Rep. McSally: ‘Very Bizarre’ that Obama Spends So Much Time Avoiding ‘Islam’ Label

MCSALLY: “The administration is spending more time explaining that somehow they’re not going use certain words than they are actually putting a coherent strategy together to fight this threat that is a generational threat that we see with ISIS. We are also seeing it with al-Shabaab. AQAP, AQAM, Boko Haram. I’m not sure if they got the memo but these all call themselves radical Islamists. Their roots of what they have in their extreme version of terrorist organizations are all in Islam. So we need to start with the facts and address the strategy in a way that uses all elements of national power but actually calls it what it is. It’s very bizarre to me that they are spending so much time not calling it what it is as oppose to actually designing a coherent strategy. ”

HEMMER: “What the president would say is he knows that’s a recruiting tool for the jihadists and doesn’t want to contribute to that. The other argument he will make is that he doesn’t want to elevate this group to defame the religion. What’s wrong with that argument?”

MCSALLY: “They are already using a recruiting tool and using the Internet and calling jihadists; there are tens of thousands of foreign fighters that are flowing into the ISIL controlled territory plus  other areas of failed states, and Libya, Somalia and other places. So they are already using it as a recruiting tool. Reality is this is a hijacked version of Islam and we need to call it what it is. And we also need to be putting pressure on moderate Muslim leaders to also call it what it is and to address within their own religion the fact that they have a problem that is global, it’s generational, and they need to be helping us to counter this violent extremism.”