Politics

[IrishJayhawk]

...I laughed.

I'd look for similar from lib. media, but you need viewership for people to get the joke...

Viewership =/= Veracity

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

So Maher is a liberal hippy with no credibility until he says something you agree with and now he is wise and thoughtful? He takes great pleasure in reminding everyone how destructive religion is -- even if it cast millions of people as backward and barbaric.

Our president, who still refuses to use the phrase "Islamic terrorism", used the National Prayer Breakfast to compare modern day tactics of ISIS with medieval Christian crusades. There's a lot where Maher and I don't see eye to eye, but I'm glad he called Obama out for it.

 

[IrishinSyria]

Our president, who still refuses to use the phrase "Islamic terrorism", used the National Prayer Breakfast to compare modern day tactics of ISIS with medieval Christian crusades. There's a lot where Maher and I don't see eye to eye, but I'm glad he called Obama out for it.

Not sure I see a cause for outrage there: the president compared one group of murderous thugs using religion as a veil with another.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Our president, who still refuses to use the phrase "Islamic terrorism",

I can't imagine it would help us achieve our strategic objectives if the President said on video that we're in a war with Islamic terrorists. He then makes it a religious war and plays right into the recruitment narrative ISIS has been using, no? Do you really think the President doesn't know dealing with Islam gone awry? Honestly what good does it do to put it on video for the world to see?

 

[DonnieNarco]

ISIS and the Crusades are both very similar. It's an apt comparison.

 

[phgreek]

Viewership =/= Veracity

But it does = Resonance

And since Veracity as a governing standard in ANY "news" organization is dead, and only resurrected to attack another news organization who got caught, the point of the game is obviously Resonance...

Resonance = Viewers...many viewers = a position where enough people get the joke when you are lampooned...Yes? Put it this way, most people would feel bad if the same were done to MSNBC because...well, it's like kicking the handicapped kid...not funny.

 

[MartyIrish]

ISIS and the Crusades are both very similar. It's an apt comparison.

Other than the crusades happened, oh, 1000 yrs ago and Christianity has evolved. While Islam hasn't.

For some reason the left has this obsession with lumping Christianity of today, with ISIS.... by using the crusades from 1000 yrs ago.

(say that out loud)

It's all apart of the anti-religion narrative. Christianity is nowhere close to ISIS. Stay relevant to today's times, please.

 

[MartyIrish]

I can't imagine it would help us achieve our strategic objectives if the President said on video that we're in a war with Islamic terrorists. He then makes it a religious war and plays right into the recruitment narrative ISIS has been using, no? Do you really think the President doesn't know dealing with Islam gone awry? Honestly what good does it do to put it on video for the world to see?

But it's already a religious war for them. Has been for centuries. I get your point, but call it what it is.

It's also important to show the rest of Islam that this will not be tolerated. Yes, these are Islamic terrorists. I'm sorry that hurts the feelings of the PC crowd, but it is what it is.

If this administration can call American protestors on our OWN SOIL, "radicals" and "extremists"....then what's the problem here?

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Not sure I see a cause for outrage there: the president compared one group of murderous thugs using religion as a veil with another.

He is the president of a country where 75-80 percent of its citizens identify as Christians. He used the National Prayer Breakfast to remind Christians that there were crusades 1000 years ago. ISIS burned someone alive two days before that.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

But it's already a religious war for them. Has been for centuries. I get your point, but call it what it is.

It's also important to show the rest of Islam that this will not be tolerated. Yes, these are Islamic terrorists. I'm sorry that hurts the feelings of the PC crowd, but it is what it is.

If this administration can call American protestors on our OWN SOIL, "radicals" and "extremists"....then what's the problem here?

Beat me to it.

 

[IrishLax]

ISIS and the Crusades are both very similar. It's an apt comparison.

Except they really aren't, at all, if you're talking about 98% of what were the Crusades versus what is ISIS. There is virtually nothing alike between the two... which makes sense because one of them happened centuries ago.

If you're just going to on a surface analogy of "both parties used religion to justify war and killing" ... yeah, they're the same. That's the 2%. But it's a truly terrible analogy. The biggest singular reason why it's a terrible analogy -- and I'm putting this in bold for emphasis in case you read nothing else here -- but some of the Crusades are widely considered defensive in nature to thwart the offensive Islamic conquest by those armies. Or, put another way, it's because Muslims were waging war and conquesting and gobbling up territory that if there was not a proportional response from the Vatican then eventually all of Europe would've fallen. This was all in an era where kings and emperors and Caliphs warred all the time trying to expand their empires... which is once again why it's a truly terrible and stupid analogy, because there are no parallels to modern day.

