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Monday, June 13, 2016
The Rumpelstiltskin Theory of Counter-Terrorism
Radical. Islamic. Terrorism. Is not like Rumpelstiltskin. You do not defeat it by speaking its secret name. The politicians and pundits who insist on clinging to this line of attack -- that somehow if we only said the magic words (or said them more often, or with the right intonation, or in the right order) we'd be in a vastly different stance with respect to global terrorism than we are today -- are treating terrorism with all the seriousness of a fairy tale. It is difficult for me to express in words the contempt I feel for these people. It is perhaps the height of treating genuine important policy issues and security threats as pure theater.
otoh refusing to say it because you think that it will jeopardize our relations with moderate Muslims is equally absurd. They are not idiots - they speak about radical Islam themselves. What jeopardizes our relations with Muslims is dropping drones on weddings and explicitly bigoted major party candidates - not calling a spade a spade. It's become such a bizarre shibboleth on both sides of the aisle - I was kinda happy to see Hillary just come out and say it. These are radical Muslims; they kill people based on a radical reading of the Quran. They are not all or even most Muslims. Also no one is impressed when we call ISIS ISIL.
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