{"id":15118,"date":"2017-10-12T18:43:13","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T18:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/?p=15118"},"modified":"2018-12-22T15:21:54","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T15:21:54","slug":"if-only-stephen-paddock-were-a-muslim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/if-only-stephen-paddock-were-a-muslim\/","title":{"rendered":"If Only Stephen Paddock Were a Muslim"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thomas L. Friedman<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim \u2026 If only he had shouted \u201cAllahu akbar\u201d before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas \u2026 If only he had been a member of ISIS \u2026 If only we had a picture of him posing with a Quran in one hand and his semiautomatic rifle in another \u2026<\/p>\n

If all of that had happened, no one would be telling us not to dishonor the victims and \u201cpoliticize\u201d Paddock\u2019s mass murder by talking about preventive remedies.<\/p>\n

No, no, no. Then we know what we\u2019d be doing. We\u2019d be scheduling immediate hearings in Congress about the worst domestic terrorism event since 9\/11. Then Donald Trump would be tweeting every hour \u201cI told you so,\u201d as he does minutes after every terror attack in Europe, precisely to immediately politicize them. Then there would be immediate calls for a commission of inquiry to see what new laws we need to put in place to make sure this doesn\u2019t happen again. Then we\u2019d be \u201cweighing all options\u201d against the country of origin.<\/p>\n

But what happens when the country of origin is us?<\/p>\n

What happens when the killer was only a disturbed American armed to the teeth with military-style weapons that he bought legally or acquired easily because of us and our crazy lax gun laws?<\/p>\n

Then we know what happens: The president and the Republican Party go into overdrive to ensure that nothing happens. Then they insist \u2014 unlike with every ISIS-related terror attack \u2014 that the event must not be \u201cpoliticized\u201d by asking anyone, particularly themselves, to look in the mirror and rethink their opposition to common-sense gun laws<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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So let\u2019s review: We will turn the world upside down to track down the last Islamic State fighter in Syria \u2014 deploying B-52s, cruise missiles, F-15s, F-22s, F-35s and U-2s. We will ask our best young men and women to make the ultimate sacrifice to kill or capture every last terrorist. And how many Americans has the Islamic State killed in the Middle East? I forget. Is it 15 or 20? And our president never stops telling us that when it comes to ISIS, defeat is not an option, mercy is not on the menu, and he is so tough he even has a defense secretary nicknamed \u201cMad Dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when fighting the N.R.A. \u2014 the National Rifle Association, which more than any other group has prevented the imposition of common-sense gun-control laws \u2014 victory is not an option, moderation is not on the menu and the president and the G.O.P. have no mad dogs, only pussycats.<\/p>\n

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And they will not ask themselves to make even the smallest sacrifice \u2014 one that might risk their seats in Congress \u2014 to stand up for legislation that might make it just a little harder for an American to stockpile an arsenal like Paddock did, including 42 guns, some of them assault rifles \u2014 23 in his hotel room and 19 at his home \u2014 as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition and some \u201celectronic devices.\u201d Just another deer hunter, I guess.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

On crushing ISIS, our president and his party are all in. On asking the N.R.A. for even the tiniest moderation, they are AWOL. No matter how many innocents are fatally shot \u2014 no matter even that one of their own congressional leaders was critically wounded playing baseball \u2014 it\u2019s never time to discuss any serious policy measures to mitigate gun violence.<\/p>\n

And in the wake of last month\u2019s unprecedented hurricanes in the Atlantic \u2014 that wrought over $200 billion of damage on Houston and Puerto Rico, not to mention smaller cities \u2014 Scott Pruitt, Trump\u2019s head of the Environmental Protection Agency, also told us that it was not the time to discuss \u201cthe cause and effect\u201d of these superstorms and how to mitigate their damage. We need to focus on helping the victims, he said. But for Pruitt, we know, it\u2019s never time to take climate change seriously.<\/p>\n

To take ISIS seriously abroad, but then to do nothing to mitigate these other real threats to our backyards, concert venues and coastal cities, is utter madness.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also corrupt. Because it\u2019s driven by money and greed \u2014 by gunmakers and gun sellers and oil and coal companies, and all the legislators and regulators they\u2019ve bought and paid to keep silent. They know full well most Americans don\u2019t want to take away people\u2019s rights to hunt or defend themselves. All we want to take away is the right of someone to amass a military arsenal at home and in a hotel room and use it on innocent Americans when some crazy rage wells up inside him. But the N.R.A. has these cowardly legislators in a choke hold.<\/p>\n

What to do?<\/p>\n

Forget about persuading these legislators. They are not confused or underinformed. They are either bought or intimidated. Because no honest and decent American lawmaker would look at Las Vegas and Puerto Rico today and say, \u201cI think the smartest and most prudent thing to do for our kids is to just do nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

So there is only one remedy: Get power. If you are as fed up as I am, then register someone to vote or run for office yourself or donate money to someone running to replace these cowardly legislators with a majority for common-sense gun laws. This is about raw power, not persuasion. And the first chance we have to change the balance of power is the 2018 midterm elections. Forget about trying to get anything done before then. Don\u2019t waste your breath.<\/p>\n

Just get power. Start now.<\/p>\n

source :https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/10\/03\/opinion\/stephen-paddock-las-vegas-terrorism.html?mwrsm=Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas L. Friedman If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim \u2026 If only he had shouted \u201cAllahu akbar\u201d before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas \u2026 If only he had been a member of ISIS \u2026 If only we had a picture of him posing with a Quran in one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,33],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}