Over at PJ Media I discuss how David Petraeus gives the prescription for accelerating jihad:
David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and former commander of CENTCOM, published a piece in the Washington Post last Friday entitled “Anti-Muslim Bigotry Aids Islamist Terrorists.”
Wrote Petraeus:
[I am] increasingly concerned about inflammatory political discourse that has become far too common both at home and abroad against Muslims and Islam, including proposals from various quarters for blanket discrimination against people on the basis of their religion.
Petraeus’s target isn’t just Donald Trump’s proposed temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration. He is referring to all speech that some Muslims might find offensive, and this has sweeping and ominous implications.
Petraeus doesn’t just oppose what Trump now characterizes as “just a suggestion“ solely as a policy measure. Petraeus is saying that such proposals shouldn’t even be made; that just to speak them is damaging:
[T]he ramifications of such rhetoric could be very harmful — and lasting.
He feels simply speaking such thoughts may:
… compound the already grave terrorist danger to our citizens.
How will these words do that? Well, you see:
[T]hose who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they are playing directly into the hands of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The terrorists’ explicit hope has been to try to provoke a clash of civilizations — telling Muslims that the United States is at war with them and their religion. When Western politicians propose blanket discrimination against Islam, they bolster the terrorists’ propaganda.
Petraeus doesn’t offer any alternative suggestion as to how jihad terrorists can be prevented from entering the United States. He just doesn’t like Trump’s former proposal, and what he terms “hate speech against Muslims” in general, because he says it will enrage Muslims and make more of them join the jihad against America. So the upshot of Petraeus’ argument is that we must not say things to which Muslims might object, because this will just make more of them become jihadis.
His prescription for minimizing the jihad against the West is for the West to practice self-censorship in order to avoid offending Muslims.
Petraeus has done this before. When he headed up the international coalition in Afghanistan, he said this of Florida pastor Terry Jones’ plan to burn the Qur’an:
[It] was hateful, it was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful and again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible.
He warned that the Qur’an-burning would endanger American troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere. He issued a statement saying that he hoped:
… the Afghan people understand that the actions of a small number of individuals, who have been extremely disrespectful to the holy Quran, are not representative of any of the countries of the international community who are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people.
I opposed the Qur’an-burning, but not for the reasons Petraeus did.
I don’t like the burning of books. And I’d rather that the contents of the Qur’an, and the ways that jihadists use those contents to justify violence, be known.
However, Jones was free to do what he wanted to do. Petraeus would have done better to have told the Afghans that in America we have freedom of speech and expression, and that we put up with speech and expression that we dislike without trying to kill the speaker.
He would have done better to tell them that their murderous rage over any burning of the Qur’an was an outrageous overreaction, and that bloodshed over such burnings was a heinous crime, far dwarfing any crime they thought Jones was committing.
The idea that in wartime one should be careful not to do anything that the enemy is likely to respond to with irrational and even murderous anger may seem tactically wise at first glance, but ultimately it is a recipe for surrender. One is already accepting the enemy’s worldview and perspective and working to accommodate it, instead of working on various fronts — not just the military one — to show why it is wrong and should be opposed.
Of course, to that Petraeus and his ilk would likely respond: “Well, we are not at war with Islam or the Qur’an, and so to burn the book is a needless provocation.”
This ignores, however, the war that the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and other Muslim groups are waging today against the freedom of expression. This also ignores the ways in which Islamic jihadists use the Qur’an to justify violence and win recruits.
Without approving of the burning, Petraeus should have defended Jones’ freedom of expression, and used the burning as a teaching moment in Afghanistan. Petraeus should have said:
We are going to defend our vision of society no matter what you bring against us. The U.S. will always defend American citizens who are exercising their Constitutional freedoms.
The OIC’s effort to compel the West into censoring itself regarding criticism of Islam is going very well.
In the wake of the jihad attack on our free speech event in Garland, Texas, last year, there were widespread condemnations of our event for daring to “provoke” Muslims. After the Danish Muhammad cartoon riots and the massacre of the Charlie Hebdo Muhammad cartoonists, mainstream media outlets all over the West refused to publish the cartoons in solidarity with the victims and in defense of the freedom of speech. Instead, they opted to publish transparently hypocritical explanations of how they were declining to publish the cartoons out of “respect” for Muslims and Islam.
