OPINION - Shields and Brooks 2/20/2015

"Shields and Brooks on fighting Islamic extremism, Giuliani on Obama" PBS NewsHour 2/20/2015

Excerpts

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the White House summit on fighting extremism, Jeb Bush’s foreign policy platform, Rudy Giuliani’s comments about President Obama’s upbringing and patriotism, as well as the Clintons’ foreign financial ties.
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MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist:  I think, Judy, that I think the President was right.

It is wrong to say that this is a religious movement as such.  David makes the point, I think validly so, that this is a splinter group from this religion.  Most of the victims of the Islamic State have been Muslims.  Most of the opponents are Muslims.

But it does have a theological component to it.  That’s its farm system.  That’s from whom it’s drawing.  It’s a battle of nomenclature.  I think there was a reluctance on the part of the administration to ever say it.  They have said it.  The President was very clear.

But at the same time, you want to make a distinction.  This is 26 percent of the world’s population.  And you just don’t want to give the impression, the misimpression, that this is a war against Islam.  It isn’t.  It’s a war against these people who come and call themselves the Islamic State and who do come from Islamic groups.  But I think you have to grant it is a perversion.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Mark has a point, doesn’t he?

DAVID BROOKS, New York Times:  Well, no, I think it’s a perversion because they’re so inhumane.

What’s the Pascal phrase, they try to be higher than the angels, they end up lower than the beast.  And so that’s clearly what is happening to them.  They have turned themselves into monsters.  But there was lot of monstrosity in the wars of religion in the 15th century in Europe.  They were certainly religious wars.

And so I do think you have to take the religion seriously, that these people are — it’s not like they can’t get what we want.  They want something they think is higher than what we want.  Their souls are involved.  And I’m saying you have to conceive of them as moving, as acting in a religious way.

And you have to have religious alternatives.  And they are driven by an end times ideology.  They think there’s going to be some cataclysm battle and Mohammed will come down.  And if you ignore that part of it, write it off as sort of marginal, that they are being produced by economic dysfunction, I just think you’re missing the main deal.