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Once again, State Dept. fails to connect dots

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America, U.S. intelligence agencies were accused of failing ”to connect the dots.” Last week, the State Department demonstrated it could not connect dots if they were on a piece of paper with lines already drawn between them.

It was revealed Tuesday the State Department wants to declare Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group, as ”a foreign terrorist organization.” That would require U.S. regulatory agencies to block financial transactions that benefit Boko Haram.

Boko Haram has been slaughtering Nigerians for about four years. Thousands of deaths have been blamed on the militants.

Christians are favored targets of Boko Haram, which favors a tactic of waiting until church services are in progress, then setting off bombs to kill as many parishioners as possible.

But Boko Haram kills Muslims, too – those who dare speak out against it. Clergymen courageous enough to do so are murdered, again, often with many of those who worship with them.

U.S. officials should have been helping the Nigerian government fight Boko Haram for years. But the State Department is just now taking the tentative first step of recognizing, in effect, that bad guys are bad guys.

Connecting the dots? Not yet – to the glee of terrorists all over the world.

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