New terror in 2017 demands recommitment to vigilance

It took barely one hour into 2017 for despicable international extremists to message powerfully and destructively to the world that what was old is new again.

Shortly after 1 a.m. local time Jan. 1, a deranged gunman dressed as Santa Claus entered a swank Western-style nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, and peppered the crowd of about 700 with a volley of 180 rounds of bullets in a seven-minute slaughter.

In its aftermath, 39 people were killed and dozens more were injured, including at least one American.

Not surprisingly, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bloodbath. The attack drew eerie parallels to the nightclub assault in Orlando, Fla., last June that killed 43 people and to the Bataclan concert-hall attack in November 2015 in Paris that claimed 90 lives. It also added another firm link in the chain of recent terrorist mayhem infecting Turkey.

In 2016 alone, Turkey has weathered bomb attacks at an airport, a suicide bombing at a wedding and an attack near a top football stadium. Many analysts see the targeting of Turkey as a direct result of that nation’s incursion in Syria to trample the IS group.

The attack also signaled to the world that the Islamic State has no plans to roll over and play dead in 2017. Another ISIS- inspired attack in Baghdad a day later in a crowded Baghdad market that claimed at least 36 lives reinforces that point.

UNITED WORLD RESPONSE

In response, most world leaders united in condemning the attack and calling for renewed vigilance and international cooperation to ultimately defeat organized terroristic havoc.

In the United States, Barack Obama’s White House condemned the “horrific terrorist attack” and offered American aid in the wake of the atrocity.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose nation still reels from a pre-Christmas vehicular ISIS-inspired slaughter in Berlin, called for vigilance and reason to prevail.

“As we pursue our lives and our work, we tell the terrorists: They are murderers full of hatred, but it’s not they who determine how we live and want to live,” Merkel said earlier this week.

Even Pope Francis, in his New Year’s Day address, urged united vigilance. “I ask the Lord to sustain all men of good will to courageously roll up their sleeves to confront the plague of terrorism and this stain of blood that is covering the world,” he said.

Contrast those determined, united, and levelheaded responses to that of the next leader of the free world: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. In comments to a New Year’s gathering at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump linked the attacks to the wall he has promised to build along the Mexican border and his broader policies of exclusion.

“We will build a wall. You know that. We will build a wall. And speaking of walls, so in Turkey tonight – I don’t know, has anybody heard? Big disaster took place in Turkey tonight. ... It’s a horror show,” he said.

Of course, no physical wall can be impenetrable enough to block a determined and demented terrorist. One can hope that Trump and his advisers will recognize as much and resist the politics of exclusion and intolerance as they take on the daunting role of one of the world’s leading players in the global war on terror.