More on Washington's new Orwellian turn, in my Human Events column this week:
Good news: the war on terror is over! Charles Allen, the Department of Homeland Security’s senior intelligence official, said last week that American officials should stop calling this conflict we’re in a “war on terror,” far less the president’s term, the “global war on terror.”Why? Because it offends Muslims, of course. When they hear “terror,” you see, this hurts the feelings of peaceful non-terrorist Muslims. “[It] has nothing to do with political correctness,” insisted Allen, straining credulity well past the breaking point. “It is interpreted in the Muslim world as a war on Islam and we don’t need this.”
Why on earth would they get the idea that a “war on terror” equals a “war on Islam,” when President Bush has gone out of his way to say things like this: “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.” Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke explained: “We are at war with terrorism, and its underlying ideology -- not Islam -- and we’ve gone out of our way to make that point. In truth, war has been declared upon us.” But who has declared war against us?Of course, it wasn’t generic terrorists, or the IRA or the Tamil Tigers. Rather, it was Muslims who quote the Qur’an and the example of Muhammad to justify waging war against unbelievers.
And that is the biggest problem in how the Bush administration has behaved since 9-11, and in what the DHS people did last week. Unless we clearly and directly label the terrorists, their ideology and the nations that sponsor them correctly -- in terms of their Islamic roots -- how can we defeat them and their ideology?
In truth, Mr. Bush should mean -- and say -- that it is of Islamic jihadists he speaks when to Hizballah, Hamas and their ilk. To dismiss the Islamic content of the jihadists’ appeal to their fellow Muslims sidesteps the questions of why their version of Islam has gained such traction within the Islamic world. It leaves us with no idea why the jihadist claim to represent “true” or “pure” Islam has so much resonance among Muslims, such that armed groups are committing violence in the name of Islam in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Kashmir, Nigeria, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere around the world.
To avoid discussing or examining the Islamic element of today’s global jihad also hinders our understanding of the jihadists’ motivations. We cannot investigate what they believe and why, much less strategize on the basis of such investigations, because that will lead us to examine elements of Islam’s theology of jihad that the Department of Homeland Security would apparently rather ignore. The fundamentally wrong assumption in the DHS today is that jihad is a good thing, a holy thing, and that the jihadists have twisted its meaning it in defiance of Islamic theology and law.
They apparently believe -- again wrongly -- that if we start using different terms to refer to the jihadists and their activities -- criminals, unlawful warfare, rather than jihadists and jihad -- the moderate Muslim majority will feel empowered to rise up against them, and take back Islam.
Unfortunately that’s just a fantasy. The imperative to wage war against unbelievers in order to establish over them the hegemony of Islamic law wasn’t invented by Al-Qaeda; it is taught by all the Sunni schools of jurisprudence, and by the Shi’ites as well. The jihadist appeal to peaceful Muslims is rooted in this fact: they claim to represent Islamic purity, and as long as their claim goes unchallenged, it will continue to be effective. This doesn’t mean that every Muslim takes it seriously. But it does mean that simply waving away the Islam in Islamic terrorism is voluntarily giving up the one tool our enemies have given us to help us understand them, and counter them more effectively.
“War on terror,” however, really is a misleading term -- but not for the reasons Charles Allen thinks. The main problem with it is not that it refers to Islam: it doesn’t. But only those who value political correctness above national security would pretend that this present conflict has nothing to do with Islam. The main problem with the term “war on terror” is that it focuses exclusively on violence, at a time when the jihadists are succeeding most rapidly by a stealth jihad. In America this stealth jihad takes the form of Sharia finance initiatives, demands that Americans accommodate Islamic prayer in schools and workplaces, and much more. But “war on terror” suggests that our opponents are all simply bomb-throwers. Would that it were that simple.
In the interests of political correctness, official Washington is retreating farther and farther from reality. It’s just whistling in the dark to think that Al-Qaeda’s claim to represent Islamic purity can’t draw on genuine elements of Islamic theology that encourage bellicosity. Fantasy-based policymaking is never wise. America will be paying the price for years to come.
Bush is a very decent person who wants to put a positive spin on an ugly business. It's always possible that he really believes the tactful nonsense he spouts about Islam. In any case, I'm sure that the desire to avoid making enemies through undiplomatic discourse is part of it. There's collateral damage though, especially in confusing one's friends and allies, and failing to educate them as to the nature of the enemy.
Wasn't Winston Churchill eloquent, but blunt? He knew the enemy and spoke forthrightly to his friends. That's leadership.
Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke explained: “We are at war with terrorism, and its underlying ideology -- not Islam..."
Not Islam? Ummm, would Mr. Knocke care to elaborate on what the "underlying ideology" is that is driving the terrorists? Does it have a name? Christianity, perhaps? Nazism? Communisim? Anything?
Thats the story and they are sticking with it.
George Mc.,
You beat me to it! All that's left is for me to bang my head against my keyboard. Excuse me for a moment...
"Why? Because it offends Muslims, of course. When they hear “terror,” you see, this hurts the feelings of peaceful non-terrorist Muslims."
