Trump aide Gorka says no such thing as ‘lone-wolf’ attack
US president’s assistant claims there has never been ‘serious’ terrorism unconnected from Islamic State or al-Qaeda
Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to the US president, said Tuesday that there is no such thing as a “lone-wolf” terror attack, and that the phrase was invented by the previous administration to “make Americans stupid.”
Speaking with MSNBC, Gorka claimed that “there has never been a serious attack or a serious plot that was unconnected from ISIS,” referring to the Islamic State terror group, “or al-Qaeda.”
Gorka was asked how US President Donald Trump plans to prevent “lone-wolf lunatics” from carrying out attacks around the world even if the main IS organization is destroyed.
“There’s no such thing as a lone wolf,” he replied. “That was a phrase invented by the last administration to make Americans stupid.”
Gorka further claimed that every single terror attack was in some way connected to IS or al-Qaeda. “At least through the ideology and the… tactics, the training, the techniques and the procedures that they supply through the internet,” he said.
When pressed on how the administration plans to stop individuals from carrying out attacks, he said that the use of language was important.
“You cannot solve a problem unless you’re allowed to talk truthfully about it,” he said. “So we will call it radical Islamic terrorism, we will target the ideology and we will call them out for being evil and we will work with our Muslim partners.”
He also said that the way to defeat terror was to “delegitimize” its ideology, so that nobody would want to be associated with it, just like Nazism today.
“What we have to do now is not only destroy organizations like ISIS, which we are doing — they will be annihilated — but also delegitimize the ideology,” he said. “So it will become as heinous and as rejected as fascism and Nazism is today.”
The show’s hosts also asked Gorka why the president had not yet condemned Saturday’s bombing of a Minneapolis mosque. Gorka said it was too early to apportion blame, and the administration was taking a “wait and see” approach.
But, he said, “when we have some kind of finalized investigation, absolutely,” the president will condemn it.
The FBI has said that the explosion at the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington was caused by an “improvised explosive device.”
However, Gorka claimed that many alleged right-wing hate crimes turned out to have been carried out by left-wing activists, and that nobody should rush to judgment.
When challenged that Trump had been quick to condemn a London terror attack in June before police had declared it to be a terrorist attack, Gorka replied that sometimes it is obvious.
“Sometimes an attack is unequivocally clear for what it is,” he said. “When somebody shouts Allahu Akbar as they’re stabbing a police officer, it’s pretty clear it’s not a case of the mafia robbing a bank, wouldn’t you say so?”
The Times of Israel Community.