Fewer Islamists Freely Roam the Streets of Europe This Morning

Today on NRO

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Our president seems to have forgotten that the war is still on. The Islamists haven't. Obama: Charlie Who?

JONAH GOLDBERG: The White House seems to think its denial of radical Islam will stop people from believing the obvious. The Conversation Obama Doesn't Want to Have.

CHRIS MARK: We should be proud of men like Chris Kyle, not skittish or ashamed. Smearing Snipers: What Many Americans Don't Get about Our Warrior Elite.

JOEL GEHRKE: Terrorism threats change the GOP's immigration calculus. Terror in a Pennsylvania Town.

SLIDESHOW: Oscar Nominations.

Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty

January 16, 2015

Fewer Islamists Freely Roam the Streets of Europe This Morning

Good morning -- and in many ways, it is a good morning. Always better to hear about sleeper cells of terrorists being arrested than sleeper cells of terrorists being activated.

Dozens of terror suspects were arrested in Belgium, France, and Germany early Friday, a day after Belgian authorities said that they halted a plot to attack police officers by mere hours.

Eric Van der Sypt, a Belgian federal magistrate, told a news conference Friday in Brussels that 13 people had been detained in Belgium in connection with the plot, with another two arrested in neighboring France. He added that a dozen searches had led to the discovery of four military-style weapons including Kalashnikov assault rifles.

On Thursday, Belgian police had moved against a suspected terrorist hideout in the eastern town of Verviers. In the ensuing firefight, two terror suspects were killed, while a third was wounded and arrested.

At the time, officials said the militant group targeted in the raid included some who had returned from Syria. Authorities have previously said 300 Belgian residents have gone to fight with extremist Islamic formations in Syria; it is unclear how many have returned.

. . . Meanwhile, French police arrested at least 12 people in anti-terrorism raids in three towns around Paris, the city prosecutor's office said early Friday.

Also Friday, Berlin police said that they had taken two men into custody on suspicion that they were recruiting fighters and procuring equipment and funding for the Islamic State group, better known as ISIS, in Syria.

The two were picked up in a series of raids involving the search of 11 residences by 250 police officers. Authorities said the raids were part of a months-long investigation into a small group of extremists based in Berlin. However, they also said there was no evidence the group was planning attacks inside Germany.

Raids and a serious effort to root out the Islamist radicals returning from the Middle East could be the silver lining to the abominable attacks in Paris.

I'm thinking of a little anecdote from Tony Robbins:

"Confidence and competence is not the same thing," Robbins tells SUCCESS, following his return from a recent seminar tour through Australia and India. "No one should go into their garden and chant, "There are no weeds. There are no weeds. There are no weeds." For people to be true leaders, they have to first see things as they are, not worse. Then see it better than it is, and then make it the way you see it."

Seeing a problem is not really a bad thing; if you see a problem, you can deal with it. If you see the weeds, you can pick the weeds. One of the worst and most dangerous circumstances is to have a problem and to not see it, or to walk around with a false sense of security that a problem has been solved.

Which brings us to Jonah's latest bit of brilliance:

The Obama administration seems to believe that the wonder-working power of their words can get everyone to stop believing their lying eyes and ears. It's tempting to ask, "How stupid do they think we are?" But the more relevant question is, "How stupid do they think the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are?" Whatever appeal the Islamic State may or may not have in the larger Muslim world, Barack Obama insisting "it is not Islamic" surely makes no difference whatsoever. And as for the jihadists, it's not like his words speak louder than his drone strikes.

It's true that the Obama administration has had remarkable success playing word games. They "created or saved" millions of jobs — as if that was a real economic metric. (For what it's worth, I do or save 500 pushups every morning). They decimated "core al-Qaeda," with the tautological definition of "core al-Qaeda" being "the parts of al-Qaeda that we have decimated."

