OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION
On Dec. 2, as Islamic terrorists in combat gear strode into a San Bernardino Christmas party and began methodically executing Americans for their religious beliefs, the commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces started ruminating on all the political angles and consequences.
Workplace violence. Islamophobia. Gun control. American-style mass shootings.
The president would later share his political commentary about the worst terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, but only from the security of the White House. He would not even visit this latest battlefield in the ongoing war against America, freedom and religious liberty.
Meanwhile, as innocent American bodies piled up — bleeding victims still writhing on the floor behind overturned tables and chairs — an emergency room doctor learned of the attack. He was on duty at the hospital six miles away.
Without waiting for orders, Dr. Michael Neeki instinctively collected his medical supplies, jumped into his car and raced to the sound of gunfire.
But not before grabbing his own assault rifle — very similar to the ones used by the San Bernardino terrorists — and making sure he had plenty of ammunition.
“I don’t want to get hurt,” Dr. Neeki, 51, told CNN the next day.
“If someone has the intention like yesterday of coming in and just indiscriminately shooting, and I’m the first there, I want to be able to defend myself and those civilians,” he said. “A good guy should be able to defend himself and also help everybody else.”
Dr. Neeki, who immigrated to the United States from Iran, where he was held as a political prisoner, knows a thing or two about bad guys. He also knows a thing or two about good guys.
As a volunteer member of a local SWAT team, Dr. Neeki keeps a helmet and body armor in his car so he can join first responders going into an ongoing crime scene.
The first priority is to stop the killing, but Dr. Neeki carries his medical supplies with him so he can immediately begin treating the wounded directly on the scene.
Meanwhile, back at the White House, President Obama was still ruminating in his bulletproof sanctuary.
“The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world,” he told reporters.
Obviously, this is a president who never served in combat and apparently isn’t reading his daily threat matrix report on all the mass terror shootings going on all over the place these days.
After a few days of thinking on it, he decided to make a rare Oval Office address to the nation. This time, he said terrorists are becoming more and more Americanized.
“Over the last few years, however, the terrorist threat has evolved into a new phase,” he said solemnly.
“As we’ve become better at preventing complex, multifaceted attacks like 9/11, terrorists turned to less complicated acts of violence like the mass shootings that are all too common in our society.”
Dr. Neeki is not the expert constitutional scholar Mr. Obama claims to be. But, talking to reporters Monday, he proved himself to have a far better understanding of America than our flailing president.
“I am here because I came for democracy,” Dr. Neeki said. “Show ISIS what we are made of.”
• Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com and on Twitter via @charleshurt
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