Ilhan Omar’s answer to combating Islamic terrorism? Compassion

Ilhan Omar’s answer to combating Islamic terrorism? Compassion
Ilhan Omar (Image: YouTube screen grab via Time mag)

If you’re wondering how America-hating anti-Semite Ilhan Omar ever became elected to Congress, the answer may lie in the fact that the district in Minneapolis she represents is the largest enclave of Somali refugees in the nation, with as many as 100,000 Somalis residing there. But that’s not the only distinction that sets Minnesota’s fifth congressional district apart from others. It has also been dubbed “the terrorist recruitment capital of the U.S.”

In 2014, the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a non-profit research group founded by conservative pundit Steven Emerson, found that the Somali-based terrorist group al-Shabaab was behind the effort to recruit home-grown jihadists there.

According to Fox News reporter Holly McKay:

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More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined — or attempted to join — a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country.

FBI stats show 45 Somalis left to join the ranks of either the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab, or the Iraq- and Syria-based ISIS combined. And as of 2018, a dozen more had been arrested with the intention of leaving to support ISIS. Both numbers are far higher than those of alleged terrorist wannabes who left or attempted to leave the country from other areas in the country where Muslim refugees have been resettled.

In the case of the Somalis, it’s no longer just the men. Early last year, a female was apprehended by authorities on charges of supporting providing material support to Al Qaeda and arson.

So what has been Omar’s reaction to this deplorable state of affairs? “[S]he spoke up for a group of six Somalis arrested in 2015 for trying to cross into Mexico, as part of a plan to join ISIS in Syria. As the case went to trial the following year, the then-state representative wrote a letter to the trial judge requesting ‘compassion’ — lighter sentencing on behalf of one of the Minnesota men, who was facing 30 years jail time.” Omar went on in the letter to preach:

Such punitive measures not only lack efficacy, they inevitably create an environment in which extremism can flourish, aligning with the presupposition of terrorist recruitment. The best deterrent to fanaticism is a system of compassion. We must alter our attitude and approach; if we truly want to affect change, we should refocus our efforts on inclusion and rehabilitation.

This is not the first time anyone on the Left had advocated on behalf of showing terrorists a little TLC. In 2015, then-Obama Department of State spokeswoman Marie Harf opined that the key to soothing the savage beast that was ISIS was to find jihadists gainful employment.

But Omar sets herself apart from other liberals by harboring such hostilities toward her adoptive nation. In 2013, she blamed the U.S. for an al-Shabab terrorist attack on a mall in Kenya. And more recently, she accused Americans of being by and large ignorant. And through all this, she whines that she and her fellow Muslims in America are facing persecution.

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles is a freelance writer and regular contributor to "Liberty Unyielding."

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