VDH:
It was just announced that the White House, in the wake of the mass murders in France, plans to reactivate an old idea of convening a “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism.”
Is this an accurate news account or some sort of cruel satire?
Is there something about the recent attacks in Boston, Canada, Australia, and France, in the larger landscape of what the Islamic State is doing in the Middle East, that the Obama administration does not understand?
Such a summit that mentions neither terrorism nor Islam in its title would be like fighting Nazi Germany as if it were a crusade against “extremism” — perhaps true but utterly trite. What global threat could be included under the rubric “violent extremism” in addition to Islamic terrorism? Are Hindu nationalists threatening the Boston Marathon, Puerto Rican independence thugs storming U.S. army bases to shoot soldiers, anti-abortionists filming ritual beheadings, or Buddhist reactionaries blowing up European media offices? Have skinheads hijacked German airliners and rammed them into the Brandenburg Gate? Is the Tea Party attacking New York policemen with hatchets?
And what possibly could the Obama administration offer to such a global effort? Can one imagine the administration’s 15-point conference agenda?
I. The power of euphemisms — how “workplace violence” and “man-caused disaster” lessened violent extremism.
II. Understanding your enemy — why the Muslim Brotherhood is largely “secular” and jihad is really a “holy struggle”.
III. Mythology at work — the Cairo Speech as a means to win hearts and minds
IV. The art of swapping hostages — the Bowe Bergdahl paradigm for ending hostage-taking
V. Miranda rights and civil trials — why foreign terrorists are not really enemy combatants
VI. Closing Guantanamo — how releasing Islamic terrorists makes us safer
@Rich Wheeler: Can’t stand the truth? When have I ever been confused? Just because you can’t answer a question has no bearing on my state of confusion.
Do you disagree with dictionary dot com on the meaning of radical right?
How do you feel about Obama using a fake draft card?
How do you feel about Obama being a military service dodger?
@Redteam: You just make stuff up–like the definition of radical right in dictionary.com. see#50 I ask again. Why would any sane person believe your fantasies?–personally I just laugh you off.
I grow weary of hearing the word coward. No one proves their courage by ordering other people to war. It’s no more a proof of bravery than waving a flag around is proof of patriotism. The truth about the presidency is that it can take courage both to refrain from acting, and to act as one believes is necessary in the face of strong public disapproval. The real challenge is figuring out what the most intelligent course of action might be.
The right is infested with hotheads, prone to impulsive actions and reactions that are seldom thought through particularly well. Things tend to be judged by first categorizing them, and then applying an internalized set of inflexible rules. This is a prescription for a lot of bad decisions. Nor are such people strongly inclined to subsequent self-examination and reflection, which would represent serious threats to their all important sense of certainty. The main thing is to get on to the next thing. Consequently, projection and blame-shifting become firmly established ego defense mechanisms.
All of these characteristics are wide-spread and relatively easy to manipulate by those seeking or wielding political power, or by those using politics as a power tool. There are well-marked buttons that can be pushed to produce the desired responses. When you see the focus of attention being narrowed down to a single highly charged meme or reflexively defended message—for example, Bush won the war, but Obama lost it—what you’re seeing are the button-pressers at work. If the single message of the moment is being constantly repeated and reinforced directly and subtly on any particular “information” source, what you’re probably looking at is a propaganda outlet. Things, after all, are more often what they do than what they claim to be. If one of the constantly repeated messages is fair and balanced, there’s almost certainly some reason that it has to be continuously repeated.
There’s your diagnosis, or psychoanalysis, or whatever. Please keep the nickel. This one’s on the house.
@Rich Wheeler: exact quotes from dictionary dot com Number one definition for each word.
radical
right
If you don’t believe it, pull up dictionary dot com and enter each word and quote to me what they say. It’s not my fault that you use words that you don’t know the meaning of.
@Greg:
So you believe that eh?
You left out half of the sentence, which actually reads as follows:
Yes. I believe it to be the truth.
@Redteam: If I wanted the definition of home run would I look up the words separately? Radical Right—reactionary—that would be you RT. Don’t you agree? Look up definition of reactionary.
@Rich Wheeler:
I would think a former Marine would know how to use a dictionary. why do you need someone to look up a word for you?
Don’t know, depends on which one you prefer to believe.
But, to help out a former Marine, here are two definitons. One for you, one for me. Which one had you rather be?
