white-house-spokesman-us-needs-to-redouble-efforts-to-explain-the-true-tenets-of-islam

January 8, 2015 4:21 pm By Robert Spencer 99 Comments

I think this is a great idea. The White House should indeed redouble its efforts to explain what the Qur’an and Sunnah actually say. If it did this honestly, this would lead to a massive change in its foreign and domestic policies. What’s the downside?

Of course, the problem with this is that the White House is enveloped in a fog of willful ignorance about Islam’s texts and teachings, and Earnest here is only saying that they’re going to redouble their efforts to thicken that fog.

“WH: America Needs to ‘Redouble’ Effort to Explain True ‘Tenets’ of Islam,” by Daniel Halper, The Weekly Standard, January 7, 2015:

White House press secretary Josh Earnest explained to reporters today that the United States needs to “redouble” efforts to explain “what the tenets of Islam actually are.” He made the comments in response to a question about how the U.S. might respond to the terror attack today in France….
“The threat that we face is serious, but what we have is strong international cooperation with our partners around the globe to try to mitigate the threat that is posed by foreign fighters. We are working very closely with leaders in the Muslim community both at home and around the world to try to counter the violent extremist messaging that ISIL and other extremist organizations are using to try to radicalize individuals around the globe.
“There are some individuals that are using a peaceful religion and grossly distorting it, and trying to use its tenets to inspire people around the globe to carry out acts of violence. And we have enjoyed significant success in enlisting leaders in the Muslim community, like I said, both in the United States and around the world to condemn that kind of messaging, to condemn those efforts to radicalize individuals, and to be clear about what the tenets of Islamactually [sic] are. And we’re going to redouble those efforts in the days and weeks ahead.
“And obviously, we’re still trying to figure out exactly, like I said, who’s responsible for this attack in Paris, what their motivations are. But as a general matter, we’re very mindful of the threat from foreign fighters and the threat — and the need to try to counter some of the extremist ideology that ISIL is propagating, using some pretty sophisticated social media strategies.”