Feeling blamed for recent terror attacks, especially the Dec. 2 San Bernardino massacre where U.S.-born county health department employee 28-year-old Syed Rizwan Farook and his 29-year-old wife Tashfeen Malik killed 14, injuring 21. Concerned about terrorist infiltration from overseas, 69-year-old real estate mogul and former reality TV star Donald Trump called Dec. 7 for a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. Trump’s suggestion stirred up a hornet’s nest, prompting denunciations from Democrats and Republicans. Trump’s play amounts to unrealistic hot-air but underscores the desperation felt when terrorist incidents wash up on American soil. No one believes, whether Trump makes it to the White House or not, that it’s possible or even desirable to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. Democratic front-runner former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Trump’s remarks dangerous.
Trump’s comments gave his GOP rivals more ammunition to take more shots at the controversial real estate tycoon. Banning Muslims prompted condemnation around the globe, with the U.K. circulating a petition banning Trump from entering Great Britain. Mirroring the same frustration witnessed with Sept. 11, Trump’s suggestion does nothing to help the U.S. get a grip on self-radicalized Muslims or, for that matter, potential terrorist attacks directed from overseas. Reports of anti-Muslim incidents increased around the country, after Trump’s incendiary comments. It’s not rocket science to figure out that incendiary rhetoric can whip up marginalized folks to commit violent acts. Instead of calling for a ban on Muslims, Trump would have been far better off asking Muslim leaders in the U.S. and around the globe to denounce terrorism as criminal gangs and anti-Islamic.
President Barack Obama called on the Muslim leaders Dec. 6, in an Oval Office address about recent terror attacks to do more to educate the public about the criminal nature of terror groups. Trump’s suggestion to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. does nothing to prevent more terror attacks. Hillary went overboard Dec. 10 saying that Trump’s Muslim ban endangered U.S. national security at home and abroad. Trump fired back today that Hillary’s policies as Secretary of State caused the deaths of “hundred-of-thousand” of people backing the Iraq War and toppling Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, creating much of today’s anarchy in the Middle East. Whether that’s true or not, Trump’s Muslim ban is unrealistic, most likely illegal and, more importantly, won’t stop terrorism from washing up on U.S. soil. As Obama said Dec. 6, Trump should call on Muslim leaders to brand terror groups as criminal gangs.
Since Sept. 11, the Muslim community in the U.S. has had some serious PR problems. Not enough Muslim leaders make public denunciations of terror groups to satisfy the public’s need to distinguish between Islamic terror groups and mainstream Muslim religion. Obama and Hillary have bent-over-backwards avoiding the label Islamic terrorism or extremism, preferring the term “violent extremism.” Both have expressed concern about the government stereotyping Muslims or Islam as terrorists. Neither Obama nor Clinton can deny that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] is a fundamentalist Islamic movement. Every recruit is indoctrinated into radical Islam, believing that fighting the West helps save the Islamic religion. No one was better at slinging the Islamic propaganda than the late Osama bin Laden, who relentlessly attacked the U.S. for nearly 20 years.
Calling Islamic extremism “violent extremism” sends exactly the wrong message to the Islamic community and its leaders. Radical Islam is precisely that: The outlaw groups and criminal gangs that use the Koran to justify the slaughter of innocents, a distinguishing feature of terrorism. As GOP presidential candidate 61-year-old former Hewlett-Packard CEO found out, incendiary rhetoric on abortion can lead to unintended consequences. Fiorina highlighted in the Sept. 16 CNN debate that Planned Parenthood sadistically abused recently aborted fetuses, harvesting and selling live body parts on the black market. When psychotic pro-lifer Robert Dear murdered three at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic Nov. 27, Fiorina denied her rhetoric was linked to the attack. Arraigned on murder charges in a Colorado Springs court Dec. 9, Dear admitted guilt, saying he was “the warrior for the babies.”
Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric could have unintended consequences, like Forina’s abortion remarks, of inciting poorly adjusted individuals to commit violence. While there’s nothing wrong in condemning radical Islam, there’s something very wrong with painting Muslims with a broad brush. Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric should shift to asking leaders to denounce foreign-or-domestic terror attacks as the practice of outlaw groups and criminal gangs. Obama and other politically correct Democratic politicians need to define terror attacks clearly, not worry about using the name “radical Islam” to define the motive for criminal acts. Throwing pigs heads at mosques in Philadelphia and Jersey City, staging protests at mosques or branding Islam “evil” doesn’t deal with the outlaw or criminal groups launching terror attacks in the U.S. or abroad. Responsible politicians must get things right.
