Radical Islamist Terrorists?

According to the White House and national Democrats, “they” are to be unnamed. 

Some say “they” blow themselves up as suicide bombers, behead captives and massacre Parisians.

President Obama and his fellow group-thinkers apparently believe that by failing to use the highly descriptive phrase “radical Islamist terrorists”, they are avoiding giving offense to the majority of Muslims who are not.

Yet, I suggest that concern with avoiding offending moderate Muslims confuses the American public as to the real nature of the enemy.  The simple fact is that most Americans well know that the terrorists consider themselves to be Muslims.  They do not, however, make distinctions between good and bad followers of Islam but, rather, lump them together.

Thus, in a poll a year ago, only twenty percent of Americans had a favorable view of Muslims in general.  This is much lower than even a few years after 9/11 when one would have thought anti-Muslim sentiments would have been more pronounced.  In 2006, the highly respected Pew poll found that actually a majority of Americans had a favorable view of Muslims.

So what’s happened?  Plainly, the frequent terrorist attacks involving Muslims have influenced public opinion.  So an increase in negative views is not surprising.  However, the failure by the White House for the past seven years to accurately and precisely name the perpetrators certainly bears some of the blame.

To refuse correct labeling fuels speculation that Muslims in general – as opposed to a subgroup- are responsible. 

As a result, the lack of specificity - the refusal to call a spade a spade – causes a broader target to be an object of animosity.  The public does not believe what the Administration would wish which is that the terrorists are simply people of no particular motivation, religion or ideological preference. 

However, the American people are not the fools who occupy the Oval Office and environs.  So the belief develops that the White House (not exactly known for integrity) is trying to hide the truth.  Since it won’t identify the terrorists as radical Islamists, they must simply be Muslims.  So hostility to followers of Islam expands in part due to the addiction of President Obama to being politically correct and not giving offense.

 

He has, in effect, been hoisted on his own petard. 

So stop the harmful and counterproductive foolishness.  Call the terrorists what they are:  radical Islamists.  Good Muslims will be grateful.