At the World Economic Forum last week, Secretary of State John Kerry argued that though extremists may cite Islam as a justification for terrorism, the world should refrain from using the term “Islamic radicals.” Extremism, Kerry maintained, is apart from Islam, and the millions who support or engage in violence in its name are driven by “criminal conduct rooted in alienation, poverty, thrill-seeking and other factors.”

This soothing, half-baked philosophy is cant in the Obama administration. So when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria took credit for the beheading of Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa, it shouldn’t have been surprising that the most important thing Rick Stengel, undersecretary of state for happy thoughts, could think to tweet to his followers was that there was “nothing religious about it.”