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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Robert Spencer: Trump’s History-Changing Vow to Eradicate ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’

Jan 23, 2017 4:52 pm By Robert Spencer

Honest discussion of the truth, not a moment too soon. My latest in PJ Media:

President Trump first said it during his inaugural address:

We will … unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.

The establishment media has been too involved with comparing crowd sizes to take any significant notice, but Trump’s words heralded a change that was momentous — and could make all the difference in our civilizational struggle against the global jihad.

One principal reason why the threat of Islamic jihad that confronts Trump is so large is because his predecessor ignored it, denied its motivating ideology, and allowed it to proliferate. A pivotal yet overlooked action of the Obama administration was its purge of all mention of Islam and jihad from law enforcement counter-terror training materials in 2011 to heed the demand of U.S. Muslim groups and their allies. Since then, the U.S. has failed to identify, confront, and oppose the ideology that has enabled jihadis to behave more boldly and aggressively then ever.

That ideology has spread unchecked in the U.S. in large part because Barack Obama didn’t want law enforcement officials learning about it: that would have been “Islamophobic.”

It is an adage as old as warfare itself: one cannot defeat an enemy that one does not understand. It could be added that one certainly has no chance whatsoever of defeating an enemy that one refuses to understand. Yet Obama’s “Countering Violent Extremism” program pointedly and ostentatiously avoided all mention of Islam and jihad in connection with terrorism. He did this in accord with the claim that investigating and speaking honestly about the beliefs and goals of jihadis would so mortally offend moderate Muslims that they would become “radicalized” and join the jihad themselves.

The whole construct was absurd. Those who advanced the claim, and they were many, never explained why these “moderates” who supposedly rejected violence in the name of Islam as “un-Islamic” would be so enraged by discussion of how others committed violence in the name of Islam that they would be moved to … violence in the name of Islam.

But now the Absurd Administration is gone. A new age of realism is dawning.

Trump has vowed to “eradicate” what he calls “radical Islamic terrorism” “completely from the face of the Earth.” He reiterated this the day after his inauguration, when speaking to the CIA:

We have to get rid of ISIS. We have no choice. Radical Islamic terrorism, and I said it yesterday, has to be eradicated, just off the face of the Earth. This is evil. This is evil. … This is a level of evil that we haven’t seen. And you’re going to go do it and you’re going to do a phenomenal job, but we’re going to end it. It’s time. It’s time right now to end it.

Strictly speaking, it isn’t possible within four years, or eight, to eradicate “radical Islamic terrorism” — which is actually orthodox and mainstream in Islam — as long as there are people who believe the Qur’an is the perfect and eternal word of Allah.

There will always be some believers who get the idea that they can please Allah by killing and being killed for him (cf. Qur’an 9:111). However, Trump’s declaration, while hyperbolic, was a welcome indication of his apparent determination to speak honestly about the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, and to combat it and roll it back.

And to call it “evil,” after eight years of the Obama administration’s moral equivocation and obfuscation, is as refreshing as Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire” in the midst of a similar period of equivocation and cowardice.

It is welcome to have that kind of moral clarity back in the White House. President Trump clearly hopes to emulate Reagan by destroying the Islamic State just as Reagan’s actions led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Read the rest here.

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Filed Under: Donald Trump, Featured Tagged With: Countering Violent Extremism


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Comments

  1. Tradiguy says

    Jan 23, 2017 at 5:02 pm

    Why can’t we have a Trump in the UK? We need to push back and push back hard against this jihad evil! It’s not a clash of civilisations because only one side is civilised. Let’s hope that Trump is able to put his plans into action. I can’t think of a finer service to God than to fight against these evil bastards.

    • Richie says

      Jan 23, 2017 at 5:08 pm

      The UK will be like Sweden soon if the left continues to flood your borders

    • Cornelius Bradley says

      Jan 23, 2017 at 11:14 pm

      Pauline Hanson is our Donald Trump!!!!.

