Posted on 11/16/2015 2:18:00 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
During Saturday's debate, all three Democratic presidential candidates refused to say that the U.S. was at war with "radical Islam." They all bobbed and weaved as they tried to follow the PC line and avoid admitting that obvious fact.
"I don't think we're at war with Islam, I don't think we're at war with all Muslims, I think we're at war with jihadists," Hillary Clinton said. "You can talk about Islamists who clearly are also jihadists." She went on to urge outreach to Muslim countries - ironically, many of which recognize that perverted strains of Islam are indeed at war with them and modernity itself.
Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley were equally unwilling to say the words "radical Islam," and Sanders went so far as to claim that climate change was the greatest threat to U.S. security.
The charade led GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to tweet out a message for the trio: "You're all grown up now. You can do it. Three words. Ten syllables. Say it with me: 'Radical Islamic terrorism.'"
After the debate, the Clinton camp stood its ground. Communications director Jennifer Palmieri told Yahoo News, "I think she was really clear that we don't need to go to war. We don't need to go to war with Islam. We're going to war with extremists. But CBS News debate moderator John Dickerson had made it clear he was not referring to all Muslims in his question, just "radical Islam."
Liberals were quick to jump on Dickerson for raising what they claimed was a Republican talking point and, moreover, simply a semantic argument. Former Democratic-party chairman Howard Dean said he found Dickerson's approach "disappointing." Washington Post contributor Paul Waldman, a senior writer at the leftish American Prospect, wrote:
I've yet to hear any conservative give a substantive reason why it would be preferable to have the president say "We're at war with radical Islam," other than that doing so would prove that he or she is tough and strong... Democrats do have a good reason why they think it's a mistake to feed into the idea that this is a religious war. They argue that in order to stop terrorism, we need the help of the world's Muslim populations, and the last thing we want to do is drive them away by implying that they're all our enemies.
But Senator Marco Rubio put that argument to rest on NBC's Meet the Press this Sunday, noting that ignoring ISIS's background would "be like saying we weren't at war with Nazis, because we were afraid to offend some Germans who may have been members of the Nazi party but weren't violent themselves. I don't understand it. We are at war with radical Islam."
That said, the three Democratic candidates soon did find an enemy they could not only identify clearly but also promise to wreak havoc upon: Wall Street. Bernie Sanders claimed that Wall Street's business model was "fraud." Hillary Clinton performed verbal somersaults to deny she had any connection with Wall Street. Recall that during the first Democratic debate, Hillary, when asked which enemies she had that she was proudest of, responded "probably the Republicans."
The debate on Saturday exposed the real weakness the Democratic field has on national security. None of the three candidates were willing to state the obvious: that President Obama's foreign-policy fecklessness has made America less safe. Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell told CBS News's Face the Nation on Sunday that "it's now crystal clear to us that our strategy, our policy, vis-a-vis ISIS is not working, and it's time to look at something else." The day before, Morell had told CBS's 48 Hours that it was now the duty of the intelligence community to confront President Obama with that news.
The sad truth is that the victims of Friday's terrorist attacks - the French - are far more clear-eyed about the threat facing them and more willing to acknowledge that they need a new strategy. In January, after the Charlie Hebdo attacks and long before Friday's massacres, French prime minister Manuel Valls declared: "We are at war - not a war against a religion, not a war against a civilization, but to defend our values, which are universal. It's a war against terrorism and radical Islamism, against everything that would break our solidarity, our liberty, our fraternity." On Sunday, France signaled a renewed commitment to the War on Terror by launching punishing air strikes against ISIS.
By comparison with the French, the three Democratic presidential candidates looked timid, obsessed with political appearances, and unserious. Perhaps Wall Street executives should be worried about one of them becoming president, but I'm not sure ISIS leaders should.
Fund plays the same Democrat/GOPe/Bushian game of calling it “perverted” Islam, instead of the simply true or real Islam that such “radicals” are promoting.
This isn’t about Islam, this is about taking out resistance to global socialism - the Democrats see a crisis and they don’t want it to go to waste (”extremist” cannot be narrowed to “Islamic”).
They will cling to the generalization of “extremist” so that they can label the Tea Party, etc. such.
But our feckless side plays right into it.
The radicals have succeeded, by demonstration and propaganda, in radicalizing the mass of Moslems in the Middle East. We're going to have to beat them down the way the British did in the Sudan, by hecatomb in the field like Omdurman, shattering, scattering, and slaughtering their cadres.
There’s something else that’s been an irritant:
When did we stop saying United States and/or America and start saying “homeland?”
It’s a rare morning, CW—we seem to be agreeing!
I continue to marvel at how we feel it is OUR job to sort out who is good and who is bad on the Islam side. We should insist THEY do that and provide punitive insurance against terrorist attacks. A fund needs to be set up paid by every mosque in the world and when they strike, that fund is used to clean up the mess and compensate the victims. No Islamist insurance fund, no visa, refugees, or tourist travel to the west.
Absolutely correct
The irony is that they keep walking all over the Conservatives who are supposed to have better brains......
Now for a short public service announcement to all on FR:
I prefer Cruz and my money goes to his campaign, hence the Cruz link. If you like someone else, donate to him/her (find your own link to do it) and if you use FR and don't donate, then please don't complain about the welfare leeches or those who have Obama Phones because, functionally, you are no different than any other FReeloader
PS - If you are one of those who cannot afford even a small donation to FR or a candidate, God Bless and happy FReeping!.....
GO CRUZ!! Keep it up Trump!!
Democrats don’t see terrorists as a threat, they see them as a voting block.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Today’s hyper political correctness is nothing more than intellectual terrorism. It permeates the rabid left like the stench of a wet paper factory.
RLTW
If 1% of a group are terrorists and the other 99% of the group do nothing to stop that 1%, what difference do the 99% make at the end of the day?
There is no radical Islam. There is only Islam.
Indeed.
One of the better things about Trump as a candidate is his willingness to speak and act out against the PC tyranny.
source: FReeper TravisMcGee
Have you ever wondered why other Muslim nations don’t fight ISIS? It’s because they won’t fight against what they consider to be Islamic. Just imagine if ISIS was a Jewish Sect, taking over Iraq and Syria. Soldiers would be flooding in from other Muslim countries to fight ISIS.
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