“Radical Islam” is not a magic phrase, an “abracadabra” that will
suddenly make ISIS pack up and leave. “Well, she said ‘Radical Islam’ was
the enemy, so I guess we’re done here,” said no terrorist ever.
Still, many Republicans get upset that President Obama and Hillary
Clinton don't use those words to describe ISIS. Some believe the reason
the President and other administration officials do this is because either
they're secretly supporting terror, or simply don't understand the threat. In
fact, there are very good reasons to be "PC" in this case, and limit
our description of terrorists to exclude a specific and simplistic religious
label.
The first reason should be obvious--calling these terrorists
"Islamic" feeds into ISIS propaganda. The Islamic State’s
message is simple: "the West has declared war on Islam, so we’re waging
war on them." ISIS surely appeals to violent, mentally-disturbed people,
but its sales pitch isn't "wanna rape and murder? come on down!" ISIS
depends on creating a narrative where America is the evil empire, out to
destroy the Islamic way of life. Our counter-messaging depends on making it
clear our war is not against Islam, but those who use it as justification for
murder, rape, and other atrocities. Do we really want to say, “Yeah ISIS,
you’re right! We do hate Muslims!" I’m sure that will play very well and
not at all add fuel to ISIS recruiting efforts.
ISIS has used the words of Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton, in
its propaganda videos, to “prove” that the West seeks to destroy Islam. It’s
hard to imagine any action America can take to invite more acts of terror than
to elect a guy who openly pledged to keep Muslims out of America.
The second reason, of course, is that there is no
"understanding" to be gained by treating these terrorists as
"Islamic terrorists." In what ways would our strategy change if we
focused on the religious aspect as the driver of terror? Well... you start to
go down a dark road. Why is it that many Republicans think that Islam is
one monolithic hive mind where everyone believes the same interpretations and
beliefs? Or that it's any more prone to extremism than any other religion or
nationality: historically, vastly more slaughters of innocents were committed
by Christians.
If every Muslim is a suspect, it stands to "reason" that
to be safe, you'd have to treat every Muslim differently. Plank one of Trump's
plan is to ban all Muslim immigrants. But does it stop there? Are the 3.3
million Muslims living in America our enemies? What about the millions of
Muslims who have never committed an act of terror, nor supported one? Or our
Muslim allies? What “final solution” can you come up with when you believe
all the followers of a different religion are monsters, or that the acts of a few represent the threat of the many? The road this
leads you down is a road humanity has traveled down before, to disastrous results.
How does Trump’s ban plan work? Do you give everyone a religious
test they need to pass? Judge them on appearance? How about that little Syrian boy? He’s Muslim…
is he a terrorist?
Even if you believe profiling suspects wouldn't mire us in
false-positives, add wasted man-hours interrogating Cat Stevens, feed a culture of
paranoid xenophobia and inspire more extremism... you'd still be stuck with
reason number three: the intelligence value of being friends with your
"enemy."
Just because the middle east hasn’t turned into happy unicorn land
in the 15 years since 9/11 (while we actively fought wars there for most of it,
and left power vacuums in Iraq and Afghanistan thanks to the short-sighted
policies of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush) doesn’t mean that
we shouldn’t continue to work with Islamic nations. How else can we gather
intelligence? Send a white guy with a Texas accent into Syria to say, “Hey there
partner, I’m totally a Muslim who is into ISIS and not a spy! So when's that
next terrorist attack?” Maybe we keep our troops stationed in flying
blimps, instead of our bases based in Muslim countries?
Bush tried capturing suspected terrorists and torturing them. Even
then, to know who those terrorists were required coordination with intelligence
services in Muslim countries. They don’t want these guys threatening the
stability of their nations either. How does completely giving up diplomacy
help anyone? We saw what happens. War. Stupid, pointless war. Do you want more
troops on the ground? Are you going to
fight?
Hillary and the current administration would rather those Islamic
nations, Islamic rebels, and Kurdish militias do the fighting for us, with our
support. A plan that so far, is working.
Declaring Islam as our enemy doesn't aid those alliances.
Trump's counter-argument has not been to offer up a real plan to
fight ISIS (it's a secret, he says) but to accuse
Hillary of having conflicts of interest that would prevent her from making
decisions in the interest of the American people. Should we list the countries Trump and his close allies
have done business with? Or perhaps just point out the differences between the charitable Clinton
Foundation and the not-so-charitable Trump Foundation?
Are we to believe that Trump, with zero diplomatic experience, multiple business conflicts of interest, a
dependence on fake Russian news sites for intel and a declared willingness to abandon our NATO allies at the drop of a hat, would be better?
Based on what?
I shouldn’t have to say it, but a senator, a Secretary of State,
or even a President, is not Superman (or Wonder Woman). He or she can’t stop
every worldwide catastrophe, every death personally. Trump seems to think he
can fix everything himself—he’s actually said that. He accuses
Hillary of doing nothing because certain things in the world still occur.
Hillary, her entire career, has fought for human rights here and
abroad. Her accomplishments have been a mixed bag, but they're not nothing.
Just because we don’t live in a magical puppy utopia doesn’t mean
Trump, who has dedicated his whole life only to Trump, will do any better.
Considering he never addressed any of these issues until a few months ago—and
Republicans certainly didn’t during 8 years of George W. Bush, I don’t see how
we can have any faith he will.
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