I & I Editorial BoardIn the 25 years since Islamic terrorists killed 2,977 innocent people on 9/11, the left has claimed that any national security policy it doesn’t like will only “recruit more terrorists.” So it’s especially disappointing to see House Speaker Mike Johnson adopt this shopworn and terribly misguided rhetoric.
When asked by CBS News about War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s proposal to livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood mass killer Nidal Hasan, Johnson said this week that “The concern would be that you would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists.”
We are not here to argue about the merits or demerits of a public execution of a convicted mass murderer. But, by using this as an argument against livestreaming it, Johnson managed to add his voice to a chorus of Democrats who’ve made that exact same claim anytime they disagreed with the country’s anti-terrorism policies.
Barack Obama, for example, famously claimed that “instead of serving as a tool to counter terrorism, Guantanamo became a symbol that helped al Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.” On his second day in office, Obama signed an executive order to close the detention center “as soon as practicable.”
Obama signed another order banning the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques, saying they “serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists and they increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America.”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Democrats said that Donald Trump’s “fiery rhetoric is now a recruiting tool for terrorists.”
When Trump tried to put roadblocks in front of refugees entering the country from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen, “experts” said it will “certainly be used as a recruiting tool by terrorist groups, who will claim these measures prove that the United States is hostile to Islam.”
Hillary Clinton claimed during the 2016 campaign (based on no evidence) that ISIS was “showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”
In a 2017 op-ed in USA Today, then Sen. Joe Lieberman whined that “using words like ‘radical Islamist terrorism’ [is] an essential element of the recruiting narrative of terrorist groups.”
USA Today itself editorialized that same year that criticizing Islamists “plays straight into the hands of radical Islamist recruiters.”
On and on and on the list goes.
Again, this is not an argument for the public execution of a terrorist.
But please, spare us the lectures about how it will compel hordes of otherwise peaceful Muslims to go to their local ISIS recruiting office.
The truth is that the best recruiting tool for Islamic terrorists is signaling weakness on the part of the West. Full stop.
Johnson should know better.
—Written by the I&I Editorial Board
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