In his interview with Chuck Todd, US Atty. Gen. Eric Holder
said that the United States is at war with terrorism and not Islam. Mr. Holder
is a professional - he's very measured in his statements for good reason and
though he mentioned radicals he purposely kept the focus on the terror aspect.
We also found it very prudent of Mr. Holder not to comment on the French
government's capabilities of what they could have done, what they knew and
didn't know prior to this week's attacks. That's the right thing to do. As
Andrea Mitchell noted later during the panel discussion, when Boston was
attacked during the marathon, people rallied around the city and we didn't ask
who didn't do what so that we can point blame.
To see the actions today of so many world leaders in Paris
was heartening. French Pres. Françoise Hollande, German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the president of the
Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, among many others standing together and
walking together is what the world needed to see.
But what concerns this column, is the statement. We
understand what the French government meant, but it's dangerous to simply say
‘radical Islam,’ for the fact that everyone's definition of ‘radical’ is
different. Reza Aslan, the religious scholar on today’s program, defined
Wahhabi-ism, the version of Islam adhered to by the Saudi royal family and
hence the religion of Saudi Arabia, as radical.
By his definition that would mean that France would be at
war with Saudi Arabia, but that's not the case of course. Does Mr. Aslan have a
point? He does, and it is that Saudi Arabia has spent millions of dollars
promoting this very conservative interpretation of Islam that manifests itself violently around the world, which is not shared by
the majority of the world’s Muslim population. Yet they have the money and the
resources to promote this, as Mr. Aslan had described.
The statement rightly comes from a place of anger, frankly.
And that's okay because it's anger at a double standard. The double standard
that the French government that, the people of France, gave this person the
right to practice whatever religion that they wanted to, gave that right to his
family, and then he turns around and kills in the name of intolerance.
We fully understand the implication of using a phrase as
‘fascism’ but really what the French government have a war against is Islamo-fascism
– a perverted interpretation of authority under the guise of religion. This is exactly how ISIS is being
described. To govern by, “follow this
religion and in the way that we interpreted or be punished or dead,” is not the
way the vast majority of the world works.
Yet, it is what ISIS and Saudi Arabia have in common, as Mr. Aslan
pointed out, but keep in mind the major difference is that the Saudis
themselves, as a government, aren’t attacking the west like IRIS. Nonetheless,
there lays the other double standard - that the west still does business with
Saudi Arabia and looks the other way when the Saudis punish someone with 1,000
lashes because that person said something that angered a priest. One could say that to stop the result
of one double standard, you have to stop the other as well.
It’s simply a point, and we’re not trying to blow things out
of proportion. As the panel
discussed, in addition to ISIS, there’s the more murderous Boko Haram in
Nigeria. Also as has been noted the attackers in Paris were trained in Yemen,
which has to be now considered an Al Qaeda stronghold. In the interview Mr.
Holder did purposely adjust the previous statement by the administration. And
that was when he said that the United States had decimated "core" Al
Qaeda in place of saying “Al Qaeda” meaning all. Either way, they are there and it needs to be confronted.
David Brooks said that commentary like what comes from Ann
Coulter (in the United States) and Charlie Hebdo is “kiddie table” type of
the stuff, meaning that their commentary is lowest common denominator and only
meant to offend. He did note that sometimes it’s worth listening to those
people, and it is good that they have a platform. This is typical David Brooks condescending commentary. Mr. Brooks also said that a magazine
like Charlie Hebdo would not exist in
the United States because it would be labeled hate speech and closed down.
However, if you are publishing a satirical magazine, one
that obviously has a readership, and you're trying to go about your day then
all of a sudden two men with Kalashnikovs burst in and shoot 12 people in the
office provoking more than one million people to rally to your cause, we would
say you don't sit at the “kiddie table.”
As we said, it was good to see so many of the world's leaders standing together, but really we need to know that they're going to stand together beyond this day and work together for all of our collective interest. Until that actually starts happening, and the hope is that today is the starting point, we’ll never stop the heinous, evil acts from reoccurring.
Panel: David Brooks, The New York Times; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Rich Lowry, The National Review; Helene Cooper, The New York Times
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