The former director of the CIA said Thursday that President Obama “looks scared” to called members of al Qaeda, the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations “Islamic.”
When asked by CNN host Don Lemon if Mr. Obama was too politically correct, Mr. Woolsey said, “The President is sort of a world champion of political correctness, and I think that he’s let it really run too far here. It might be different if he was taking a stern position in the Middle East and [other places] that are causing huge problems,” Mediaite reported Thursday.
Mr. Lemon then asked, “Does it affect the strategy? The president said that we have to address the root causes of radicalism — poverty, the lack of education and so on.”
“You need to address the root causes as well, under these circumstances, as let people know that you can fight. And you have to fight effectively — and he’s not doing that. […] Basically, he looks scared. He looks as if he’s afraid of using the adjective ’Islamic’ to describe the terrorists. And that doesn’t mean that all terrorists are Muslims, and it doesn’t mean that all Muslims are terrorists. That’s nuts. If you can’t do that, you look like you’re scared,” Mr. Woolsey replied.
Mr. Obama has said that calling terror group’s like al Qaeda “Islamic” gives them a religious authenticity that they do not deserve.
“These terrorists are desperate for legitimacy, and all us have a responsibility to refute the notion that groups like ISIL somehow represent Islam, because that is a falsehood that embraces the terrorist narrative,” the president said Thursday at the State Department, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
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• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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