Why Saying ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’ Isn’t Enough

[viper37]

I can't remember the thread title where we discussed this before, so I started a new one.

New York Times

Radical Islamic extremism.
There, I've said it.
For three years, as under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, I would not and could not utter that phrase. No one in the Obama administration could or did. We used the much less specific term "violent extremism." As in "countering violent extremism," which is what we called much of our anti-Islamic State efforts.
And for all of that time, we were collectively excoriated by conservatives, Republicans and Donald J. Trump.
"These are radical Islamic terrorists, and she won't even mention the word, and nor will President Obama," Mr. Trump said, referring to Hillary Clinton at a presidential debate last year. "Now, to solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is, or at least say the name."
The implication is that we were all somehow too timid or too politically correct to say it.
But the reason was a much more practical one: To defeat radical Islamic extremism, we needed our Islamic allies — the Jordanians, the Emiratis, the Egyptians, the Saudis — and they believed that term unfairly vilified a whole religion.
Continue reading the main story    Recent Comments     Bill McGrath 39 minutes ago  Wouldn't it be nice if the Saudis, the biggest promoters and financiers of radical Wahhabism, and by proxy, radical Islam, would stop being...
    Greenfish 39 minutes ago  I whole-heartedly agree with King Abdullah's comment that this fight is "theirs."  I have never understood Lindsey Graham and his ilk who...
    Doug 39 minutes ago  As I recall, Obama wasn't fighting ISIS, with which his administration has seminal associations.  In his parlance, "ISIL" was our enemy; ...
   

   
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They also told us that they did not consider the Islamic State to be Islamic, and its grotesque violence against Muslims proved it. We took a lot of care to describe the Islamic State as a terrorist group that acted in the name of Islam. Sure, behind the scenes, our allies understood better than anyone that the Islamic State was a radical perversion of Islam, that it held a dark appeal to a minority of Sunni Muslims, but it didn't help to call them radical Islamic terrorists.
Now the Trump administration wants to toss out the term "violent extremism" and the rubric we used to fight it. Instead, they are renaming it "countering Islamic extremism," or "countering radical Islamic extremism."
Fine. Abandon the name, but let's not abandon the strategy. First, let's acknowledge that it's working. The Islamic State as a military force, much less as a caliphate, is on the ropes in Iraq and Syria. The group has not had a military victory in a year and a half. The flow of foreign fighters into Iraq and Syria is down by 90 percent, according to the Defense Department. The liberation of Mosul is on the horizon.
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[Valmy]

It was Marty who was upset by that on this board. People pointed out Obama and his administration were avoiding the phrase for exactly the reason given. It was pretty obvious.

[Berkut]

Good article.

I am definitely on the side that looks with great skepticism on the Obama administrations reluctance to use blindingly obvious language to describe what is blindingly obvious, for fear of pissing off people.

It pisses me off that Trump is latching on to that, for all the wrong reasons.

But the idea, in general, that we should call "A" "not A" or "Z" because some people are upset that "A" is in fact "A" is bullshit, and part of the problem with where the left has fled to when it comes to addressing hard problems like religious radicalism.

Moderate Muslims don't like the term Islamic extremism? Well too fucking bad - you don't like it because it isn't accurate, but rather because IT IS accurate, and that sucks. And I get that it sucks, and I get the basic point that Trump does NOT get - that this is not really about the US.

And so I was annoyed at Obama and his administration for this, but accepting of the argument that his job is diplomacy, and sometimes that involves not calling a spade a spade. I was not really convinced it was a useful or necessary obfuscation, but I was willing to defer to the professionals on it.

Now Trump is going around bleating whatever the fuck he wants or thinks sounds good in a 3am twitter. And that sure as hell won't be any better, and you can be sure nobody is in his adminstration other than a very, very few who likely won't be listened to anyway, will have anything like the understanding of this conflict necessary to fight it properly.

Rather, they will almost certainly fight it in exactly the manner that groups like ISIS would very much want them to fight it.

