Former Democratic Party head Howard Dean has caused a controversy with his remarks on Wednesday criticizing people who call the murderers in Paris “Muslim terrorists.” Dean certainly makes a strong point when he says “They’re about as Muslim as I am,” he said. “I mean, they have no respect for anybody else’s life, that’s not what the Koran says.” It is easy to forget that most Muslims are as appalled and outraged as non-Muslims by these horrific crimes. However, I do not agree that we have to adopt another verboten term. The fact is the “Muslim extremist” or “Muslim terrorist” refer to the motivation and self-identity of the killers not their adherence to the proper reading of Islam. I have used it in publication as the most accurate descriptive term for those committing these atrocities.
While Dean is getting a lot of heat over this, I think that this is a fair point to raise, even if you reject the suggestion.
Here is the exchange:
HOWARD DEAN: You know, this is a chronic problem. I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists. They’re about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for anybody else’s life, that’s not what the Koran says. Europe has an enormous radical problem. I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it’s a cult.
BRZEZINSKI: Interesting, yeah. Hmm.
DEAN: And I think you got to deal with these people. The interesting thing here, is we talked about guns the last time in regarding the United States, regarding how guns get in the hands of the kind of people that kill the two police officers here two weeks ago.
France has tremendous gun control laws, and yet these people are able to get Kalashnikovs. So, this is really complicated stuff, and I think you have to treat these people as basically mass murderers. But I do not think we should accord them any particular religious respect, because I don’t think, whatever they’re claiming their motivation is, is clearly a twisted, cultish mind.
Obviously, these murderers were motivated by their view of Islam, even yelling “Allahu akbar” as they fired and screaming that they have “avenged” Mohammed for being put into cartoons. Obviously, some Muslims agree with such violent action given the murder of dozens of non-Muslims after the Danish cartoon controversy in 2006.
The fact is that we would refer to Hindu or Christian terrorists if a crime were committed in the name of their faiths. Referring, as Dean suggests, to all such terrorists as “mass murderers” denies specificity in reporting and commentary on these particular criminals. The use of “Muslim” in stories like those coming out of Paris is meant to add specificity and distinction in the description of these terrorists from other terrorists. Unfortunately, we live in a world filled with such individuals of various faiths including stories on “Hindu terrorists” and other faith-based attacks. After all, shouldn’t Guy Fawkes be referred to as a “Catholic terrorist” for his role in the Gunpowder Plot (meant to to blow up the House of Lords over the persecution of Catholics)? Fawkes was motivated by his religion even though most Catholics are appalled at the notion of destroying Parliament.
Dean’s point is still worthy of discussion. There is a danger that these extremists will be taken for representatives of their faith. After all, it was a Muslim police officer who was gunned down begging for his life on the street.
However, that point can be made clear in the context of coverage. Indeed, I often refer to such individuals as “Muslim extremists” to convey not just their motivation but their position on the fringe of their faith. The concern is to add yet another prohibited term added to what seems an ever-lengthening list.
Dean’s comments however do serve to force a legitimate debate over whether it is far to refer to such extremists by their faith. I would be more convinced if the murderers were not expressly acting in the name of their faith and simply happened to be Muslim. It would then be inappropriate in my view to call murderers who acted for other purposes (like personal or economic crimes) by their faith. Yet, here you have extremists who acted clearly in adherence to their own warped view of religion. Notably, the New York Times, USA Today, NPR, and other major publications continue to use the terms “Muslim terrorists” or “Muslim extremists.”
What do you think?
In the vein of “You know you’re a redneck” we now have “You know you’re a weenie.” Obama, you know you’re a weenie when a liberal pope calls Islamist terrorists a “deviant form or religion” being tougher than you are. That is a low bar, however.
BFM, They were signaling Barry and Crazy Joe were busy watching playoff football. Holder is uncomfortable fighting Muslims, he’s much more comfortable going after white cops, and Kerry is too comfortable in France. His wife won’t allow him to go there if she’s not w/ him.
Trooper nailed it really. The WH is still dancing around the Muslim terrorist issue. It makes them uncomfortable. They are still hoping jihadi’s will like them.
happy, Walter Sobchak in the Big Lebowski has a prescient take on Nihilism.
