The spectral Chertoff
The same old tired line from the same old tired Chertoff, even as he eases out the door. Consider: while Muslim and non-Muslim spokesmen have spilled oceans of ink since 9/11 asserting that Islam condemns “terrorism” and the killing of “innocents,” without defining what is meant by either term, no one has ever produced any examples of authoritative and orthodox Islamic religious scholars rejecting, on Islamic grounds, jihad violence against non-Muslims; rejecting the idea that Sharia law should be instituted in the Muslim and non-Muslim world; and teaching the idea that non-Muslims and Muslims should live together indefinitely as equals.
Got any such examples? Send them to me at director@jihadwatch.org. But I have asked many times before. This moderate, peaceful, pluralistic Islam is the great unicorn, the Santa Claus of public policy, that everyone believes in but no one has ever actually seen.
“‘As one threat fades, another may come in,'” from USA Today, December 18:
Q: Who is the war on terrorism against? Is it al-Qaeda? Is it the tactic, which seems impossible to eradicate? Or is it Islamic radicalism?
A: What we’re confronting is an ideological conflict with an extremist world view that I don’t think is an accurate representative of Islam, but uses the language or hijacks Islam for an extremist agenda. It’s an ideology that’s reflected in al-Qaeda, and it’s reflected in Lashkar-e-Taiba, which everybody now knows because of (the Mumbai attacks). That is the struggle, and unlike the Cold War victory, I don’t think there’s going to be a wall that comes down. It will be a process of using hard power to strike back at the leaders and using soft power to change the breeding ground where people try to recruit.