Hillary Clinton came to the campus of the University of Minnesota to give “what was billed as a major address on counterterrorism and preventing the radicalization of U.S. citizens into global jihad,” according to Patrick Condon’s enthusiastic Star Tribune article (speech summary here, text here, 45-minute video below). Clinton’s big plan as presented in her address yesterday includes the gun control catechism popularized by President Obama plus golden oldies dating from the Clinton administration of ancient history.
Condon is particularly enthusiastic about Clinton’s recognition of Minnesota’s Building Community Resilience pilot program to prevent terrorist recruitment among the community of Somali Muslims. The pilot program was announced this past February. It hasn’t gotten off the ground yet, but Clinton wants to increase funding for it.
The Building Community Resilience program invokes the usual shibboleths to explain the attraction of the Islamist cause to Somali Minnesotans:
The [framework?] identified the root causes of radicalization include:
• disaffected youth
• a deepening disconnect between youth and religious leaders
• internal identity crises
• community isolation
• lack of opportunity – including high unemployment, lack of activities for youth, and few mentors.
Is there any evidence that these supposed “root causes” get to the heart of the problem? The six “Minnesota men” charged with seeking to join ISIS this past April provide a case study that tends to belie the shibboleths.
The details of the program have yet to be worked out. The United States Attorney has essentially subcontracted development to an entity called Youthprise. Youthprise is to administer the grant money that will fund the program. The organization is holding an information session tonight “about its upcoming Request for Proposals for 501c3 nonprofit organizations in Minnesota that promote and enable engagement, prevention and intervention activities and services that help build the resiliency of the Somali Minnesotan community in addressing structural challenges facing the Somali youth.”
Proposals are due January 29, 2016. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their grant requests on February 26, 2016.
In other words, we don’t know what the program amounts to at this point. We only know it is based on the Marie Harf school of sociology (see above).
The complete video of Clinton’s speech is below. Is this Madam Hillary, or is this her animatronic counterpart?
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