Radical Left:
Radical right:
both defs from http://dictionary.reference.com/
Guess it doesn’t bother you, but I wouldn’t like to be known as a Marxist or Maoist.
@Greg: You missed my point, Gregory:
that it is hard for Obama to not be an actor, pretending to be what’s he’s not. A loyal American.
@Rich Wheeler:
Well, you will have to be a little more specific. Which evidence do you speak of? However, if you would be so bold as to take a close look at reality around you, you will see that the description of Obama’s actions and inaction’s are absolutely accurate.
@Greg:
Ah. So, in your view, doing nothing in the face of crisis is bravery. Avoiding making tough decisions is courage. Most would be aware that if one seeks the office of the President of the United States, they become the military Commander in Chief and, as such, may have to order men and women into harm’s way. While such power must be used judiciously, using it sometimes SAVES lives.
I suppose it was courage that induced Clinton to do nothing about al Qaeda and bin Laden and just hand those problems over to Bush. It is, no doubt, extreme courage that will cause Obama to take a manageable war on terror and hand off a chaotic mess, spinning out of control, to his successor. I have documented a long list of instances where Obama could not decide how a decision would affect HIM and wasted valuable time. He has no problem, however, coming down on the defenseless American people with regulations and restrictions, declaring those he despises “enemies” and siccing government agencies on them. This harms his enemies. However, if he has to decide if an action to help the United States has benefits that outweigh the negativity he might receive from his equally unconcerned with American security constituency, he goes golfing till, hopefully, the problem goes away.
Yeah, that’s courage.
This discussion is SUPPOSED to be about how this administration cannot bring itself to call Islamic terrorism Islamic terrorism, so it has to create a conglomeration of other extremist problems to water it down with. That is cowardice. Everyone knows what causes radical Islamic terrorism; radical Islam. But those more worried about political correctness than national security have to couch every discussion with recollections of the Crusades or the KKK to show that some others have been extremist sometimes, too. But, that’s not the subject and that does nothing to help solve the problem, does it? All it does is give cowards something to hide behind.
@Redteam: I’ve never been a radical left—Jim Webb for POTUS. I’m a moderate. Don’t like the extremes of either side.
This is hilarious. How in the hell can all those illegals find their way to get a photo ID? Isn’t getting photo ID’s something that is supposed to be too hard for liberals to do? But here we expect all these illegal aliens to just trot on down and pick one up. Typical liberal reasoning.
@Rich Wheeler:
and I’ve never been radical right, but it doesn’t prevent the radical lefties from calling me that. So whenever you feel like lobbing your ‘radical right’ this way, duck.
@Bill, #60:
“Won’t call it what it is” is just another bullshit meme on the right. What it disregards is that there’s a perfectly good reason why Obama takes pains to avoid any appearance of conflating Islam in general with Islamic terrorism in particular, as a significant number of people on the right are clearly eager to do. The reason is that you can’t effectively take on Islamic terrorism if you make the entire Islamic world your enemy. Provoking the West into making that disastrous mistake is one of the primary objective of acts of Islamic terrorism. Suicidal “martyrdom” attackers aren’t being sent on these missions to even up the score, or to avenge an insulted Prophet. That just on the surface. The attacks are actually calculated to provoke responses that win the extremists more support, and widen the divide between the West and the entire Islamic world.
Essentially, the reactionary American right is aiding them in that strategy. The extremists can push buttons as easily as anyone. The invasion and occupation of Iraq benefited the extremists’ cause. It seriously damaged the United States. Any similar effort to defeat them on their own turf in asymmetrical warfare could easily have the same or worse consequences. How can anyone not see that danger, after the events of the past 15 years?
Obama certainly sees it, but your entire world revolves around destroying Obama, so whatever he might see has to be discredited or ignored. Even at the nation’s peril.
@Bill:
Oh could we be so lucky. It would greatfully benefit the country if he went on an extended golfing vacation, say about two years and leave his telephone behind.
One thing we never have to worry about again is to have a worse president come along. We were scraping the the bottom of the barrel when we scraped this guy up. I’m sure though that the Dims will dig the barrel up and look under it for the next guy.
@Greg:
and someone has proposed taking on the entire Islamic world? Who did that? But if, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, we would not have been very successful if we had been afraid to say that it was the Japanese that attacked the US. Suppose Roosevelt had just told the military to go over there and bomb all those islands that have people on them and hope we get the right ones. Nope, if he had not identified the enemy, he couldn’t have been very successful.