But this is different. Those distortions were political buzzphrases intended for domestic consumption and a re-election campaign. This is a much bigger deal. The threat of Islamic extremism transcends Obama's theological hubris and lexicological shenanigans. All that Obama's insipid rhetorical gamesmanship does is send the signal to friend and foe alike that he can't or won't see the problem for what it is.

Not only does Obama not see the problem for what it is, he behaves as if he doesn't want us to think of it as much of a problem at all. Look at what Obama has spent the past few days talking about: faster broadband. Methane emissions. Mandating paid sick days. It's as if he wants to talk about everything except the guys who have infiltrated Europe and no doubt, the United States as well, who are planning terror attacks.

Do We Have a Veterans'-Employment Problem or Not?

File this under, "half of what you hear turns out to be wrong." Undoubtedly, initiatives like Hiring Our Heroes have the best of intentions and noble goals.

Peter A. Gudmundsson, who was a Marine artillery officer and is currently chief executive of RecruitMilitary, a national veteran-recruiting company, contends that there really isn't a jobs crisis for veterans:

Americans may be shocked to learn that there is no veterans' unemployment crisis. The unemployment rate in 2014 for post-9/11 veterans was 7.2 percent, the lowest level in seven years of tracking these veterans.

Although post-9/11 veterans did have a higher rate of unemployment than the overall workforce last year — which was at 6.2 percent — the disparity is more attributable to the relative youth of those in this group rather than their military experience. In fact, compared with civilians in the same age ranges, post-9/11 veterans experienced lower rates of unemployment.

Gudmundsson writes that the Hire More Heroes Act, passed by the House last week, is misguided.

Here's former Undersecretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy, writing in April, pointing to a lot of the same statistics eight months ago to make the case that there is a serious problem:

One crucial area of disconnect between veterans' expectations and reality is their prospects for civilian employment. Sixty-six percent of the veterans polled believed they have the education and skills to be competitive in today's job market; 81 percent thought their skills would translate well to the civilian job market; and 62 percent thought employers would see military service as an advantage. These high expectations contrast with what many post-9/11 veterans are experiencing: Whereas the jobless rate for all U.S. veterans was just 6.9 percent in October 2013 — slightly lower than for the overall population — the unemployment rate for veterans who have served since 9/11 stood at 10 percent.

The truth: It is not easy for a service member who has conducted hundreds of patrols in a combat zone to translate that experience into skills that a civilian employer can understand. And with less than 1 percent of Americans having served in the military, misconceptions abound, such as the assumption that every veteran has PTSD or that service members are trained only to take orders, not to lead.

Is part of this the expectation among Americans that the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans ought to be much closer to zero than the rate for the general population?

Walker, Running

No surprise, but I suspect a lot of Republicans will welcome him:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker left little doubt Thursday that he is planning to run for the White House in 2016.

Speaking to the Republican National Committee (RNC) at its winter meeting in San Diego, the union-busting Midwesterner cast himself as a "new, fresh leader," laying out a clear rationale for his candidacy as a blue-state governor with a proven record of reforming government

"I look at our country, and I'm worried about our country the same way that I was worried about my state back in 2009," Walker said when discussing his two sons, craftily referencing the year he decided to launch his first campaign for the governorship.

Less than 24 hours before former Republican nominee Mitt Romney will address party leaders as he considers a third White House campaign, Walker said, "People want a fresh, new look. They want new ideas."

Mitt Romney and the Wisconsin political mafia, in happier times.

ADDENDA: Coming later today to the pop-culture podcast: what parts of the country are least capable of dealing with their weather; what it means to be "Taylor Swifted"; boy jobs, girl jobs, and the proud tradition of spider-killing at National Review; what Mike Huckabee was thinking when he accused Jay-Z of pimping out his wife; and what it means that the Golden Globes featured more passionate talk about the Charlie Hebdo cartoons than our own government.

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Fewer Islamists Freely Roam the Streets of Europe This Morning

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