LoBiondo: ISIS Threat ‘Beyond What Anyone Imagines’

RIO GRANDE – U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-2nd) spent an hour at the Herald Aug. 28 highlighting key issues to the district and nation. Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Central Intelligence Agency, LoBiondo spent part of July in Africa, his eighth trip to the continent, to learn what subversive groups are doing there, and how that might threaten this nation.
Asked about the significant threat by the Islamic State to this nation by Peter Jespersen of Cape Issues, LoBiondo replied, “It is a threat beyond what anybody imagines. I think the United States is at greater risk today than at any time since Sept. 11. I say that because I have had the opportunity for the last five years to be on the House Intelligence Committee.
“The Islamic State is making huge strides because of our ineptness in dealing with them when we had a chance to do so. They have now grown with a financial structure that they are not a terrorist organization, they are a terrorist state. They are fully funded, they are flush with money. They are setting up education, health care, social programs and things that governments do along with this, incredible brutality that we’ve all seen firsthand.”
He spoke based on his July visit to Africa, the first member of Congress in 25 years to visit Somalia. He listed other terrorist groups, operating “in their own spheres,” which now are attracted to ISIS “because they have the money and the funding. They are bringing them under their wing…combining operational barbaric techniques each of them specializes in under the ISIS umbrella making their operational capability much more effective, much more dangerous and much more of a threat to us.”
He said the daily attacks and plots by those groups that are daily uncovered, “Set your hair on fire.
“Our policy has been inept at best, dangerous at worst,” said LoBiondo. “We refuse to engage ISIS in a way that will degrade them and make them unable to do what they are doing. We have the president who, not long ago, called them the JV (junior varsity), even though there was tremendous evidence to the opposite. Forty thousand Christians were almost slaughtered, and our answer was, we dropped food and water in. The Kurds that are fierce fighters, who would be the boots on the ground, who we’ve promised to, we keep finding reasons not to give it to them.”
He cited the president’s rules of engagement of ISIS which means fighter jets return to bases with unexpended ordnance while the number of targets continues to expand.
“I can’t believe and I do not accept that this will not come back to harm us at some point in the future,” he continued.
Student Loan Debt
Many college graduates face stifling student loan debt, said Erin Haskell, Herald social media coordinator, a recent Rowan University graduate.
Because of those staggering amounts, some of her friends have two or three minimum wage jobs, in order to pay those loans, she said. There are others who wish to move from their parents’ homes, but are unable to do so because of the debt.
“Is the government aware of this and what is being done to break the cycle of debt?” she asked.
“The government is keenly aware,” LoBiondo replied. “There aren’t easy answers to it.”
It is important students have options when considering college loans for the best rate, he said. Up until about five years ago, students could opt for either a private sector or government student loan.
“The president and Nancy Pelosi decided the student should not have an option of the private sector. They incorporated it into Obamacare. They forced student loans only from the government. There was an instance where rates were due to double, Congress acted from keeping them going higher. We need to allow the competition in the marketplace,” he said, noting the low interest rate climate that would make loan rates lower and more affordable.
“The president doesn’t see it like this,” he said.
Route 55 , Federal Aid?
Former Dennis Township mayor Robert Grace wondered what type of support the federal government would be able to lend to the project?
“I have been an ardent supporter of Route 55,” said LoBiondo, who traced that support from the days when he was a Cumberland County freeholder and later a state legislator.
He said the state Department of Transportation must first prioritize the project, and the state must support it. Lacking that support, the federal government will do nothing. It will not dictate where the road will go, he said.
If, perhaps, a private entity would undertake the project, and make it a toll road to pay for the improvement, the road could be extended, something that was done in Virginia and Florida.
He wondered how Dennis Township residents would feel having to pay a toll “to avoid the nonsense” of the present two-lane gridlock after Route 55 ends in Cumberland County.
Federal funding is in “serious jeopardy,” LoBiondo said, darkening the prospect even further.
Grace noted that there was opposition from some in Dennis Township to the extension.
Iran “Deal Screams Wrong”
How can Congress vote on or before Sept. 17 on the Iran agreement, since many of its details have not been revealed, wondered Rusty Miller, Cape Issues member.
“How this thing was put together, every aspect of it screams out that it’s wrong,” said LoBiondo. Absent a review of how that country has conducted itself over the last 20 years, it is impossible to make an agreement, he said. “The blood of Americans that is on their hands,” he added.
“They have been the lead sponsor of terrorism in the world unequaled by anybody else,” he added. “They’ve taken over Iraq because of our failed policy. They’ve taken over Yemen, they’ve taken over Syria. The Iranian influence is a brutal influence that involves barbaric tactics that we don’t want to think about. That’s the setting when we go into an agreement with somebody who hasn’t told the truth for 20 years,” he said.
The president structured the deal by executive order. After interpreting the political realities, LoBiondo said, “The president realized this was going south. This is a treaty. It should be treated as a treaty…yet the president was doing it as an executive order until Republicans and Democrats in the Senate told the president no, and they came up with this deal where there would be a vote of disapproval and that’s what we’re facing on or before Sept. 17 where this will be presented to Congress on up or down vote. I believe it will be disapproved. Or if the President is really nervous about this he will keep the Democrats in the Senate from allowing this from coming for a vote. If they don’t get 60 votes to allow it to proceed to debate they can hold it from even being considered. And if the president is fearful he is going to lost it he can get Harry Reid and the Democrats, because you only need six or seven Democrats to hold off, then you don’t get to 60.
“So, if we do get it to a vote and it fails the president will veto it, and we need two thirds to override a veto, pretty challenging,” LoBiondo said.