Two Administrations -- Two Very Different Views Of Islamic Terrorism

In A White House Initiative to Defeat Radical Islam Daniel Pipes writes that:

Donald Trump gave a robust speech in August 2016 on how he, as president, would "Make America Safe Again." In it, he pledged that "one of my first acts as president will be to establish a commission on radical Islam." Note: he said radical Islam, not some euphemism like violent extremism.

Contrast that with the Obama administration:

As an example of how not to answer this question, the Obama administration convened a Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Working Group in 2010 and included participants who turned up such gems as: "Jihad as holy war is a European invention," the caliphate's return is "inevitable," Sharia (Islamic law) is "misunderstood," and "Islamic terrorism is a contradiction in terms ... because terrorism is not Islamic by definition." The result? The group produced propaganda helpful to the (unnamed) enemy.

Orwell understood very well that language has great power. Obama's language was carefully calculated to blame the world for Islamic terrorism, and exonerate Islam.

Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

President Trump is operating under no such constraints or illusions, and is quite correctly naming the source of Islamic terrorism as Islam.

It is not racist or anti-religion or whatever the SJW buzzword is to describe the reality of Islam. Hopefully the Trump administration will be able to purge the apologists for Islamic expansionism and push back against the tide.

posted by CBD at 11:30 AM

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