Global Jihad Has Landed in San Bernardino

It's not like homegrown terrorism is unheard of in the U.S. --- not by a long shot.

But the recent increase of mass-scale death by Islamic jihad --- which has more often been a foreign problem --- has left people feeling as if something fundamentally has changed, something indeed existential, right here at home.

An interesting commentary from Steve Lopez, at the Los Angeles Times, "A worldwide war has landed in San Bernardino -- now what?":

“It’s war in the 21st century, and it’s an ugly reality that unfortunately we are going to be plagued with for some time.”

Those are the words of Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank, the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

I spoke to Schiff by phone on Friday morning, just after federal officials announced that one of the San Bernardino shooters had declared allegiance to Islamic State before the slaughter of innocent civilians.

That news was the most disturbing reminder since 9/11 that the threat of terrorism is not limited to distant lands, and it raised a litany of scary and complicated questions.

How many radicalized sympathizers of terrorist groups like Islamic State or Al Qaeda are living among us, people who may or may not be taking orders from anyone, but are plotting their own acts of barbarism?

Can we prevent the next one?

And how much of our privacy and civil liberty are we willing to sacrifice in the interest of safety, a question France is wrestling with after terrorists killed 130 people there last month?

“It could happen anywhere,” said a longtime friend who lives in the San Fernando Valley and is worried, as are all parents, about her children’s safety in public places. “It could happen just walking down the street.”

So, too, could any crime. But we’re reasonably safe, so we try to keep some perspective about odds and statistics and all that. We don’t want to overreact, stop going places, stop living.

But San Bernardino may represent a tipping point.

Because it’s part of our community.

Because it’s not a high-profile political or ideological target, like the Twin Towers or the Pentagon.

Because it leaves you with the uneasy feeling that no place is safe from those who identify with the twisted idea that beheadings and the slaughter of innocents are tributes to God’s greatness.

How do you begin to defeat that?

“I think the combination of Paris and San Bernardino, if in fact San Bernardino turns out to have an ISIS connection, may be a turning point in the resolve of the world to try to defeat ISIS, to take the fight to ISIS,” said Schiff, using an acronym for Islamic State.

He thinks it’s key to militarily drive ISIS off the land they control in Iraq and Syria, disrupting the terrorists’ money-making operations and complicating access to Europe and the planning of more attacks in the West.

He may be right, but already there are reports of Islamic State establishing a new stronghold in Libya, terrifyingly close to much of Southern Europe...

Well, Schiff offers a pretty good plan, and as for Libya, we'll take out ISIS there as well. Or, well, we would take them out there as well, if Obama wasn't president. But we've still got 14 months with this cowardly administration of appeasement.

Still more.