Andrew McCarthy, author of the sobering and essential new book Willful Blindness, discusses that blindness in an address at the Hudson Institute, “The Jihad in Plain Sight,” May 6:
…Simply stated, we did not take the enemy and his motivations seriously before he announced himself. We did not react seriously in attempting before 9/11 to prosecute him into submission while he attacked again and again. And we are not serious now if we believe we can democratize him into submission””a fact that should be palpable given his penchant for exploiting democratic freedoms in furthering the jihad, and given that lack of democracy is not what drives him to act. His motivation is what he takes to be the divine summons to jihad.
The jihadist project””and it most certainly is a jihadist project””is to remove all barriers to the establishment of sharia (the prerequisite for Islam’s dominance). Those barriers are not merely military but political, cultural, spiritual and attitudinal. Force is used when necessary, but the theory of terrorism””and, while barbarous, terrorism is a rational method, not a form of madness””is that force should rarely be necessary. The terrorist defies our settled assumptions about civilized behavior. His actions, quite intentionally, are wanton and depraved, the better to extort us into capitulation through occasional shock and awe rather than a regular, predictable pattern of attacks. Though his self-perception is hallow, the terrorist’s strategy is not in principle different from the mafia loanshark, who generally collects his usurious payments without incident because the debtor well knows the wages of resistance.
The strategy is having the desired effect. The administration did not arrive at the language purge initiative on its own. It was done in consultation with what our government regards as influential Islamic organizations, such as the Muslim Public Affairs Council. MPAC greeted AP’s report of the new language code with a chest-beating press release, braying that its “regular “¦ engagement with government agencies including [the Department of Homeland Security,]” coupled with its long advocacy of a “nuanced approach” that stresses “the importance of decoupling Islam with [sic] terrorism,” had been instrumental. Naturally, it omitted its equally long history of lobbying for government recognition of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations, and statements by some of its leading figures endorsing terrorist bombings as legitimate “resistance” against Israel.
Read it all.