President Obama: I Refuse To Say The “I” Word. Prime Minister David Cameron: Islam, Islam, Islam!
[guest post by Dana]
President Obama continues to avoid saying the “I” word, even today when standing with British Prime Minister David Cameron who used harsh terms of condemnation for the terrorists: “Poisonous ideology” and “Radical, death cult of a narrative” and “very serious Islamist extremist terrorist threat.” However, the president refused to refer to the terrorists in such terms:
Despite the increasingly tough rhetoric from Cameron, French President Francois Hollande and others, Obama continued to describe the enemy as “violent extremism” and “violent terrorism” — even “nihilism.”
Compare and contrast the two leaders’ carefully chosen wording:
Obama: “We both recognize that intelligence and military force alone is not going to solve this problem, so we’re also going to keep working together on strategies to counter violent extremism that radicalizes recruits and mobilizes people, especially young people, to engage in terrorism.”
Cameron: “We know what we’re up against. And we know how we will win. We face a poisonous and fanatical ideology that wants to pervert one of the world’s major religions, Islam, and create conflict, terror and death. With our allies, we will confront it wherever it appears.”
Obama: This phenomenon of violent extremism, the ideology, the networks, the capacity to recruit young people, this has metastasized and it is widespread, and it has penetrated communities around the world.”
“I do not consider it an existential threat. As David said, this is one that we will solve. We are stronger. We are representing values that the vast majority of Muslims believe in — in tolerance and in working together to build, rather than to destroy.”
Cameron: “We will deploy additional intelligence and surveillance assets to help Iraqi forces on the ground, and we will ensure they are better trained and equipped to counter explosive devices. But most important of all, we must also fight this poisonous ideology starting at home.”
“We do face a very serious Islamist extremist terrorist threat in Europe, in America, across the world. And we have to be incredibly vigilant in terms of that threat.”
“It means countering this poisonous, fanatical death cult of a narrative that is perverting the religion of Islam.”
Further, Greta Van Susteren wonders if Cameron and Obama’s jointly-written op-ed in the Times of London had the “I” word removed as a favor to President Obama:
Now, in the op-ed, the president and prime minister write in part. “Whether we are facing lone fanatics or terrorist organizations, such as Al-Qaeda, Islamic state or Boko Haram, we will not be cowed by extremist. We would defeat this barbaric killers and their distorted ideology.”
Now, if you read the entire joint op-ed, there is no mention of radical Islam. Why not?
In response, Nile Gardiner, Director for Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom suggests a reasonable possibility for the omission:
I suspect that is because the White House probably requested that because President Obama does not refer to these terror attacks that we have seen happening in Europe as Islamist related. Now, David Cameron is very different in this respect. He has on a number of occasions referred to the poisonous ideology of Islamist extremism. He is far more hard hitting in terms of the language he uses about identifying the nature of the Islamist threat that we face.
I think you are going to see a distinction coming across between the British prime minister and the U.S. President. But I do think that Barack Obama at the moment looks very, very weak with regard to the global fight against Islamic extremism. He doesn’t even refer to this as a war. I do think that David Cameron understands we are engaged in a global war against the Islamist, a war that we absolutely have to win. So there is a clear divide between the two leaders on this.
Clearly, not everyone appreciates the president walking on verbal eggshells, including angry Democratic Congresswoman and Army veteran Tulsi Gabbard :
“It’s frustrating how, as we look at the situation there, our administration refuses to recognize who our enemy is.”
“I’m upset that the President and the White House… [are] not actually saying, ‘This is a war that the Islamic extremists are posing against the United States and against the West and we recognize who our enemy is and come up with a strategy to defeat that enemy.’”
If you can’t recognize the enemy, how can you even fight the war?
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (8e74ce) — 1/16/2015 @ 6:36 pm“how can you even fight the war?
”
Mike K (90dfdc) — 1/16/2015 @ 7:02 pmIf you don’t want to …
You mean the other “I” word — he has no problem with his usual I word.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 1/16/2015 @ 7:23 pmI put this link in a comment on the Sarah Palin thread, but it’s appropriate here, too.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-publicly-beheads-woman-in-holy-mecca-as-blogger-set-to-receive-second-lashing-9982134.html
She was convicted of a very heinous crime. Sexually molesting her 7 y.o. daughter and then murdering her.
But this is Saudi Arabia. I would bet that her husband molested his daughter and killed her. And then he pinned it on his wife. And in SA under Sharia a woman’s testimony is only worth half that of a man’s. Women don’t get justice in SA; they’re flogged and/or executed for “adultery” when they’re raped.
