Free Republic

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” when asked why the administration is refusing to use the term “radical Islam,” White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said, “Lets be clear nobody denies these are Muslims.

A video distributed Saturday on the Internet showed what appears to be a Japanese hostage saying that a fellow Japanese captive had been executed and outlining a new militant demand for his release. In the video, the hostage, a man identified as Kenji Goto, a Japanese journalist, appears to be holding a photo of his countryman, Haruna Yukawa, who has been beheaded. The case has drawn a great deal of attention in Japan and spawned a crisis for the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had vowed to do what he could to save the two men. Abe said...

A senior State Department official on Saturday claimed that there is “nothing religious” about the Islamic State’s reported execution of a Japanese hostage. Rick Stengel, an under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, took to Twitter to condemn the killing of Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa, who has been held for ransom by the terror group along with Japanese freelance reporter Kenji Goto. “Brutal criminal murder of Japanese citizen #Haruna Yukawa by the terrorist group #Daesh,” Stengel tweeted after IS released video of the killing. “Nothing religious about it.” Stengel’s apparent refusal to acknowledge that IS’s radical Islamic...

Kerry: Violent Extremism Is Not Islamic By KEN DILANIAN DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Violent extremists who are killing children and others in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria and other parts of the world may cite Islam as a justification, but the West should be careful about calling them Islamic radicals, Secretary

Here is an excerpt from John Kerry's speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: Against this enemy, we are increasingly organizing and fighting back, but in doing so we have to also keep our heads. Obviously, the biggest error that we could make would be to blame Muslims collectively for crimes not committed by Muslims alone – crimes that the overwhelming majority of Muslims oppose, crimes that their faith utterly rejects, and that Muslim leaders themselves have the greatest ability to address. Religions don’t require adherence to raze villages and blow up people. It’s individuals with a distorted...

Violent extremists who are killing children and others in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria and other parts of the world may cite Islam as a justification, but the West should be careful about calling them Islamic radicals, Secretary of State John Kerry told an audience of opinion leaders Friday at the World Economic Forum. In a speech calling for a global effort against violent extremism, Kerry said it would be a mistake to link Islam to criminal conduct rooted in alienation, poverty, thrill-seeking and other factors. …