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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Home News Latest Stories Emergency Services Medford MLK Jr. celebration: "Progress is not inevitable" Talent Elementary students learn to tinker Effort underway to find photos of those who died in Vietnam, including 35 from Jackson County Restaurant Inspections Crime, Courts and Emergency Services Emergency Services Emergency Services Former youth pastor arrested on burglary, privacy invasion Emergency services Attorney general's decision would limit federal sharing of asset forfeitures Politics and Elections Oregon Legislature convenes, session starts Feb. 12 Councilman stirs online dust-up with anti-marijuana post Education Talent Elementary students learn to tinker Local elementary and middle school students qualify for state chess championships Unfair labor complaint against Medford School District resolved Arsonist attempts to burn down building at Jackson Elementary Not as ready as they should be Environment Grant will help restore "legacy" oak habitat south of Ashland New wandering wolf arrives in Southern Oregon OR-7 now officially the leader of his pack Ashland trails up for changes Monument expansion expected to increase tourism, protect resources State News Oregon lawmakers start drafting pot bills 12 injured in massive I-84 crash in eastern Oregon Oregon man reveled in Cuba trip Dancers: Strip club owes us wages 'Wild' author wows overflow crowd Nation - World Obituaries Harold Ray Fisher Louise K. 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Talent Elementary students learn to tinker ... Our View: Oregon students need job skills training ... Medford MLK Jr. celebration: "Progress is not inevitable" ... Talent Elementary students learn to tinker ... Our View: Oregon students need job skills training ... ANOTHER VIEW Obama: Charlie who? Charles Krauthammer: Obama: Charlie who? Comment MailTribune.com Writer Posted Jan. 18, 2015 @ 12:01 am Posted Jan. 18, 2015 @ 12:01 am » Social News On Sunday, at the great Paris rally, the whole world was Charlie. By Tuesday, the veneer of solidarity was exposed as tissue thin. It began dissolving as soon as the real, remaining Charlie Hebdo put out its post-massacre issue featuring a Muhammad cover that, as The New York Times put it, "reignited the debate pitting free speech against religious sensitivities." Again? Already? Had not 4 million marchers and 44 foreign leaders just turned out on the streets of France to declare "No" to intimidation, and pledging solidarity, indeed identification with ("Je suis Charlie"), a satirical weekly specializing in the most outrageous and often tasteless portrayals of Muhammad? And yet, within 48 hours, the new Charlie Hebdo issue featuring the image of Muhammad — albeit a sorrowful, indeed sympathetic Muhammad — sparked new protests, denunciations and threats of violence, which in turn evinced another round of doubt and self-flagellation in the West about the propriety and limits of free expression. Hopeless. As for President Obama, he never was Charlie, not even for those 48 hours. From the day of the massacre, he has been practically invisible. At the interstices of various political rallies, he issued bits of muted, mealy-mouthed boilerplate. Followed by the now-famous absence of any U.S. representative of any stature at the Paris rally, an abdication of moral and political leadership for which the White House has already admitted error. But this was no mere error of judgment or optics or, most absurdly, of communications in which we are supposed to believe that the president was not informed by staff about the magnitude, both actual and symbolic, of the demonstration he ignored. (He needed to be told?) On the contrary, the no-show, following the near silence, precisely reflected the president's profound ambivalence about the very idea of the war on terror. Obama began his administration by purging the phrase from the lexicon of official Washington. He has ever since shuttled between saying that (a) the war must end because of the damage "keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing" was doing to us, or (b) the war has already ended, as he suggested repeatedly during the 2012 campaign, with bin Laden dead and al-Qaida "on the run." Hence his call in a major address at the National Defense University to "refine and ultimately repeal" Congress' 2001 Authorization of the Use of Military Force, the very legal basis for the war on terror. Hence his accelerating release of Gitmo inmates, fully knowing that about 30 percent will return to the battlefield. (Five more releases were announced Wednesday.) Which is why, since, oh, the Neolithic era, POWs tend to be released after a war is over. Paris shows that this war is not. On the contrary. As it rages, it is entering an ominous third phase. The first, circa 9/11, involved sending Middle Eastern terrorists abroad to attack the infidel West. Then came the lone wolf — local individuals inspired by foreign jihadists launching one-off attacks, as seen most recently in Québec, Ottawa and Sydney. Paris marks Phase 3: coordinated commando strikes by homegrown native-speaking Islamists activated and instructed from abroad. (Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo killings, while the kosher-grocery shooter proclaimed allegiance to the Islamic State.) They develop and flourish in Europe's no-go zones where Sharia reigns and legitimate state authorities dare not tread. To call them lone wolves, as did our hapless attorney general, is to define jihadism down. It makes them the equivalent of the pitiable, mentally unstable Sydney hostage taker. The Paris killers were well-trained, thoroughly radicalized, clear-eyed jihadist warriors. They cannot be dismissed as lone loons. Worse, they represent a growing generation of alienated European Muslims whose sheer number is approaching critical mass. The war on terror 2015 is at a new phase with a new geography. At the core are parallel would-be caliphates: in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State; in central Africa, now spilling out of Nigeria into Cameroon, a near-sovereign Boko Haram; in the badlands of Yemen, AQAP, the most dangerous of all al-Qaida affiliates. And beyond lie not just a cast of mini-caliphates embedded in the most ungovernable parts of the Third World from Libya to Somalia to the borderlands of Pakistan, but an archipelago of no-go Islamist islands embedded in the heart of Europe. This is serious. In both size and reach it is growing. Our president will not say it. Fine. But does he even see it? Charles Krauthammer's email address is [email protected]. MailTribune.com Writer Posted Jan. 18, 2015 @ 12:01 am » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. calendar Connect with MailTribune.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services Home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Announcements Obituaries Story ideas Since you asked Alerts Email Alerts RSS Feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Your privacy is important, read our privacy policy. © Copyright 2015 Local Media Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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