Obama's best analogy would've been to the KKK of the early 20th century. Domestic terrorism that proclaimed to do it in the name of Christianity. Crusades? LOL.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Big ups to Lax for at least acknowledging the defensive nature of the Crusades. If you think comparing ISIS to the Crusades is even remotely fair, you can be forgiven for having bought into a popular bullsh!t narrative about a very complicated historical event, but you really need to bone up on your history. This article in First Things by Thomas F. Madden helps to explain why.

And here's the New York Times' Ross Douthat on why Obama's attempt at moral equivalence was offensive:

PRESIDENT OBAMA, like many well-read inhabitants of public life, is a professed admirer of Reinhold Niebuhr, the famous mid-20th-century Protestant theologian. And more than most presidents, he has tried to incorporate one of Niebuhr’s insights into his public rhetoric: the idea that no society is innocent, and that Americans in particular need to put aside illusions about our own alleged perfection.

The latest instance came at last week’s National Prayer Breakfast, when the president, while condemning the religious violence perpetrated by the Islamic State, urged Westerners not to “get on our high horse,” because such violence is part of our own past as well: “During the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

These comments were not well received by the president’s critics — as, indeed, his Niebuhrian forays rarely are. In the past, it’s been neoconservatives taking exception when Obama goes abroad and talks about our Cold War-era sins. This time, it was conservative Christians complaining that the president was reaching back 500 or 1,000 years to play at moral equivalence with people butchering their way across the Middle East.

From a Niebuhrian perspective, such complaints are to be expected. “All men,” the theologian wrote, like to “obscure the morally ambiguous element in their political cause by investing it with religious sanctity.” Nobody likes to have those ambiguities brought to light; nobody likes to have the sanctity of his own cause or church or country undercut.

So the president probably regards his critics’ griping as a sign that he’s telling necessary truths. Indeed, sometimes he is. Certainly the sweeping Wilsonian rhetoric of George W. Bush cried out for a corrective, and Obama’s disenchanted view of America’s role in the world contains more wisdom than his Republican critics acknowledge.

But the limits of his Niebuhrian style have also grown apparent.

The first problem is that presidents are not historians or theologians, and in political rhetoric it’s hard to escape from oversimplication. You can introduce the Crusades to complicate a lazy “Islam violent, Christianity peaceful” binary, but then a lot of Christians are going to hear an implied equivalence between the Islamic State’s reign of terror and the incredibly complicated multicentury story of medieval Christendom’s conflict with Islam ... and so all you’ve really done is put a pointless fight about Christian history on the table. To be persuasive, a reckoning with history’s complexities has to actually reckon with them, and a tossed-off Godfrey of Bouillon reference just pits a new straw man against the one you think you’re knocking down.

The second problem is that self-criticism doesn’t necessarily serve the cause of foreign policy outreach quite as well as Obama once seemed to believe it would. Early in his administration, especially around his 2009 speech in Cairo, there was a sense that showing Muslims that an American president understood their grievances would help expand our country’s options in the Middle East. But no obvious foreign policy benefit emerged, and since then Obama’s displays of public angst over, say, drone strikes have mostly seemed like an exercise in self-justification, intended for an audience of one. (Meanwhile, our actual enemies can pocket his rhetorical concessions: The alleged relevance of the Crusades to modern politics, for instance, has long been one of Al Qaeda’s favorite tropes.)

A third problem is that Obama is not just a Niebuhrian; he’s also a partisan and a progressive, which means that he too invests causes with sanctity, talks about history having “sides,” and (like any politician) regards his opponents as much more imperfect and fallen than his own ideological camp. This can leave the impression that his public wrestling with history’s tragic side is somewhat cynical, mostly highlighting crimes that he doesn’t feel particularly implicated in (how much theological guilt does our liberal Protestant president really feel about the Inquisition?) and the sins of groups he disagrees with anyway (Republican Cold Warriors, the religious right, white conservative Southerners).

Here a counterexample is useful: The most Niebuhrian presidential speech in modern American history was probably Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address, in which he warned against the dangers of “the military-industrial complex” and “a scientific-technological elite.” It was powerful precisely because Eisenhower was criticizing his own party’s perennial temptations, acknowledging some of his own policies’ potential downsides (he had just created NASA and Darpa) and drawing on moral authority forged by his own military career.

Obama was never going to have Ike’s authority, but he could still profit from his example. The deep problem with his Niebuhrian style isn’t that it’s too disenchanted or insufficiently pro-American. It’s that too often it offers “self”-criticism in which the president’s own party and worldview slip away untouched.