Nick –
What if I say I am a Christian Existentialist 😉 I know here comes Schulte calling me a Unicorn or a Fairy or Something like that.
happypappies – I think a Christian Existentialist could be a real thing. 😉
Ha – Paul C. Schulte – knows the key to my soul (sigh) My Dad didn’t even believe in the unknowable known. Not even as he passed away so really – I like the ritual because it’s beautiful to me 😉 I grew up with it.
It is simple. Islamic terrorism doesn’t bother them all that much. They won’t even call it that. They will find any excuse to call it something else. Now that Obama is not running again he doesn’t even have to pretend that he cares.
It is what it is.
Don’t believe your lying eyes.
I don’t think it is fair to criticize the President for not marching in protest against Muslim extremism. He believes in their goals if not in their actions. So even if he was able to rouse himself off of the couch ….it would be half-hearted and grudging at best.
His appearance would be much the same as Bill De Blasio at a cops wake. He would only be there for appearances only because his heart belongs to the other side.
“Let’s dispense with this specific question with no more than the attention it deserves: It would have been all but insane for President Obama to participate in a march, in public, in a foreign country, with a couple million people around him. The security requirements necessary to protect him make it impossible. The Secret Service has to do an extraordinary amount of work and planning for him to drop by Ben’s Chili Bowl a mile from the White House; the idea that with a couple of days notice he could walk through the streets of Paris in an enormous throng of people is absurd.
But let’s be honest: practical considerations aside, the world wasn’t waiting to see whether Barack Obama would participate in this particular march. As shocking as this idea may seem from our perspective, sometimes it’s not entirely about us.
And it isn’t as though the whole American political leadership, from the President on down, haven’t spoken out on this subject. Should the administration have sent Vice President Biden to the march? Yes, they should have. That would have been a fine gesture (and I’m guessing he could have fit it into his schedule). But what’s interesting to me is the way that people and organizations that hesitate to express personal opinions on other topics feel free to issue thunderous condemnations of the White House for its less than active participation in what is, after all, a symbolic act.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/01/12/a-note-on-criticism-of-obama-for-not-attending-paris-march/
“think it’s fair to say that we should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday afternoon.
He said Obama himself would have liked to attend the march “had the circumstances been a little different.” But planning began Friday night, 36 hours before the event began, and there wasn’t enough time for the “onerous and significant” security work that needed to take place ahead of a presidential visit, Earnest said. He said Obama’s presence also would have meant extra restrictions on the people who were there.
…
The White House noted that it was represented in Paris on Sunday — and has offered support to France in recent days.
U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley was in the march, as was assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. At a security summit, Holder was joined in those security meetings by deputy Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Obama personally visited the French Embassy in Washington last week to offer his support.
Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, will visit Paris on Friday.
Kerry skipped Monday’s march because he was in India on Monday for a long-planned event there with new Prime Minister Narendra Modi — a key relationship as the United States tries to improve long-strained trade ties with the country.
Kerry brushed the criticism off as “quibbling,” saying he’ll visit Paris on his way back to the United States to make “crystal clear how passionately we feel” about the attacks and response.
“The U.S. has been deeply engaged with the people of France since this incident occurred,” Kerry told reporters, adding that the United States has offered intelligence and law enforcement help.
Zakaria noted that security concerns didn’t dissuade Netanyahu or Abbas or other leaders from showing up. But Obama’s absence did show that the struggle against radical Islam is “not all about America,” Zakaria said.
“Many people have tended to think that Islamic terrorism wouldn’t exist without America,” Zakaria said. “This is really a struggle between the civilized world and a band of extremists. Even if you take the U.S. out of it … the civilized world is up in arms.”
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/12/politics/obama-kerry-paris/
leejcaroll – it is not like the President cannot make a major change to his schedule. When he was in Phoenix the other day he made a surprise visit somewhere. If he can do that, he can go to Paris, he would just have to forego a round of golf.
” it is not like the President cannot make a major change to his schedule. ”
I don’t think the president had to go. But I do believe there is meaning here for those who can read the diplomatic tea leaves.