Point being, Obama is making an idiot of himself claiming that these Muslim terrorist groups have nothing to do with Islam, and are in fact un-Islamic. It’s clear that by his standards of what makes an organization un-Islaminc, groups like ISIS are then only slightly more un-Islamic than Saudi Arabia. And a lot of other governments and organizations he’s perfectly happy to call Islamic. The difference isn’t great. And some of the governments and organizations are in fact terror groups that are just as bad as ISIS. But for instance he’s perfectly happy to call Iran the “Islamic Republic” even though it is just as brutal and responsible for more terror attacks outside its borders than ISIS is.
Of course, Prom Queen doesn’t care if the “little people” understand perfectly that he’s either lying or crazy. The leftist elites have a solution; hate speech codes. In Sweden women get raped twice. First by the Muslim rapists their overlords have let in. Then by the overlords who have made it a hate crime to publicly say that nearly all rapes in Sweden are committed by Muslim immigrants.
Or Julian Assange, but you can still get away with that because he’s a blonde non-Muslim. But I digress.
http://www.patcondell.net/sweden-ship-of-fools/
Steve57 (f1883e) — 1/16/2015 @ 7:29 pmhttp://www.patcondell.net/sweden-goes-insane/
Steve57 (f1883e) — 1/16/2015 @ 7:32 pmwhat’s good for the goose:
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/01/16/meet-the-radical-professor-at-the-center-of-the-controversy-for-islamic-prayers-at-duke-university/
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/16/2015 @ 7:43 pmThe leftwing nitwit in the White House pulls just the opposite routine when it comes to situations like the ones involving Ferguson, Missouri or Trayvon Martin. IOW, an Islamic radical isn’t necessarily Islamic, isn’t necessarily aware of Mohammed and the Koran, but a guy trying to defend himself against a black stranger is necessarily a racist, is necessarily a member of the Klan.
Liberalism is a mental illness, and the guy occupying this nation’s presidency proves that on a regular basis.
Mark (c160ec) — 1/16/2015 @ 7:53 pmObama doesn’t wish to be reliably labeled as an apostate. He can say he is Christian (ok to lie in Islam), no pictures of Sunday church and no public speaking against the “I”-word. He thinks its a pass
Angelo (82ecde) — 1/16/2015 @ 7:58 pmnarciso – I wonder how many times that professor has visited the White House. Seems like Obama’s kind of guy.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/16/2015 @ 8:53 pmIt’s a deranged cult. They don’t have well-thought out principles, they have religious convictions. And in this case it’s their religious faith in multiculturalism. Pat Condell talks about that in one of the links to his videos about the insanity that is their immigration policy. They can not admit their dogma is wrong. It’s who they are. So their solution is to institute blasphemy laws to make it illegal to criticize the left’s religious beliefs.
Howard Dean illustrated that point when he claimed the Muslim terrorists involved in the Charlie Hebdo slaughter were not Muslims. They were, he said, about as Muslim as he was.
This is lunacy. But he believes in multiculturalism. And one of the tenets of that faith is Islam is good and blameless. Anybody who says otherwise is a heretic.
This is why Obama, in the wake of the Muslim massacre in Paris, has decided to take off the gloves and fight the real enemy. The media and their “anti-jihadi” rhetoric.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/01/obama-to-fight-anti-jihad-articles/
Of course, he claims he’s doing it for the troops. He only thinks of the troops when he can use them as stage props to advance his agenda. So for now actually speaking the truth about Islam won’t be illegal. But it will be “unpatriotic” and mean you hate the military.
The terrorists gained entry to the Charlie Hebdo building by putting a gun to the head of one of the cartoonists and forcing her to enter the door’s security code.
Nobody is putting a gun to this President’s head; he’s letting the terrorists in willingly. And working toward making it illegal to talk about it.
Steve57 (f1883e) — 1/16/2015 @ 9:10 pmLiberals believe:
1. These terror attacks have nothing to do with Islam.
2. There are parts of the Bible that can be read to justify violence, too.
Does anyone else see the cognitive dissonance required to hold those two beliefs?
Steve57 (f1883e) — 1/16/2015 @ 9:16 pmit seems very hard to find any support for the latter, and impossible to conclude the former,
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/16/2015 @ 9:30 pmbecause “surrender”?
redc1c4 (a6e73d) — 1/16/2015 @ 9:37 pmSo our Nitwit in Chief comes off badly compared to the Head of State of another country; not a surprise. He should be compared against something more in the same general area of level of mentation.