I will be just stunned if we don't see a significant attack on the US in the next year. The incentive for them to do so has NEVER been greater.

[grumbler]

I agree that we have been too PC in the US.  We shouldn't talk about "the murder rate," but, rather "the black murder rate" and "the white murder rate" because to not do so is merely to yield to the PC types.  In just the same way, "Radical Islamic Extremism" is preferable to "violent extremism" because it focuses on the important thing, Islam, not the trivial thing, violent.

Fuck the Moderate Muslims don't like the term Islamic extremism, because it is so very accurate, they are Islamic too, and "Islamic" is the problem that must be mentioned, not violence.  Berkut and Trump at least agree on that.

[Berkut]

[MadImmortalMan]

There's a principle about the intolerant minority having power way above their numbers. Sometimes it applies and sometimes not. All cars in the US are built to adhere to California's safety and emissions standards because they are the tightest. A remarkably large amount of our food is kosher even though a tiny minority of the population requires that. But eating kosher is perfectly fine for the rest of us too, so it's easier for producers to just make it kosher. The majority doesn't care, the minority gets their way. Now, if it were somehow necessary for the majority to avoid kosher food this would not happen.


Wahhabis make demands that are more intolerant than the rest of the muslim world, but as long as the majority doesn't become intolerant of those demands, they will have their way. I think naming it as "Islamic Extremism" is one of those ways to make the majority going along with the intolerant minority's demands less comfortable.

[Solmyr]

So, will we be allowed to call the US under President Pence a fundamentalist theocracy rather than a republic?

[viper37]

But the idea, in general, that we should call "A" "not A" or "Z" because some people are upset that "A" is in fact "A" is bullshit, and part of the problem with where the left has fled to when it comes to addressing hard problems like religious radicalism.

Two things here.

One, I am more interested by actions than speech.  A politician could talk about a war on poverty, a war on drugs, a war on terrorism and doing very little outside of cosmetic actions to effectively fight the problems he wants to "wage war on".  That is the kind of politician my Prime Minister is, all empty, all talk, no actions.  And he certainly pushes the political correctness to high extremes, not only in his speeches, but in his actions.

Obama however, he was a sweet talker for sure.  Yes, he avoided offending allies and antagonizing a population on the fence toward US attitudes.  On the one hand, many muslims hated the Islamic State for their attacks on other muslims, even if they were mostly targetting non Sunnis.  On the other hand, the United States isn't exactly the favourite country of most practicing muslims, for various reasons that don't have much to do with religion, actually.  But in his actions, he fought very hard against ISIS and other terrorists.  And he built consensus with muslim nations in the area.  Europeans kinda dragged their feet and used the "illegal invasion of Iraq" as an excuse to justify their lack of empathy toward the suffering of many civilians, as always.  So, it's not a 100% success.  But it's damn better than Bush.  Better than Trump so far who has alienated Yemen, at the very least.

Secondly, I believe there is a huge difference between what you and me can/should/could say and what our leaders, official representative and diplomats say.  Diplomacy is the art of never telling what you really think while forcing your opponent to disclose his true motives.  For that, it's important that you not antogonize the others.  It means bowing down in front a Japanese leader instead of shaking his hand because that's what they do and it puts them more at ease later on.  It means you don't serve sheppard's pie at official dinners even if it's your favourite meal.

Avoiding calling 'A' what is 'A' because it pisses off people you actually need help to correct the problem?  Why not?  It's just speech.  You get much further with a kind word and a missile than insults.  I think Trump has proven that with China.

Moderate Muslims don't like the term Islamic extremism? Well too fucking bad - you don't like it because it isn't accurate, but rather because IT IS accurate, and that sucks. And I get that it sucks, and I get the basic point that Trump does NOT get - that this is not really about the US.

Do you remember our early days on the EU forum?  When you and many other Americans were really pissed off at the anti-american attitude of many?  Where you often accused me of being anti-Americans because of criticism I laid of your government policies?