Holder was in the city (I believe) but did not make an appearance. Even if you believe Kerry was too far our of position, there is still the deputy Secretary of State. Considering the nature of the event, even Secretary of defense of someone from the Joint Chiefs might have been appropriate – of course that would get in the way of the administration position that terrorism is essentially a LE issue.
The point is there were many possible alternatives to just the ambassador or the president – and the administration chose none of them. That means something – but more than just that they did not think the event was a big deal or that it was purely symbolic. It is the symbols that have meaning in diplomacy.
They were signaling something. I just can’t read it.
Apparently the administration sent no one higher than the ambassador to the ceremony in France.
Appearances of diplomats and high administration officials have meaning. This kind of choice must tell us something about the administrations position on something.
What does this tell us about the administration’s view of speech, the shooting, Islamic radicals, France, and the totalitarian governments represented at the event.
No condescension, your last sentence clause is on the money. You’ve even said it in this comment, although parsed slightly. 🙂
I realize reading this, Ari, that we were discussing different expressions of power. You were talking about “individual”, nihilistic power, while I was talking about structural, systematic power, hence my examples of democrats and republicans.
I partially agree with you in that regard. Outside of a structure, a system, power is gained through mere force and violence, it is taking it. Humanity returns to its most basic tendencies of taking.
Within a system however, the seeking of power must be wrapped around a vehicle, and that vehicle is a message (or propaganda) that frames the debate as a us vs them, where us either give you what you need/want, or prevent them from imposing upon what you do not need/want.
In Sudan, power is taken, in the US power is gained. One uses hard, direct violence, the other soft, indirect violence. In each case however, the power sought is not en end to itself, the total control it affords is.
“BTW…your remarks on the “France—stand for ” thread tells me you really do get it, even if you won’t admit it. Your choice.”
I am not sure what you are saying here…what to get. Sounds quite condescending however…that unless I see it as you do I haven’t gotten it?
Po
I think Nihilism refers to someone who is existential in their beliefs. That is to say, they believe in nothing but the ego. That is not considered powerful in my opinion. I can’t speak for Aridog. I can’t stand Egotical people who think they are God Almighty. 😉
po said …
But, Ari, power does not exist outside of religion, economics and political realities.
I must disagree with you on that point. Religion, economics, and political issues are mere excuses, for those who seek power over others, a flat out intoxicant or sorts, then add back those points as justification once power is exercised. Prior to that it is sheer propaganda. That is my personal experience. The murderous activities of terrorists have nothing to do, really, with Religion, economics (other than the concept of greed), or Political realties. Once in power, the terrorists then shape those concepts to fit their ideas. Domination is a entirely separate concept.
Power over people is first and foremost about domination and elimination of options, frequently at the point of a gun…as Mao said, power emanates from the barrel of a gun. Sheer power is first among the issues, then the others get used for excuses. If the leader of such a movement attains power first, they then shape the philosophy to fit their reality of domination. Not the other way around.
BTW…your remarks on the “France—stand for ” thread tells me you really do get it, even if you won’t admit it. Your choice.
But, Ari, power does not exist outside of religion, economics and political realities. Each is part and parcel of the gaining and maintaining of power.
Power is an end, all the other factors are means to that end.
Let’s use the example of the Republicans and democrats…each party is seeking power but uses different motivations and banners to achieve it. power first and foremost requires people, and requires people to gain it and to maintain it. How does one recruit people? By offering something, and short of that, by causing them to fear the alternative.
So the democrats may claim to do something for the people, while the republicans may make the people fear that which will be brought upon them if the democrats are in power. Same for liberals and conservatives…live and let live vs fear that which will happen if we live and let live.
Did you read the post I offered above by Gary Younge? Makes a great deal of sense.
po – power comes from relationships. Ask your wife. Or your kids.
This is the issue with Islam…it is not like Catholicism or other faiths that have a head.
