Editorial: More hot air over terror

By Boston Herald editorial staff|Yesterday

In Syria the war goes on unabated, the ranks of ISIS swell and with it the threat of terror around the world, but President Obama went off to the Paris climate talks "because this one trend, climate change, affects all trends."

Yes, if only Raqqa were a degree or two cooler, well, all those jihadists would just throw down their arms and say, "sorry about those beheadings and all that."

"Climate change is a massive problem," the naif in the White House insisted. "It's a generational problem. It's a problem that by definition is just about the hardest thing for any political system to absorb."

He even compared the despair that follows a terrorist attack - like the one that just killed 130 people in Paris - to the belief of some that climate change will inevitably lead to destruction.

"The main message I got is that I actually think we are going to solve this thing," he said of the climate issue.

Now if only he would exhibit that kind of resolve on Syria or eliminating ISIS.

In fact, even as Obama was declaring victory over rising seas before heading back to Air Force One yesterday, a new report by researchers at George Washington University was released, documenting the rising threat of ISIS on the homeland.

The study put the number of individuals arrested on charges related just to the Islamic State since March 2014 at 71 - 56 of them arrested this year alone. It was, the researchers said, the largest number of terrorism arrests in the U.S. in a single year since 2001.

About 40 percent were converts to Islam, 86 percent were male, the average age 26 and slightly more than half traveled or attempted to travel abroad. At least seven Americans have already died fighting for ISIS.

The FBI reportedly has about 900 open domestic cases related to the Islamic State. Surely a few more windmills or solar panels will assuage their grievances.