Proud of Hillary Clinton not succumbing to the false narrative on Islam
Hillary Clinton should make most Liberals and Progressives proud for her interview with George Stephanopoulos. Whether you are a Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley supporter, her refusal to allow the false Right Wing narrative to smear Muslims in general is important. The following exchange with Stephanopoulos is probative.
George Stephanopoulos: You put — you’ve also been reluctant to say we’re fighting radical Islam. And I wonder why not.
Isn’t it a mistake not to say it plain, that the violence is being pushed by radical elements in that faith?
Hillary Clinton: Well, that’s a different thing. Radical elements who use a dangerous and distorted view of Islam to promote their jihadist ambitions, I’m fine with that. I say it all the time and I go after Islamic, too.
George Stephanopoulos: So what’s the problem with radical Islam?
Hillary Clinton: Well, the problem is that that sounds like we are declaring war against a religion. And that, to me, is, number one, wrong but…
George Stephanopoulos: Even though the qualifier radical is there?
Hillary Clinton: No, because, look, that — you know enough about religion, you’ve studied it. And there are radicals, people who believe all kinds of things in every religion in the world.
I don’t want to do that because, number one, it doesn’t do justice to the vast numbers of Muslims in our own country and around the world who are peaceful people.
Number two, it helps to create this clash of civilizations that is actually a recruiting tool for ISIS and other radical jihadists who use this as a way of saying we’re in a war against the West. You must join us. If you are a Muslim, you must join us.
No. If you’re a law-abiding, peace-loving Muslim, you need to be with us against those who are distorting Islam.
George Stephanopoulos: Can you say today that we’re winning the fight against ISIS?
Hillary Clinton: I could say today that we have a new set of threats. You know, if — if you go back and look where we were with al Qaeda in 9/11, there’s no doubt bin Laden and his lieutenants were planning to carry out additional attacks, if they possibly could. And they did in places like Madrid and London, etc.
So we have dealt with that threat. It doesn’t go away. We haven’t eliminated it, but we’ve dealt with it.
Now, we have to turn our attention to the very sophisticated propagation of this new threat from ISIS.
While Clinton has tended to be much too hawkish for some and much too close to Wall Street for many, Bernie Sanders has forced her to be more middle-class centric. If it turns out that Hillary Clinton is the nominee of the Democratic Party, all can rest assured that an engaged Progressive grassroots can keep her more hawkish and Wall Street proclivities in check.