The Patriot Post® · DHS' Deliberate Obfuscation

The Obama administration, along with the Department of Homeland Security and the Leftmedia, are in high spin mode after the Orlando terrorist attack. Indeed, to put the focus on guns rather than radical Islam, they refer to it as a “mass shooting” and the jihadi as a “gunman.”

To hear Barack Obama and the Left tell it, there are all sorts of bogeymen to blame for the attack: homophobia, xenophobia, the gun lobby, Christians, even the GOP. But nowhere in their collective propaganda is the truth being uttered as to why Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and injured another 50.

Radical Islamic fundamentalism is what motivated Mateen. It’s that simple. Sharia law states that homosexuality is punishable by death. An imam at an Orlando mosque is on record stating that killing homosexuals would be done “out of compassion.” We also know that Mateen’s family history is charged with Islamic fundamentalism. His father used to deliver pro-Taliban talks on U.S. television. There are also reports that Mateen himself was homosexual, meaning his jihad may have also been the result of intense self-loathing. Carrying out the mandates of Sharia was his way of atoning.

Homeland Security is a willing participant in denying reality. Under Secretary Jeh Johnson, DHS seems more concerned with not hurting the feelings of Muslims than acting to educate and protect the American public from the single biggest security threat we now face.

That and gun control, which Johnson said this week “has to be a part of homeland security.”

Not even a week before the attack, the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HASC) issued a report instructing DHS not to use any language that might be “disrespectful” to Muslims. The report claims that words like jihad, sharia and takfir are to be stricken from the lexicon.

The HASC subcommittee that drafted the “Countering Violent Extremism” report was created by Johnson in November 2015. The report states that DHS officials should “Reject religiously-charged terminology and problematic positioning by using plain meaning American English.” Pretty tall words considering that the rest of the report goes on to basically hamstring officials by dictating what words and phrasing they can actually use in discussing the problem.

Obama resolutely refuses to call the attack an act of Islamic terrorism — in fact, he even railed against those who insist he call it what it is. “Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away,” he blustered Tuesday. “This is a political distraction. There is not a moment where we have not able to pursue a strategy because we didn’t use the label ‘radical Islam.’” Au contraire.

Obama’s stubborn refusal to even utter the words “radical Islam” is indicative of his dismissal of the true threat and his dereliction of duty when it comes to fighting it. His administration has been more concerned with taking on so-called right-wing extremists, although actual attacks inspired by anything remotely resembling that ideology during his tenure can be counted on one hand. Attacks inspired by Muslim extremists in the U.S. and on our allies abroad have occurred with much greater frequency.

Willful blindness on the part of Obama and his DHS has already yielded deadly results. As with a number of previous domestic terror attacks that have taken place in recent years, the FBI is admitting after the fact that Mateen was on their watch list.

All too often, we find out after the attack has already taken place that law enforcement had a prior run-in with the attacker. It is arguable that politically correct propaganda is seeping into law enforcement, and that is costing American lives.

Obama has already proven that he doesn’t care about Islamic terrorism, so it will be up to the next commander in chief to reverse this deadly trend. Until we call Islamic terrorism what it really is, we will never be able to combat it properly. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing how many more Americans will die before this happens. Too many have already paid the ultimate price for the Left’s political correctness.

> Update: One of the members of the DHS committee that decided to edit the dictionary is a Syrian immigrant who said 9/11 “changed the world for good.”