“See that, Barack? That’s a Religion of Peace that has been hijacked by a Tiny Minority of Extremists”
Now that Obama has made his momentous choice, here is a blast from the past: “Biden wages war on ‘war on terror,'” by Ben Smith for Politico, May 4, 2007 (thanks to JCB):
John Edwards won praise on the left and criticism from the right when, at the first Democratic presidential candidates debate last month, refused to raise his hand to say he believed in the existence of a “global war on terror.”
The man to Edwards’ immediate left on the stage, Senator Joe Biden, didn’t raise his hand either.
And while Edwards’ opposition to the phrase crystallized recently — references to the terror war were removed from his own website only after the debate — Biden has been waging what has appeared, at times, to be a quixotic war on “the global war on terror” for years.
“The President continues to talk about ‘the war on terror.’ That is simply wrong,” Biden, who now chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said in a speech at the National Press Club last September.
“Terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. If we can’t even identify the enemy or describe the war we’re fighting, it’s difficult to see how we will win.” […]
“Terror is a tactic. Terror is not a philosophy,” Biden said. “The war in Chechnya is a war of liberation — it engaged in terrorist activities, but it it is fundamentally different.”
In a certain sense, of course, Biden is right. I have been repeating ad infinitum for years that terrorism is a means, not an end, and a tactic, not a philosophy. I’ve also been saying that if we can’t even identify the enemy or describe the war we’re fighting, it’s difficult to see how we will win. However, Biden himself has never shown any sign of being aware of the global jihad agenda, and has to my knowledge never said anything about the jihad or Islamic supremacism. When he says we have to identify the enemy, he apparently means that we have to define them as various insurgent and nationalist movements, and find the right mix of concessions and aid to offer them in order to pacify them. Given the Islamic jihad agenda, of course, this is short-sighted, and time and events will demonstrate just how short-sighted it is.
More on Biden comes from “Breaking News: Joe Biden, Friend of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” by W. Thomas Smith, Jr. at Family Security Matters, August 23:
Sen. Joe Biden — Barack Obama’s eagerly anticipated running mate — should be named an honorary soldier in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). We”re all familiar with the IRGC: Iran’s unique corps of Islamist fighters who have been directly involved in deadly attacks against U.S. soldiers in Iraq — even Afghanistan — threatening our ships in the Persian Gulf; and organizing, training, equipping, funding, and providing direct operational support to Lebanon-based Hezbollah (perhaps the most dangerous terrorist army on earth). And that’s just for starters.
Also known as the Pasdaran, the IRGC is not Iran’s conventional territorial armed force, but the military force of the Khomeinist-inspired Islamic Revolution. The organization fields an army, a navy, and an air force, as well as an extranational special-operations force known as the Quds (Jerusalem) Force.
Iran, of course, is a “state sponsor of terrorism,” so-designated by the U.S. State Department back in 1984. And the IRGC and its Quds Force were both designated “supporters of terrorism” in October 2007. Though the latter two designations would not have been so had Biden had his way.
On September 26, 2007, Biden voted “Nay” to Senate Amendment 3017 (S. Amdt. 3017) — a piece of legislation amending S. Amdt. 2011 to H.R. 1585 — “to express the sense of the Senate regarding Iran.”
In a nutshell, S. Amdt. 3017 called on the Senate to: “Support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy “¦ with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.”
And most importantly — for the sake of sanctions and the unequivocal denial of any form of support to terrorists and terrorist supporters — the amendment said, “the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization “¦ and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”