Thomas Friedman, "Say It Like It Is": Obama Refuses to Link Radical Islam to Recent Atrocities

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Say It Like It Is," Thomas Friedman remarkably notes the failure of the Obama administration to acknowledge the link between radical Islam and recent atrocities that have captured headlines across the globe:

"When you don’t call things by their real name, you always get in trouble. And this administration, so fearful of being accused of Islamophobia, is refusing to make any link to radical Islam from the recent explosions of violence against civilians (most of them Muslims) by Boko Haram in Nigeria, by the Taliban in Pakistan, by Al Qaeda in Paris and by jihadists in Yemen and Iraq. We’ve entered the theater of the absurd."

Friedman, however, is also careful in ascribing the blame:

"I am all for restraint on the issue, and would never hold every Muslim accountable for the acts of a few. But it is not good for us or the Muslim world to pretend that this spreading jihadist violence isn’t coming out of their faith community. It is coming mostly, but not exclusively, from angry young men and preachers on the fringe of the Sunni Arab and Pakistani communities in the Middle East and Europe."

Radical Islam is supported only by a few rotten apples? Yeah, right! Recent polls have revealed significant support for ISIS among Muslims in France, the UK, and the West Bank and Gaza.

Sorry, Tom, but these statistics tell us that support for ISIS within Islam is anything but marginal. As you yourself observed in your prior Times op-ed, "a million-person march against the jihadists across the Arab-Muslim world, organized by Arabs and Muslims for Arabs and Muslims" would cause the world to feel that "the jihadist threat was finally being seriously confronted."

Such a march is not materializing.