Obama Does Not Grasp Terrorism

Obama doesn’t get terrorism. He never has. He doesn’t grasp the nature of terrorism, or why it’s wrong, and it truly doesn’t seem to bother him that people are killed. Indeed, he’s bothered more that his political “enemies” would disagree with his agenda than he is by the brutal murders committed by terrorists.

The evidence that Obama doesn’t see terrorists for what they are has been building since the beginning of his administration. Indeed:

● We all know about Team Obama’s attempt to rename “terrorism” to downplay it. Specifically, they tried to substitute the term “man made disaster” and they ordered Federal agencies to stop using the term “terrorism.”

● We know that Obama took a couple of days before he even bothered acknowledging the Christmas bomber, because the potential murder of Americans wasn’t as important to him as his vacation.

● We’ve seen his advisors pretend to be entirely stumped by what could possibly be motivating Islamic terrorists. . . the same Islamic terrorists who issue statements saying they are acting in the name of Islam against the enemies of Islam. Yep, no clue.

● We’ve seen Team Obama act as if they had no idea why Islamic terrorist Hassan shot and killed American soldiers, and they cautioned us not to jump to conclusions.

● We’ve seen them all-but-ignore an Islamic murderer who killed an Army recruiter while they played up a lone, lunatic gunman who shot up the Holocaust Museum.

● We’ve seen Obama more concerned about Americans theoretically retaliating against Muslims than he was that Islamic terrorists were killing Americans.

Now we have more evidence that Obama does not understand terrorism from Obama’s response to the New Year attacks in Alexandria, Egypt and Nigeria. Consider this:

The statement is 205 words long but does not once mention Islam, except to say that Muslims were injured. This is like condemning "the deaths of some people in Poland in 1939, including some Germans." The statement also never once calls these terrorists “terrorists,” it calls them “perpetrators” and “those who carry out these attacks,” which demonstrates an incredible degree of detachment in Obama's mind between the actions and the responsibility for those actions. Indeed, this is eerily close to suggesting that the events happened without intent.

Now compare this with Obama’s standard rhetoric where he describes Americans who disagree with him as “those who oppose” and where he called them "enemies." Rhetorically, he is actually describing his political opponents in similar or harsher terms than he uses to describe the terrorists. This shows a disturbing sense of equivalence in Obama's mind between political opposition and terrorism.

Further, when it comes to describing what the terrorists have done, Obama says only that these “perpetrators” have “no respect for human life or dignity.” No sh~t? So it’s their lack of respect that matters. . . not the fact they have brutally and indiscriminately killed and maimed people to impose their sick beliefs? Not only should this shock you in terms of how wrong Obama’s views are, i.e. he does not understand what is actually wrong with terrorism, but it should also shock you that he is again treating terror and political opposition as morally equivalent. Indeed, Obama has often spoken of "those who oppose" lacking respect for human life and dignity because they oppose his policies. In other words, he's using the same rhetoric to describe terrorist acts as he routinely uses to describe his opponents' opposition to his policies -- opponents that he often describes as hostage takers. . . a harsher description than he's willing to use on terrorists.

Moreover, Obama says that these attacks “demonstrate the bankrupt vision of those who carry out these attacks.” Bankrupt vision? Are you kidding me? This is political verbiage that is used by wonks to describe the political policies of the other side. This is not something you say about terrorists, anymore than you say it about serial killers or bank robbers or hostage takers: terrorists have no vision and they are offering no agenda. They are seeking to kill enough and to terrorize enough that their targets submit to their will. There is no vision. And for Obama to suggest that they are even offering a vision shows that he fundamentally does not understand what terrorists are.

Additionally, to describe this “vision” as “bankrupt” shows even further the moral equivalency Obama sees between politics and terrorism. “Bankrupt” is a term that means “without value” or “worthless,” it does not imply any moral distinction -- that's why people say "morally bankrupt" when they want to imply a value judgment. For Obama to use the term “bankrupt” when Obama should be using a term like “evil” shows that Obama does not see terrorism as morally wrong. . . he just sees their cause as flawed.

So consider what Obama has said here. He fails to call these terrorists “terrorists,” he fails to make any reference to them being Islamic terrorists, and he describes their crime as being a lack of respect for human life and dignity or as having a viewpoint or agenda that lacks merit. That’s not how anyone should describe the cold-blooded, intentional murder of strangers to further the goal of forcing a society to submit to their own twisted beliefs.

This tells us that Obama fundamentally lacks an understanding of what terrorism is or why it’s wrong. And if he can't understand that, then he is the one who has no real respect for human life or dignity. Add in that Obama repeatedly demonstrates that he sees an equivalence between terrorists and his political opponents, and in fact reserves harsher rhetoric for his political opponents, and we are left with only one conclusion: there is something fundamentally wrong within this man.