Our politically correct government has made it easier to tolerate Islamists killing children, something we abhor but conveniently cannot stop. We insist this kind of violence can never happen again, a hollow gesture after over a hundred kids were killed at a school in a town on the other side of the globe that most Americans have never heard of. We know too well that it will happen again. Why do we refuse to condemn the religion behind the killing?
There are always going to be vapid diplomatic reasons for separating Islamists who commit atrocities from their religion. Calling the killers of children “terrorists” doesn’t exonerate Islam from responsibility unless we want it to. That’s the essence of being politically correct. The obvious is ignored so it doesn’t cause offense.
Politically correct means Islamists aren’t killing children
In response to the news that the Taliban was responsible for killing children in Peshawar, the president affirmed that our country “condemns in the strongest possible terms”1 what happened. We got the same canned comments from John Kerry, who said that the killers “serve a dark and almost medieval vision.”2 Kerry proclaimed:
This act of terror angers and shakes all people of conscience, and we condemn it in the strongest terms possible. The perpetrators must be brought to justice.3
The truth is that the Taliban serves Islam. If there is any conscience behind killing children it is an Islamic conscience, something our diplomats and politicians refuse to understand. Politically correct means we don’t like to use terrorist and Islamist in the same sentence unless it is to deny any connection.
When Mohammed is insulted, no matter how slight or imperceptible the offense, the Muslim world erupts (see: Why America Has No Death to Allah Day). This didn’t happen after the army school killings. No one expected it to. Our leaders don’t ask the Muslim world why, because questioning the values of Islam is an unforgivable affront to correctness. Does that mean killing children is something we need to get used to?
Secretary of State Kerry still seems to believe that Islamic terrorism comes from a few isolated radicals:
There’s always been a threat of lone wolves, from the day that those terrorists drove their airplanes into the World Trade Center and crashed in Pennsylvania, and crashed into the Pentagon, we’ve had warnings of lone wolf activities.4
Radical Islamists aren’t lone wolves. They are bound together by their religion and too often their intolerance for other beliefs. The International Religious Freedom Report for 2013 described the anti-Christian hatred in Egypt:
Islamist-led mobs carried out acts of violence, intimidation, compelled expulsions, and punishment against Christians, especially in Upper Egypt. Attacks on Christians spiked August 14 -17 when, according to NGO reports, assailants attacked at least 42 churches in various governorates, in addition to schools, orphanages, and other Christian-affiliated facilities. The violence resulted in the looting and destruction of at least 37 churches and the deaths of at least six Christians who were targeted because of their religious identity.5
The report didn’t use the word “terrorist.” It talked about Islamist-led mobs.
No Islamist outrage over killing children?
When Islamist violence explodes our leaders babble about values, religious freedom, and tolerance (see: Freedom of Religion Protects Evil Spread by Islam). There are an estimated 1.6 billion followers of Islam worldwide, 23% of the world’s population. Nearly 3.5 million are in North America6 If our government is correct and most are peaceful, law-abiding, and share our belief in the value of life, where is the outrage over killing children? Kerry talks about lone wolves. Obama talks about terrorists killing children, remarking that “No religion condones the killing of innocents.”7 Whether or not Islam condones murder is something for the theologians to debate. The larger question is how we can justify our own flagrant hypocrisy. Is it political correctness that leads our president and one time leader of the free world to claim that “Islam teaches peace”8 and our Secretary of State to make this claim about religious freedom?
nations that protect this fundamental freedom will have the partnership of the United States and the abiding commitment of the American people as we seek to advance freedom of religion worldwide.9
Have a look at our government’s newest International Religious Freedom Report and ask yourself how the Islamist nations described support Kerry’s views. Then ask how our government can justify its position on Islam out of anything but its stubborn, flawed insistence on political correctness.
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