O’Malley: Strengthening Homeland Security Will Prevent Terror Attacks

Mere days after Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders presented their plans to defeat ISIS, or deal with the threat they pose to the world, Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley chimed in and outlined his vision on the United States’ war on terror.

“The United States must work in the broadest possible coalition with all nations of the region and the world who share our interest in protecting the global commons,” O’Malley said in a speech in Rindge, New Hampshire, Monday. “We must recognize that nations have ground responsibility for their own front yards. Our regional partners must provide the front-line ground forces for this effort. We can and must provide all necessary military support to those partners, including close air support, Special Forces, intelligence and logistics.”

This plan is identical to what Clinton outlined in a speech at the Council of Foreign Relations in NY on Thursday.

“This latest iteration of violent jihadist extremism known as ISIS must be confronted and its leadership destroyed,” he stressed. “The United States must take the lead .. as one strong nation among nations — a concerted international effort to destroy the operational capacity of ISIS. This means using the tools at our collective disposal to destroy and dismantle their deadly operations on many fronts.”

But O’Malley went on to argue that preventive measures are far more effective than offensive measures against ISIS in the Middle East in preventing terror attacks from happening. “The Paris attacks were far more likely to have been stopped by better Homeland security actions in Brussels and Paris than by more firepower in Syria and Iraq,” the former Maryland Governor suggested. “As far as we know, all the terrorists most directly involved in the attacks in Paris were European nationals, and only one of them had actually traveled to Syria.

Summing up his overall strategy in defeating what he called “violent Jihadist extremism,” O’Malley said the U.S. must “craft a new foreign policy of engagement and collaboration with like-minded nations” and “craft a more effective national security strategy of threat reduction.”

The Democratic presidential hopeful also ripped into Republican presidential candidates for suggesting a pause or a moratorium in accepting Syrian refugees until a better system of greater oversight is put in place. “Instead of taking steps to improve our nation’s homeland security, many Republican governors and presidential candidates are stoking apprehension and fear. Even worse, some are actively stigmatizing the victims of ISIS brutality and genocide,” O’Malley said. “Some are playing right into the hands of ISIS by turning us upon are Muslim-American neighbors solely because of their religion.”

“Have we become so intimidated as a nation by these barbaric thugs that we are willing to surrender the values of the United States in the face of their threats?” he asked.