I just must make a redundant comment about this concept. There may be no Islamic Pope, per se, or other head of the faith, but there are a few dozen who want to be just that…IMO all this terrorism is about power, pure and simple. I’ve said that before. It is a characteristic feature of terrorists everywhere. All the excuses, made by terrorist groups, by citing religion, economics, and political oppression is bunk. The strategy is fear, the tactic is terror, and the goal is sheer power.
Agree with you, Karen. Whoever thinks LeeJ an islamophobe is indeed insane.
I knew we’d find a common point 🙂
Anyone who thinks Leejcaroll is an Islamophobe or discriminatory is really paranoid. Lee’s a great contribution to the blog. Even when we’ve vigorously disagreed on a point, she brings a sincere perspective to the blog.
All this calling everyone who criticizes only violent extremism an Islamophobe rather reminds me of people being called racist when they criticize Obama’s policies, or called for an investigation into Ferguson. It’s more about intolerance for opposition than meeting the actual definition of a term.
The best, I mean the best view of this I have read. Nick, don’t great minds think alike (I mean Gary Younge and me…)
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In times of crisis, those who would like us to keep just one idea in our heads at any one time are quick to the megaphones. By framing events in Manichean terms – dark versus light; good versus evil – an imposed binary morality seeks to coral us into crude camps. There are no dilemmas, only declarations. What some lack in complexity they make up for in polemical clarity and the provision of a clear enemy.
A black man kills two policemen in their car in New York, and suddenly those who protested against the police killing unarmed black people across the country and going unpunished have blood on their hands. Sony pulls a film about the fictional assassination of a real foreign leader after threats of violent reprisals, and suddenly anyone who challenged the wisdom of making such a film is channelling their inner Neville Chamberlain. Straw men are stopped and searched in case they are carrying nuance and then locked up until the crisis is over. No charges are ever brought because a trial would require questions and evidence. You’re either with us or against us.
The horrific events of the past week have provided one such crisis. From both the left and right, efforts to explain the assassinations at Charlie Hebdo magazine, a Kosher supermarket and elsewhere inevitably become reductive. Most seek, with a singular linear thesis, to explain what happened and what we should do about it: it’s about Islam; it has nothing to do with Islam; it’s about foreign policy; it has nothing to do with foreign policy; it’s war; it’s criminality; it’s about freedom of speech, integration, racism, multiculturalism.
There is something to most of these. And yet not enough to any one of them to get anywhere close. Too few, it seems, are willing to concede that while the act of shooting civilians dead where they live and work is crude, the roots of such actions are deep and complex, and the motivations, to some extent, unknowable and incoherent. The bolder each claim, the more likely it is to contain a qualifying or even contradictory argument at least as plausible.
Clearly, this was an attack on free speech. Despite the bold statements of the past week any cartoonist will now think more than twice before drawing the kind of pictures for which Charlie Hebdo became notorious. This principle should be unequivocally defended. It should also be honestly defined.
Every country, including France, has limits on freedom of speech. In 2005 Le Monde was found guilty of “racist defamation” against Israel and the Jewish people. In 2008 a cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo was fired after refusing to apologise for making antisemitic remarks in a column. And two years before the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons of Muhammad in 2006, it rejected ones offering a light-hearted take on the resurrection of Christ for fear they would “provoke an outcry”.
Far from being “sacred”, as some have claimed, freedom of speech is always contingent. All societies draw lines, that are ill-defined, constantly shifting and continually debated, about what constitutes acceptable standards of public discourse when it comes to cultural, racial and religious sensitivities. The question is whether those lines count for Muslims too.
The demand that Muslims should have to answer for these killings is repugnant. Muslims can no more be held responsible for these atrocities than Jews can for the bombings in Gaza. Muslims do not form a monolithic community; nor does their religion define their politics – indeed they are the people most likely to be killed by Islamic extremists. The Paris killers shot a Muslim policeman; the next day a Muslim shop assistant hid 15 people in the freezer of a kosher deli while the shooter held hostages upstairs. Nobody elected these gunmen; they don’t represent anyone.
That said, it is simply untenable to claim that these attackers had nothing to do with Islam, anymore than it would be to say the Ku Klux Klan had nothing to do with Christianity, or that India’s BJP has nothing to Hinduism. It is within the ranks of that religion that this particular strain of violence has found inspiration and justification. That doesn’t make the justifications valid or the inspirations less perverted. But it doesn’t render them irrelevant either.