The lesson of all this is one that no less a figure than General Petraeus has imbibed and is now propagating himself: Muslims don’t like when we say we should stop Muslim immigration for awhile, and they join the jihad. So we must stop saying it so that they won’t join the jihad….
Read the rest here.

Vyx says
Speak out against Muslims- hate crime. WIN for Islam
Keep silent and do NOT speak out against Muslims- WIN for Islam.
When did Petraeus convert?
Lou says
Petreus another IDIOT put him in a burhka like the B**CH he is.
Nan Barr says
Burka man needs a manicure too. : (
…..
eagle says
The United States has the right to protect itself from any an all threats by any means necessary. It has the right to profile, discriminate and destroy any threat presented to the American People with Gods Help..You cannot defeat the enemy by allowing the Muslim culture to cut your head off.It seems Petraeus is a convert.We need to get Congress to push through a bill removing all Muslims from government and remove CAIR and the Brotherhood along with the Muslim president from this country. This Muslim culture is the enemy of the American People and the constitution of the United States. They are a sick culture that wants to bring down every decent thing created by God.
Bob says
Just a simple comment – not ‘culture’ but ‘cult’! And Satanic, at that!!
Godwin says
He should stop eating pork chop, ham burger, n all super markets should stop selling pork n non halal products, for these are offensive to the Muslims. And he should not rear dogs too, for it cause offend to the neighboring Muslims.
Shane says
He is a gutless dhimm who should be ignored by those who want to defeat Islamic Jihad. Trump is right that we should restrict Muslim immigration into the West!
JC says
I used to have a lot of respect for Petraeus as a General, but I have to say, that he’s been
Listening to our traitor in charge too long!
For MANY years a lot of Us knew what was happening in the jihad mind. It has come
To pass with interest….. No matter of the stupid politics, it was going to happen anyway.
I can say that petraeus and those of you of a like mind, should just move to any of the
Muslim states, and live under sarih law.
God help your women!!!! Our traitor in charge has created a hate between our people,
and accelerated the cause of Islam.
I can only pray that we don’t go under Petraeus law before we get some Loyal American in office to at least halt the saturation of Muslims to America.
WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE ????
CAN’T YOU SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING TO COUNTRIES WHO HAVE let themselves be
Over run with these people ??? As a group they are smarter than you A LOT SMARTER !!
GOD BLESS AMERICA
paul says
follow the money…. Betray Us is going for the bucks!
JawsV says
Four-star General Petraeus is a damn fool.
Custos Custodum says
Petraeus was advised early on – likely by his wife, the daughter of a general – that his abilities as an officer would only go so far even in today’s military. He discovered a rich ecological niche and has since flourished on a diet of excreta from higher-ups.
Nan Barr says
I would never take advice from a man or woman for that matter, who is a LOSER like that guy!
He had two great jobs , one as a General and then one as the director of the CIA.
So what happened ???
His personal weakness and the pride of being the object of affection of a married woman with a child. A woman who wanted to write a VANIETY book about him. A woman who flattered him so very much he tossed his whole life into the GARBAGE HEAP OF ETERNITY!
TAKE any advice from that loser and YOU WILL BECOME a loser too.
NAW, I will not listen to him, EVER!!!
Angemon says
Because there is none. And even Trump’s proposal is not 100% fool-proof. Who’s to say some nice, white-skinned British or French people posing as devout Christians aren’t, in fact, muslims trying to get in to carry on a terror attack?
Ralph says
As we are not trying to convert them to people from the current century, they probably don’t mind if we don’t invite them home for supper. We do need to defend the American homeland from murderous savages and criminal parasites and that step is relatively easy and humane: just don’t let them in and expell them and their families as soon as they are discovered. We don’t need to apologize to them for this. They have been commanded by their prophet to hate us and they’ll understand.
Custos Custodum says
Petraeus is a man of undoubted if circumscribed abilities who excels at carrying out well-defined missions assigned to him with great energy and courage. Petraeus would make an excellent staff officer – perhaps lieutenant colonel – in the army of a small to medium-sized country.
Countries such as Portugal or Malaysia would be lucky to have Petraeus’ solid middle-management abilities at their disposal.
