Shakespeare wrote that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. It's a great line in "Romeo and Juliet", but does it work when it comes to terrorism? I mean after the Orlando massacre, much has been said about the refusal by president Obama and the Democrats to call the killer a "radical Islamic terrorist." Obama wants Omar Mateen, the terrorist, to be called a violent extremist. Does it really matter what we call this thug?
The simple answer is YES, it really matters. Mateen did not just kill 50 plus people at a gay club. Marteen killed 50 plus people he considered infidels in the name of Islam and the Islamic State at that club in Orlando. That matters. Think of it this way: if a bunch of airplane owners had bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941 because they were insane or angry, America would not have gone to war with Japan. We declared war on Japan because those who bombed Pearl Harbor all those years ago did so in the name of the Empire of Japan. Mateen is part of a larger group and it is that group that must be targeted in response.
Okay, we need to stop now before one of the liberals reading this has a stroke. The USA does not need to target all Moslems; that's not the group that inspired Mateen to murder all those people. We need to target the radical Islamists. We need to target ISIS and al Qaeda and Boko Haram and the Taliban. We need to target those who think it is doing God's work to send children or young adults to blow themselves up in order to kill the innocent civilians. We need to target those who consider murdering 50 plus gays at a club to be a good thing. And if we don't identify who it is we want to target, it's pretty hard actually to target that group.
Let's go back to World War II for a moment. Suppose that Franklin Roosevelt told America that our fight was against violent extremists; the Nazis would certainly have qualified for that label. Let's say that Roosevelt told those who asked why he did not want to call the adversary Nazis or Germans because those Germans who might oppose Nazism might be offended. He would have been laughed from office. But that is just what Obama is doing now. It has to stop.
The simple answer is YES, it really matters. Mateen did not just kill 50 plus people at a gay club. Marteen killed 50 plus people he considered infidels in the name of Islam and the Islamic State at that club in Orlando. That matters. Think of it this way: if a bunch of airplane owners had bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941 because they were insane or angry, America would not have gone to war with Japan. We declared war on Japan because those who bombed Pearl Harbor all those years ago did so in the name of the Empire of Japan. Mateen is part of a larger group and it is that group that must be targeted in response.
Okay, we need to stop now before one of the liberals reading this has a stroke. The USA does not need to target all Moslems; that's not the group that inspired Mateen to murder all those people. We need to target the radical Islamists. We need to target ISIS and al Qaeda and Boko Haram and the Taliban. We need to target those who think it is doing God's work to send children or young adults to blow themselves up in order to kill the innocent civilians. We need to target those who consider murdering 50 plus gays at a club to be a good thing. And if we don't identify who it is we want to target, it's pretty hard actually to target that group.
Let's go back to World War II for a moment. Suppose that Franklin Roosevelt told America that our fight was against violent extremists; the Nazis would certainly have qualified for that label. Let's say that Roosevelt told those who asked why he did not want to call the adversary Nazis or Germans because those Germans who might oppose Nazism might be offended. He would have been laughed from office. But that is just what Obama is doing now. It has to stop.
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