ICC Note: In a recent article released by Sen. John McCain on Fox News, the Arizona Republican accused President Obama of turning a blind eye to extremist violence against Christians, particularly in the Middle East. As a country founded on religious freedom, the United States has a moral responsibility to draft a plan of action against groups like ISIS. Sen. McCain called on President Obama to make defending religious minorities against extremism a part of Obama’s antiterrorism strategy.
06-25-2015 Washington DC (The Hill): Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on Thursday that President Obama is turning a blind eye to extremist violence against Christians overseas.
McCain argued in an op-ed published that morning that the Obama administration is particularly ignoring those persecuted by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“The Obama administration has repeatedly refused to defend religious freedom abroad and continues to ignore its devastating cost to those religious communities targeted by terrorists because of their religious beliefs,” McCain wrote in a “Fox News” article titled “Christianity under attack: US must do more to promote religious freedom.”
“While the world has been rightly outraged by the violence waged by ISIS against people of all sects, ethnicities and religions, the United States, Europe and other key allies have done little to end ISIS’s systematic efforts to drive-out and eradicate entire religious communities from their historic and sacred homelands,” he added in the article co-authored with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
McCain said that Christianity had especially suffered under the rise of ISIS and other radical Islamist groups like it.
“Throughout the Middle East and North Africa today, Christianity is under attack,” he said.
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