Wednesday’s terror attack on London’s Westminster Bridge and in front of the Houses of Parliament cost the lives of four people, including an American tourist. In a later speech before Parliament, Prime Minister Theresa May used that solemn occasion to make certain Islam was not offended: “It is wrong to describe this as Islamic terrorism,” she declared, “It is Islamist terrorism. It is a perversion of a great faith.” [Emphasis added.]
How are the two terms different? The politically correct reasoning is, “Islamic” means “inherent in Islam”; whereas “Islamism” is an illegitimate sect that claims to represent Islam.
Terror expert Daniel Pipes explained, “Islamism is an ideology that demands man’s complete adherence to [shariah law]…. It is imbued with a deep antagonism towards non-Muslims and has a particular hostility towards the West.” Islamism is associated with the shariah-compliant, who seek to replace our government with shariah law; they are called Islamists.
Surely, the wife of Kurt Cochran, the slain tourist from Utah, feels better knowing the PM used the politically correct word to describe the murder of her husband.
Conservative Americans were shocked at Prime Minister May’s absurd statement. They’d be even more shocked to know that President Trump’s new National Security Advisor, who replaced Gen. Michael Flynn, uses precisely the same PC term.
Politico reported that: “In his first remarks to the National Security Council [last month], McMaster told his new staff he considered the term ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ unhelpful, according to a second White House aide. ‘Even a small change like referring to “radical Islamist terrorism” would be an improvement, in his view,’ said this aide.”
Prior to the president’s excellent speech before the joint session of Congress, McMaster’s staff “pressed the president’s chief speechwriter and senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller not to use the phrase: “radical Islamic terrorism,” said Politico. And, in a closed-door meeting, he advised the president himself not to use it. Trump said it anyway. The phrase has been a rallying cry of the Trump campaign from the start, and he’s used it countless times.
Hillary Clinton also refuses to say, “Radical Islamic terrorism.” She prefers the same term as McMaster. CNN reported last June that, in response to Trump’s frequent rebukes that she can’t use the phrase, Clinton said: “Whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, I’m happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing.” Obviously, they don’t mean the same as Radical Islamic terrorism, though.
-
The Importance of Prayer: How a Christian Gold Company Stands Out by Defending Americans’ Retirement
The Washington Times wrote that McMaster “reportedly told the National Security Council staff that the label ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ was not helpful because terrorists are ‘un-Islamic.’ That has been his position for years.” The Times continued:
For example, in a November 2016 address to the Center for Leadership Ethics, Gen. McMaster said that Daesh [ISIS] is an example of the terrorist “enemy who cynically use a perverted interpretation of religion to incite hatred and justify horrific cruelty against innocents.” Those words demonstrate Gen. McMaster’s belief that the terrorist ideology isn’t connected to Islam.…
In his November 2016 address to the Center for Leadership Ethics, Gen. McMaster said that Daesh [ISIS] is an example of the terrorist “enemy who cynically use a perverted interpretation of religion to incite hatred and justify horrific cruelty against innocents.
Those words demonstrate Gen. McMaster’s belief that the terrorist ideology isn’t connected to Islam.
Here’s another source with two videos of McMaster saying these things.
These are the same positions held by President Obama, and President George W. Bush, to a large degree. Recall that six days after 9/11, GWB standing next to Nihad Awad—founder of CAIR— declared on TV: “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.”
According to those who fret about how we refer to the enemy, “Islamic terror” signals that we have a war on Islam (which might offend our attackers), while “Islamist Terror” indicates some ill-defined group is perverting or hijacking the religion.
Not knowing or understanding the enemy has severely limited our fight against that enemy, and the results show it.
After sixteen years of calling a scorpion a butterfly, so to speak, the Muslim world is in flames, we’ve suffered a devastating terror attack in Orlando, where 49 were gunned down by a second-generation Muslim, 14 others were killed in San Bernardino.
In addition, there have been a string of other attacks in America, like the 2014 beheading of a woman in an Oklahoma meat-processing plant by a co-worker—a recent Islamic convert who had been trying to recruit others into the religion; Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a refugee from Somalia who ran down Ohio State students with his car, then leapt out and commenced to slash the students with a knife. Here’s a long list compiled by Ann Corcoran, proprietor of Refugee Resettlement Watch.
During the rollout of President Trump’s new executive order, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that “more than 300 people who have come here as refugees are being investigated for ‘terrorism-related activities’ by the FBI.” In February 2015, the FBI announced there were ISIS investigations underway in all 50 states.
The Islamic/Islamist theory has even less credibility when one considers the indications that terrorism is firmly anchored in mainstream Islam. A 2015 Pew Research poll in eleven Muslim countries concluded that Muslims’ views of ISIS were “overwhelmingly negative.” But that same year, Al Jazeera conducted one in Arabic, with very different results:
“In a recent survey conducted by AlJazeera.net, the website for the Al Jazeera Arabic television channel, respondents overwhelmingly support the Islamic State terrorist group, with 81% voting ‘YES’ on whether they approved of ISIS’s conquests in the region.”
“The poll, which asked in Arabic, ‘Do you support the organizing victories of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)?’ has generated over 38,000 responses thus far, with only 19% of respondents voting ‘NO’ to supporting ISIS.”
A 2014 poll concluded that 92% of Saudis believe that “Islamic State conforms to the values of Islam and Islamic law.” [Translation of original site is here.]
General Flynn repeatedly criticized Obama for not being able to say “Radical Islam.” But Flynn had no problem saying it, he even used it in the title of his book. He wrote in the book, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies: “We’re in a world war against a messianic mass movement of evil people, most of them inspired by a totalitarian ideology: Radical Islam.”
He once said Islam is a “political ideology hiding behind a religion,” at a meeting of Brigitte Gabriel’s Act for America. He sits on its board of advisors. Coming from the left’s point of view, Heavy.com cites a number of his statements that put him squarely in Trump platform territory. Surely, he was on the Democrats’ hit list, and his loss is a victory for them.
The president clearly listened to the wrong advisor in choosing McMaster to replace Flynn. McMaster is a poor replacement, and should be discarded, before he dilutes one of the prime reasons people voted for Trump. Call the White House: 202-456-1111.
wpDiscuz
