U.S. Rep. Tulsi聽Gabbard turned up to slam the Obama administration for not acknowledging聽what “Islamic extremism” really is.
Gabbard, the Hawaii congresswoman and聽Iraq war veteran, told Fox host聽Greta Van Susteren, “The first thing we have to understand, it’s not just about words, it’s not about semantics, it’s really about having a real true understanding of who our enemy is and how important that is, that we have to understand what their motivation is and what their ideology is, this radical Islamic ideology that’s fueling them.”
Gabbard, who recently leveled similar criticism against President Barack Obama 鈥 she argues that he, too, has not accurately identified American’s enemy 鈥斅爄s now focused聽on fresh remarks from Secretary of State John Kerry.聽Here’s what聽she told Van Susteren Tuesday:
Just a couple of days ago, Secretary Kerry said in a speech that ISIS and al Qaeda are engaging in, quote, “criminal conduct rooted in alienation, poverty, thrill seeking and other factors.” Now if we really look at what he’s saying and if that’s really the cause, then the solution would be to give them a trophy, give them a hug, give them a good paying job, $10,000, and a skateboard so they can go and get their thrills and say, OK, great, they’re going to be happy and they won’t be fighting anymore.
That’s not the case. Unfortunately, we have people who are living in poverty all around the world, people who have this same feeling of alienation from their government, but they’re not terrorists. So we’ve got to look at what their ideology is and how that’s fueling these tragic attacks that keep occurring.
Gabbard’s pointed views received praise from other conservative media.
“Finally, someone on the Left gets it,” wrote . “You won鈥檛 hear me say that often, but when someone is right, they鈥檙e right.聽Iraq War veteran and current Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI-2) didn鈥檛 mince words in explaining how she feels about the Obama Administration鈥檚 insistence that we only refer to terrorists as 鈥渧iolent extremists鈥 and not radical Islamists.”
Meanwhile, John McCormack’s blog in The Weekly Standard : “Dem Congresswoman Mocks Kerry’s Terrorism Speech.”
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About the Author
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Chad Blair is the politics editor for Civil Beat. You can reach him by email at cblair@civilbeat.org or follow him on Twitter at .