Debi Brand says
“Petraeus is giving the West a recipe for setting the world on fire even more than it is now.”
Indeed.
He is also, in Patraeus’ own manner and words, giving us the advice and warnings of the renown scholar and teacher of Islam, Qadi Iyad.
Patraeus tells us, if we are to limit our cost in this war, we need, “namely, the Muslims.”
Indeed, thus, what better Muslim to help us to this “safe-keeping” than the aforementioned scholar of Islam?
Hence, hear him:
Donovan Nuera says
It would have been better for the General to tell the Afghans that “the reason their country looked and smelled like a latrine for generations (and did not have the useful function of an actual latrine) was because you were goaded into believing this stupid book of lies forced on them by invading barbarians a thousand years before from another geographic craphole in western Arabia. Your country reached its civilizational peak in the late 1960s! If you Afghanis don’t like it, the US can leave, get our $11 Billion back, and toss a nuke into your capital as a way of actually “improving” it. So shut up!”
Enragedsince1999 says
This is the degenerate Petraeus who suggested reaching out to al-Qaida of the 9/11 infamy and asking it for an alliance !
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.
Stephen says
Petraeus is an asshole!!!
Edgar Allen says
Petraeus is not an idiot, like many comments here imply. He’s like John Esposito, American oil men, the Bush Family, and other “business leaders”.
HE IS SIMPLY BOUGHT AND PAID FOR.
The proof is in this article:
May 18, 2016 – Why Gen. David Petraeus Really Wants You To Shut Up About Islamism
http://thefederalist.com/2016/05/18/why-david-petraeus-really-wants-you-to-shut-up-about-islamism/
But in the curious case of Petraeus’s op-ed, what was deleted prior to publication is more interesting than what the Post finally published. Sometime early in the morning on Friday the 13th, these six words were deleted from the short Petraeus bio (known to editors as the ID) accompanying the piece: “chairman of the KKR Global Institute.”
KRISTI HULLER OF KKR’S MEDIA OFFICE UNEQUIVOCALLY STATED PETRAEUS HAD REQUESTED THE CHANGE.
So why did Petraeus request that his KKR affiliation be removed? After all, he widely publicizes his KKR affiliation elsewhere. His LinkedIn page leads with his dual KKR roles: “General (Ret) David H. Petraeus joined KKR in June 2013 as Chairman of the KKR Global Institute. He was made a Partner in December 2014.”
Perhaps the Post should have let their readers judge for themselves if Petraeus’s financial interests in KKR, and KKR’s financial interests in the Middle East, were relevant to his op-ed demanding an end to criticism of Islam. KKR HAS BEEN TRYING FOR THE PAST SEVEN YEARS TO ENTER PRIVATE EQUITY MARKETS IN MUSLIM-MAJORITY COUNTRIES, ESPECIALLY IN DUBAI (PART OF THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES) AND SAUDI ARABIA. During those same years, the governments of Dubai and Saudi Arabia hardened their laws against criticism of Islam at home, and increased their lobbying spending to shut down criticism of Islamic doctrine abroad.
Nan Barr says
Preach it!! AMEN!!
That man is another bought and paid for by the highest bidder.
Will Doohan says
Thanks for posting that Edgar
abad says
When Donals Trump is elected President – and he will be – my guess is his housecleaning list will begin with Petraeus. Along with any other “Bleeding Hearts for Islam(TM)” presently in the White House. Which means, most of Hussein Obama’s cronies.
citycat says
Careful! Don’t speak truth about the Qur’an. The bully may be offended.
That is fear. One should be able to speak truth 24/7 all week long.
The Muslims are over sensitive, they need counselling.
It is ok for Muslims to rape, kill, mutilate, burn alive or behead all week long on
“the basis of their religion”
If one speaks truth of the Qur’an with tender loving care, it is still in contradiction to the Qur’an as anything that is humane contradicts the Qur’an.
Anyone who is not
“disrespectful to the Qur’an”
has a gun to their head, or is a Muslim who’s had a gun to his head all life long.
The Qur’an is most disrespectful of humanity.
It is unhealthy not to speak of oppression upon one’s being. It can build underlying hatred that one day may explode with obvious consequences.
This type of chat by Petraeus is cowardly, traitorous and sick.
