"[T]hat's at best unclear, if not just clearly wrong," says Jonah Goldberg.

By Jonah Goldberg

“Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state.” – President Barack Obama in his address to the nation on Wednesday. …

Is the Islamic State “not Islamic”? Moreover, is it really “clear” that it’s not Islamic?

Not even a little? Is it Islamic-ish?

If we’re talking clarity, I’d say the Islamic State is clearly not Mormon. Or Lutheran. Or Buddhist. It most certainly is not the most extreme example of Quakers gone bad ever recorded.

As for it not being Islamic, that’s at best unclear, if not just clearly wrong. And the fact that the majority of its victims are Muslim is irrelevant. Lenin and Stalin killed thousands of communists and socialists; that doesn’t mean Lenin and Stalin weren’t communists and socialists. If such terrorists who kill Muslims aren’t Muslims, why do we give them Korans when we imprison them? …

[I]t also seems flatly wrong for an American president to be declaring what is or is not Islamic – or Christian or Jewish. Given the First Amendment alone, there’s something un-American in any government official simply declaring what is or is not a religion. …

Anyone who thinks jihadism is authentically Muslim won’t change his mind because Obama (or Bush before him) says so.

In fact, maybe it’s a mistake to concede the point up front? Instead of Americans trying to persuade Muslims of the world that terrorism is un-Islamic, why shouldn’t Muslims be working harder to convince us?

Think about it. Whenever a tiny minority of bad actors hurts the reputation of its ethnicity, faith or cause by doing terrible things in the name of its ethnicity, faith or cause, the responsible thing is for the moderate, decent majority to cry “not in our name!” or “they don’t speak for us!”

That is what morally decent Jews, Christians, atheists, whites, blacks, Italians, Irish, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, socialists, environmentalists and pretty much every other classification of people I can think of do whenever their cause is hijacked or their identity besmirched. Silence may not automatically imply consent, but it does invite suspicion of consent.

To be sure, there are Muslims who have had precisely this reaction as well. But can anyone deny that the world would be a better place if more Muslims felt – and demonstrated – that terrorists were giving them a bad name?