Response to Letting It Rip

(See: Just Above Sunset: Letting It Rip)

Various thoughts:

Firstly, there needs to be some followup on something Obama brought up in his speech yesterday, the part about using that phrase to describe who we're fighting:

That's the key, they tell us. We can't beat ISIL unless we call them radical Islamists. 

What exactly would using this label would accomplish? What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to trying to kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? 

The answer, is none of the above.

And while that's completely true, he may be addressing the wrong part of the equation.

In addition to asking what good using that phrase does us, somebody needs to ask Trump and his fellow Republicans what specific harm they think is done when Obama and his people don't use it. Although on the face of it, it seems they think that leaving out "Islam" ignores an important piece of the puzzle, and that putting that piece in there where it belongs helps us all focus on who the bad guys really are -- or something.

But sometimes, he (and they) allude to refusing to call a "Radical Islamic Terrorist" a "Radical Islamic Terrorist" is due to "Political Correctness" -- to which anyone actually thinking about this stuff has to ask the rhetorical question, "Huh!?!" -- or, to be more specific, "What does any of this have to do with 'Political Correctness', unless you think that we are afraid to insult the terrorist by calling him a Muslim?"

News flash: Nobody is afraid of offending the terrorists by saying they're Islamic. In fact, if anything, it's the opposite. We're afraid of not insulting them! They want us to refer to them as Islamic, and that's why we don't!

Every time someone in the west tags them with the word "Islam" anywhere in the description, they can point to it as confirmation that the west -- and, in our case, the United States -- is indeed declaring war on their religion! And who are they trying to sell that story to? Most of the Islamic world!

And if you actually want our fight to be against Islam? Then you are fighting on their side, whether you know it or not.

And that means you, Donald Trump! (I wonder if he's reading this.)

Secondly, there's what Josh Marshall brings up:

By September and October, if Trump is looking at the prospect of a shattering defeat, one that brings down much of the Republican party around him, I think it’s quite possible he manufacturers some excuse to drop out of the race to avoid that level of public humiliation. My best guess would be some argument that system is ‘rigged’ against him or the GOP hasn’t supported him enough. I’m not saying that electoral scenario is likely but I think it’s definitely possible. But if it happens, I think a Trump bailout could definitely be in the cards. Not likely. Definitely possible.

I was thinking roughly the same thing, that he's just enough of a loose screw who creates his only portable reality zone as he strides the world, and also that he might do anything to escape being called a "loser", that he'd drop out before election day.

Maybe the only thing that makes it less likely is if enough people predict ahead of time that he would do this. In addition to being a loser, he hates being predictable.

Thirdly, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus, according to the LA Times, uses the president's speech to unearth an old chestnut:

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus blamed Obama’s “hasty and politically driven withdrawal from Iraq” for creating a vacuum that allowed the rise of Islamic State in the first place.

No, no, (as been pointed out often whenever Republicans try to claim this), that's just a rewrite of history to make it conform to Republican party daydreams, so to speak. The so-called "Islamic State" traces its history back to 1999: 

The group has had various names since it was founded in 1999 by Jordanian radical Abu Musab al-Zarqawi under the name Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād (lit. "The Organisation of Monotheism and Jihad"). When in October 2004 al-Zarqawi swore loyalty to Osama bin Laden, he renamed the group Tanẓīm Qāʻidat al-Jihād fī Bilād al-Rāfidayn (lit. "The Organisation of Jihad's Base in Mesopotamia"), commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI. Although the group never called itself al-Qaeda in Iraq, this remained its informal name for many years. [Emphasis mine]

Note the year 2004, which was one short year after George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of the country. If you're looking for some president to blame the rise of ISIS on, you'd think you'd land on Bush before you got to Obama, but I guess that isn't exactly what these Republicans are trying to do.

And finally, something else that Priebus touched on yesterday:

He also suggested that Obama and Clinton had talked about gun regulation in the aftermath of the shooting in order to avoid discussing terrorism.

So in regards to all the usual fuss about whether to call the Orlando shooting "terrorism" or not, have we decided yet? And if so, did it help?

If the answer is "yes" and "yes", I beg to differ.

True, this guy went to the Islamic Center to pray several times a day and spent some time on Islamist sites online, but how far can we take this "inspired by jihadists" stuff when we hear he claimed to be a follower of Sunni Al-Nusra Front and Shi'a Hesbollah and Sunni ISIS, all at the same time?

I never like to question anyone's faith, but this sure sounds a lot like a shooter in search of a reason to do it, and certainly shouldn't be used as an example of "radical Islamic yattta-yatta" on which to base national immigration policy.

Still, whether or not this New-York-born wannabe-jihadist was "inspired" by Islamism, we do know he used an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle -- originally designed for military use -- to mow down almost 100 people, killing about half of them. The guy could have chosen some other weapon, but the fact is that the one he chose was designed for use by soldier, which made it much more fitted to the task of killing human beings, especially if bunched together.

So while there's not very strong evidence that this shooting was directly connected to so-called "Islamic terrorism", at least in a way we can do anything about, there's no doubt that the shooter chose a weapon that, had it been banned, would have been more difficult to get away with doing what he wanted to do.

In other words, it seems that Reince Priebus has been talking about terrorism in the aftermath of the shooting in order to avoid discussing gun regulation.