Those who claim that Islam is “inherently”violent are more hateful, but no less nonsensical, than those who claim it is “inherently” peaceful. The insistence that these hateful acts are refuted by ancient texts makes as much sense as insisting they are supported by them. Islam, like any religion, isn’t “inherently” anything but what people make of it. A small but significant minority have decided to make it violent.
There is no need to be in denial about this. Given world events over the past decade or so, the most obvious explanation is also the most plausible: the fate of Muslims in foreign conflicts played a role in radicalising these young men. Working-class Parisians don’t go to Yemen for military training on a whim. Since their teens these young men have been raised on a nightly diet of illegal wars, torture and civilian massacres in the Gulf and the Middle East in which the victims have usually been Muslim.
In a court deposition in 2007, Chérif Kouachi, the younger of the brothers affiliated with al-Qaida who shot the journalists at Charlie Hebdo, was explicit about this. “I got this idea when I saw the injustices shown by television on what was going on over there. I am speaking about the torture that the Americans have inflicted on the Iraqis.”
In a video from beyond the grave the other shooter, Amedy Coulibaly, claims he joined Islamic State to avenge attacks on Muslims. These grievances are real even if attempts to square them with the killers’ actions make your head hurt. France opposed the Iraq war; Isis and al-Qaida have been sworn enemies and both have massacred substantial numbers of Muslims. Not only is the morality bankrupt, but the logic is warped.
But Islamists are not alone in their contradictions. Today is the anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay. Given the recent release of the US torture report or France’s role in resisting democratic change during the Arab spring, many of those who claim that this is a battle between liberty and barbarism have a foot in both camps.
This is why describing these attacks as criminal is both axiomatic and inadequate. They were not robbing a bank or avenging a turf war. Anti-terrorism police described the assault on the magazine as “calm and determined”. They walked in, asked for people by name, and executed them. Coulibaly killed a policewoman and shot a jogger before holding up a kosher supermarket and killing four Jews. These were, for the most part, not accidental targets. Nor were they acts of insanity. They were calculated acts of political violence driven by the incoherent allegiances of damaged and dangerous young men.
They are personally responsible for what they did. But we, as a society, are collectively responsible for the conditions that produced them. And if we want others to turn out differently – less hateful, more hopeful – we will have to keep more than one idea in our heads at the same time.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/11/charie-hebdo-danger-polarised-debate-paris-attacks
And Nick, re your need to have Muslims speak up…do you own google? http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/reza-aslan-anyone-who-asks-why-muslims-have-not-condemned-terrorism-cant-use-google/#.VLMhJi3iah8.twitter
Happy
I did not mean to say that Catholicism doesn’t have a direct relationship with God, what I meant to say, very poorly I might add in the rush of typing before leaving, is that unlike Catholicism which has an ultimate authority in the person of the pope, Islam doesn’t.
Therefore, while the Pope can make decisions that are binding to most Catholics, no one in Islam can do that.
This was behind the general thought that no one is an authority over ISIS, in order to tell them to cut the ish out.
Nick, eh! just a bit of punching back, you know?
Like they say, punch him the nose, that was it. No worries, we’ll go back to being friends.
Inga
(((((Po))))) From one immigrant to another. Hang in there. I think you and LeeJ crossed wires somewhere, we’re usually all sympatico.
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Yeah Inga, I thought so!
Lee,
I just offered the full post of mine, to show the piece you quoted in the context of my answer to Paul and Chip. None of that was directed at you, just an attempt to show the humor behind that post.
In other words, it is the same quote you provided, just all of it, that is why it was in parentheses.
po, I love it when you condescend. If I were gay, it would make me horny. NTTAWWT.I particularly love it when you are the spokesperson for “many others.” That is always a red flag that a person is talking outta their butt. I hit a few nerves, which is what has made you a bit uncivil. But, unlike the victims here who whine, I just say good for you and the “many others” you represent. LOL! The mayor of Poville has spoken.