    • Ned Kelly says

      Jan 24, 2017 at 2:37 am

      Thank GOD for this man, the only one to understand the threat ISIS is to the world.

  2. Richie says

    Jan 23, 2017 at 5:06 pm

    I hope Pres Trump means this, and does not compromise with Democrats to ‘soften his tone’. If he does, he will be a one term president

    • Dennis says

      Jan 24, 2017 at 7:11 am

      Trump has 2 full years where he does not have to compromise on anything. He just has to get Republican consensus.

    • Shmooviyet says

      Jan 24, 2017 at 11:27 am

      Agreed.
      No more Bush-ist “kindler gentler”.

  3. Champ says

    Jan 23, 2017 at 5:22 pm

    And to call it “evil,” after eight years of the Obama administration’s moral equivocation and obfuscation, is as refreshing as Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire” in the midst of a similar period of equivocation and cowardice.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Indeed! Go Trump! …islam is *wholly* evil!

  4. davej says

    Jan 23, 2017 at 5:27 pm

    True, this is a crucial, potentially world-changing, historic reversal of policy, yet the Media is largely ignoring it, preferring to focus on minutia. Perhaps they sense widespread support for this decision?

    • Alien Republican says

      Jan 23, 2017 at 6:07 pm

      “yet the Media is largely ignoring it, preferring to focus on minutia.”
      —
      Swiss tabloid filled its Trump articles with speculations regarding the “scotched tie”, the “plagiarised Obama inauguration cake” and the “alternative facts” attributed to him but merely a rethorical slip Kellyanne’s. It’s almost hilarious to see the media agonizing. i don’t understand why some people here and there found his speech “dark”. After all, isn’t accepting to have problems the first step in solving them ? For me a lot of reasons to be optimistic for the years to come.

      • underbed cat says

        Jan 24, 2017 at 10:23 am

        The problems were silenced…by a paid for media influencer…..and possible fears of revenge from the people the media thinks they need to protect. .

        It’s like putting off paying the bills…or even opening the envelopes….fear..and happy denial.

  5. wayne says

    Jan 23, 2017 at 5:41 pm

    Expose islam for the religion it is NOT. This ideology has been a plague on mankind for fourteen hundred plus years now. whole civilizations have been eradicated in it’s name. Right now they are ambitiously destroying all evidence of the past in the middle east as in religious landmarks and people of faith other than islam are being murdered. How difacult is that to understand?

  6. Joe says

    Jan 23, 2017 at 5:50 pm

    Islam and communism/socialism are the two enemies of humanity. And as socialists are the realization of the ideology socialism so are Muslims the realization of the ideology Islam.

    I understand that not every so called Muslim is a real Muslim as not every German or so called Nazi was a Nazi. But every Muslim should be vetted and there should be created an apostasy program so that all Muslims must leave this evil cult. Any Muslim who rejects apostasy has either to be deported or put into jail.

    This is the only solution what will work imo.

    • underbed cat says

      Jan 24, 2017 at 10:28 am

      Apostasy program…..but how could you tell if they were sincere.? There would have to be strict guidelines, and a timeline.

      • Joe says

        Jan 24, 2017 at 6:36 pm

        If there are no mosques anymore they cannot get support anymore. At least not that easily.

        Andrew McCarthy explains pretty well in some clips on youtube that if there is not support anymore from the Umma all those potential violent Muslims will not act as lone wolves.

  7. marina says

    Jan 23, 2017 at 6:30 pm

    The big problem is that eventhe law abiding peaceful muslims believe that Koran is the direct word of God. To think otherwise means committing sin and roasting in hell fire for eternity. Unless these moderate muslims realize that Islam is a big lie and Mo was an imposter, the fight against islamic extremism cannot be won.

  8. mortimer says

    Jan 23, 2017 at 7:04 pm

    DEAR PRES. TRUMP, PLEASE HIRE ROBERT SPENCER!

