Since when did White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest become a theologian? Pressed on the administration’s tortured effort to avoid the I-word when talking about attacks by Islamist militants, Earnest offered a long disquisition as to why. But the core reason seemed to be that since the Islamists’ conduct did not comport with Islamic values, the militants did not qualify for membership: As Earnest put it, it stems for a desire for “accuracy.” This hearkens to President nObama’s claim this summer that the Islamic State is not Islamic because its conduct doesn’t reflect the values of the faith and not really a state, either. Okay. Or, reaching back to the beginning of what was then known as the Arab Spring, when a top administration official claimed the Muslim Brotherhood was “a largely secular” organization. Or the claim this week from a State Department spokeswoman who said that talking about Islamist extremism might improperly minimize the threat from other forms of violent ideological extremism. Like which ones? Well…
The president and his team seem to have lashed themselves to the idea that somehow non-Muslim politicians in the West have some say in defining the Pillars of Islam. Facing increasing press criticism for tortured and obfuscatory language, however, the armchair theologians of the White House are spending a lot of time explaining their view of the faith. This stubbornness is interfering with the effort to explain the administration’s policy to a skeptical public and rally support for the president’s plan (whatever that may be). -Fox News
NYT: “In President nObama’s latest move using executive authority to tackle climate change, administration officials will announce plans this week to impose new regulations on the oil and gas industry’s emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, according to a person familiar with Mr. nObama’s plans. The administration’s goal is to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production by up to 45 percent by 2025 from the levels recorded in 2012. The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the proposed regulations this summer, and final regulations by 2016, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration had asked the person not to speak about the plan….Environmental advocates have long urged the nObama administration to target methane emissions, and the rules would be the first to do so….The oil and gas industry has pushed back against methane regulations, insisting that new rules could stymie a booming industry and that voluntary industrywide standards are sufficient to prevent methane leaks….The new rules are part of Mr. nObama’s push for regulations designed to cut emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases from different sectors of the economy. The White House says it can make the moves under the Clean Air Act, rather than by trying to push legislation through the Republican-controlled congress.” -Fox News
(city-journal.org) - The shots in the Paris street that were seen and heard around the world killed Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim policeman going to the defense of Charlie Hebdo: a reminder that by no means all Muslims in France, far from it, are France-hating, Allahu-akbar-shouting fanatics, and that many are well-integrated. I go to a Muslim boulanger in Paris whose French bread and pastries are as good as any in the vicinity; and, if anything, I have a prejudice in favor of patronizing his shop precisely to encourage and reward his successful integration. And he is only one of many cases that I know.
Unfortunately, this is not as reassuring as it sounds, because a handful of fanatics can easily have a much more significant social effect than a large number of peaceful citizens. There is more to fear in one terrorist than to celebrate in 99 well-integrated immigrants. And if only 1 percent of French Muslims were inclined to terrorism, this would still be more than 50,000 people, more than enough to create havoc in a society. The jihadists now have a large pool from which to draw, and there are good reasons to think that more than 1 percent of young Muslims in France are distinctly anti-French. The number of young French jihadists fighting in Syria is estimated to be 1,200, equal to 1 percent in numbers of the French army, and probably not many fewer than the number of Algerian guerrillas fighting during much of the Algerian War of Independence.
That is why the following argument, taken from an article in the Guardian by French journalist Nabila Ramdani, will not be of much comfort to the French or to other Europeans. Referring to a terrible episode in 1961, when the French police in Paris killed 200 Algerians and threw them in the Seine (though Ramdani fails to mention that 20 times as many Algerians in France were killed by other Algerians at about the same time, in a power struggle among the nationalist factions), she writes: “As the history of Paris shows, extreme violence often inspires further violence. The bloody cycle continues, just as it has always done. But attributing its causes to millions of law-abiding French Muslims is as cynical as trying to blame it on a small group of artists and writers.”
There is no reason to think that the events in Paris of 1961 “inspired” the Charlie Hebdo massacre—or the follow-on incidents that have ensued, as the crisis unfolds around France—and so their introduction into the argument can only serve to minimize or exculpate. And while it is no doubt true that the majority of French Muslims are law-abiding, minorities, unfortunately, may be more important than majorities. A substantial number are not law-abiding, and they commit violence because of a version of religious belief. Just before Christmas, a man entered a police station in Tours, cut the throat of a policeman and injured two others while shouting “Allah akbar!” A day later, another man shouted “Allah akbar!” as he drove around Dijon, deliberately running over 11 people. He was probably mad, but madness and religious fanaticism are not mutually exclusive. Ramdani fails to explain why France does not have similar problems with its Vietnamese immigrants.
Fortunately, the response to this week’s attacks has been admirable. The left-wing French newspaper, Libération, which I have often criticized, has bravely given the magazine space in its office; the next edition of Charlie Hebdo will print 1 million copies, 25 times its normal run. And in Britain, the Guardian Media Group has announced a donation of £100,000 to Charlie Hebdo. This stands in marked contrast to the pusillanimity (cowardly) displayed by George W. Bush during the Danish cartoon crisis of 2006, and by Barack nObama in 2012, when he criticized Charlie Hebdo for being offensive to Muslim sentiment.
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