ANALYSIS/OPINION:

U.S. troops are gunned down by a shooter who screams “Allahu akbar!” before opening fire. Official statements are rushed out: The perpetrator was a lone wolf; his motive was unclear; there are no links to terrorism. Sound familiar? It should, because when Islam is the cause of American tragedy, President Obama hides his head in the sand.

On Wednesday, a young Kosovar named Arif Uka opened fire on a bus load of U.S. Air Force personnel in Frankfurt, Germany, killing two and wounding two more. Witnesses say he repeatedly shouted the jihadist battle cry, “Allahu akbar” as he emptied his weapon and screamed “Jihad! Jihad!” when tackled by German police. Uka’s victims had been heading to the fight in Afghanistan but because the jihadists have a global battlespace, the war came to them instead.

Mr. Obama made a typical noncommittal statement shortly after the shooting, saying it was a “stark reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our men and women in uniform are making all around the world to keep us safe, and the dangers that they face all around the globe.” He made no mention of the nature of the threat or the reason for the sacrifices. In this respect, he was behaving true to form.

The Frankfurt shooting is the latest in a troubling series of jihadist terror attacks in which the Obama administration refuses to face reality. Among the first was the June 1, 2009, shooting at a recruiting station in Little Rock. Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert who had recently travelled to Yemen, killed one U.S. Army recruiter and wounded another. Muhammad told police if other troops had been available, he would have shot them too. The White House waited two days before making a statement that omitted any reference to the attacker or his jihadist motives.

The Nov. 5, 2009, Fort Hood massacre, in which 14 were killed and 30 wounded, was given a persistent coat of whitewash from the Obama administration. The first coat was applied with initial statements that shooter Nidal Malik Hassan was a “lone wolf” and continued through the comprehensive “force protection review” that somehow omitted any reference to Hasan’s jihadist motives or contacts with al Qaeda.

The Obama team had a similarly slippery reaction to the Dec. 25, 2009, attempted “underwear bomb” attack on Northwest flight 253. Al Qaeda-linked bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was initially not even charged with attempting to commit an act of terrorism. Faisal Shahzad, who attempted the Times Square bombing in May 2010, was also called a lone wolf with no ties to terrorism and was even described as more a victim of the economic downturn than a committed Islamic extremist. In all these cases, the initial assessments turned out to be wrong, yet the White House still obstinately refuses to discuss the jihadist motives of the terrorists involved.

The Obama administration’s knee-jerk instinct to deny reality in hopes it will go away is clearly not working. How many Americans have to die before Mr. Obama at long last admits the nature of the Islamist threat that killed them?

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