It is pointless having a dedicated cadre of hardworking and conscientious operatives on the ground during moments of crisis when the people who lead them are corrupt, inept and just plain stupid. The leadership of the F.B.I. has once again demonstrated its subservience to the altar of political correctness by initially jumping out in front of the heinous attack on Bourbon Street to state how it wasn’t an act of terrorism. My pet cocker spaniel could have made that determination in a heartbeat. Subsequently, the Bureau had to walk back this embarrassingly idiotic statement. When a man plows down innocent pedestrians along a busy tourist thoroughfare in a vehicle festooned with an ISIS flag, it is safe to assume that he is not out collecting for the Red Cross. The Washington leadership of the F.B.I. obviously was more concerned about shielding against and minimizing the political fallout of failing to detect yet another attack by disciples of radical Islamic extremism.

The Biden administration has had its head in the sand with respect to these kinds of attacks. While Joe Biden believes that the greatest threat to the American homeland is white supremacy, the highest echelons of the intelligence and law enforcement apparatus have known of the use of weapons like vehicles and yes, drones, by Islamic Jihadists for quite some time, and yet those in charge seem to be either totally indifferent to the threat, or in the case of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, totally clueless with respect to how best to implement some of the needed counter measures. Similarly, New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick left people flummoxed and incredulous when stating that she was unaware that the City of New Orleans had the necessary barriers in storage, barriers that could have saved lives and thwarted this barbaric attack. Apparently, one of Kirkpatrick’s claims to fame is her being a diversity, equity, and inclusion instructor for you guessed it, the F.B.I. It should come as no surprise to the American public that leaders who sat by idly while Jewish students were literally held hostage in their campus dorm rooms under threat of physical attack by Hamas inspired thugs should now appear to once again be caught with their pants down.

By all accounts, Shamsud-Din Jabbar was a highly troubled individual. He had experienced much personal tragedy including two divorces. He was a U.S. citizen, raised in the Moslem religion, and had served honorably in the U.S. Army including tours in Afghanistan, and this is what is most troubling about this particular case. A person with this kind of background posting on social media about dreams of murdering his family and being drawn to the cause of extremist Islam went undetected and seemingly slipped through the cracks. How could this still be happening in the United States? The answer is simple enough: when the powers-to-be don’t perceive a problem, there is no problem to fix. When our political leaders remain fixated on not wanting to offend certain segments of the population and insist that we not vilify, profile, judge, and otherwise jump to conclusions, we should be ever more wary of their efforts to deceive, deflect and coverup while trying to shift attention away from where it should be. Islamic inspired terrorism, whether perpetrated by a U.S. citizen or not is still terrorism. As a result, we will continue to be as unsafe now as we were after the disastrous attack against our country on 9/11. We have been lulled into complacency and a false sense of security by politicians and bureaucrats whose concern for our well-being isn’t that high on the agenda. The attack on Bourbon Street against innocent Americans is yet another notch on the pistol handle of failure for our government, Federal and local. It’s truly time for heads to be severed, but not by ISIS.