THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 175, August 18, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
COUNTERTERRORISM IN OBAMA'S WASHINGTON
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY & U.S. FOREIGN & NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY: THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S INEPT
POLICY TOWARD THE MIDDLE EAST & THE GLOBAL ISLAMIST JIHAD BEING WAGED AGAINST THE U.S.A. & THE WEST -- A
POLICY BASED ON FAULTY ANALYSIS & ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTATION -- A POLICY THAT CALLS FOR APPEASING &
LEGITIMIZING ISLAMIST TERRORISTS & REJECTS ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN VIOLENT EXTREMISM & ISLAM -- THE
EXTREME DANGER THAT IMPLEMENTATION OF THE POLICY WILL SPELL FOR AMERICANS, AMERICAN INTERESTS, &
AMERICAN ALLIES -- THE UTTER DISASTER THAT AWAITS US
FULL STORY:
Barack Obama's Assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John O. Brennan, conveniently outlined
the administration's present and future policy mistakes in a speech on August 6, 2009, "A New Approach for
Safeguarding Americans."
To start with, his address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., has an
unusual tenor. "Sycophantic" is the word that springs to mind, as Brennan ninety times in five thousand words
invokes either "President Obama," "he," "his," or "the President." Disturbingly, Brennan ascribes virtually every
thought or policy in his speech to the wisdom of the One. This cringe-inducing lecture reminds one of a North
Korean functionary paying homage to the Dear Leader.
Specifics are no better. Most fundamentally, Brennan calls for appeasing terrorists: "Even as we condemn and
oppose the illegitimate tactics used by terrorists, we need to acknowledge and address the legitimate needs and
grievances of ordinary people those terrorists claim to represent." Which legitimate needs and grievances, one
wonders, does he think Al-Qa'ida represents?
Brennan carefully delineates a two-fold threat, one being "Al-Qa'ida and its allies" and the other "violent
extremism." But the former, self-evidently, is a subset of the latter. This elementary mistake undermines his entire
analysis.
He also rejects any connection between "violent extremism" and Islam:
"Using the legitimate term, jihad, which means to
purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a
moral goal, risks giving these murderers the
religious legitimacy they desperately seek, but in
no way deserve. Worse, it risks reinforcing the
idea that the United States is somehow at war
with Islam itself."
This passage regurgitates a theory of radical Islam that, according to Lt. Colonel Joseph C. Myers of the U.S. Air
Command and Staff College, "is part of a strategic disinformation and denial and deception campaign" developed
by the Muslim Brotherhood. Discredited in 2007 by Robert Spencer, the theory distinguishes between good jihad
and bad jihad and denies any connection between Islam and terrorism.
It's a deeply deceptive interpretation intended to confuse non-Muslims and win time for Islamists. The George W.
Bush administration, for all its mistakes, did not succumb to this ruse. But Brennan informs us that his boss now
bases U.S. policy on it.
The speech contains disquieting signs of ineptitude. We learn that Obama considers nuclear weapons in the
hands of terrorists to be "the most immediate and extreme threat to global security." Fine. But how does he
respond? With three feeble and nearly irrelevant steps: "leading the effort for a stronger global nonproliferation
regime, launching an international effort to secure the world's vulnerable nuclear material …, and hosting a global
nuclear summit."
Nor can Brennan think straight. One example, requiring a lengthy quote.
"Poverty does not cause violence and terrorism. Lack
of education does not cause terrorism. But, just as
there is no excuse for the wanton slaughter of
innocents, there is no denying that, when children
have no hope for an education, when young people
have no hope for a job and feel disconnected from
the modern world, when governments fail to provide
for the basic needs of their people, then people
become more susceptible to ideologies of violence
and death."
Summary: Poverty and a lack of education do not cause terrorism, but a lack of education and a job make people
more susceptible to the ideas leading to terrorism. What is the distinction? Woe on us when the White House
accepts illogic as analysis.
Further, let's focus on the statement, "when governments fail to provide for the basic needs of their people, then
people become more susceptible to ideologies of violence and death," for it contains two stunning errors. First, it
assumes the Socialist fiction that governments provide basic needs. No. Other than in a few commodity-rich
states, governments protect and offer legal structures, while the market provides.
Second, every study on the subject finds no connection between personal stress (poverty, lack of education,
unemployment) and attraction to radical Islam. If anything, massive transfers of wealth to the Middle East since
1970 contributed to the rise of radical Islam. The administration is basing its policy on a falsehood.
Where, as they say, is the adult supervision? Implementation of the inept policies outlined by Brennan spells
danger for Americans, American interests, and American allies. The bitter consequences of these mistakes soon
enough will become apparent.
© Daniel Pipes 2009
Originally Published inFront Page Magazine, August 18, 2009
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, August 18, 2009
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/7525/ counterterrorism-in-obamas-washington
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorism & American Homeland Security
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the
U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and
Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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