On Wednesday night, Egyptair Flight 804 disappeared from the radar with no reason or cause. Clinton, being the cautious career politician, waited until Thursday afternoon to make a statement. Trump, using his shoot-from-the-tweet foreign policy, fired off a round of tweets on Thursday morning like an anti-aircraft gun at the sight of a flare.
Donald Trump made a statement on his website. “Look at the carnage all over the world including the World Trade Center, San Bernardino, Paris, the USS Cole, Brussels and an unlimited number of other places. She [Clinton] and our totally ignorant President won't even use the term Radical Islamic Terrorism”
This is where I, the liberal, felt my anger boiling at Trump’s ignorance. There’s a very good reason Obama and Clinton don’t call it "radical Islamic terrorism". To blame a religion followed by nearly a quarter of the world, some of whom already hate us, and expect a good result? Are you kidding me?
I know he’s just calling out the radical sects of Islam, but believing it only stops there is naive. Especially since religion is something people hold closest to their hearts, right next to their families and friends. Saying terrorism is caused by Islamic beliefs makes the moderate Muslim offended at our arrogance. As if there is something inherently wrong with their religion, radical or not. If we Americans become that voice, we open the door to more hostility and anger that will only be directed at us.
It’s enough of an insult, if repeated enough, to convince a Muslim who is uneducated, unemployed, and has no purpose in their life, to redirect their anger at the United States by joining ISIS, Al Qaeda, or Jabhat al-Nusra.
Between you and I, radical Islam is part of the problem, because any radicalized version of any ideology will have it’s consequences. Look at the Crusades, the Inquisition, or the Holocaust.
Why radical Islam breeds terrorism, or vice versa, is for a myriad of factors that are worth discussing at a greater length. But for now let's scrap the surface by looking at the high unemployment, their inherited hatred of the west, and rising inequality. A sense of nostalgia lingers for Arabs wishing to ascend to the heights of power and wealth only seen in their history books. Radical Islam, with all those factors predisposed, becomes the spark that promises to bring back the glory of the Arab world. An extreme solution to an extreme problem. But saying terrorism is caused by radical Islam only looks at a tiny fraction of the issue at hand. If we want to address the problem, we need to help the everyday people of the Middle East by making a better standard of living for them.
Trump’s tone is the same tone of a bar drunk who is too frank and gets punched in the face for it. Obama and Clinton’s tone is that of a calculated politician who knows if they call it radical Islamic terrorism, it becomes the best recruiting tool for terrorist organizations since dropping bombs on civilians. It isn’t a thing of cowardice, it’s a methodical thought process that is thinking several steps ahead, like a true politician who knows how heavy the crown is.
Trump’s tone goes hand in hand with the past time of American foreign policy where we weren’t scared to offend our enemies. Yet that same brash attitude is what created this problem in the first place. As much as we may long for that power again, we have to accept that there are consequences to our actions we can’t control anymore. We can’t kick in the door, we have to learn how to pick the lock.
Let me tell you this, there is nothing to be gained from calling it radical Islamic terrorism. Whatever we call it doesn’t change the nature of the situation. A rose by any other name would have thorns that pierce all the same.
As of this writing, no terrorist organization has taken responsibility for it. Which is very strange because anytime a suspected terrorist activity happens, there’s usually more than one group claiming it was them. Yet, when we turn our heads to villains of the world, we are met with an uncommon silence.
