Fifteen years after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Sunday recounted her tour of the rubble in lower Manhattan and accused her GOP rival, Donald Trump, of making the fight against Islamic jihadism harder than it should be.
Mrs. Clinton said it is time for a “candid” conversation about the threat the U.S. faces, though she ruled out ground forces in Syria and Iraq to cut into the Islamic State’s territory in the area.
She wants to intensify airstrikes and special force operations to cut into the so-called caliphate, even if “that’s not the end of the struggle.”
“The struggle is against a violent ideology, a form of jihadism that is very much propagating over the internet,” Mrs. Clinton said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Mr. Trump has criticized President Obama and Mrs. Clinton, his first former secretary of state, for failing to knee-cap the Islamic State before it could take root. He has said it’s time to get tougher and smarter about the threat of Islam-linked terrorism.
The Democratic nominee said Mr. Trump is making things more difficult by projecting the war on terror as a “clash of civilizations.”
“It’s not, and we can’t let it become that,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding that Mr. Trump’s rhetoric on Muslims, including a proposal to ban their entry to the U.S., has undermined alliances in waging the fight against a violent strain within Islam.
“There’s phony strength, and there’s real strength,” she said of Mr. Trump.
Mrs. Clinton critiqued her rival in a wide-ranging interview that recalled her experiences as a U.S. senator for New York during and after the Sept. 11 attacks, from gathering with her horrified staff in Washington to touring ground zero at the World Trade Center the next day.
“It was as close of a depiction of hell that I’ve ever personally seen,” Mrs. Clinton said, before detailing her efforts to get money for recovery workers who suffered from poor air quality at the site.
“You could see it you could smell it, you could taste the evidence,” she said.
CNN said it offered a similar interview opportunity to Mr. Trump, but he declined.
Mr. Trump issued a statement early Sunday in memory of 9/11’s victims and the first responders who rushed to survivors.
“Today is a day of sadness and remembrance. It is also a day of resolve. Our solemn duty on behalf of all those who perished that September day 15 years ago, is to work together as one nation to keep all of our people safe from an enemy that seeks nothing less than to destroy our way of life,” Mr. Trump said. “We pray for those who have lost the ones they love so much, and we also pray for the unity we will need to conquer all the challenges to come.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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