Richard Perle: World Can't Cope With Terrorism, but Must LearnFriday, 09 Jan 2015 06:47 PM As France struggles to restore calm after three days of attacks by Islamic extremists, the world seems clueless as to how to end the scourge of terrorism, former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle tells Newsmax TV. "This act of terror will be followed by other acts of terror because we do not have in place now, and are unlikely anytime to put in place, policies up to the task of dealing with the scourge of terrorism, which appears in many countries, in many forms," Perle said Friday on Newsmax's "The Steve Malzberg Show." "Somehow the governments of the world don't seem to have a clue about how to deal with it." Perle, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under President Ronald Reagan, said part of the issue is a failure to face reality. "The reality is that within the community of people who believe in Islam, there is a group, a small group but nevertheless a group, whose numbers are in the thousands and maybe tens or hundreds of thousands," he said. "[They] have a vision of Islam that entails the use of violence to bring about the triumph of Islam over the rest of the world. "Until we face that fact and design strategies built on that recognition, these things will continue to happen." France's wave of terror began Wednesday when two masked gunmen stormed the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people. A day later, a female police officer in a southern Paris district was shot dead by a third gunman. On Friday, hostages were taken at a Jewish supermarket. Perle said the threat of terror in France has gotten out of hand over time because the government has allowed certain Muslim communities to operate with their own laws. "It's happened gradually over time, and it's now at the point where the police and the civil authorities in France and some other places simply don't know how cope with it," he said. "It's not acceptable to have a separate and violent culture in the midst of an open and democratic society, because open societies have no defense against this kind of violence unless they can deal with it directly. "That means you've got to be able to go anywhere to enforce the laws. You can't decide that this suburb or that suburb is predominantly Muslim and therefore the law can't be enforced." But Perle does not think the same situation is inevitable for the United States. "The reason for that is that, by and large, American Muslims are integrated into American society. That is much less true in France and it's much less true in some other countries," he said. "But it requires constant attention, and . . . the federal government and some state and local police enforcement agencies are reluctant to face the reality that . . . within this subculture is a violent strain that has to be dealt with. "If you look at who purports to represent American Muslims, for example, moderate American Muslims who are outspoken in their opposition to this subculture and this kind of violence are never invited to the White House, for example. The Muslims who are invited to the White House are the ones who take a more extreme position." Perle said President Barack Obama appears reluctant to take a stronger stance on terror. "He faces a problem, and the problem is he's not prepared to do anything. And so, if you're not prepared to do anything and you're Barack Obama, you want to manage your rhetoric very carefully," Perle said. Perle said Obama should announce that the government will place more scrutiny on areas where radical Islamist propaganda is preached and where "young and vulnerable people are taught that it is the obligation of every Muslim to destroy infidels." |