Say, an earthworm.
C. S. P. Schofield (848299) — 1/16/2015 @ 10:05 pmcould not be lamer
Colonel Haiku (5b4ca4) — 1/16/2015 @ 10:07 pma pussy in sheep’s clothing
President Poltroon
He’s got DADDY issues. Is it becoming clear yet?? I-bama is RETARDED…AND….mentally ill.
Gus (7cc192) — 1/16/2015 @ 10:19 pmAm I surprised? I agree with a democrat– Tulsi Gabbard.
Jim (84e66d) — 1/16/2015 @ 10:47 pmIt blows me away that this traitorous president has yet to be impeached.
mg (31009b) — 1/17/2015 @ 3:04 amD.C. has an attitude that will only be terminated by conservative methods.
Steve, three things:
1. It could be the woman was innocent. But I seriously doubt that even Saudi Arabs don’t care about punishing the real molester and murderer of a seven-year old and would rather pin it on a woman instead of the real pervert because he’s a man.
2. There’s nothing wrong with beheading child murderers. Painfully.
3. The Saudis use the scimitar (shamshir), a light curved sword which is designed for the draw cut not chopping. The execution involve three cuts — one on each side of the neck and the third across the back of the neck. The head does not come off, it rests forward on the collar bone. This was not a “botched” execution.
4. If Star Wars spin-offs can have things which are “canon” and things which are not “canon” so can Islam.
Err, four things.
nk (dbc370) — 1/17/2015 @ 4:25 amnever underestimate the perversity of Saudi royal trash
happyfeet (831175) — 1/17/2015 @ 4:26 am4. Righteous word.
Princess, so far from gutlessly cowering before the Wahabist insurgents in fact openly arms them, restores their lieutenants to waiting arms and suborns opposition to the Caliphate at every turn.
DNF (92e3e8) — 1/17/2015 @ 5:24 am18.1. Your faith in human nature is founded on shifting sand.
The woman was Burmese, undoubtedly a concubine.
DNF (92e3e8) — 1/17/2015 @ 5:30 am17. I’m thinking we can make a beginning of it from the ashes.
DNF (92e3e8) — 1/17/2015 @ 5:41 am20. “Suborn opposition”
A faulty construct.
DNF (92e3e8) — 1/17/2015 @ 5:44 amsubverts
nk (dbc370) — 1/17/2015 @ 5:47 amThere is a “D” word to go with another unutterable “I” word.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-17/central-banks-upside-down
DNF (92e3e8) — 1/17/2015 @ 6:33 amNote the problem:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/17/2015 @ 6:35 amSmite the unbeliever with pamphlets and well-reasoned argument!
nk (dbc370) — 1/17/2015 @ 6:39 ampardon my cynicism:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2007/05/drug_smuggling_/
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/17/2015 @ 6:51 amDNF- Ashes are loaded with potassium, which is great for the garden.
mg (31009b) — 1/17/2015 @ 6:51 amI guess Pope Francis, thinks this is reasonable,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30856403
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/17/2015 @ 6:59 amYou have not noticed that I consistently call the oil royals “Golden Apes” for years on these threads? They are the radical Islam (say Wahabi) kow-towers, protectors, financiers, enablers, and exploiters.
nk (dbc370) — 1/17/2015 @ 7:07 amit seems since the Hashemites were driven from the shrines, everything went downhill over there,
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/17/2015 @ 7:14 amAs I understood the history of it, the Sauds did not have the kishkas to call themselves s caliphs and instead settled for protectors of the holy places with the Wahabis as partners for the religious propaganda. Kind of like Henry VIII and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
nk (dbc370) — 1/17/2015 @ 7:19 amthat’s the gist of it, the Ikwan tribes are their retainers, the Sheikhs are the ones from which the Archbishop cmes,
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/17/2015 @ 7:21 amObama might find himself presented with a veto-proof majority on the Iran sanctions bill. That would be interesting. Even Democrats can see the future, a bit.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 1/17/2015 @ 7:46 amyou really think democrats will risk president jarrett’s wrath?
maybe those without pets or small children
happyfeet (831175) — 1/17/2015 @ 7:53 amTo those who say “Let it burn”, consider the possibility that it has already burned.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 1/17/2015 @ 7:53 amlet what burn?
i do not understand
when you burn things you release carbon dioxides what wrap around the earth in a warm and comforting hug
why do you hate hugs
happyfeet (831175) — 1/17/2015 @ 7:56 amwell there’s the problem, of who they are going to set fire to,?
