Jihad

The radical Islamic group ISIS, seemingly tired of beheadings, tries for a new level of barbarity by burning a Jordanian air force pilot alive. The pilot, a fellow Muslim, was captured when his plane was shot down. The Arab Muslim community is surprised and outraged at this latest event, while the broader expanse of Islam tells us that the acts of ISIS do not reflect their religion/ideology. Our own president echos that sentiment.

But what Muslims still don't seem to understand is that it their responsibility to destroy ISIS, as well as other radical Islamic groups. They must declare their own Jihad, not against the West, but within their own religion/ideology to root out and destroy violent Islamist groups.

The reason that Jihad should be directed at radical Islam should be obvious if one has paid any attention at all to the growth and spread of ISIS over the past two years. ISIS and other Islamist groups like it (Boko Haram, al Qaeda, Hamas, al Nusra, to name just a few) represent a malevolent virus within Islam. The virus is spreading, and as it grows in virulence, it will devour not only "infidels," but moderate Islam itself.

It is time for leaders in the West to demand that Islam act, and yet, with few exceptions they remain reticent. Barack Obama is the most reticent of all. Chris Stirewalt of FoxNews (certainly no friend of this president) makes the following comment:

... the fact that the president wouldn’t say the name of “radical Islam” and instead chose to be facile in denouncing “whatever ideology they are operating off of” as “bankrupt.” Hmmm. Which ideology is it again? Are they feminists? Dadaists? Jacobites? Maybe Jedis? If you cannot even bring yourself to say the name, how likely are you to maintain the fight even amid losses or public opposition? Remember that the “bankrupt” ideologies of the previous century, communism and fascism, led to the deaths of tens of millions and the oppression of hundreds of millions more. And they did not eventually fail because they were poor philosophical concepts, but rather because they were defeated.

But why the reticence by Obama? Is it that he thinks that by making nice, radical Islam will moderate? Does he think that by refusing to identify the problem directly, the rest of us will forget it exists? Does he think that by refusing to use the adjective "Islamic," he will avoid offending all Muslims and the tiresome accusation of "Islamophobia?"

Here's the problem. Radical Islam is our enemy and the enemy of all civilized people. In fact, it is the enemy of the 21st century. It is evil, and it must be destroyed. But evil is a construct that has been largely rejected by the Left. Barack Obama is a man of the Left, and hence his reticence to act, or at the least, to demand that Islam act.

As "the leader of the free world" (at least in theory), Barack Obama should be calling for Jihad against radical Islam. Don't hold your breath.

UPDATE:
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S.E. Cupp comments further on Obama's reluctance to utter the phrase "radical Islam."

Whether linguistic subterfuge or merely semantic nitpicking, it's a curious use of caution from an administration that has repeatedly gotten out over its skis on issues of foreign policy.

The list is long: Al Qaeda's been decimated. ISIS is Al Qaeda's "jayvee" team. Yemen is a success. Benghazi was about a video. [Libya was about a predicted "humanitarian disaster." Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood are "moderates." The Taliban are an "armed insurgency."]

Obama is constantly speaking in brash declaratives about terrorism, and is often subsequently proven wrong. But uttering the words "Islamic extremism" is too reckless?

Of course, we are (quite literally) at war by anyone's definition — training foreign soldiers, deploying our own, dropping bombs in Iraq and Syria. Our military is aiding the Nigerian government in rooting out Boko Haram. We've reportedly spent more than $1 billion in our campaign against ISIS alone. And from Yemen to the Maghreb, Syria to Iraq, Europe to Japan, the groups we're fighting all claim to motivated by an Islamist ideology.

These barbarians don't "claim" to be motivated by Islamist ideology—they are motivated by Islamist ideology.

UPDATE - 2
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This morning, Barack Obama made the following statement at a National Prayer Breakfast:

“Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that 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.”

What he says is true. What he leaves out is the following:

The crusades happened between the years 1095 and 1291. Is he honestly attempting to compare the 1000 year old mores, culture, and modes of warfare to their equivalents in the 21st century? The analogy is bogus.

The Inquisition happened over 500 years ago. Does he really believe that 500 year old mores, culture, and modes of warfare haven't changed in half a millenium? The analogy is equally bogus.

Slavery and Jim Crow occurred more recently. The United States fought a civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people died to rid the country of slavery. We conducted our own Jihad against our brothers who believed in an evil ideology. More recently, the federal government stepped in to rid the country of Jim Crow laws. In both cases, we stepped up and eliminated evil in our midst. Can Islam say the same?

Barack Obama is supposed to be a smart guy. You'd think he would understand these things and not make such ludicrous comparisons as a veiled attempt to somehow blunt calls for hard measures to rid the world of radical Islam.

UPDATE (2/6/15):
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Peggy Noonan weighs in on Obama's prayer breakfast comment:

 “This is just the moment to dilate on Christendom’s sins, isn’t it? While Christians are being driven from the Mideast [and murdered in record numbers by Islamists]? [Obama] always says these things as if he’s the enlightened one facing the facts of the buried past instead of the cornered one defeated by complexity, hard calls and ambivalence. He is lost. 

UPDATE (2/7/15):
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A Ramirez picture is worth ...

UPDATE (2/8/15):
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Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer characterizes Obama's prayer breakfast comments as "both banal and repulsive." Banal because Obama's comments sound like the words of a 17 year-old who comes to learn that throughout history atrocities have been conducted in the name of religion and thinks this discovery is somehow illuminating. It is not. And repulsive because Obama compares atrocities conducted 500 and 1000 years ago with events that occurred last week. Intellectually dishonest as well as historically questionable.

Jack Colman makes an interesting comment:

[Consider] Obama as president during World War II, after receiving intelligence reports that Nazi Germany was engaging in industrial-scale extermination of Jews -- 'Hey, who are we to judge after what we did to the Indians?'

The frightening thing is, given Obama's recent behavior vis a vis Israel, it's more that a little likely he would have said exactly that.