Why Won't The White House Name Islamic Extremism?

White House press secretary Josh Earnest repeatedly refused to name Islamic extremism as the ideology behind recent terrorist attacks.

BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Mon, January 19, 2015



The White House has refused to name Islamic extremism directly as the motivating factor behind the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, instead referring to the ideological motivations indirectly.

Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary was asked in a briefing why the White House will not speak about Islamic extremism. A reporter asked him “the leader of France, your ally in this effort, has put a name on this ideology, which he calls “radical Islam.” You have bent over backwards to not ever say that. There must be a reason.“

He responded “I certainly wouldn’t want to be in a position where I’m repeating the justification that they have cited that I think is completely illegitimate, right? That they have invoked Islam to try to justify their attacks.” Earnest here is categorically refusing to accept the terrorists’ own explanation for their attacks, seemingly on the grounds that attempting to understand the motivations that terrorists themselves put forward is tantamount to a tacit acceptance or even support for their views.

On being pressed, Earnest detailed two reasons for not wanting to name the ideology behind worldwide Islamist terrorism.

“The first is accuracy” he said. “We want to describe exactly what happened. These are individuals who carried out an act of terrorism, and they later tried to justify that act of terrorism by invoking the religion of Islam and their own deviant view of it.”

This proffered explanation is completely devoid of any context or teleological purpose. It is also deceptive. An act of terrorism is only that because of its connection to a political ideology, the advancement of which the spread of terror is supposed to aid. There is no such thing as an act of terrorism shorn of an attendant ideology, that is simply murder. Seemingly the White House is attempting to construct the idea of  “an act of terrorism” in a way that removes any need for the state to identify the causal ideology. That way it is not part of a broader trend, it simply is. Furthermore, Earnest places the act of terrorism first, arguing that the explanations only came afterwards, as if the true goal is wanton slaughter, with any explanation sufficing afterwards in an attempt to cover it up. This line of thinking is palpably false.

Earnest goes on “The second is this is an act that was roundly condemned by Muslim leaders. Again, I’m describing to you the reasons why we have not chosen to use that label because it doesn't seem to accurately describe what had happened. We also don't want to be in a situation where we are legitimizing what we consider to be a completely illegitimate justification for this violence, this act of terrorism.”

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