Apologies for the email about this old post — technical difficulties.

Code Pink. Not Medea.

The UN reports that ISIS is training boys of ten as child soldiers and girls as sex slaves, crucifying children and burying them alive. Obama calls ISIS “a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism”. But don’t worry; Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin explained her plan on Fox News (quotes below): Stop bombing and call a conference of the allies! Extremist Republicans have their own plan: First call them “Islamic” (instead of “violent”) extremists, then change the goal from Obama’s “degrade and destroy” to “destroy and crush.” Read on, it gets better.

Thank goodness the Tea Party knows what the problem is: “Obama has been more restrained in his response to ISIS, which is understandable considering the U.S. has been covertly funding the terror group [-teaParty.org-].” And from the far lefties, “[Medea Benjamin] flatly and cheerfully stated [on Fox News] that those who supported those invasions like Fox News and Senator John McCain are the creators of the radical and insane people [crooksandliars.com].” That’s not quite what she said, but that’s how the far lefties hear it, and they are not far off.

Code Pink & the Tea Party: Twins (sort of)

So there you have it. Twins. The loopy lefties think the US created ISIS, and the right-wing nuts accuse Obama of funding ISIS. They’re equally anti-American in their own crazy way. But do these absurdities matter?

The far left is goofier, but the good news is Democrats don’t elect them to Congress. Republicans however, have sent the Tea Party to Congress in droves. That’s a much greater danger, but to be fair, let’s start with Code Pink.

Code Pink’s Brilliant Plan

Bill Riley asked for her plan, and Medea Benjamin replied, “Get all of the allies together and say, ‘How can we stop the recruits, money and weapons?'” Cool, but what does she think we’ve been doing for six months? Maybe try watching the news? She correctly focused on Turkey and the Saudis as trouble-makers, and then brilliantly explained the key to her plan. 

Fantastic idea! Hold the bombs and tell the young sex slaves to “just wait while we ask our friendly Saudi’s to have a word with their Wahhabis.” And if they’re obstinate, Obama can just say “Make my day. You’ll soon be hearing from the Pink viking brigade.”

There is however one small hitch. It’s unlikely that either Turkey or the Saudi government is supporting ISIS any more. But to be honest, these “friends” that Medea wants to work with are themselves a bunch of Muslim dictatorships. They are at each others throats, and have no love for the US. So it might just take more pink vikings than Ms. Benjamin is figuring on to whup them into line.

What the Code-Pink Tea Party misses

Simple-minded extremists share the view that the US is all powerful. Such thinking is what got us into Iraq, and led President Bush to dress up as a military pilot and declare “Mission Accomplished.” Sure we could beat ISIS, but remember, Saddam was out in a month, and we spent the next six years and $800 billion (a low estimate) fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq. ISIS will be tougher.

Moreover, if we send in troops, that will attract even more Muslim extremists from around the Globe. The simpletons are also unaware that the main reason Jordan’s population had not been supporting their King’s war on ISIS was that it was seen as another US war. The more we are seen as controlling the coalition, the less the others will do. ISIS wants nothing more than to tie all its local opponents to the “Great Satan.”

This does not mean we can’t, or shouldn’t, fight ISIS. It just means that if we play the fool and follow pink pacifists or Tea-Party zealots, we will get burned again, only worse.

Republican Brilliance

Obama has been saying for months that his intention in to “degrade and destroy” ISIS. But that’s not good enough for Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger. After the Jordanian pilot was burned to death, he said this must be a “game-changer” for President Obama and told Fox News:

Notice that he omits Obama’s word “destroy” and substitutes “contain” to make Obama sound namby-pamby. Then he invents his own formula “destroying and crushing.” No doubt, such a bold rewording will leave ISIS troops shaking in their sandals.

But the Republicans real beef with Obama is not that he doesn’t talk tough enough. They’re outraged (or pretending to be) that he does not call ISIS “Muslim extremists” and instead calls them things like a “vicious death cult.” The right-wing press now asks and reports on the Muslim question every chance they get. They knew the Kenyan was a Muslim sympathizer all along.

Why Obama won’t say “Muslim terrorist”

It’s quite simple. As usual, Obama is out to win, not to make headlines. And winning requires craft, not bluster. Obama knows (and you can too if you check the web) that calling Muslim extremists “Muslim extremists” is deeply offensive to almost every non-extreme Muslim in the world. I’m not saying they would be right to be offended. That’s just how it is.

Winning against ISIS while offending the entire Muslim world would cost us far more blood and treasure. And nothing good would come of it.

So how do I know this? I watched a video on the “Root Causes of [Muslim] Radicalization” by the Nihad Awad, the Director of CAIR, speaking at the D.C. Press Club. CAIR is America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. This organization is quick to condemn Muslim terrorists (although it would never call them that) and staunchly defends free speech and tolerance. But it has one enormous blind spot.

Awad (and surely most of CAIR) defines the Muslim religion to include only the good parts of the Muslim religion. Consequently ISIS and all other Muslim terrorists are simply not Muslims. Because real Muslims don’t do such things. So to some of the most liberal Muslims in the world, calling ISIS a Muslim terrorist organization is to say the the Muslim religion includes all sorts of horrible beliefs.

Of course, this logic is nonsense, but it is nearly universal nonsense. The crusaders were Christians and they were roughly as horrible as ISIS. (I’m not going to split hairs over their relative depravity, both groups are too awful to contemplate.) Yet, even though the crusaders vanished centuries ago, and Christianity has moved on to a far better state, when Obama mentioned that ISIS had company in the crusaders (not exactly a complement) the right-wing Republicans went ballistic. Get over it. That’s history.

So the point is that if the anti-terrorist CAIR, a much-needed ally within the US, is that touchy. Think about our allies in the middle east — the Saudis, Turkey, Jordan, and the most anti-ISIS, Iran. And if you want to see how crazy this gets check out Pakistan. There, every time the Taliban takes credit for slaughtering a bunch of innocent women, children and grandparents because they are worshiping in the wrong mosque, you hear this from fanatics around the country: It can’t have been the Taliban, Muslims wouldn’t do that. It must have been the CIA or Mossad.

So the reason Obama won’t say “Muslim terrorist”, is not what the Tea Party thinks. It’s because he wants to exterminate those bastards with the least possible loss of American life. To do that you have to get regimes like the Saudis, Iran and Turkey to fight the monster they have created. And you cannot do that by offending all the moderate Muslims in the word.

Obama knows what we are up against. Code Pink and the Republicans, different though they are, share a similar naivete about the power and influence of the US and the difficulties of dealing with the Middle East. Obama is keeping us out of Iraq war III, while degrading ISIS and doing the best job possible of getting the Muslims to do some of the fighting. It’s really their war.

Pass this information on, and help stop the Republicans from dragging masses of US troops back into Iraq.