Don’t look for Phil Mudd to be joining the Trump anti-terrorism team anytime soon . . . Mudd, a CNN counterterrorism analyst, declared today that the threat of terrorism is “modest.” When it comes to young people, Mudd said that he worries about gangs and drugs: “I don’t worry about terrorism.”
Mudd also argued that tight restrictions on Muslim immigration would be giving ISIS want it wants by setting ISIS up as the counterbalance to the West and the defender of Islam. Mudd apparently believes that allowing a freer flow of Muslim refugees into the United States, as Hillary wanted, would appease ISIS rather than giving it the opening to carry out more attacks. ISIS is not interested in good relations. It wants only to destroy the West and establish its caliphate. People like Mudd, whom CNN chooses as its “expert,” apparently don’t understand that.
Mudd adopts a dry statistical approach, arguing that gangs and drugs cause more American deaths than terrorism. But as bad as is the opiod plague, it does not pose the same kind of convulsive threat to the very fabric of our nation and culture as does Islamic terrorism.
Note: Co-host Camerota teed up Mudd’s message against tight immigration restrictions. Rather than asking whether such restrictions are desirable, she claimed to have heard that they “do more harm than good” and invited Mudd to explain why.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Phil, President-elect trump has basically said that this [latest terror attacks] is proof that he was right when he was asked about a Muslim ban. It sounds as though he’s sort of reinforcing his call for that in the United States. I know that you are not a political pundit but from law-enforcement standpoint, we have heard that that does more harm than good. Can you explain why?PHIL MUDD: Look, we have an adversary that is ISIS and its predecessor Al Qaeda who have a simple goal. They want to portray themselves among potential followers as peers with us on the military battlefield, on the political battlefield. They want to draw us into a fight so they can tell the rest of the Islamic world who doesn’t believe with them: hey! The Americans are our enemies, they invaded Iraq. They are in Syria. They are bombing our civilians. We are your defenders. As soon as we say yes, that we have the keep the entirety of the Muslim faith out of our country, ISIS will use to this to say we told you so. We are the protectors. We are the only adversary fighting these people. Please align with us. We can’t allow them to have what they want. That this is a fight of civilizations. That’s the Muslim world against the Christian world. It’s not a political statement. It’s a statement from me with a simple purpose. Don’t give the enemy what they want, Alisyn. It’s as simple as that.CHRIS CUOMO: Right. But it’s a little bit of a feel-good policy here. People feel safe when they believe they’re being kept insulated from the threat. Which leads to the question, how big is the threat? How many people are there like this guy if you categorize him as someone who is known, who is trying to get into the bad game and who winds up being in the radar of the authorities?MUDD: Chris, the threat is modest. It’s not that big if you put it in context. My question for people who get emotional and political about this is, if you want to have a fight, give me facts and give me numbers. If you look at the state of violent crime in this country which has been on the decline for years, if you look at why that violent crime happens and who commits it, that’s gangs and drugs, if you look post-9/11 at deaths from opiods. I’m going to visit a friend myself this weekend who lost a son to synthetic opioids a few weeks ago. Those deaths in inner-city America dwarf what happens with terrorism.We will get more terrorism in this country and my question will be, do you want to look at those incidents in isolation or do you want to ask what is a threat to an American child? And as a counterterrorism professional, I’ll tell you, with ten nieces and nephews. I worry about gangs, drugs and synthetic opioids. And I don’t worry about terrorism.
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