The propaganda value of such statements can hardly be overstated. The inaccuracy, unfairness and irrelevance of the statements should be apparent to any informed person. As to the Crusades, they were a response many centuries ago to a threat similar to today’s. Radical Islamists were murdering Christians, and Christians (mostly Roman Catholic Christians) appealed to Pope Urban II for protection.

Under pressure, he finally sent crusaders to fight and protect those being victimized. Regarding slavery in the U.S., which Mr. Obama also mentioned, did he forget that it was evangelical Christians in both England and America who passionately led the fight for abolition?

The present-day radical Islamist terrorists, whose actions Obama is indifferently tolerating, are raping 10-year-old girls, crucifying little boys, murdering the moms and dads of little children while they are made to watch, burying children alive, beheading reporters and humanitarians.

If, instead of trying to placate an enraged citizenry with irrelevant comparisons, our president would begin to be the leader he was elected to be and call the outraged world’s armies together and stop the barbarism. How many more little girls have to be raped, little boys buried alive and schoolchildren machine-gunned down before our president stops with the moral equivalency nonsense and saves some precious human lives?

The Rev. Richard L. Shaw

Calvary Chapel of Monmouth County

Atlantic Highlands
http://www.app.com/story/opinion/readers/2015/02/12/letter-obama-misses-mark-moral-equivalency/23360399/