If someone were trying to kill you, would the question of why be of interest?
Of course it would.
Yet, a parade of political and cultural ostriches, whose blame-America-first ideology requires them to, well, blame America first, think not.
Former Democratic Party head Howard Dean, for instance, objected to calling the shooters in the recent Paris attack “Muslim terrorists,” though the attackers were witnessed shouting “Allahu akbar” as they fired.
Speaking on his favorite disinformation network, MSNBC, he argued that they should be characterized and treated as “mass murderers” instead.
It reminds me of the way Barack Obama’s regime characterized the mass murder at Fort Hood by Maj. Nidal Hasan as “workplace violence.”
But Dean went further, saying: “I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists. They’re about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for anybody else’s life, that’s not what the Quran says. And, you know Europe has an enormous radical problem. … I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it’s a cult.”
Not even an Islamic cult, Dean says. Then what kind? Does it matter? Should we care about motivations?
Dean certainly does in other cases. He once declared, “I hate Republicans and everything they stand for.” Interesting when coupled with another statement he made in a speech in 2005: “The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. I mean, they’re a pretty monolithic party. They pretty much, they all behave the same, they all look the same. It’s pretty much a white Christian party.”
Hmmm. Are you getting the picture?
He was hardly alone. During a congressional hearing, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Islamic State does “not represent Islam.” He called them a “militant cult masquerading as a religious movement.” After using the phrase “Islamic radical groups,” he immediately corrected himself. “Islamic is the wrong word – radical religious extremists.”
Barack Obama never used the words “Islam,” “Islamist,” or Islamic in his condemnation of the recent Paris attack. Neither did his spokesmen.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., once represented the radical left wing of the Democratic Party. She’s now very much in the mainstream without changing her values formed while she was associated with the Communist Party for so many years.
She explained how the Obama administration has been right to refuse to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” She added that using phrases such as “Islamic extremists” would anger the terrorists.
We wouldn’t want to do that, of course.
“They’re (the administration) responsible for ensuring our national security,” added Lee. “We have to be careful in our language and how we – I don’t want to see any more anger and hostility or violence in the world. Our response to terrorism is a response that makes us safer that begins to dismantle and degrade terrorist organizations, not create more havoc, anger and hostility in the world.”
Compare this with the response of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who declared war after the Paris attack: “It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity.”
Again, if someone is trying to kill you, would you want to know why?
When it comes to racial violence, the administration wants to have national conversations. When it comes to what can only be characterized as monolithically and exclusively Islamic terrorism, they don’t want to talk about motivations – though Obama implied France’s problem is not providing proper assimilation and integration of the Muslim population. (That’s the only time he mentioned Islam in connection with the attack.)
White House spokesman Josh Earnest explains, “We have chosen not to use that label [of radical Islam] because it doesn’t seem to accurately describe what happened.”
It doesn’t?
As they killed innocent French citizens, the terrorists were shouting “Allahu akbar!” and “We have avenged the prophet Muhammad!”
Is that not a clue as to what their grievances were?
Whether or not the terrorists are representative of Islam as a whole is debatable. But their motivations are not.
Even Muslim leaders understand this. I wonder what Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi thinks of the kind of denial Obama and his entire administration and party are living in as he risks his life standing up to Islamic terrorism.
He has courageously called for a “religious revolution” to deter the rise of radical Islam and Muslim violence.
“We should closely examine the situation in which we are in. It does not make sense that the thought we sanctify pushes this entire nation to become a source of apprehension, danger, murder and destruction in the entire world,” he said in a speech to Egypt’s top religious leaders on the occasion of the birth of Muhammad. “I am not saying the religion [itself]. I am saying this thought that has been sanctified; texts and thoughts that have been sanctified for hundreds of years. And disagreeing with [these texts and thoughts] has become very difficult. To the extent that [this thought] makes an enemy of the whole world.”
Instead of hiding their heads in the sand, why can’t Obama, his administration and his party embrace the crisis the world faces and get behind brave leaders like al-Sisi?
Media wishing to interview Joseph Farah, please contact [email protected].
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