck. Manner of death is homicide,” said Amy Elliott with the Medical Examiner’s Office.

While it’s unclear Nolen’s Islamic faith played a role in the attack, the FBI is now looking into reports that he tried to convert former co-workers to Islam while working at the facility. But certainly death by beheading has been proprietary to Islamic jihadists and leads one to believe that even if Nolen’s firing was the catalyst, his faith may have prompted this style killing.

No doubt, there are those who will attempt to describe this attack as simply an act of “workplace violence.” The Obama administration has been consistent in refusing to make the connection between terrorism and radical Islam. Following the Fort Hood shooting in 2009 when Nidal Malik Hasan shot dozens of soldiers in an admitted attempt to protect Taliban leaders in Afghanistan from American troops, the president refused to call the shooting an act of terror.

But failures during the Obama presidency, along with declining poll numbers, have forced the administration into admitting we are indeed at war with terror. But the White House is still unwilling to make the connection to radical Islam.

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Earlier this month in his address to the nation regarding the Islamic State, the president said, “Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim … ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple.” The “politically correct” notion that there is no connection between the actions of radical jihadists and their Islamic religion is dangerously naïve. We must recognize the tenacious mindset of Islamic extremism in order to clearly understand the threat.

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The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Muslim extremists have chosen to interpret their holy book’s call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions of justifiable violence. These individuals do not fear death – they celebrate it.

The president must forego his concern about protecting the Muslim religion and address Islamic terrorism as a religious war – one we cannot afford to lose.

Mark Caserta is a conserva tive blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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