The debate on this will be endless. I suspect we all know what he means, and I suspect we all know what he expects. The Saudis better pay attention. They have 4 years less a few months to make it happen. For the moment, they seem happy as hell to have a man in the White House who is not an Iranian proxy as they see it. But they seem to be having the riot act read to them.
Here is the Clarion page on this.
Item 3:
3. That means honestly confronting the crisis of Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires. And it means standing together against the murder of innocent Muslims, the oppression of women, the persecution of Jews and the slaughter of Christians.
Most of the speech used vague, relative terms like “terrorism” and “extremism.” The focus was almost entirely on ISIS and Iran. But then came this paragraph. President Trump identified the enemy not just as Islamist terrorist groups, but the Islamist extremism foundation necessary for those groups to manifest.
Of special note is the line about “persecution of Jews.” This was not stated with some moral equivalence about how Israel shares blame for stifling the nationalist aspirations of Palestinians. No, Trump identified anti-Semitism as a central problem outside of the context of Israel. That omission is powerful.
The identification of the enemy as Islamist extremism is refreshing, but as Dr. Daniel Pipes points out, “one statement does not a policy make.” Even Obama uttered the word “jihadist” on a few rare occasions.
The framing of the enemy as Islamism should have been the focal point of the speech, rather than waiting until the middle and the end to use the term. What should have followed was a strategy, with the sticks and carrots, to uproot the sustainers of the ideology so it dissipates into history. A question is left hanging, “Now what? What changes?”
This appears to be a video of the whole speech:
Although I have not seen it all yet, I look forward to comparing it to Obama’s Cairo speech, of which I did an analysis some years ago.
Our so called friends in the Arabs community have a limited amount of time to prove that they are our friends, they will have to show real actions against the jihadists in their countries not just the lib service that they have done so far. They have to decide which side they are going to be on, no more straddling the line and helping both sides.
President Trump appealed directly to the most universal and fundamental aspirations of humankind—the aspirations we all share: the desire for peace, the primacy of love, the need for meaningful work, the possibility of success, the joy of altruism, the acute concern for our loved ones, the joy of creating and imagining the possibilities presented by the future, the light of optimism, etc. Trump wasn’t so much ignoring the evil of the Saudis as he was, like another great president before him, appealing to the ‘better angels of their nature.’ And his speech ‘took the lumps out’; it allowed the Saudis to preserve their dignity.
It also assumed that the Saudis were acting in good faith; it put them on the spot to live up to expectations, to rise to the challenge and act like bigger people.
This was a brilliant speech. One for the ages. It is certain to resonate throughout the Muslim world.
So far as I have made it into the speech, I fully agree with every word of what you say.
Yeah, but what about the crap about Assad? Can someone explain this nonsense? It marred a perfectly good speech.
what about the crap about Assad?
A bone to his sunni audience after he just told them that they have to shit or get shot off the pot.
I call bullshit on this speech. He went too soft on these Arab bastards. Maybe Manchester was their reply.
Great interpretation of his words ahem. Many were squirming in their robes. What are they to do though? Give up Islams duty? Trump has put them out on a branch and left it to them to saw it through (or not). I suspect they will saw it through and condemn themselves to the wages of evil. Trump trolled them well in calling the ideology of ISIS(Islam) as nothing but the creed of murder.
An excellent speech.
Yes indeed it was. Brilliant even.
myself .. i think there should have been nothing
left of SA after 9 11. Gone ..
https://freespeechdefense.net/4-mins-of-homeland-more-honest-than-the-msn/
me too.
Mark Steyn – The Unchanging of the Guard
For me, the most interesting parts of a Trump speech are his diversions from the script. Sometimes, if the speechwriter’s got a line that tickles his fancy, he’ll just riff off it for a bit. Sometimes he diverges from the prepared remarks in striking ways. This weekend in Saudi Arabia, addressing the big Islamo-schmoozefest, he did both. The President was supposed to say:
That means honestly confronting the crisis of Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires.
Instead he said:
That means honestly confronting the crisis of Islamic extremism and the Islamists and the Islamic terror – of all kinds. We must stop what they’re doing to inspire because they do nothing to inspire but kill and we are having a very profound effect if you look at what’s happened recently.
The last part is just one of those aforementioned riffs. But the substitution of “Islamic” for “Islamist” is more intriguing. The first deployment might just have been accidental. It was a long way into the speech and sometimes the eye and mouth start to wander. On the other hand, in this particular address, Trump had been unusually disciplined about staying on-script. And then he started to speak the second reference – “the Islamists” – and he seemed to catch himself and back up, to insist on reiterating: “the Islamic terror”. Not Islamist, but Islamic.[…]
more :
https://www.steynonline.com/7838/the-unchanging-of-the-guard
Good article, I only skimmed the transcript of the speech and missed the jab.
=o_o=
But I watched ‘Santa Claus Does Moscow’ again with my Russki. He said there were Orthodox Christians officiating from all the different branches. A very big deal, as some of them don’t like each other. Huge piles of money on display, like a Soviet May Day weapons parade.
Telling Islam that not everyone has forgotten their faith and those who haven’t are willing to fight for it.