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Thursday, August 4, 2016
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National Security & Terrorism
Trump and Clinton should read, right now, Lt. General Michael Flynn and historian Michael Ledeen’s new book, The Field of Fight
If you wish to understand the terrorist attacks sweeping the world, there’s no better place to start than The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies, by Lt. General Michael Flynn and historian Michael Ledeen. With terrorist attacks in past months all over the world, including Orlando, Nice, and Baghdad, it’s imperative that average Americans know what is going on, who is behind these crimes, and what we can do to stop them.
The good news is that if our leaders have the will, the plan, and the financial commitment, then America can win.
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This is a book that both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton should read and give to their military advisers. In a few months, one of them will be president, and the burden to defend America will be on his or her shoulders.
Reasonable people might well think that terrorism is an unlikely event that will not affect them. They may think that the violence is irrelevant because they do not frequent gay bars in Florida, or airports in Brussels, or markets in Baghdad. But terrorism can strike anywhere, at any time. Plus, its avoidance imposes vast costs on society beyond the tragedy of death and physical destruction.
The recent terrorist attacks in France and Belgium have reduced tourism, causing a revenue loss of 760 million euros ($850 million) in the latter, according to Belgian finance minister Johan Van Overtveldt.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States ramped up spending on security. We are now spending $7.3 billion a year on the Transportation Security Administration, which has more than 50,000 employees on payroll and screens 660 million passengers annually.
Terrorism will not just go away on its own, much as some people might like to think so. The phrase “field of fight” comes from a battle between men and gods in Homer’s Iliad. The book describes who the enemy is and what we need to do to win the war.
Flynn and Ledeen are stating the obvious when they say that the first step is calling the enemy by the correct name: radical Islamists. For reasons of diplomacy or political correctness, the current administration has assiduously expunged that term from its vocabulary. Yet we cannot win anything, be it a war or a game, if we do not know against whom we are fighting. Football and soccer teams spend hours getting to know the records of the individuals on the opposing teams. It’s a different game if you’re up against the Steelers or the Skins.
Flynn used to be in special operations, and one of the most fascinating parts of the book is the discussion of methods of intelligence gathering. Flynn set up the intelligence systems in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He discusses his relationship...
Read the entire piece here on National Review Online
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Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow and director of Economics21 at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438663/winning-terror-war-michael-flynn-mi...
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National Review Online