Anne Patterson: "Let's Don't Conflate Islamists With Terrorists"

If you don't know who Anne Patterson is, you need to in order to understand the context of what she said yesterday  in Qatar. Patterson is the former US Ambassador to Egypt. She is no longer there because the Egyptians were ready to ride her out on a rail after the fall of Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood government, which she supported under the direction of President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary "Hard Choices" Clinton.


Get the picture?


Yesterday, she fired a shot across the bow of the current Egyptian government by castigating those that seek to conflate Islamism with terrorism.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/state-dept-official-advises-against-conflating-islamists-terrorists

For those who don't know, Islamists are not exactly the same as Muslims. Islamists are generally defined as those Muslims who seek to make Islam dominant over other religions and install Sharia law. Terrorists would certainly be classified as Islamists, but not all Islamists are terrorists. There are many Islamists including in the West that seek to make Islam dominant through peaceful means, immigration, demographic change, conversion, outreach, and use of laws in the West. To those in the counter jihad movement Islamism even without violence is dangerous because imposition of sharia law would strip away many freedoms that we enjoy in the West.

It's unfortunate that Anne Patterson still has her hand in Middle Eastern affairs. Hopefully, if we ever get a decent administration in Washington, they can reassign her to sit on the Arctic Circle desk at Foggy Bottom.