David Harsanyi on Obama's Middle East Messaging
At the World Economic Forum last week, Secretary of State John Kerry argued that though extremists may cite Islam as a justification for terrorism, the world should refrain from using the term "Islamic radicals." Extremism, Kerry maintained, is apart from Islam, and the millions who support or engage in violence in its name are driven by "criminal conduct rooted in alienation, poverty, thrill seeking and other factors."
This soothing, half-baked philosophy is cant in the Obama administration, argues David Harsanyi. We've gone from incessantly offering (appropriate) distinctions among factions of Islam to fantasizing that terrorists are a bunch of shiftless, underprivileged adrenaline junkies with no particular philosophy at all.