Obama and Islam: thinking the unthinkable

As leader of the Western world, the President of the United States automatically receives the title, ‘world’s moral leader against terrorism’. No one else in the West has the bully pulpit to be that leader. No one else has the military might to give that leadership a lethal punch.

Our world today reveals a universal truth for nation-states: might makes right. It’s military power that creates real-life morality, not speeches. Without the willingness to kill, any Western attempt to promote life, freedom or humanitarian values will be rendered meaningless by the sword of the enemy.

If that sounds paradoxical, it isn’t. The paradox is, the world is a lot crazier than it looks. It’s a lot more dangerous.

The paradox is, if you want to walk softly, you had better carry a very big stick. You had better be willing to use that stick, too.

The sword of Islam tests Western morality. Will the West defend itself?

This question has landed at stage-center recently because some have begun to question what the President of the United States defends. Does he stand up for Western morality-- or for Islam?

Islamic terror rises. It threatens us all. It rejects everything Western. Its brutality is unspeakable.

It calls out, ‘we are Islam’. It cries, ‘submit or die’.

In the face of such a threat, the current US President—the moral leader of the Western world—refuses to identify the Islamic nature of today’s terror. He refuses even to say the words, ‘Islamic terror’.

Who’s side is he on?

Consider his actions. When an Islamic terrorist killed Jews in Paris, France (January, 2015) specifically because those victims were Jews, the US President didn’t declare that these Jews were killed because they were Jewish. He didn’t condemn those who killed Jews in the name of Islam.

What he did was, he condemned radicals who had killed ‘folk’ ‘randomly’.

When Muslims beheaded Egyptian Christians (February, 2015) specifically because they were Christians, the US President didn’t declare that these Christians had been murdered because they were Christians. He didn’t condemn those who killed Christians in the name of Islam.

Instead, he condemned the killing of ‘Egyptian citizens’. He didn’t tell us that Muslims had killed in the name of Islam. The closest he came to the centrality of faith in these murders was to say that the killers’ “barbarity knows no bounds. It is unconstrained by faith” (“Tony Perkins Slams Obama for Calling Coptic Christians Beheaded by ISIS 'Egyptian Citizens'”, The Christian Post”, February 17, 2015).

By sanitizing the religion of the victims—and by ignoring the religion in whose name the killers kill--the President erases the religious motivation of the killers. He white-washes what amounts to genocide (the killing of individuals because they belong to a specific group).

By ignoring the genocide, he empowers genocide.

That’s not moral leadership.  That’s a leader abandoning the morality (genocide is wrong) he’s supposed to uphold.

How can the US President fight an enemy he refuses to admit exists? He can’t.

His refusal raises a question. Does the President ignore the genocide because he wants to ignore it?

Daniel Greenfield has recently written that Barack Obama’s foreign policy seems more and more to be one of fighting for the Muslim terrorists, not against them (“Aiding Islamic Terrorists Is Our Foreign Policy”, Front Page Mag, February 20, 2015). Is that possible?

Greenfield’s question forces one to think the unthinkable—that an America President aids an enemy who has sworn to conquer the US, fly its flag over the US, and force a foreign law—Sha’ria—upon the US.

Certainly, as reader comments to the Greenfield essay suggest, this President has a peculiar foreign policy indeed. This President doesn’t fight Islamic terror. Whenever he sees Islamic terror, he defends Islam.

Why?

As Islamic terror strikes, the President makes a valiant effort to protect the killers’ self-professed religious motivations: the terrorists, he argues, aren’t Islamic terrorists. They have nothing to do with Islam. They’re just extremists who randomly kill folk.

That’s not what the terrorists say. They kill because of Islam.

Why does the President deny that?

As one reader commented, Obama glowers at Israel. But while he does that—and feels outrage towards Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu--he remains infinitely (and peculiarly) calm towards Islamic terror.

Why?

As a Greenfield reader commented, Obama appears to protect rapists, slave traders, murderers, beheaders of children, child molestors; the list seems endless.

Why?

There’s something wrong here. The US President is supposed to stand up for the victims, not for the killers’ religion.

Now, Daniel Greenfield asks an even more pointed question: should we believe that Mr Obama lies to Americans because he loves them? (“Does Obama Love America or Islam?”, Front Page Mag, February 23, 2015).

Greenfield challenges us to think the unthinkable. His questions push us: dare we think that this US President is more committed to protecting Islam than he is to protecting the West?