According to President Obama, what happened today in Paris was a "senseless attack" and an example of "senseless violence." This reaction was hardly surprising. Every time there is a Jihadist attack, the Obama administration issues its standard condemnation of the "senseless act."
In fact, exactly the same language was employed when four Rabbis were killed in cold blood while praying in a synagogue in Jerusalem two months ago and similarly when a British soldier was beheaded on the streets of London last year. This tired phrase was again trotted out this past summer when three Israeli teens were kidnapped and executed and was even used when the US ambassador to Libya was shot dead in Benghazi.
Well, I am here to say that absolutely NONE of these cases were "senseless." Rather, ALL of them were premeditated acts of murder that involved detailed planning and malice aforethought. All of them were motivated by a certain ideological worldview.
To call these acts "senseless" disrespects the Jihadis who have shown again and again that they are a force to be reckoned with and trivializes the extent of the threat that their ideology poses to Western values. The recycling of this same phrase again and again is not only lazy, it is patronising, ethnocentric, contemptuous, elitist, and dangerous.
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