    The first order of business for defeating Islamic terrorism is to identify it. That’s where ROBERT SPENCER is critical to the success of the campaign. ALL those fighting ISLAMIC terrorism need to understand the JIHAD DOCTRINE.

    ROBERT SPENCER is the world’s LEADING AUTHORITY on the jihad doctrine.

    PLEASE HIRE ROBERT SPENCER NOW.

  9. Troybeam says

    Jan 23, 2017 at 8:42 pm

    First and foremost we need to protect America, to do that the status of Islam needs to be completely legally changed from a religious status to that of what it actually is: a theocracy. Once that is established all Mosques, Islamic compounds, schools etc can be shut down. Until then Islam will continue to use our Constitution against we the people, if this agrees with you write your senator, house of rep and President Trump if not keep silent and await the coming battle for freedom verse sharia.

  10. Pal says

    Jan 24, 2017 at 3:24 am

    Mr Robert Spencer, for sure your genuine smile from many pictures and icons is a Thrust of Torn deep into the guts of … (you know whose).
    Keep On !!

  11. Phil Copson says

    Jan 24, 2017 at 4:57 am

    When Donald Trump welcomes Theresa May to the White House, let’s hope that he also takes her to task over the cowardly banning orders she placed on Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, and others, and raises the serious betrayal of civilisation itself implicit in the refusal to allow three Christian bishops to visit the UK while simultaneously allowing Islamic hate-preachers to visit as welcome guests and settle here.

    If Donald Trump means to continue on his course of “Power speaking truth unto power”, then an excellent lever would be for him to make a US:UK trade deal conditional upon Mrs May’s Government taking it’s responsibilities seriously by putting the interests of it’s indigenous population ahead of appeasing and financing Third World migrants.

    A return visit by Donald Trump to the UK bringing Robert Spencer as part of his entourage with an invitation to address a University debate on Islam, would be a start in normalising civic society once more.

    After all, as leader of the Free World, why should Donald Trump do deals with any country that refuses to live up to it’s basic democratic duties ?

  12. Atheist Kaffur says

    Jan 24, 2017 at 5:44 am

    What is the strategy to defeat Islamic theology?????

    In my opinion the imams that promote violence and hate against unbelievers, gays, women etc must be publicly singled out. We must pay that much more attention to what is happening in the middle east.

  13. Angemon says

    Jan 24, 2017 at 6:57 am

    The establishment media has been too involved with comparing crowd sizes to take any significant notice

    Still a step up from calling him “racist”, “misogynist”, “bigot”, “islamophobe”, etc.

  14. Joginder Singh says

    Jan 24, 2017 at 9:07 am

    The oil revenues are running out. But still the Saudis are funding the Islamist profs, universities, the Hurt Feelings industries etc etc in the US and other countries. Why? Because they hope to have US and other prosperous countries as slave colonies by the time the last drop of oil is squeezed out of the sands. And after the USA becomes a devastated shell like the rest of the Islamic world. it is China that’s next.
    Today Europe, tomorrow the world.
    Trump didn’t come a moment too soon.

  15. patriotliz says

    Jan 24, 2017 at 11:05 am

    “…one cannot defeat an enemy that one does not understand..” Islam is extreme and radical per our Western view of world religions. Can you say that violent jihad and killing of infidels is NOT what Mohammed did himself and intended for his followers? The fact that not ALL Klansmen murdered blacks and, not ALL Nazis murdered Jews…does not mean we should embrace KKK or Nazi ideologies and its followers, Republicans and conservatives are treated as enemies and constantly vilified by Leftists YET we should not show any discrimination or criticism whatsoever toward Muslims who openly adhere to a supremacist ideology while their innumerable coreligionists literally follow the violent examples and teachings of their founder,
    Why haven’t the “reformers” (so they say) become apostates?
    What is so good about Islam?
    We are at war w/ Islam— if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.
    The “moderates” won’t face the music and divest themselves of this evil ideology and its evil founder in toto. Don’t trust them…they could very well be followiing Islamic condoned deception.

