The Obama White House framed Quran burning as a security threat rather than bigotry
Evidence
As this “debate” unfolded, Obama qualified his earlier statements in support of the project by stating that while he affirms the religious rights of all people, he was not commenting “on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there.” Obama was quickly adapting to right-wing pressure; when Gainesville, Florida, minister Terry Jones announced his plan to burn the Quran on September 11, Obama did not argue that such an act was offensive, that it constituted an attack on religious freedom, or that it was reminiscent of Ku Klux Klan cross burnings in the South, but that it threatened “national security” and that it would put US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan “in harm’s way”: “This could increase the recruitment of individuals who’d be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities.” Obama’s summoning of the specter of suicide bombers in US cities only gave further ground to the new McCarthyites. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 662
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- QUESTION: Lee: Kurzweil? No — actually worth chasing which liberal president’s framing gets adopted as national security rather than civil rights