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/17/2015 @ 8:08 amHow do you like your soft-bottomed boi now, Mr. Dearth?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-17/russias-modest-proposal-greece-exit-europe-and-we-will-lift-food-import-ban
DNF (92e3e8) — 1/17/2015 @ 8:09 amDon’t believe everything you read in the papers.
nk (dbc370) — 1/17/2015 @ 8:17 amwould Volodya lie to you,
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/17/2015 @ 8:18 amNeither Pravda nor Izvestia. Did you know Greeks owned Pravda for a time? I knew a guy who worked there. He’d spent five years in a penal colony during the junta.
nk (dbc370) — 1/17/2015 @ 8:20 amso I’ve heard, it’s a mixed bag now, which you can’t say for the Dog Trainer,
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/17/2015 @ 8:39 amDomestic worker. Sex slave. Same thing in Saudi Arabia.
Steve57 (2baf2d) — 1/17/2015 @ 9:49 amnk, first a shamshir is a Persian sword. And yes, the Saudis use a curved sword (the saif) influenced by the Turkish kilij (as was the shamshir). As was the British 1796 light cavalry saber, although perhaps indirectly through Hungarian sabers that were directly influenced by the kilij. And the British adopted it precisely because it was a very effective cutter. Whether you used a draw cut, a push cut, or just for plain hacking. It had to be as that’s how cavalry melees often ended up. The two sides just hacking at each other with no regard for the finer points of swordmanship. Cavalry troopers weren’t upper crust aristocrats with years of fencing practice. They were recruits and in the stress of battle they’d often forget their training and they needed to be issued a good general purpose cutter. And that’s exactly what curved swords like the kilij, the saif, the British light cavalry trooper’s saber, and for that matter the Japanese katana are.
And, yes, Saudi executioners can take a person’s head off with one stroke. Here’s a link to a video of just such an execution:
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/579480/20150117/saudi-arabia-beheads-woman-convicted-sexually-molesting.htm#.VLqmE567J1P
They don’t practice to use three cuts. I’ve seen enough other videos as well as photos (taken with a motor drive to capture the entire thing) to know better.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2966790.stm
Steve57 (2baf2d) — 1/17/2015 @ 10:43 amPlease. “Shamshir” is a Persian *word*, from which scimitar derives. I studied iaido (yes, I know) for about a year. The proper way to use a katana is the draw cut. And the kilij is a hybrid designed to convert the scimitar into also a stabbing weapon. It evolved from it. It was popular in Greece and evzones still carry ceremonial ones. As for the method of execution, that’s what I read from George Cameron Stone. I won’t quibble with your sources. I saw the video of the execution of the Arabian princess and her lover in 1977. He was killed the way I described. (She was shot with a pistol through her burka.)
nk (dbc370) — 1/17/2015 @ 11:20 am40. The point isn’t whether Greece might enter the neoSoviet orbit but that following Swiss unpegging the franc from the euro we are seeing Grexit as near term certainty.
The US/Saudi gambit means WWiii will not be contained to the ME.
DNF (92e3e8) — 1/17/2015 @ 11:57 amoh goodness
happyfeet (831175) — 1/17/2015 @ 12:06 pmThe issue really isn’t that Obama won’t say the words, Islamic terrorism, that’s just a diversionary display of presidential petulance by a silly little man, a convenient red herring to confuse and occupy the gullible, catnip if you will to keep the biding herds ruminating.
What Obama fears is Spiritus Mundi’s recognition of Islam’s schizophrenic nature: abundant peace, tranquility, and brotherhood for the obedient; and only deadly merciless jihad for non-believing infidels. A two faced deception, two ends of the same bloody stick, a old version of bait and switch.
Islam’s benign public face puts the infidel nations at ease, while the terrible reality of bloodthirsty jihad remains cloaked and denied till its too late. The deception works because the civilized arrogantly refuse to accept that such monstrously depraved and barbarous evil could lurk in the shadows of their glittering cultural and technological achievements.
ropelight (1be5c2) — 1/17/2015 @ 1:12 pmI have a solution.
He can say Islamic-based violent extremism.