Couldn't care less.
BTW, if a person is a Believer in the Qur'an and it's primary theme of "Kill the Infidels until there is no more "fitna" and the world is all for Allah" (paraphrase) - then, "peaceful, non-terrorist Muslims" is a contradiction-in-terms.
As has been noted on JW before, many of this invisible group are just waiting for the Ummah to triumph, and being silent until that day. Then, we'll be hearing their gloating voices loud and clear.
Until the peaceful adherents of Islam are willing to publicly reform their religion, we ARE at war against Islam! The reformation must reshape their ideology (it's modern definition doesn't truely conform to the true spirit of a "religion") to conform to the norms of modern civilization. Were this ideology the true, unchangable word of God, (Allah) how could it have the undeniable internal contradictions? (mostly contradictions between the Medina and Mecca verses)
This reformation must denounce the duty of all muslims to be in eternal conflict with non-believers. It must denounce the eternal supremecy of sharia. It must denounce all use of violence, except in self-defense. It must include condemnation for all acts of ideological oppresion and violence, perpetrated against others. It must, in all respects, conform to the International Human Rights Statement.
Until the muslims voluntarily differentiate themselves from "the radical minority that have hijacked their religion", they give tacit approval for the very ideology they claim to condemn. It is the responsibility of the ummah to effect this reformation, not the rest of the world's responsibility! In short, if the muslims want to be accepted by modern civilizations, they must conform to the civilizational norms of modern civilization! To do otherwise condemns them to eventual destruction or the rest of the world to ideological slavery.
I'm with NamFrank on this one: If these moderate Muslms in the West are so goddam offended, let them get their pitchforks and torches and storm the gates of their local mosques and begin their own "reformation."
Til that day they find their balls, they just need to STFU.
I'm with NamFrank on this one: If these moderate Muslms in the West are so goddam offended, let them get their pitchforks and torches and storm the gates of their local mosques and begin their own "reformation."
Til that day they find their balls, they just need to STFU.
Posted by: undaunted at June 4, 2008 10:26 AM
I'm with both of you.
It must denounce all use of violence, except in self-defense.
NamFrank,
I am also in accord with what you say, but doesn't this statement give them an out? They can always say they aren't in eternal conflict with non-believers but that they have the right to defend themselves against whatever threat they perceive, to Islam and to themselves.
This allows that British "officer" to threaten Christians who dare to venture into a Muslim neighborhood. They can be threatened with violence in the interest of Islamic "self-defense". As long as self-defense isn't defined, anything that even appears to go against Islam is something they will need to "defend" against.
Muslims will have to let go of the ummah and subject themselves to the civil laws of the principality/nation-state in which they reside. Are even American Muslims prepared to do that? Aren't many of them simply biding their time, waiting for the right moment for the US to become an Islamic state?
Rise up oh great world Ummah and fight the “War on Terror”…. Oh, they already did that, cartoon riots, Pope riots, teddy bear riots… never mind.
Rise up oh great world Ummah against “World Jihad”… (crickets chirping)…
oh, never mind.
Are even American Muslims prepared to do that? Aren't many of them simply biding their time, waiting for the right moment for the US to become an Islamic state?
Posted by: PMK at June 4, 2008 12:04 PM
What I said above:
As has been noted on JW before, many of this invisible group are just waiting for the Ummah to triumph, and being silent until that day. Then, we'll be hearing their gloating voices loud and clear.
Posted by: darcy at June 4, 2008 9:04 AM
Uh Huh. They are just going about their business publicly, but behind closed doors saying "Dirty Kuffar, your day will come."
Rise up oh great world Ummah and fight the “War on Terror”…. Oh, they already did that, cartoon riots, Pope riots, teddy bear riots… never mind.
Rise up oh great world Ummah against “World Jihad”… (crickets chirping)…
oh, never mind.
Posted by: Battle_of_Tours at June 4, 2008 1:39 PM
Exactly. They are ALL for the Ummah. I'm convinced of that.
War on Terror ends.
War of Fools begins.
NamFrank-
Perfectly put.
Put me in your column along with darcy and undaunted.
It may not take a war at all..We may elect one to lead our country..?
It must denounce all use of violence, except in self-defense.
NAMFRANK
I agree with most of what you say except for the line above. This is the excuse they have been using for their murderous violence against the world for 1400 years.
They say "we don't kill the innocent". But according to islam no non-muslim is innocent. We are all fair game.
The will always use the self defence line. Their tactics are child like but they work because we let it work. The use political correctness to further their goal of removing political correctness and replacing it with islamofascism.
This is what they have always done.
The sooner the world wakes up to this hard fact the sooner we can deal with the problem. Just look around the world and show me the evidence of its peacefulness.
If Islam is the religion of peace then let them prove it. But they won't, because it isn't.
Good news: the war on terror is over!
.....................................
It is? Wow . . .that's great! And yet I have absolutely no urge to run around Times Square kissing nurses . . . not sure why . . .