“And we’ll defeat these new enemies simply as we now have defeated those that have threatened us up to now, as a result of it isn’t sufficient to include ISIS – we should defeat ISIS”, Clinton stated.
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Speaking at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, she also proposed enhancing the screening process for visa applicants who have visited countries known to be a hotbed for terrorism.
Clinton spoke in detail about ending ISIS’s online recruitment by shutting down ISIS-inspired Facebook and Twitter profiles. Security officials “need to more effectively track and analyze” terrorist social media use, and “companies should redouble their efforts to maintain and enforce their own service agreements”. At the Council on Foreign Relations in November, Clinton described her plan to “defeat and destroy” ISIS, and at the Saban Forum a few weeks ago, she urged Silicon Valley to take an active role in the dismantling of the terrorist network’s communication operation.
“Shallow slogans don’t add up to a strategy”. “Promising to carpet bomb until the desert glows doesn’t make you sound strong”.
Several Republicans are calling for an worldwide coalition to combat terrorist hotbeds in the Middle East, but Clinton said the anti-Muslim rhetoric coming from GOP frontrunners is counterproductive to that effort.
“The prevention or intervention of recruitments should be a top priority of any USA citizen of this country”, said Jibril Afyare, a spokesman for a Somali-American community task force.
“Here in the Twin Cities, you have an innovative partnership that brings together parents, teachers, imams and others in the Somali-American community with law enforcement, nonprofits, local businesses, mental health professionals and others to intervene with young people who are at risk. Americans are going to have to act with both courage and clarity”.
“I know how hard it is because I have done it”, Clinton said. “There is no one I trust more to sit in the Oval Office”. “ISIS, these extremists, these terrorists, they have a face”. Most emphatically, they’ve attacked her for not doing more to protect U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans killed in a terror attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi in 2012.
Clinton’s speech follows the arrest of the 10th Somali-American in Minnesota charged with plans to fight in Syria.
On Sen. Marco Rubio’s view that the struggle between the West and ISIS is a clash of civilizations, she said, “this is not a clash of civilizations – It’s a clash between civilization and barbarism”. “We have to turn fear into resolve”.
The previous day she was in NY to address an immigration forum, where she once again rejected Republican talk of banning Muslims.
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Clinton hopes to parlay her years as secretary of state and NY senator after the September 11, 2001, attacks into traction for her presidential campaign, with the topic of terrorism providing the candidate with a ripe opportunity to showcase her commander-in-chief credentials. “What we are looking for in this upcoming an election is a champion”.
