Can 'Midnight Soccer' defeat ISIS?

By Joseph Farah
Sunday, February 22, 2015

advertisements

Maybe this is what Barack Obama has in mind for his strategy to defeat ISIS and “extremist violence” around the world – “midnight soccer.”

You will no doubt remember the “midnight basketball” programs so widely touted during the Bill Clinton-Al Gore administration as an antidote to juvenile crime in U.S. urban areas.

Lately, the Obama administration is proclaiming there is no military strategy for defeating terrorism around the world because the perps just can’t all be killed – and, even if they could, it wouldn’t be a good idea. He’s mentioned jobs programs. He’s mentioned working with their religious and community leaders. He’s mentioned “investing” in their economies.

This all sounds a lot like the Democratic Party initiatives to pacify domestic crime and unrest in urban areas. The only element not explicitly mentioned was “midnight basketball.”

But here it is – an actual pilot program targeted to Somali kids in Minnesota – at high risk of being terrorist recruits. It’s not “midnight basketball,” but it’s close – a more culturally conducive “midnight soccer.”

The founder of the program specifically touts it as a means of defeating ISIS – sure to be music to the ears of the Obama administration, which seems to be on the same strategic wavelength.

Here’s what “Coach Ahmed” says about the program: “How are you going to stop ISIS or Al Shabaab when you don’t give an opportunity?”

Interestingly, “Coach Ahmed” is a little cagey about revealing his full name, for whatever reason. But he’s in charge of the program for Somali teens. The local news accounts say that over the last decade he’s produced a championship team that for two years went undefeated.

Sad to say, the mysterious “Coach Ahmed” doesn’t get paid, must struggle to find venues for his kids to play and is astonished that he’s not getting grants that will keep these kinds out of the clutches of Islamic terrorist groups.

“These kids, nobody helps them,” he told a local TV station. “We have Minnesota Youth Soccer Association, we have Minneapolis Parks and Recreation, we have school board,” he said. And none of them reached out to the Somali community, he says with disgust.

“Coach Ahmed” has a waiting list of 70 kids he must turn away – impressionable teenagers who, outside these walls, may well become prospects, for gangs, or worse, the terror recruiters.

“Coach Ahmed” already has an advocate the Obama administration – U.S. Attorney Andy Luger, who says mentors like Ahmed are the key to what he’s calling a Community Resiliency Program, which he actually unveiled at the White House summit this week. The Justice Department has developed the “midnight soccer” idea as a pilot program to combat the recruiting of young men, and women, for terror, by getting at root causes at home, like unemployment and a lack of opportunity.

The idea is spreading now to Los Angeles and Boston.

Minnesota is the home to a large Somali community that has produced terrorists, some of who have traveled to Somalia and Syria to fight and die for ISIS and other Islamic terror groups. Since 2007, at least 40 Somalis from Minnesota have made such treks.

Why?

Luger explains: “There is a very sophisticated and persuasive message coming from overseas, that you have a better life, a more meaningful life, fighting overseas for terrorists.”

The antidote? “Midnight soccer.”

His entire program is a little broader:

Youth and after-school programs
Job fairs and job-training programs
Eliminate ethnic profiling at the airport
See more Somalis in law enforcement
Increase engagement between religious leaders and youth.

“What I’ve heard repeatedly from relatives of young men who have traveled to Syria, is more connection between youth and religious leaders, more connection to the imams,” Luger said.

Bottom line? Obama is serious about defusing ISIS with social programs. He and his entire administration really think they can pacify and buy off ISIS the same way they pacify and buy off their domestic urban constituents.

There’s really nothing new under the sun for Democratic Party strategies. Midnight basketball has just been reinvented as a pillar in the war on terror.

Home
Email

Hiiraan Online