MORE LEGACY – AT 10:41 A.M. ET:  We are not winning the war on terror.  If anything, it is getting worse.  Remember that Obama came to office insisting that acts of terror be called "manmade disasters."  When a rogue Army doctor attacked fellow soldiers at Ford Hood, Texas, shouting Islamist slogans, the Obama administration insisted on calling it "workplace violence."  But the terror goes on, no matter what the label.  From The Times of Israel:   

The year 2016 was the deadliest in the history of suicide terrorism, an Israeli think tank said, with 469 suicide bombings carried out by 800 perpetrators in 28 countries, causing the deaths of about 5,650 people.

Islamic State was the leading perpetrator of suicide bombings worldwide, being directly or indirectly responsible for approximately 70 percent (322) of the attacks, according to statistics compiled by the Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict Research Program at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

As the terror group loses territory, “it appears that suicide terrorism will be a key tool for the Islamic State in consolidating its image as invincible, creating deterrence against its enemies, and taking revenge for the international activity against it,” the think tank said Thursday.

“The Islamic State’s partners and other terrorist groups will also likely redouble their efforts to carry out mass casualty large-scale terrorist attacks.”

Yoram Schweitzer, the senior research fellow who headed the study, said the rise in suicide bombings underlined the growing intensity of terrorism worldwide. “They are the litmus test when it comes to assessing terrorism,” he told The Times of Israel, “because of their devastating effect and the sense of threat they create.”

COMMENT:  President Kennedy said, not long before his assassination, that an assassin could get through if he was willing to give up his life in the attempt.  The same is true of suicide bombers.  Once they give up the wish to live, they become almost invincible.  There is no hesitation, no normal self-defense mechanism.  They will plunge into a target, no matter what the consequence to themselves will be.

We are now getting repeated warnings about the intention of ISIS to carry out mass-casualty attacks, primarily in Britain and Europe.  Given the events here of September 11, 2001, we should be on maximum alert, not assuming an attack will occur somewhere else.

January 6, 2017