Jihadist terrorism is the No. 1 challenge facing the world, according to retired U.S. Gen. Barry McCaffrey.
The recent attacks in Paris brought that reality into stark view. More than 130 people died, and more than 350 were wounded, in a coordinated assault at six locations in Paris. It is an act of terrorism being compared to 9/11 in New York in 2001.
(Photos courtesy Jonathan Shoemaker/Saint Leo University)
The Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack.
McCaffrey was clear on one point that has been a lightning rod for opposing views.
“This isn’t a Muslim problem. It’s a jihadist problem,” said McCaffrey, a NBC national security analyst. “I would argue that there is not a conflict between Islam and the West.”
McCaffrey made his remarks to an estimated crowd of 220 at the Student Community Center at Saint Leo University on Nov. 19. The retired four-star general was the first lecturer for the University Speaker Series.
He touched on a wide-ranging list of security issues including ISIS, nuclear proliferation, the future of Cuba post-Fidel Castro, and the tensions between Russia and the United States.
During a question and answer period, audience questions focused on ISIS and how to address its threats.
The U.S. exerts great power in the Middle East financially, politically and militarily, McCaffrey said but defeating ISIS, and terrorism in general, is complicated.
“It’s much tougher than it looks,” he said. “In the long-term, some of these situations have no solutions. The best strategy becomes containing it, isolating it and waiting it out.”
In reference to the barbarism of ISIS and the recent Paris attacks, McCaffrey said, “There is an element of mankind based on cruelty.”
McCaffrey has served three White House administrations, including Republicans and Democrats. He describes himself as a nonpartisan observer — who has been in and out of war zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan — who gives objective opinions.
After Sept. 11, for instance, he was asked about border security including entry into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada. At the time, the U.S. border patrol numbered less than 4,000 agents.
“It was asinine,” McCaffrey said.
He recommended 45,000, a number he acknowledges he made up by looking at the New York Police Department, which protects 8 million people.
In today’s world, the U.S. needs to maintain air and naval forces that are at least two generations in advance of the technology of other superpowers. But, he said, “We’re not doing that.”
Instead, he said the nation has spent billions on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that, in his view, “went wrong.”
Still, in many ways, the country has never been safer, in part because its diversity and opportunities for success are strengths, McCaffrey said.
As a result, America assimilates immigrant populations better than Europe, he added.
Published November 25, 2015