Well, that's the same with these people.  Yes, the Truth hurts.  You could rub it in their face, remind them every chance you get that these guys come from their religion.  You could do the same with Catholics about the Vattican's attitude toward pedophilia. You could do the same with Christian Evangelists about neo-nazis, after all, the KKK came from Protestant circles and are very devout Christians.  And so is Steven Bannon.  Does that solve anything? Will the fucking fundies in your country stop promoting a talebanesque agenda?  No, it will only reinforce their Faith as they positions themselves as victims, and then you get morons like Trump elected because apparently it's someone you can discuss with, contrary to Hillary.

Now Trump is going around bleating whatever the fuck he wants or thinks sounds good in a 3am twitter. And that sure as hell won't be any better, and you can be sure nobody is in his adminstration other than a very, very few who likely won't be listened to anyway, will have anything like the understanding of this conflict necessary to fight it properly.

Rather, they will almost certainly fight it in exactly the manner that groups like ISIS would very much want them to fight it.

I will be just stunned if we don't see a significant attack on the US in the next year. The incentive for them to do so has NEVER been greater.

Yes, that's the poing I was trying to make in that other thread were we discussed this: actions are better than speech.

You could call a woman a bitch because she's a bitch, and she's really hitting on your nerve, but what will it solve?  Will she cooperate more or less with you when you actually need her help to accomplish something at work?  That's diplomacy.  It sucks, but the stakes are high, and in some cases, if I see concrete actions, I'm willing to forgive the nice talk as a necessary evil of some sort.

[dps]

So, will we be allowed to call the US under President Pence a fundamentalist theocracy rather than a republic?

Let's see.  You're in Poland, right?  By that time you'll have to get permission from either Merkel or Putin to talk about the US at all, depending on which side of the partition line you end up on.

[Razgovory]

It was Marty who was upset by that on this board. People pointed out Obama and his administration were avoiding the phrase for exactly the reason given. It was pretty obvious.

Derspeiss thought it was important as well.

[Razgovory]

So, will we be allowed to call the US under President Pence a fundamentalist theocracy rather than a republic?

Let's see.  You're in Poland, right?  By that time you'll have to get permission from either Merkel or Putin to talk about the US at all, depending on which side of the partition line you end up on.

Finland I think.

[dps]

So, will we be allowed to call the US under President Pence a fundamentalist theocracy rather than a republic?

Let's see.  You're in Poland, right?  By that time you'll have to get permission from either Merkel or Putin to talk about the US at all, depending on which side of the partition line you end up on.

Finland I think.

Oh.  Well then, he'll be too busy ambushing Russian soldiers to make any comments about the US, anyway.

[Josquius]

Particularly with regards to Daesh I've long disliked the media's willingness to call them the Islamic State. Though I do note the BBC always says "the so called,"  before hand.
I agree with the assessment.  It's obvious that they mean islamofascism.  But the problem isn't the Islamic side of that equation,  we are never getting rid of that,  the problem is the terrorist nut job side of the equation.

[celedhring]

The Spanish government refers to them exclusively as "Daesh", Spanish media calls them Islamic State or Daesh (there doesn't seem to be a clear left/right divide on this).

I have always thought that people so fixated on whether the words "Islamic terrorism" are uttered or not are more obsessed with winning the cultural war than the actual war.

[Tamas]

Particularly with regards to Daesh I've long disliked the media's willingness to call them the Islamic State. Though I do note the BBC always says "the so called,"  before hand.
I agree with the assessment.  It's obvious that they mean islamofascism.  But the problem isn't the Islamic side of that equation,  we are never getting rid of that,  the problem is the terrorist nut job side of the equation.

We are not putting "so called" in front of People's Republic of China, though, not to mention the 47 other cases where the declared name of a country/faction goes against reality.

I think it should be called Islamic State, and then promptly dismantled and bombed to oblivion, so it becomes obvious what Islamism can achieve.