Trump responds to Barcelona attack by suggesting that mass murder of Muslims would deter terrorism – ThinkProgress

18.8.17

Trump responds to Barcelona attack by suggesting that mass murder of Muslims would deter terrorism – ThinkProgress: President Trump’s response to an attack in Barcelona, Spain that left 13 dead was to suggest that mass murdering Muslims suspected of terrorism might be a way to deter future incidents.

Trump’s initial public reaction to the attack on Thursday was a tweet that generically condemned the violence, offered U.S. help to the people of Spain, and told the Spanish people, “we love you!”

But less than an hour later, after news that the van that plowed into pedestrians was reportedly rented by a Moroccan man emerged, Trump urged his followers to “Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!”

This wasn’t the first time Trump has alluded to an Islamophobic story involving General John Joseph Pershing. During a campaign rally in February 2016, Trump shared a historically dubious tale about how Pershing, in an effort to pacify the Philippines in the years following the Spanish-American War of 1899-1902, slaughtered terrorists using bullets that had been dipped in pig’s blood.