    • Daniel Triplett says

      Jan 26, 2017 at 1:37 am

      You nailed it Patriot. Stay strong

  16. duh swami says

    Jan 24, 2017 at 11:12 am

    I have been looking for ‘radical’ Islam for a long time…so gar all I get is there is only Islam and the pious…M

  17. JEROME HENEN says

    Jan 24, 2017 at 2:25 pm

    THE STUFF THE LIBERL MEDIA IGNORES BECAUSE THEY TACITLY SUPPORT THE TERRORISTS OR BELIEVE THE THREAT IS EXAGGERATED.

  18. gravenimage says

    Jan 25, 2017 at 1:41 am

    Robert Spencer: Trump’s History-Changing Vow to Eradicate ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’
    …………………

    So refreshing.

  19. Aussie Infidel says

    Jan 25, 2017 at 3:05 am

    I agree with President Trump that the civilized world must be united to “eradicate Islamic terrorism completely from the face of the Earth.” However, there is no such thing as ‘Radical Islam’. There is only one Islam, and that’s the belligerent, political, misogynistic ideology in the Quran and the other Islamic scriptures – which masquerades as a religion – and which all Muslims are expected to follow.

    Islamic terrorism is a direct consequence of the tenets of Islam. Our enemy is not some mythical perverted ‘radical’ version of Islam followed by a minority of extremists – but mainstream, orthodox Islam itself, which commands its followers to wage jihad and inflict violence and death on unbelievers. Islam is a criminal ideology which has no place in a civilized society.

    Islam will only be defeated ideologically and legally, and to do that it must de-legitimized. If there is no legal definition of religion in the US, Congress or the Supreme Court might first have to address that matter. In Australia, in 1983, the High Court defined religion as “A belief in a supernatural being, thing, or principle, together with canons of conduct to give effect to that belief.” But that definition must exclude any ideology which incites violence, or is contrary to the existing laws or the Constitution.

    Once Islam has been stripped of its legal standing, it can be dealt with on many levels – closing mosques, madrassas and Islamic organisations; rejecting restrictive dress codes and marriage rules; rejecting Muslim immigrants, and deporting illegal ones; rejecting halal certification of foods, etc.

  20. eduardo odraude says

    Jan 25, 2017 at 10:11 am

    There is no need — or legal possibility — of a forced apostasy program in the U.S. The need is for programs to protect apostates and for the state to severely punish their persecutors. When punishment for apostasy is no longer possible, and threats to apostates lead to trials, huge fines, and long sentences, there will be a steady leak of apostates from Islam, which will tend to become a flood. Most of the “true believers” will realize they don’t believe and only believed because everyone they grew up with told them it was true, or other superficial reasons. Then, like other totalitarianisms, Islam will be reduced to a tiny group of nutjobs constantly surveilled by the police, and probed for tax violations and other ways to prosecute them.

    • eduardo odraude says

      Jan 25, 2017 at 10:24 am

      Addendum: And they also believed because of subconscious and conscious fear of Allah, because they had been made afraid now and then since childhood with horror stories about hell for apostates and for non-Muslims, and perhaps even more because they had caught on to the danger from the Muslim community, potentially even from members of the immediate family, for people who abandon Islam or speak against it. Sometimes the physical threats would be explicit, but often the threat to apostates would just be implicit in countless aspects of social interaction and speech. So in defense against this terror, the soul surrenders to “belief”, though a counterfeit, and loses the capacity to realize the belief is a counterfeit. The soul is paralyzed with fear, and through that very paralysis cannot see its own state. But hound and destroy the persecutors of apostates, let the government send agents to kill or “disappear” the most prominent instigators against apostates, and then protect the apostates, and if all that is done, the fear that imposes Islam will dissipate, and Muslims will be able to wake up in large numbers to their slavery to a totalitarianism, and they will leave it — just as people flooded out of communism when they finally could..

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