One reason I think he won’t identify them is that he is a supporter of their objectives.
@Redteam, #66:
Extremism isn’t a nation state, like Japan. You can’t defeat a borderless, malignant ideology by bombing its cities and occupying it’s territory.
@Greg:
So you share Obama’s defeatist attitude. Had Obama maintained troops in Iraq, extremist terrorism would not be emanating from there. You sure as heck can’t defeat extremist Islamism if you won’t even identify who they are. Nope your guy has flubbed the dub, quit defending him. Sure it’s hard to admit you’ve been backing a loser, but call a spade a spade.
@Greg:
Nope, Greg, won’t call it what it is and you just proved it. Listen to the words. C L O S E L Y.
First word: RADICAL. Not the norm. Second word: ISLAMIC, that is to say, of Islam. Islamic-ish. OK, now don’t give up on me now, here comes the big one….. TERRORISM. That is to say, a program of terror, terrorizing.
Radical Islamic Terrorism. It is terrorism delivered by Islamists that are radical. Not necessarily the run-of-the-mill Muslim. Getting any closer to understanding? Let’s try some more.
The Westboro creeps are Christian, yet they are not Christianity. They are radical, as they are way out of the normal range of Christian. While most understand they are Baptists and Christian, hardly anyone thinks Westboro represents Christianity.
Now, the same holds true with Muslims. There are the Muslims that you might never know are Muslim. They are not overtly Muslim, except when they are worshiping. They do not make Islam what drives every aspect of their lives. People like you and me. Then, there are those who are Muslim and want to kill anyone that isn’t. They are different…. radical, if you will. These are the guys we should be focusing on. Further, we should not be diverting energy and attention by thinking that, if we must pay attention to radical Islamic terrorists, then, just to be fair, we must devote equal time, attention and resources to radial Christian terrorists, radical military veteran terrorists, radical environmental terrorists, radical anti-abortion terrorists and radical anti-NFL referee terrorists. For, all but one of these terrorist forces DO NOT EXIST AS A THREAT.
So, what is BULLSHIT is the leftist cowardly out that if anyone refers to radical Islamic terrorists, they are calling ALL Muslims terrorists. That simply has NEVER been the case. Never. It is nothing but a scam to escape addressing the actual problem for utter fear of having to deal with it. The left, by the way, does the exact same thing with illegal immigrants.
Redefining the terms does not solve the problem or make it go away. It makes you look rather stupid. Going about and making excuses for every time you leftists have made the problems worse or blaming everyone but yourselves for responsibility does not assuage that stupidity. Not one smidgen, to borrow a phrase.
@Redteam: The left we face today would have to specify Japanese pilots as the problem, not to indict all the Japanese military because a few radicals tried to hijack their national identity. Furthermore, the US had it coming because we unfairly embargoed scrap steel and oil on Japan. How brave and courageous. I bet if we had taken that tact, the Japanese would have just left everyone alone.
“Allahu Akbar!”“Allahu Akbar!” was that the words of an islamist terrorist, or just the pilot flying the friendly skies. Well, since there is no such thing as an ‘extremist islamist’ I’m sure it was just someone ‘playing a terrorist’. Right Greg?
I’ll stand by the points I’ve made, noting that none of them have been rebutted.
@Greg:
Oh, they’ve been rebutted. You are just too dishonest to admit it.
@Greg:
You’re actually admitting that you can’t read?
Just read this:
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/obama-to-senate-dems-im-going-to-play-offense-114307.html#ixzz3Oxhtolo0
Is he the US president or just the president of the dimocrats? Once you’re elected aren’t you supposed to lead the ‘Executive dept, not just the Dimocrat half of the country? Oh well, I’m not surprised.
I don’t think Congressional republicans are smart enough to beat Obama at checkers, let alone chess.
@Greg:
Good boy, Greg. Don’t let facts and reality diminish your ideological focus. Good, loyal liberal.
@Greg:
How about at elections? Notice there are a LOT more Republicans around in Congress lately? Seems brilliant Mr. Obama outsmarted himself by exposing his ignorance.
@Bill I’m looking forward to the quadrennial circular firing squad aka the Repub. Prez. Primary. I’m picking Kasich to emerge from as many as 12 participants. How do you handicap em?
Are they the sort of republicans you wanted?