Having spent some years living in Muslim countries and fighting terrorism, I always cock an eyebrow when I hear someone like Secretary of State John Kerry speak in the wake of the Paris attacks and say, “This is not about a clash of civilizations…” Secretary Kerry’s statements tracked closely with the administration’s oft-repeated narrative that this has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with Islam. President Obama condemned the recent attacks in Paris noting that they were against, “… the universal values that we share…”
What universal values? Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other swaths of the Muslim world fundamentally do not believe in the same values as most Americans. They fundamentally don’t believe in freedom of religion, democracy, equal protection under the law, freedom of the press, equal rights, or social justice. They oppress women and despise diversity and liberal thinking; they are against modernity; and they destroy historical artifacts and museums. They fundamentally don’t believe in the things we hold most dear.
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