Terminology Won't Beat ISIS

Hillary Clinton did call it "Radical Islamic Terrorism." President Obama did not. Donald Trump insists failure to call it that should be a disqualifier. To listen to this arguing about a term, you would think the term was actually a substitute for a strategy to handle ISIS. Of course, that's laughable- ISIS won't disband just because the President does or does not call them "radical Islamic terrorists." It doesn't work that way.

To be clear here, Donald Trump would not know the first thing about how to handle ISIS if he were President. He has zero experience in dealing with terrorism, and his talk of being tough with them would simply create more ISIS. Calling them "radical Islamic terrorists" won't do anything either, at least if your goal is to actually defeat them. In fact, it will feed into their narrative- that this is a war between Islam and America.

About the only net effect of the term that I can think of is to divide us here at home. To make non-Muslims view Muslim-Americans as an "other," as someone different, as an enemy within. It will serve Trump's purpose of dividing Americans and bringing the most ignorant ones to his side of the argument. It won't help us defeat ISIS though, no matter how hard he says it. If that worked, we would have been saying "radical Christian terrorists" for a long time in America.