 

[phgreek]

Big ups to Lax for at least acknowledging the defensive nature of the Crusades. If you think comparing ISIS to the Crusades is even remotely fair, you can be forgiven for having bought into a popular bullsh!t narrative about a very complicated historical event, but you really need to bone up on your history. This article in First Things by Thomas F. Madden helps to explain why.

And here's the New York Times' Ross Douthat on why Obama's attempt at moral equivalence was offensive:

Well Done...I think many struggled with articulating why that was off, but knew it was. Unfortunately, sometimes those who hurry to get a statement out (politicians) miss the mark, and provide ready distraction for partisans to seize upon...

 

[Ndaccountant]

Not sure if anyone else saw this during the weekend. The Navy showed off its rail gun. The thing is impressive and can be a real game changer. Without knowing the specifics how much was spent in development and how much the gun itself costs (given a recent Navy battery contract went for nearly $100M), I will defer on commenting on whether this was a big financial win or not. That said, a recent quote from the military says it best

"It will help us in air defense, it will help us in cruise missile defense, it will help us in ballistic missile defense," he said. "We're also talking about a gun that's going to shoot a projectile that's about one one-hundredth of the cost of an existing missile system today."

The projectile is so small, hundreds can be stored cost effectively on a ship. The true test will be getting the gun to fire rapidly, which is also under development. Still a ways to go, but it's certainly something to keep an eye on.

BTW, check out the dude talking a selfie with the gun.....

US Navy’s Disruptive Weapon "Railgun" To Be Publicly Displayed At Washington Defence Expo in February

 

[Buster Bluth]

But it's already a religious war for them. Has been for centuries. I get your point, but call it what it is.

It's also important to show the rest of Islam that this will not be tolerated. Yes, these are Islamic terrorists. I'm sorry that hurts the feelings of the PC crowd, but it is what it is.

If this administration can call American protestors on our OWN SOIL, "radicals" and "extremists"....then what's the problem here?

I don't think it has much to do with being politically correct, maybe I'm wrong tough. It wouldn't be the first time a liberal is too PC for his own good. However I see it more like not wanting to encourage even more overly-religious lunatics into joining ISIS.

 

[MartyIrish]

I don't think it has much to do with being politically correct, maybe I'm wrong tough. It wouldn't be the first time a liberal is too PC for his own good. However I see it more like not wanting to encourage even more overly-religious lunatics into joining ISIS.

You could very well be right. I'm just confused as to why there is never a problem slamming our own people (tea party to the OWS)....but when it comes to calling out the obvious about foreign threats, it's taboo?

 

[DonnieNarco]

You could also see how ISIS views there being Christian armies on an offensive conquest. George Bush called it a Crusade foolishly, we are viewed as Christian or secular by the East, and they view it as being a puppet government propped up by us. I mean, they're wrong, but I could see ISIS viewing it like that.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

You could also see how ISIS views there being Christian armies on an offensive conquest. George Bush called it a Crusade foolishly, we are viewed as Christian or secular by the East, and they view it as being a puppet government propped up by us. I mean, they're wrong, but I could see ISIS viewing it like that.

Islamists constantly invoke the myth of aggression by the Christian West against Muslim civilization, starting with the Crusaders and continuing unbroken through colonialism and the War on Terror. It's not remotely accurate, nor is it clear how much of the leadership actually buys into the narrative, but it helpfully paints them as the righteous David struggling against an evil Goliath.

 

[DonnieNarco]

I doubt the leaders believe anything they say. They are just crazies who want power. That French journalist captive said they didn't even have Qu'rans.

 

[IrishJayhawk]

You could very well be right. I'm just confused as to why there is never a problem slamming our own people (tea party to the OWS)....but when it comes to calling out the obvious about foreign threats, it's taboo?

This is what Obama said about ISIS at that prayer meeting.

“We see ISIS, a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism, terrorizing religious minorities, like Yazidis, subjecting women to rape as a weapon of war, and claiming a mantle of religious authority for such actions,” he said. ”We see sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in the Central African Republic, a rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Europe, so often perpetrated in the name of religion.”

I don't think slamming them is taboo.

 

[MartyIrish]

This is what Obama said about ISIS at that prayer meeting.



I don't think slamming them is taboo.

So they are "terrorizing"....just not terrorists? LOL

 

[Grahambo]

I can't imagine it would help us achieve our strategic objectives if the President said on video that we're in a war with Islamic terrorists. He then makes it a religious war and plays right into the recruitment narrative ISIS has been using, no? Do you really think the President doesn't know dealing with Islam gone awry? Honestly what good does it do to put it on video for the world to see?

