Within days of the recent YouTube release and subsequent removal of an Islamic State video commanding Muslims to kill unbelievers everywhere, with particular emphasis on France, dozens of people were injured in three separate attacks in France, and two police officers were shot and killed in Brooklyn.

Another attack in France occurred Monday night when shots were fired at a synagogue in Paris, and an attack was thwarted when a man armed with guns and a knife was arrested in Cannes.  Yet referring to these attacks as Islamic terrorism remains taboo.

The French jihadist commands Muslims to pledge allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Sheikh Abu Bakr Baghdadi, and to “kill them [unbelievers], kill them, no matter where they are, kill them… blow up their heads, be it with a stone, a knife, anything” – all consistent with Islamic teachings and Islamic history from the time of Mohammed’s nascent Islamic state in Medina.  A day later, a spate of attacks began and continues, using knives and cars as the weapons of choice.

In Brooklyn, a handgun was used by a Muslim convert to kill two police officers.  In Joue-les-Tours, a knife was used by yet another Muslim convert to attack police officers.  A car and a van were used in the Dijon and Nantes attacks to run down pedestrians.  Despite witnesses hearing all three attackers shout "Allahu Akbar" (God is great), French authorities are denying any terrorist ties.

Not a peep to the public about Islamic motives or jihad (holy war), which is considered one of the most sacred religious duties that every Muslim must perform, as mandated by the Koran.

Government leaders and mainstream media continue referring to similar incidents not as Islamic terrorist attacks, but rather as isolated acts committed by lone wolves or the mentally ill.  These killers might have acted alone, but they are all linked to the same jihad ideology that calls for every kind of violence against the unbeliever.

The Dijon attacker was labeled by the prosecutor as a “mentally unbalanced individual,” having been to a psychiatric hospital 157 times within the past 13 years, while the Nantes attacker appeared to be "unbalanced" and “not motivated by politics or religion,” according to France’s minister of interior.

Also on Monday, a man was arrested in Le Mans for destroying Christmas decorations; he tried to grab the police weapon while shouting "Allah Akbar."  Like the others, he was deemed “mentally deficient.”

Instead of the perpetrators being asked how many times they’ve visited a mosque, or what Islamic organizations they belong to, they’re being asked how many times they’ve visited a psychiatric ward.  The Brooklyn cop-killer belonged to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Oddly enough, the politically correct BBC considers the possibility of the car attacks being religiously motivated: “even if it is established the car attacks were the work of unbalanced individuals, might not Islamist propaganda have played some role in pushing them to the act?”  In other words, might not the recent Islamic State video have inspired some people to commit this outbreak of jihad?

The French-speaking jihadist in this video capitalizes on the ineptitude, incompetence, and ignorance that plague Western governments when dealing with Islamic terrorism and jihadists.  He proclaims with conviction that “the kuffar [unbeliever] can’t do anything to you,” thereby convincing prospective recruits to become killing machines for the Islamic State.

He also urges Muslims to “take an example from our brother Mohammed Merah,” the French jihadist of Algerian descent who, nearly three years ago, shot and killed three Jewish children and a rabbi at their school in Toulouse, as well as three French soldiers in Toulouse and Montauban.

To this day, government leaders and mainstream media continue to publicly downplay jihadi attacks and ignore information that is readily available to everyone, such as the recent Islamic State video that calls for attacks on unbelievers everywhere.

Are government officials in denial when they cannot see beyond mental illness?  Or perhaps they know more than we think.  For what other reason would France be adding another 300 anti-terrorist security soldiers for the Christmas period to the 780 already deployed?  All this to fight mental illness?

Perhaps authorities are, in fact, aware of the video but refuse to connect the dots publicly.  Either way, by not publicly recognizing jihad as the cause of these attacks, and by referring to them as random acts, Western leaders are simply enabling the spread of a deadly ideology that tortures and kills all those caught in the swath of its scythe.

When an enemy cannot be named, how can it be defeated?