Madness

By R.P. NETTELHORST
Updated: DECEMBER 4, 2015 00:15
 In Paris on Monday, scant days after one hundred twenty people were murdered in a mass shooting in Paris, the President had the effrontery to state after the murder of three people at a Planned Parenthood in the US: “With respect to Planned Parenthood, obviously, my heart goes out to the families of those impacted. … I say this every time we’ve got one of these mass shootings: This just doesn’t happen in other countries.” (emphasis added; has he really not been paying any attention at all?  Is he really that thoughtless?).  The current occupant of the White House was then quick to condemn guns, and quick to argue for stricter gun control while the attacks in San Bernardino were ongoing.  Also on Tuesday, as the news about the attack in San Bernardino which killed fourteen was just being reported, people such as Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos were quick to explicitly blame Republicans. He tweeted “Yo GOP, kind of hard ‘keeping people safe’ when your peeps are shooting up America.”

But as it has become obvious that San Bernardino was another example of Islamic terrorism, the President and others of his party, along with their sycophants in the news media, were remarkably slow to comment.  As the day wore on Wednesday, with no official word forthcoming—for hours and hours—it seemed all the more likely to me that we were dealing with a situation that bore a greater resemblance to what happened in Paris than what had happened at Planned Parenthood. 

We are at war; it is time for the U.S. Congress to recognize reality and make a formal declaration of war against ISIS.  It is time for the occupant of the White House to decide to get serious about the problem the world faces.   It is time for the Moulitsas of the western world to wake up to reality. If nothing is done, it is only going to get worse.

I have no confidence, however, that either the White House or the U.S. Congress will actually do anything substantive.  They might, eventually, have some harsh words to offer regarding terrorism, but I suspect they, and our news sources, and commentators, will be more vocal about warnings against Islamaphobia.  Odd, really, since I don’t recall too many ordinary Americans running around shooting up Mosques or attacking Islamic preschools.  Or even suggesting the idea.  Most Americans know the difference between jihadists and ordinary Muslims, just as we know the difference between bank robbers and bank customers. But I’m sure that the President, the Congress, Moulitsas and his ilk think Islamaphobia is a bigger problem than Islamists murdering 14 Americans in San Bernardino.  Of course, Moulitsas and those like him seem unable to determine a difference between someone who kills people at a Planned Parenthood and those who think abortion is a bad thing, or between murderers in general and Republicans in particular.  So perhaps their own blinding bigotry makes them imagine that everyone else is as much a bigot as they are.