No Fear says
The Quran is an excellent example of “blanket discrimination against people on the basis of their religion”.
Why tolerate it?
Simon Néhmé says
No totalitarian and fascist regime has ever accepted to be criticized, Islamic ideology doesn’t bypass this rule nor make exception. Gal Petraeus’d better explain to the world and for the concerned families of the American victims what has truly happenned at Benghazi and why, instead of talking about topics he doesn’t handle and serving as an islamist microphone.
gordon miller says
Someone in the administration obviously has gotten to this poor soul. What a disgusting shame.
Florida Jim says
David Petraeus, of whom I thought so highly, has proven to be a worm. He should out Hillary and the slimy Obama on Benghazi and Hillary’s emails , he should be a man who tells america the truth not a wimpy Democrat bribe taker. I feel badly when a hero proves to be a distrustful Democrat.
Geppetto says
This from the man responsible for the surge strategy that turned the tide in the war in Iraq and won that war, if only temporarily! Evidence of the international effort to capitulate to an inordinately successful effort by Muslims, of every stripe, to subdue and eventually dominate the world.
That it is likely that a large majority of Muslims, especially those born and raised in the multicultural west, are not prone to the horrific brutality practiced by their more orthodox Muslim brethren, there are undoubtedly many no less horrified and terrified of the repercussions from within should they openly protest or criticize these Islamic fanatics.
There are vociferous cracks in this wall of silence made by a relatively small group of Muslim reformists (e.g., the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, AIFD) but, while the numbers of these may be growing so are the accusations of “Islamophobia” that have effectively shut down or denigrated any and all negative commentary concerning Islam, Muslims or Mohammad, commentary that is instantly and loudly condemned as “hate speech.”
What the former General says here, demonstrates just how effective the Muslim Brotherhood organization and all their numerous affiliates have been in suppressing one of the modern defining principles of western society, the freedom of speech, and turning that freedom into a powerful propaganda weapon of a war that fifteen years after 9/11, and literally thousands of terrorist attacks, with blatantly obvious Jihadist motivations, remains studiously unrecognized and undeclared by the west. Instead, from the highest levels of political, military, religious, media and academic leadership throughout the west, and of particular concern, here in America, the reaction is submission, censorship, self flagellation and denial; a deadly fear of causing offense to a religious culture that needs no other motivation than what their religious dogma has provided since Islam’s inception some 1400 years ago. They hate all infidels for no other reason than their infidel status and there’s no solution to the threat these Jihadists represent other than a massive, violent if necessary, counterattack.
Until the west wakes up to the fact that there is absolutely nothing it can do to appease Jihadists and that the only viable path to “peace” is likely an all out, violent, no holds barred declaration of war with tit for tat rules of engagement (ROE), this Jihadist effort to subjugate or destroy ALL infidels, i.e., non-Muslims, will continue unabated and become increasingly widespread, belligerent and violent. The General’s reaction here will be taken as a sign of weakness and inferiority, and understandably so.
These fanatics care nothing about avoiding civilian casualties and can and have used the wests concerns in this regard to their advantage, using human shields in battle and storing their military ordinance and weaponry in Mosques, hospitals, schools, etc. As abhorrent as it may be for the west to respond in kind, at least until the message is received by these butchers, loud and clear, anything less than massive retaliation will have minimal effect.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese men, women and children were killed or maimed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war with Japan in WWII. It is pure conjecture but very likely, that millions of Japanese civilians, and Japanese, American and allied troops would have been slaughtered before that war came to an end, had these modern, politically correct, humanitarian ROEs’ been followed. Such slaughter, as the Jihadists are acutely aware, are the typical consequences of a war that they engage in but desperately seek to avoid. The General here is representative of the west’s posture that is aiding and abetting that effort.
Mark A says
Muslims are going to be offended about something no matter what we do.
I say we carry on with our regular routines and if Muslims are offended by us, too bad.
I’m tired of western societies making concessions to Muslims. In any case, all concessions seem to lead to is more demand for concessions.
Benedict says
Hard to think of him as being an army man. No wonder he was kicked out. Disgraceful
Pathfinder0100 says
Hey Petreus The Muzzies greatly offend ME. What do you advise for that? Will he kiss my a$$ to make ME happy??? I owe him NOTHING but will give him a ticket out of MY America!!!