"The British Home Secretary, Theresa May, was a little behind the curve when she reacted to the bloodbath in Paris by insisting that "the attacks have nothing to do with Islam". This is the old spin that, although some terrorists might claim to be Muslim, there's nothing inherently Muslim about their terrorism.
But why be so modest? In the United States, the most senior members of the Democrat establishment are taking it to the next level. Secretary of State John Kerry:
It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism – I mean, you name it.
As my friend Douglas Murray remarked:
So long as you don't name it 'Islam'.
Quite. Secretary Kerry doesn't care what you name it as long as you don't name it "Islam". Because the not-naming of Islam is more important than the actual naming of whatever it is. Even the qualification that many have been careful to make over the years - of course, most Muslims aren't terrorists but an awful lot of terrorists unfortunately happen to be Muslim - will no longer suffice. As President-in-waiting Hillary Clinton assures us:
Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.
So not only is terrorism nothing to do with Islam, but Muslims have "nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism". She said this a few hours before yet another US citizen was killed by terrorists shouting "Allahu Akbar!" - this time in a mass slaughter at the Radisson Hotel in Bamako, Mali. Hostages were given a stark choice: if they could recite from the Koran, they would live; if they were incapable of reciting from the Koran, they would die. So whoever these terrorists were - "you name it" - they knew enough about Islam to be able to recognize quotations from the Koran. Yet they can't be Muslims because Muslims have "nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism".
So who does have something to do with terrorism? Republicans mainly. Republicans are the greatest recruiting tool for terrorism that has ever been devised - far more effective than jihadist snuff videos on social media. Just ask President Obama:
MANILA, Philippines -- President Obama on Wednesday angrily accused Republicans of feeding into the Islamic State's strategy of casting the United States as waging war on Muslims, saying the GOP's rhetoric has become the most "potent recruitment tool" for the militant group...
"I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric coming out of here in the course of this debate," Obama said during a news conference at a leadership summit here, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
The president said that the group "seeks to exploit the idea that there's war between Islam and the West, and when you start seeing individuals in position of responsibility suggesting Christians are more worthy of protection than Muslims are in a war-torn land that feeds the ISIL narrative."
So "Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism" except when Republicans goad them into it. In this case, they goad them by suggesting that Christians need more "protection" than Muslims. In the Radisson Hotel in Bamako, the Christians did, indeed, need more protection - which is why they're dead and the observant Muslims are alive. In Syria and Iraq, in less than two years, the oldest Christian communities on earth have been entirely eradicated - every Christian male is dead or fled, and their prepubescent daughters are now rape slaves for the sexual inadequates of ISIS. So, whether they're "more worthy of protection", those Christians could certainly have used a little of it.
Even when you make it out of your "war-torn land" and join the great swarm of refugees yearning to breath free, a Christian can use a little "protection":
Rome (CNN)Muslims who were among migrants trying to get from Libya to Italy in a boat this week threw 12 fellow passengers overboard -- killing them -- because the 12 were Christians, Italian police said Thursday.
Italian authorities have arrested 15 people on suspicion of murdering the Christians at sea, police in Palermo, Sicily, said.
It is certainly true that, in their march to victory, ISIS and its affiliates are happy to slaughter any Muslim who gets in their way - mainly those inclined to a moderate accommodation with the sane world: Yazidis, Kurds, Jordanian Air Force pilots, post-Gaddafi Libyan democrats... But the willingness to kill any Muslim who gets in your way doesn't change the fact that the killing is in the name of Islam, and Islam is the way. As I wrote all those years ago in my book America Alone:
Many of the developed world's citizens gave no conscious thought to Islam pre-9/11. Now we switch on the news every evening and, though there are many trouble spots around the world, as a general rule it's easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs Jews in "Palestine", Muslims vs Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims vs Christians in Africa, Muslims vs Buddhists in Thailand, Muslims vs Russians in the Caucasus, Muslims vs backpacking tourists in Bali, Muslims vs Danish cartoonists in Scandinavia. The environmentalists may claim to think globally but act locally, but these guys live it. They open up a new front somewhere on the planet with nary a thought.
Islam already enjoys a unique dispensation in this regard. When a swastika is found on a bathroom stall on an American campus, officialdom does not line up to say that most white people "have nothing to do with racism". Au contraire: insufficient denunciations of "white privilege" lead to the immediate loss of your job. When a single killer is discovered to have a Confederate flag emblem among his possessions, that's reason enough to have it removed from all public land within the country, and even to have ancient TV shows that include a motor vehicle with a Confederate flag decal canceled from the rerun channels. But when the Koran and invocations therefrom are found among the possessions of killers in Bamoko, in Tel Aviv, in Paris, in Chattanooga these are just daily 24/7 exceptions that prove the ironclad rule that Muslims "have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism"."
"PERPETRATORS LIE WHEN THEY SAY THEY KILL IN THE NAME OF ALLAH."
PARIS ATTACKS. PM Charles Michel launched an appeal for tolerance today in the Assembly, after the Paris attacks. "The perpetrators lie when they say that they kill in the name of Allah, they kill in the name of hate. Islam is a peaceful religion full of mercy", he said. The PM addressed Parliament during a ceremony at the occasion of King's Day.
According to Michel the terrorists abuse islam in their battle for a totalitarian state. Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, the PM emphasized."
"The tales of survivors from Friday's devastating terrorist attacks in Paris are going viral, as are messages from grieving friends and family.
129 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a series of coordinated gun attacks and bomb blasts across the City.
The Facebook post of a young woman called Isobel Bowdery detailing how she survived one of the shootings has been shared thousands of times and liked by over a million people.
The latest account is that of young Parisian Antoine Leiris on Facebook.
In his post, entitled “Vous n’aurez pas ma haine”, which translates as "You will not have my hatred," he writes that he will never give the terrorists the "satisfaction" of anger and hate, despite losing his wife in the shooting at the Bataclan theatre. Leris and his wife have an infant son together.
Leiris does not name his wife, but BuzzFeed reports that Hélène Muyal-Leiris, a Parisian makeup artist, was one of the victims of the massacre at the Bataclan.
The post is in French but here are excerpts, translated into English:"
"On Friday evening you stole the life of an exceptional person, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hatred.
So no, I will not give you the satisfaction of hating you. You want it, but to respond to hatred with anger would be to give in to the same ignorance that made you what you are.
Us two, my son and I, we will be stronger than every army in the world. I cannot waste any more time on you as I must go back to [my son] who has just woken from his sleep.
He is only just 17 months old, he is going to eat his snack just like every other day, then we are going to play like every other day and all his life this little boy will be happy and free.
Because you will never have his hatred either."