ISIS doesn't need the President to recruit and by him calling it what it is does not play into their hand, it truly doesn't matter to them but it matters to the rest of the world. ISIS/ISIL recruit plenty just fine and have built themselves quite an army to include youth that mimic the Hitler youth. The problem is this administration does not have a clear cut strategy and they've forced many a good people out of jobs just so they can get 'yes men'.

I know this because I literally see it everyday. This administration has failed many a country that are attempting to fight terrorism. And this includes those in Africa who are trying to fight Boko Haram. Promises were made and not kept.

People ask why isn't so and so country handling it. Its because so and so country can't afford to and do not have the resources thus they need our help which this administration has refused up to this point. I have seen the disappointment from other countries.

Whether you agree or disagree, the rest of the world needs our help and they've said as much. We can continue air strikes as much as we want and its all good and dandy but eventually, boots will need to be on the ground. This group needs to be wiped off this planet and I say planet because they have people everywhere and yes, that includes here, Canada, Mexico, etc.

Not a debate. Just calling it like I see it from the work I do.

 

[Buster Bluth]

ISIS doesn't need the President to recruit and by him calling it what it is does not play into their hand, it truly doesn't matter to them but it matters to the rest of the world. ISIS/ISIL recruit plenty just fine and have built themselves quite an army to include youth that mimic the Hitler youth. The problem is this administration does not have a clear cut strategy and they've forced many a good people out of jobs just so they can get 'yes men'.

I know this because I literally see it everyday. This administration has failed many a country that are attempting to fight terrorism. And this includes those in Africa who are trying to fight Boko Haram. Promises were made and not kept.

People ask why isn't so and so country handling it. Its because so and so country can't afford to and do not have the resources thus they need our help which this administration has refused up to this point. I have seen the disappointment from other countries.

Whether you agree or disagree, the rest of the world needs our help and they've said as much. We can continue air strikes as much as we want and its all good and dandy but eventually, boots will need to be on the ground. This group needs to be wiped off this planet and I say planet because they have people everywhere and yes, that includes here, Canada, Mexico, etc.

Not a debate. Just calling it like I see it from the work I do.

Then why isn't he calling them Islamic terrorists? Usual liberal political correctness?

I've always liked Christopher Hitchens and Bill Maher calling the Left out on the matter, so I'm not against criticizing the President here. But I just don't see a reason he wouldn't utter words unless they (he and the folks in the Situation Room) think it'd help the enemy's recruitment. What am I missing here?

Also, and I don't know the situation in Nigeria--I'm just a dude on the internet haha--but I did think it was odd that we don't have some sort of air support/drone operation going on. I oppose putting American soldiers (special forces not included) on the ground, but I have little issue with providing sovereign countries with the necessary air support to clean up their own mess.

And lastly, how do you see it ending positively for the US? My amateur view of the ISIS situation looks like the result of post-WW1 borders not respecting cultural and religious fault lines, a battle for middle eastern hegemony between Saudi Arabia and Iran taking place over top of those issues, and an American-made power vacuum right in the middle of it. I sorta think ISIS itself is just a symptom of issues much deeper. Can we realistically say we've improved our position in the area if we clean up ISIS only to help Iraq and Syria, two known Iran puppets, to the detriment of our ally Saudi Arabia? Can we give arms to the Kurds without crippling our relationship with Turkey, and possibly sending them on a track away of NATO and into Iran's orbit? It almost looks like a real solution will have to come from the top down, detente with Iran and go from there, no? How off am I there?

 

[IrishLax]

You could also see how ISIS views there being Christian armies on an offensive conquest. George Bush called it a Crusade foolishly, we are viewed as Christian or secular by the East, and they view it as being a puppet government propped up by us. I mean, they're wrong, but I could see ISIS viewing it like that.

Sure, ISIS can believe and preach what they want, but that's not really the discussion is it? The discussion is whether or not President Obama made an accurate analogy.

I would argue that anyone with a good grasp of world history would think a forced analogy between the Crusades and current ISIS action is really off-base... save the 2% I mentioned. I think what bothers some people is that the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force on the globe // Head of State of a country with significant geopolitical interests in the region would make a rather terrible analogy like that. He either did it because it was ignorant of world history, or because someone told him to because of XYZ political points. Either way, I can see why people have a problem with it. I don't think it's a huge deal, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it bothers me some that he has such poor historical perspective.