Sammy Finkelman (be6791) — 1/17/2015 @ 5:55 pmSteve57 (f1883e) — 1/16/2015 @ 7:29 pm
Sammy Finkelman (be6791) — 1/17/2015 @ 6:11 pmBut one important to note is that this is a new ideology, and it’s not traditional Islam\:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1365202/Transcript-of-Osama-bin-Laden-video.html
What Osama bin Laden is saying is this is not what most Moslems believe, but it is the true Islam.
We shouldn’t be agreeing with him.
What this is, is a form of Islamic revivalism.
Sammy Finkelman (be6791) — 1/17/2015 @ 6:12 pmon a serious note,
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/islam-france-headed-for-clash/
narciso (ee1f88) — 1/17/2015 @ 6:13 pm54.
There was no reason to suspect it, because jihadism didn’t exist. There were leftists affiliated radicals.
This is not an issue of immigration. All of this is being done by descendants of people who immigrated 20 or 30 or more years ago. The newest immigrants are more like Lassana Bathily, who helped save people in the kosher grocery, and was just made a citizen of France. What we’re dealing with here is Islamic rivivalism (supported by money from abroad)
Revivalism into what amounts to an Islamic heresy. It’s a lie to think this is traditional Islam.
The terrorists here were first criminals before they were terrorists. Surely their demented ideology does not approve of theft and drug dealing.
These people are, so to speak, “born again Muslims” and the problem stems from “born again Muslims.”
Sammy Finkelman (be6791) — 1/18/2015 @ 7:03 am18. nk (dbc370) — 1/17/2015 @ 4:25 am
No, it’s very possible.
There’s a lot of corruption in Saudi Arabia.
And remember the couple in the Qatar ( A country with a similar court system) where a Chinese American couple was accused of having murdered their adopted daughter?)
And Steve57’s description of the crime makes it sound like this ia not a crime that a woman does.
Of course, most ordinary people would care about getting the right person and about not executing an innocent person, but that’s not the same thing as saying the people in the court system will always care.
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 1/20/2015 @ 1:14 amDNF (92e3e8) — 1/17/2015 @ 5:30 am
Family matters.
A better guess than that her husband did it, would be that another (jealous) woman murdered the child, and there was no molestation.
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 1/20/2015 @ 1:18 amSpeaking of why Obama won’t say the “I” word, Eli Lake writes:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-19/why-obama-can-t-call-charlie-hebdo-terrorists-radical-islamists-
This really doesn’t tell us anything we don’t know. What it does do is call into question the sanity of US and Western leaders. First, it doesn’t explain so many blunders, such as when Bush invited an Imam to the WH to put on a show about how the US isn’t at war with Islam (while at the same time planning to invade a Muslim country). At the same time that particular Imam was at the WH for the lovefest, the FBI knocked on the door of his house because they were investigating his ties to terrorism.
Their jaws hit the floor when his wife told him he wasn’t home, he was at the WH meeting the President.
It also doesn’t explain why the Obama administration was cozying up to the MB at home and abroad, if radical Islam is the reason we can’t talk about radical Islam.
But more importantly if we know that the Muslim governments we need to ally with are in effect held hostage by large pluralities of their own populations that support radical Islam, why are we pursuing these suicidal immigration policies so that one day Muslim populations reach critical mass and we can also be held hostage by those same large pluralities? This is France’s problem, now.
Steve57 (4ce020) — 1/20/2015 @ 5:01 amAnd Rupert Murdock gave up the struggle to maintain some semblance of heterosexuality in males where Great Britain used to be. http://news.yahoo.com/british-tabloid-sun-ends-topless-page-three-015027202.html
nk (dbc370) — 1/20/2015 @ 6:28 amMaybe it really was Putin who was behind the Charlie Hebdo attack!
France Arrests Russians over New Terror Attack Plot
They are from Chechnya. I think of double and triple agents. One thinbg si clear: Abedy Coulabali was connected to people in belguim whi told him they were from ISIS, and the Kouachi brothers, who got their weapons from Coulibaly, thought they were working for Al Qaeda in Yemen. And someone who has bene a good source to the new York times on AQAP who says he is part of them said they only were respoinsible for the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the other attack took place at the same time onlky because the Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly were friends.
That is the only way to reconcile what the two terrorists said, of course.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 1/20/2015 @ 10:13 amRight after the attacks, Russioan propaganda was all over the place:
New york times Jan 12: Moscow Journal
Conspiracy Theories Mix With Official Condolences
Jan 19: Tens of Thousands Protest Charlie Hebdo in Russia’s Caucasus
In Moscow both pro and anti-Charlie Hebdo protests have been disallowed.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 1/20/2015 @ 10:15 am