Obama has been criticized by a lot of political observers and even Donald Trump for purposely refusing to refer to ISIS as Islamic terrorists, saying the U.S president has refused to acknowledge that the terror group use Islam to defend their wicked acts.
At a CNN presidential town hall meeting today, Obama was then asked to defend why he refused to say "Islamic" terrorism to a Gold Star mother.
"My son gave his life for acts of terrorism," audience member Tina Houchins told Obama at the meeting. "Do you still believe that the acts of terrorism are done for the self-proclaimed Islamic religious motive? And if you do, why do you still refuse to use the term ... Islamic terrorist?"
"There is no doubt, and I've said repeatedly, where we see terrorist organizations like al Qaeda or ISIL -- They have perverted and distorted and tried to claim the mantle of Islam for an excuse for basically barbarism and death," Obama explained.
"These are people who've killed children, killed Muslims, take sex slaves, there's no religious rational that would justify in any way any of the things that they do," he said. "But what I have been careful about when I describe these issues is to make sure that we do not lump these murderers into the billion Muslims that exist around the world, including in this country, who are peaceful, who are responsible, who, in this country, are fellow troops and police officers and fire fighters and teachers and neighbors and friends. If you had an organization that was going around killing and blowing people up and said, 'We're on the vanguard of Christianity.' As a Christian, I'm not going to let them claim my religion and say, 'you're killing for Christ.' I would say, that's ridiculous," Obama said.
"That's not what my religion stands for. Call these folks what they are, which is killers and terrorists," he added.Obama then said that the danger of using the term 'Islamic Terrorism' stems from when "a president or people aspiring to become president get loose with this language." to which CNN moderator Jake Tapper interjected saying he was referring to Donald Trump, but Obama denied that was the case.
Tapper interjected:
"You were clearly talking about the Republican nominee Donald Trump just then --"
"No, I wasn't," Obama dismissed Tapper swiftly. "It's not unique to the Republican nominee. Look, I'm trying to be careful, we're on a military base, I don't insert partisan politics into this. I think that there have been a number of public figures where you start hearing commentary that is dangerous. Because what it starts doing is it starts dividing us up as Americans."
Source: CNN