For example, if he was looking for a modern day international illustration of warlords committing atrocities in the name of Christ, he should've picked someone like Nkunda from Congo. Nkunda is a ~90%+ parallel to ISIS that happened within the last decade or so.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Quick reminder: what Christian would listen to this "high horse" garbage from a guy who sat in the "church" of Jeremiah Wright for 20 years? Give me a break. Not this guy.

 

[Grahambo]

Then why isn't he calling them Islamic terrorists? Usual liberal political correctness?

I've always liked Christopher Hitchens and Bill Maher calling the Left out on the matter, so I'm not against criticizing the President here. But I just don't see a reason he wouldn't utter words unless they (he and the folks in the Situation Room) think it'd help the enemy's recruitment. What am I missing here?

Also, and I don't know the situation in Nigeria--I'm just a dude on the internet haha--but I did think it was odd that we don't have some sort of air support/drone operation going on. I oppose putting American soldiers (special forces not included) on the ground, but I have little issue with providing sovereign countries with the necessary air support to clean up their own mess.

And lastly, how do you see it ending positively for the US? My amateur view of the ISIS situation looks like the result of post-WW1 borders not respecting cultural and religious fault lines, a battle for middle eastern hegemony between Saudi Arabia and Iran taking place over top of those issues, and an American-made power vacuum right in the middle of it. I sorta think ISIS itself is just a symptom of issues much deeper. Can we realistically say we've improved our position in the area if we clean up ISIS only to help Iraq and Syria, two known Iran puppets, to the detriment of our ally Saudi Arabia? Can we give arms to the Kurds without crippling our relationship with Turkey, and possibly sending them on a track away of NATO and into Iran's orbit? It almost looks like a real solution will have to come from the top down, detente with Iran and go from there, no? How off am I there?

I am one of the least political people you will come across. Liberals. Conservatives. Its all foreign to me and just so damn complicated for me to keep up with so there is no bias one way or the other. All I care about is protecting America, pain and simple.

With that said, its all political with the administration. All of it. They are Islamic terrorists. There is no way around that. Its exactly what they are. Two weeks ago they said the Taliban is not a terrorist organization. Thats political.

ISIS is far worse then anything having to do with religious or cultural fault lines. They are evil at its purest and darkest form. They do not care who you are, where you're from, what you believe in..none of it matters. The things they do to women and children is unspeakable. They are so extreme that groups like AQ want nothing to do with them and simply compete with them because they are both after the same limited resources. Iran wants them gone because they are a threat and violence is beginning to spill into Iran. ISIS is not being controlled by any country either. And we created the mess in Syria by not arming the people we needed to arm.

A problem with Europe is the European Union and their open borders policy. They don't have CBP and people are free to roam about country to country without a problem. Which is why its also important for us to reinforce our borders.

The only way it ends positively for the US is to start by helping with taking out ISIS. Again, ISIS is everywhere and as I said, even in the US. They have plenty of supporters and people trying to go over to Syria to fight with them. You have to take them out and then you maintain a presence over seas while training and equipping countries like Iraq, Jordan, etc who can then handle their own business but are able to do so only after being properly trained liked we had promised.

 

[dshans]

...anyone with a good grasp of world history would think a forced analogy between the Crusades and current ISIS action is really off-base... I don't think it's a huge deal, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it bothers me some that he has such poor historical perspective.

For example, if he was looking for a modern day international illustration of warlords committing atrocities in the name of Christ, he should've picked someone like Nkunda from Congo. Nkunda is a ~90%+ parallel to ISIS that happened within the last decade or so.

Yes, it was sad, pathetic and erroneous analogy. It was a poor choice but one intended to "hit home" with the bulk of his audience. Any reference to Nkunda would have been lost. It is a matter of accessible rhetoric.

Sad but sadly understandable. I'd rather he took a different direction or kept his mouth shut.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Quick reminder: what Christian would listen to this "high horse" garbage from a guy who sat in the "church" of Jeremiah Wright for 20 years? Give me a break. Not this guy.

It's almost like Obama was an atheist/agnostic/deist who went to church purely for politically strategic reasons. He has that in common with about a trillion political figures throughout history.

 

[dshans]

Quick reminder: what Christian would listen to this "high horse" garbage from a guy who sat in the "church" of Jeremiah Wright for 20 years? Give me a break. Not this guy.

Not to be overly pedantic, but ...

As opposed to those who spent 20 years listening to the hollow preaching of those (few) who practiced pederasty?

 

[ACamp1900]

Saw this today and just thought Id share since some were discussing this,...

Yeah, Well, But What About the Crusades? | TGC