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Did the White House Exclude Reform Muslims from the Summit on Extremism?

Did the White House Exclude Reform Muslims from the Summit on Extremism?

Last updated on: February 24, 2015 at 9:00 pm by Rebecca Hamilton

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Did the White House Exclude Reform Muslims from the Summit on Extremism? 2015-02-24T21:00:18-07:00 Rebecca Hamilton

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Photo Source: Flickr Creative Commons. Official White House Photo.

I’ve kept mum about President Obama’s careful choice of words concerning ISIS and the tragedy in the Middle East because I could see legitimate reasons for it.

Tarring all Muslims with the same extremist brush is bad policy for this country for the simple reason that, in the final analysis, if Muslim extremists are ultimately defeated, it will be by other Muslims. We only have two choices in this matter: We can help other Muslims defeat the savages who are trying to destroy civilization in the Middle East, or, we can kill everybody there.

That is not hyperbole. The media is fond of saying, “we can’t kill them all.” But that is not a true statement. The United States of America could kill everything that lives just about anywhere on this planet. A more accurate statement would be “we won’t kill them all.”

Given that we won’t kill them all, the question remains: How do we stop this civilization-destroying plague of terrorist activity? The answer is that we do it by partnering with the civilization-building people from that part of the world to drive these barbarians to the ground.

President Obama, by his careful choice of words, seemed to me to be trying to thread the needle of coalition-building while registering this country’s rejection of the genocidal brutality being waged against civilian populations by Islamic terrorists. That’s why I didn’t join in the chorus of those who were attacking him.

In truth, I was — and still am — rather disgusted with much of the over-the-top criticisms of him in this regard. It seemed to me, and still does, to be more of a partisan bid for votes in the 2016 elections than a genuine concern for either the welfare of people in the Middle East or for America.

There are people who have become a bit unhinged in their hatred of President Obama. No matter what he does, they are against it. No matter what he says, they find fault with it. They’ve made him into a shade of satan and they hate him with an unreasoning, bitter hatred that cancels out any hope of moving this country into good governance.

I object — and have objected strongly — to certain of the president’s policies. But I honestly do not feel either hatred or anger toward him as a person. I want him to succeed, if his success is good for America. I will oppose him when I think his ideas are bad for America.

I especially want him to succeed in his efforts to bring Islamic extremism to the ground. I want to see the bloody reign of ISIS and their satanic barbarism ended permanently. I would like to see the Middle East move out of the Middle Ages and become a prosperous and productive part of the world community. That will never happen so long as the blood feuds and murderous ways of those who have plunged this whole region of the world into an on-going blood-bath continue to hold the public imagination of large sectors of that society.

If President Obama just took off with a full-throated blood lust, denouncing all Muslims, it would end any hope of working with Muslims of good will. It would also push the whole world inexorably toward a kill or be killed stand-off that could indeed lead to nuclear annihilation of large numbers of innocent human beings.

This is a rather long explanation as to why I haven’t jumped on the dump-on-Obama band wagon for his measured verbiage concerning this crisis. It is also an explanation as to why it is with reluctance that I criticize him now. I want him to succeed in bringing ISIS to ground. I do not want more bloodshed than is absolutely necessary to do this. I also want to find a way to live in peace with our Muslim neighbors.

I do not — most emphatically do not — want to kill them all.

I’ve decided to take the president to task because of an article I read in the Washington Times. If this article is true, his actions seem more motivated by wing-nut political-correctness than what is best for this nation.

According to the article, the White House hosted a terror summit this week. Reformist Muslim groups are said to have been excluded from this gathering. The reason cited by the article is that these groups take positions which run counter to the President’s public position that ISIS is not motivated by Islam.

If this story is true, the president’s summit on terrorism seems to have been operating under the parameters of group think. If Muslims who hold viewpoints that run contrary to the group think of certain intellectual/academic/political circles were excluded from the conversation, then the whole event was a production and not a conversation at all.

What bothers me most about this is that it’s a life and death, bone and blood issue. The president needs input from people who think differently than he does because he is not — nobody is — smart enough to think his way through this on his own. He needs to hear from people who will make him uncomfortable by stretching his thinking outside whatever box he’s got it in.

Willingness to do this is part of his job. An unwillingness to do this can unfit him for his job. In fact, I would say that it already has unfitted him for his job in serious matters such as the HHS Mandate, which has both tarnished and weakened his administration since the day he signed it.

It concerns me in ways that have nothing to do with posturing for the next election that the President of the United States is trying to conduct a war by the tenets of politically-correct shibboleths.

For that reason, I hope this article is more political partisan yapping than actual fact. However, based on a lot of things I know that I cannot talk about, it rings true.

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