May 31, 2013 4 min read

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad as compiled by the Associated Press:

The recent shooting in Orlando of a murder suspect, and the brutal murder in London of a British soldier, show that homegrown terrorism is perhaps the biggest challenge in the post-bin Laden era.

Recently, two men attacked a British soldier in the Woolwich area of London. The soldier was hacked to death with knives and machetes. British police captured the two men on the spot. Evidence suggests the men are Islamic extremists influenced by a radical Muslim cleric.

An FBI agent shot and killed Ibragim Todashev, 27, in Orlando, as they questioned him about a triple murder in Waltham, Mass. The FBI was also interested in Todashev because he was reportedly a friend of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a shootout with Massachusetts police after he was fingered for the marathon bombing.

The British and U.S. suspects are the latest in a wave of terrorists born or raised in the West, but who have anger and frustration with Western policy in the Middle East. The challenge is how to stop these radicals when they have the rights of citizens and permanent residents. It’s yet another front in the war against terrorism.

With the passage of an immigration reform measure by a bipartisan group of members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, some advocates of long-awaited change are allowing themselves some hope. If President Obama has been nobly ambitious when it comes to taking on politically charged issues such as health care reform and gun control, he might be called a glutton for political punishment in advocating that the nation address a long-simmering lack of direction on immigration.

But the president is right to make this a priority. As millions of illegal immigrants have come to the United States over the years in search of higher hopes and better lives for themselves and their children, they have become targets of political opportunism on the one hand and exploited members of the agricultural workforce on the other.

But the Senate committee would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who passed pretty tough muster, and that path would take years to navigate. The House, with more hard-nosed tea partyers than the Senate, is unlikely to follow suit, and even the Senate measure will surely change in the course of debate. Opponents of providing such a path to those who have worked in the U.S. and raised children here and who have been law-abiding apparently hold hope that, somehow, all illegal immigrants can be deported. Deport 11 million people? That’s unrealistic.

With his success in ridding the world of Osama bin Laden, President Barack Obama has a commendable record in providing the leadership needed to combat global terrorism. Despite his desire to shut down Guantanamo Bay, he has kept intact the tough, post-9/11 security framework established by George W. Bush, even though, before he was elected, he was scathing about it.

In a widely anticipated speech Obama has reflected profound ambivalence about the conduct and goals of the so-called “war on terror.” What is not in doubt is that in his eagerness to declare an end to the war on terror and redefine it as a series of smaller-scale skirmishes, as well as his proposal for limits on powers to conduct that war, he has signaled a return to the pre-9/11 mindset.

Displaying the intellectual preoccupations of the law professor he was rather than the commander-in-chief he is, Obama worries the U.S. may be locked in “a perpetual war” and “more wars we don’t need to fight.”

Obama is making brave assumptions. His assumptions are highly contestable, if not fanciful. The terrorist threat is far from over. Obama may be weary of war, but the trouble is that al-Qaida and its cohorts are not. This is no time to be dropping our guard or degrading our defenses.