Ben Carson said Sunday that he believes Islam to be inconsistent with the Constitution and therefore he could not support a Muslim candidate for president. “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” he told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “I absolutely would not agree with that.”

This rancid sentiment was on display at Trump’s town hall meeting in New Hampshire last week, at which a questioner began by stating a premise: “We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know, he’s not even an American.”

(…) They've got some pretty good reasons: Calling it the Islamic State helps ISIS sell its message, and helps insult Muslims to boot.

The name "Islamic State," as opposed to ISIS or Daesh, is at its heart a propaganda tool. By claiming to be the caliphate, ISIS is implying that it's the only state true Muslims should obey: Around the world, they should pledge loyalty to the one and only Islamic State. This message is part of how ISIS recruits and thus keeps fighting.

Hence why British and French authorities are moving to the more derogatory Daesh, which doesn't imply that the group is either a real government or an authentic representation of Islamic thought.

"Islamic State, ISIL, and ISIS [give] legitimacy to a terrorist organization that is not Islamic nor has it been recognised as a state," 120 British MPs wrote in a letter to Lord Tony Hall, the director-general of the BBC.

Any time there is an attack on civilians in the post-9/11 West, demagogues immediately blame it on Muslims. They frequently lack evidence, but depend on the blunt force of anti-Muslim bigotry to bolster their accusations.

Actual evidence, on the other hand, shows that less than two percent of terrorist attacks from 2009 to 2013 in the E.U. were religiously motivated. In 2013, just one percent of the 152 terrorist attacks were religious in nature; in 2012, less than three percent of the 219 terrorist attacks were inspired by religion.

The vast majority of terrorist attacks in these years were motivated by ethno-nationalism or separatism. In 2013, 55 percent of terrorist attacks were ethno-nationalist or separatist in nature; in 2012, more than three-quarters (76 percent) of terrorist attacks were inspired by ethno-nationalism or separatism.
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Clampdown on Muslims and refugees
Every time Islamic extremists carry out an attack, the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are expected to collectively apologize; it has become a cold cliché at this point.

Who benefits from such clampdown on Muslims and refugees?

Two primary groups: One, Islamic extremist groups themselves, who use the clampdown as “evidence” that there is supposedly no room for Muslims in the secular West that has declared war on Islam; and two, Europe’s growing far-right, who will use the attacks as “evidence” that there is supposedly no room for Muslims in the secular West that should declare war on Islam.

Meanwhile, in a brown part of the world, as the attacks began in Paris, Lebanon was just emerging from a National Day of Mourning, after 43 people were killed and 200 more were injured during a series of coordinated suicide bombings in Beirut.

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The sad reality is that these attacks will increase. You can’t stop five or eight people with a gun and a twisted ideology, just as you can’t stop an American or Australian military with a commercial, strategic and political interest in slaughter.

Westerners are finally being given just a small taste of the constant fear that people from other nations have endured for generations. So solidarity with, and compassion for, the French is a good thing.

But solidarity and compassion for the victims of terrorism everywhere is even better, in particular those who’ve fallen victim to the terrorism sponsored in all our names.