{"id":4334,"date":"2015-02-08T00:35:51","date_gmt":"2015-02-08T05:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=4334"},"modified":"2015-02-08T00:35:51","modified_gmt":"2015-02-08T05:35:51","slug":"our-response-to-isis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=4334","title":{"rendered":"our response to isis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo-1415226181422-279a51ca056e\"<\/a>When I saw shots of the captured Jordanian pilot burned alive in a cage last week, I had to look away. This was no fiction, fantasy, nor ad for the seventeenth sequel in pop culture\u2019s latest horror series; this was real life. My response was clear… I was shocked, then grieved, and then outraged. How dare these men — obviously motivated by evil — brutally kill the innocent. How dare these terrorists get away with murder!<\/p>\n

Most likely more outraged than any of us was Jordan\u2019s leader, King Abdullah II, a former commander of Jordan\u2019s special forces. King Abdullah met with members of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee not long after the news broke. Members said he was furious. The king was quoted as saying, \u201cThe only problem we’re going to have is running out of fuel and bullets.\u201d The terrorists were the clear focus of his fury.<\/p>\n

Contrast that with Pres. Obama\u2019s response. Wait… Let\u2019s each first do one thing; let\u2019s remove any partisan hats. That means all the Obama-lovers and haters — those friends among us who have a tendency to lose all objectivity at the mere sound of his voice — need to be a little more intentional in removing the hat, so-to-speak. Yes, those enamored seem blind to Obama\u2019s weaknesses; those loathing seem blind to his strengths. I\u2019d like an honest conversation regarding Obama\u2019s leadership in response to terrorism.<\/p>\n

While the White House made some at least rhetorical miscalculations in its initial description of ISIS, Obama has been clear that we need to fight this extremist group. I believe their heinous deeds are clearly unacceptable to him. What is not clear, however, is who he thinks they are.<\/p>\n

The terrorists claim to be motivated by Islam. Obama continues to claim they are not. Hence, the White House will not refer to Islam when describing this group. On first learning of the Jordanian pilot\u2019s savage death, Obama calmly referred to the terrorists as adhering to \u201cwhatever ideology they are operating of.\u201d There was no outrage nearing that of King Abdullah\u2019s — and there was no specificity in regard to the terrorists.<\/p>\n

Obama did express specificity a single day later, when he spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual Christ-centered gathering of 3,500 plus people. He said he wanted to touch on \u201cthe degree to which we’ve seen professions of faith used both as an instrument of great good, but also twisted and misused in the name of evil.\u00a0\u201c Excellent. Let\u2019s talk specifically about the evil. But again, there was a complete omission of Islam. Instead he was specific only in mentioning the centuries-old sins of those who \u201ccommitted terrible deeds in the name of Christ.\u201d He did not mention killing in the name of Allah — even though that is the current crisis. Of course, some (still probably with hats on)<\/em> quickly amen-ed the President\u2019s boldness… it\u2019s about time Christians wrestled with those historical atrocities!…<\/em> The only challenge with that argument is the lack of boldness Obama utilizes in response to Islam — and the lack of current application.<\/p>\n

Unlike the Intramuralist, the President seems to dance around the topic. He will call out Christianity but not Islam. I get that he does not believe they are Muslims — even though they say they are. I also get that there exist religious adherents who distort the tenets of every religion and re-craft religion based upon how they feel; we all sometimes do that. But what I don\u2019t get is why the President avoids the topic…<\/p>\n

Nidal Hassan murdered 13 soldiers at Fort Hood while praising Allah, and the administration called it \u201cworkplace violence.\u201d When the Charlie Hebdo attacks occurred in Paris, the White House Press Sec. would not initially say \u201cIslamic\u201d or \u201cterrorism.\u201d And last week the Deputy Press Sec. insisted the Taliban was “an armed insurgency” — not a terrorist group.<\/em> Even left-leaning \u201cDaily Show\u201d host Jon Stewart now questions the White House \u201ctip-toeing\u201d around the terminology. What\u2019s the motive?<\/p>\n

Why will the White House not call this what it is? Why are they willing to be harsh on Christianity — sins that are 800 years old — but meek on any mention of Islam? What\u2019s the motivation? I believe there exists something we don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

By specifically calling out old Christian abuses while simultaneously being vague about current Islamic violence, significant questions about Obama\u2019s leadership in response to terrorism are increasing. What\u2019s motivating him that we don\u2019t know? And why can\u2019t he express the outrage and clarity like King Abdullah?<\/p>\n

Respectfully…<\/p>\n

AR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I saw shots of the captured Jordanian pilot burned alive in a cage last week, I had to look away. This was no fiction, fantasy, nor ad for the seventeenth sequel in pop culture\u2019s latest horror series; this was real life. My response was clear… I was shocked, then grieved, and then outraged. How … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “our response to isis”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[502,293,503],"class_list":["post-4334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-event","tag-king-abdullah-ii","tag-pres-obama","tag-response-to-isis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4334"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4344,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4334\/revisions\/4344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}