Tonight’s Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines will no doubt feature questions about the Paris attacks that have left at least 153 dead and led to the first curfew in Paris since the Nazi occupation during World War II. French President Francois Hollande has concluded the attacks were the work of ISIS.
Obviously, the candidates should condemn the attacks. But in the course of asking whether the Obama administration’s policy against terrorism needs sharpening or toughening, the candidates should also be asked if they agree it’s time the Obama administration drop its reluctance to condemn Islamic terrorism by name (remember the Fort Hood massacre was characterized as “workplace violence.”) If you can not call something by its proper name, you cannot properly fight it.
Last January, after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris left 17 dead, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared:
“We are at war — not a war against a religion, not a war against a civilization, but to defend our values, which are universal. It’s a war against terrorism and radical Islamism, against everything that would break our solidarity, our liberty, our fraternity.”
We must not forget that France is a difficult position in challenging the jihadists, which is why they are trying so hard to intimidate it. France has the largest Muslim population in Europe (7.5 percent of the population) at the same time over 10,000 French troops are currently deployed in hot spots that feature Muslim populations – over 3,000 in Western Africa, 2,000 in Central Africa and 3,200 in Iraq.