{"id":208158,"date":"2015-12-12T16:03:21","date_gmt":"2015-12-12T16:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/a-gop-terror-talking-point\/"},"modified":"2015-12-12T16:03:21","modified_gmt":"2015-12-12T16:03:21","slug":"a-gop-terror-talking-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/a-gop-terror-talking-point\/","title":{"rendered":"A GOP Terror Talking Point"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"119.88580767609\">\n<p>Republican presidential candidates have a favorite talking point \u2014 that President Obama won\u2019t use the precise phrase \u201cradical Islamic terrorism\u201d even though he describes the problem in similar terms. Thus, the complaint is ridiculous and even a bit dangerous, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-16632\"\/>By Paul R. Pillar<\/p>\n<p>One of the more inane memes in current rhetoric in the United States about terrorism is that President Obama supposedly isn\u2019t recognizing terrorist threats for what they are because he does not utter a certain phrase in talking about them.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2015\/12\/09\/458973053\/cruz-wont-criticize-trump-but-offers-his-own-plan-to-bar-refugees\"><u>an interview<\/u><\/a> this week, for example, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, slammed the President\u2019s recent address to the nation about terrorism because he did not use the label \u201cradical Islamic terrorism.\u201d Retired Army General Michael Flynn, who even when on active duty liked to tell how everyone else is screwing up except himself, used an extended version of the meme in the course of promoting a book he is co-writing with neocon ideologue Michael Ledeen.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16642\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" readability=\"33\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400.jpg?387be0\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16642\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16642\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?387be0\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400-300x160.jpg\" alt=\"Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for president.\" width=\"300\" height=\"160\" srcset=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400-300x160.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400-560x299.jpg 560w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400-260x139.jpg 260w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16642\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400-300x160.jpg\" alt=\"Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for president.\" width=\"300\" height=\"160\" srcset=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400-300x160.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400-560x299.jpg 560w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400-260x139.jpg 260w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/TedCruzBouie-750x400.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>(Ledeen is <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Michael_Ledeen#cite_note-23\"><u>the source<\/u><\/a> of the eponymous doctrine according to which \u201cEvery ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.adweek.com\/galleycat\/michael-t-flynn-inks-deal-with-st-martins-press\/113594?utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&amp;utm_term=*Situation%20Report\"><u>Flynn says<\/u><\/a> they are writing the book to show that \u201cwar is being waged against us by enemies this administration has forbidden us to describe: radical Islamists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such rhetoric totally disregards what the incumbent president, and others in his administration, actually have been saying. No one is forbidding any accurate descriptions of terrorist threats, and no one is shying away from making clear that the principal current threats are radicals who commit terrorism in the name of Islam.<\/p>\n<p>In that same <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2015\/12\/06\/address-nation-president\"><u>presidential address<\/u><\/a>, Mr. Obama spoke of how there is no \u201cdenying the fact that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities.\u201d He pointed this out in the course of making the further point that Muslim leaders around the world must \u201cdecisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology\u201d that has developed within their religious community and in&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/12\/12\/a-gop-terror-talking-point\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republican presidential candidates have a favorite talking point \u2014 that President Obama won\u2019t use the precise phrase \u201cradical Islamic terrorism\u201d even though he describes the problem in similar terms. Thus, the complaint is ridiculous and even a bit dangerous, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar. By Paul R. Pillar One of the more inane memes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-208158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}