Obama: Islamic State Acting Out of ‘Expediency’

After my article “Islamic State Atrocities: Products of Grievances’?” appeared, a reader sent me the following email, which makes similar points, specifically about Obama’s use of the word “expediency” to explain away Islamic State savageries:

Dear Mr. Ibrahim,

You are so correct to find Obama’s real point of view by paying close attention to his phraseology and vocabulary, something I find too few commentators take the time to do. Often one word, such as “grievances,” gives the whole show away. I read the transcript of Obama’s remarks made after the beheading of Mr. Foley — after which Obama returned to his old game –  and came upon this transcript from WSJ:

[ISIS] may claim out of expediency that they are at war with the United States or the West, but the fact is they terrorize their neighbors and offer them nothing but an endless slavery to their empty vision and the collapse of any definition of civilized behavior.

Expediency! This is an extremely revealing word. ISIS only hates America because they find it expedient to do so– I suppose for PR or recruiting reasons or some such thing in Obama’s mind.

Obama refuses to recognize the spiritual (i.e. religious/jihadist) motivation of the ISIS terrorists, because of the sympathy he and his advisers have for the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, his contempt for America and because Obama only thinks in material — that is non-spiritual — terms.

The same applies to his usage of the word “grievances.”  These words denotes a fatal weakness in Obama’s conception and handling of terrorism both at home and abroad — in his eyes, there is no real or serious underlying threat or problem of jihadist terrorism with regard to the USA, and in particular none that he will allow to get in the way of his overriding goal of transforming America and its place in the world.

In effect, what this means is that he is willing to put the whole USA and all Americans on the same chopping block as other countries such as Israel and the Christians in Muslim lands, either out of gross negligence, or for ideological reasons, or out of incompetence, or (most likely) a combination of all three. A rather novel way of viewing the motivation for a brutal public beheading:  an act of mere expediency.

Regards,
Bill Meisler