Dems want to cut defense budget amid ISIS threat

As America works to conquer the coronavirus outbreak and reopen an economy hobnailed by lockdown restrictions, leftleaning lawmakers are taking steps to ensure that the country is vulnerable to future disasters. Nearly 30 Democrats (including the Squad — Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley) are demanding that the House Armed Services Committee cut the defense budget.

The lawmakers, most of whom are in the Congressional Progessive Caucus, wrote a letter to Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and ranking member Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), urging a smaller defense budget compared to last year’s.

“America needs a coronavirus cure, not more war,” the letter said. “We need more testing, not more bombs. In order to reopen our nation in a datadriven, safe manner, we need to focus our spending efforts on the millions of additional coronavirus tests and tens of thousands of additional contract tracers we will need, as well as covering treatment costs, developing therapeutics, and distributing future vaccines.”

The coronavirus pandemic has roiled governments around the world. What it hasn’t done is destabilize terrorism. If anything, the pandemic has offered excellent opportunity for escalation.

“Since the pandemic started, and weakened the capacity of law or security enforcement around the world, ISIS has persisted in operations across Afghanistan, West Africa, Central Africa, the Sahel, Egypt and Yemen,” Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, told Time magazine. SITE tracks online networks affiliated with jihadist and white supremacist organizations. ISIS has “specifically exploited the pandemic with attacks in Iraq, the Maldives and the Philippines,” she added, and aggressively publicized calls for attacks on the West.

Someone was listening — on April 15, German police arrested four suspected ISIS members in North Rhine-Westphalia who authorities believe were planning to attack American military facilities in the country.

With ISIS making full use of pandemic chaos and calling for attacks on the West, how could this possibly be a good time to cut the defense budget? America needs to be safe from another 9/11, as well as COVID-19. The terrorists aren’t waiting for more coronavirus testing to roll out in the United States..

“I bristle a little bit at the notion that, well of course DOD’s got to get their budget cut,” Thornberry told reporters earlier this month, according to The Hill. “The world’s not going to be any safer on the other side of COVID(-19).”

Unfortunately, Thornberry is right, and countries upended by the pandemic are ripe for terrorist exploitation.

The progressive agenda, as its proponents continue to reveal, has a skewed set of priorities. Free college and a universal income deserve funding. Financial support for the men and women who keep America safe at home and abroad? Start cutting.

The group’s move, however, is a sublime bit of election year virtue signaling.

Fighting the coronavirus and funding our military aren’t mutually exclusive concerns. America faces threats on many fronts simultaneously — from viruses terrorists.

What we need are lawmakers who won’t cherry-pick which threat needs attention to suit their agenda.