Clinton's State Department resisted labeling Boko Haram as terror group

[Stephen Grothe]

The tragic kidnapping of the 300 Nigerian schoolgirls by the terrorist group Boko Haram has shocked the world and has made many countries start to take action to help in the efforts to get the girls back.  This article doesn’t focus on the kidnapping itself though, but more so on how the actions we take here in America affect the rest of the world and mainly this terrorist group.  Now just like any other time when tragic events like this happen blame for who could have stopped it is thrown around however the State Department, which was being lead by Hillary Clinton at the time, clearly dropped the ball.  Back in 2011 when Boko Haram was already know for killing hundreds of people and helping with and participating with terrorist attacks, even one on an UN compound, the State Department wouldn’t label them as a foreign terrorist organization.  Lawmakers urged the State Department and Clinton to label them as such but even with their knowledge of how Boko Haram was connected to Al Qaeda they still repeatedly decided not to label them as such.  If we had labeled them as a foreign terrorist organization back them we could have been tracking them and could have stopped them from growing or even put an end to their organization, however the State Department had a number of excuses to why they wouldn’t, one of which was they didn’t want to label it as a terrorist organization because that would just want to make more people want to join it and would grow it more.  Which clearly now it can be seen how that was a terrible reason to not take action against them back then as we should have because it grew regardless.  Hilary now is talking about what a tragic event this is and how it is so terrible but it makes you wonder why she didn’t say the same thing when Boko Haram was slaughtering hundreds of people including many churches and non Muslim groups?   I think the way us as Christians should help prevent these kinds of tragedies from happening is being careful about whom we elect to power to make those kinds of decisions.   Hilary Clinton’s State Department clearly could have had a role in preventing this kidnaping from happening, so we need to put the right people in office who can handle the issues and can actually make the decisions that are needed to prevent these tragic events from happening because it doesn’t just affect us, but it affects the world.  

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/08/clinton-state-department...

[Emily Austin]

To say the United States was not watching the movements of Boko Haram and its leader, Abubakar Shekau, solely because they weren't labeled as a foreign terrorist organiszation is misled. The acts of Boko Haram, until recently (2011-2014) have been fairly isolated and pale in comparison to the actions of several named terrorist groups around the world. Also, their leader, Shekau is, and has been for sometime, labeled a global terrorist. While that may not have been enough, it is more than watching idly as innocent people are hurt. As Christians I feel that placing the blame on Hilary Clinton, as the leader of the State Department, is as foolish as saying only Shekau is responsible for the killings and displacement of thousands. We should all remain a united front in times of difficulty and understand that what may seem easy, such as placing a label on a group, could in fact be much more difficult.

[Natalie Pirrone]

I think that these kinds of things are very frustrating because leaders, like Clinton in this case, are often times so afraid of labeling people because they do not want to cause an uproar or “hurt anyone’s feelings.” But leaders must face the truth, which is that this group of people- the Boko Haram- harmed not only those Nigerian schoolgirls, but also America. I agree that we need to carefully choose our leaders- leaders that are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in and make things right instead of watching on the sidelines because they do not want to make a scene. A true leader sees something bad and does something about it, regardless of what he/she thinks people will say about it.