Let Slip the Dogs of War

The dogs of war (source)

by Gaius Publius

In the wake of the horrific tragedy in Orlando, in which one man with an AR-15 assault weapon murdered 50 and wounded more than that, many public figures have made statements. Complicating the landscape is the killer's "murky ties to ISIS" (which I prefer to call by their real name, Daesh, a name they hate, by the way).

Complicating it further is the current electoral season. In that context one important statement stands out. Politico leads with this headline...

Clinton breaks from Obama, calls Orlando attack 'radical Islamism'

... but that's not the part that's most interesting. It's this (my emphasis):

Hillary Clinton on Monday broke from President Barack Obama in referring to the terrorist attack as "radical Islamism," countering Donald Trump's accusations that both she and Obama are weak on tackling terrorist threats.

In an interview with NBC's "Today" on Monday morning, Clinton said words matter less than actions, but that she didn't have a problem using the term.

"And from my perspective, it matters what we do, not what we say. It matters that we got Bin Laden, not what name we called him," Clinton said. "But if he is somehow suggesting I don't call this for what it is, he hasn't been listening. I have clearly said we face terrorist enemies who use Islam to justify slaughtering people. We have to stop them and we will. We have to defeat radical jihadist terrorism, and we will."

"And we will." This frightens me, for all the obvious anti-right-wing, "let's solve this, not provoke it further" reasons. It's not the promise to react. It's the eagerness. Eagerness makes a person ... uncareful.

"Pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers"

One should kill, if at all, reluctantly. Or so one would hope.

GP