THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 92, June 2, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
OBAMA'S TOP COUNTERTERROR ADVISOR"S INABILITY
TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX BODES DISASTER
By Raymond Ibrahim
WHAT AMERICAN SOCIETY NEEDS TO DO IN ORDER TO TO PROPERLY RESPOND TO THE GROWING THREAT OF MILITANT
ISLAM: GAIN A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF ISLAM; UNDERSTAND ISLAM, PARTICULARLY ITS LAWS &
DOCTRINES, THE SAME WAY MUSLIMS UNDERSTAND IT, WITHOUT GIVING IT UNDUE WESTERN INTERPRETATIONS;
UNDERSTAND THAT ISLAMIST IDEOLOGY HAS THE INTRINSIC CAPACITY TO PROMPT MUSLIMS TO VIOLENCE AGAINST
NON-MUSLIMS, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE EXISTENCE OR NON-EXISTENCE OF POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, & SOCIAL GRIEVANCES --
FAILURE OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO AVOID THE MISGUIDED PHENOMENON OF WESTERNING ISLAMIC
CONCEPTS -- THE ADMINISTRATION'S FAILURE TO TRULY UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF THE ISLAMIST ENEMY & ITS
ULTIMATE GOAL, ESTABLISHMENT OF A HEGEMONIC CALIPHATE THAT GOVERNS THE ENTIRE WORLD ACCORDING TO
ISLAMIC LAW
FULL STORY:
"The greatest hurdle Americans need to get over in order to properly
respond to the growing threat of radical Islam is purely intellectual in
nature; specifically, it is epistemological, and revolves around the
abstract realm of 'knowledge.' Before attempting to formulate a
longterm strategy to counter radical Islam, Americans must, first and
foremost, understand Islam, particularly its laws and doctrines, the
same way Muslims understand it — without giving it undue Western
[i.e., secular, constitutional, democratic, civil libertarian, and individualistic]
interpretations. This is apparently not as simple as expected:
all peoples, of whatever civilizations and religions, tend to assume
that other peoples more or less share in their worldview, which they
assume is objective, including notions of right and wrong, good and
bad. …. [T]he secular, Western experience has been such that people
respond with violence primarily when they feel they are politically,
economically, or socially oppressed. While true that many
non-Western peoples may fit into this paradigm, the fact is, the
ideologies of radical Islam have the intrinsic capacity to prompt
Muslims to violence and intolerance vis-ŕ-vis the 'other,' irrespective
of grievances…. Being able to understand all this, being able to
appreciate it without any conceptual or intellectual constraints is
paramount for Americans to truly understand the nature of the
enemy and his ultimate goals."
Such were the words that opened my testimony to Congress. One year later, none other than President Obama's top
counterterror advisor, John Brennan, has come to to personify the approach I warned against, that is, the misguided
phenomenon of Westernizing Islamic concepts.
A Fox New's report, titled "Counterterror Advisor Defends Jihad as 'Legitimate Tenet of Islam,'" has the details:
During a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, John Brennan described violent extremists as
victims of "political, economic and social forces," but said that those plotting attacks on the United States should not
be described in "religious terms."
In other words, despite the fact that Islamists describe all their goals in "religious terms," Brennan sees them — you
know, people like Osama bin Laden, who murdered 3,000 Americans — as naught more than victims of the system.
And why is that? Because Brennan believes that "political, economic and social forces" — the three I specifically
stressed in my excerpt above — are the only precipitators to violence. So jihadists can openly articulate their violent
bloodlust through religious terms all they want, it matters not: Brennan and his ilk have their intellectual blinders shut
tight and refuse to venture outside the box.
Next, our counterterror advisor evokes the perverse logic behind the administration's recent decision to censor words
offensive to Muslims (which I closely explored here):
"Nor do we describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because
jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to
purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or
legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and,
children."
Inasmuch as he is correct in the first clause of that sentence — "jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam,
meaning to purify oneself or one's community" — he greatly errs in the latter clause, by projecting his own notions
of what constitutes "holy," "legitimate," and "innocent" onto Islam. In Islam, such terms are often antithetical to the
Judeo-Christian/Western understanding. Indeed, the institution of jihad, according to every authoritative Muslim
book on Islamic jurisprudence, is nothing less than offensive warfare to spread Sharia law, a cause seen as both
"legitimate" and "holy" in Islam. As for "innocence," by simply being a non-Muslim infidel, one is already guilty in
Islam. Brennan understands the definition of jihad; he just has no clue of its application. So he is left fumbling about
with a square peg that simply refuses to pass through a round hole.
Fox News continues:
"Brennan defined the enemy as members of bin Laden's
Al-Qa'ida network and 'its terrorist affiliates.' But Brennan
argued that it would be 'counterproductive' for the United
States to use the term, as it would 'play into the false
perception' that the 'murderers' leading war against the
West are doing so in the name of a 'holy cause.'"
Fine, do define the enemy as members of bin Laden's Al-Qa'ida network and "its terrorist affiliates," but do also
define the cause that binds these "terrorist affiliates" together in the first place. Of course, one need only read
their writings to know that they adhere to one and the same cause: the establishment of a hegemonic caliphate that
governs the world according to Sharia. As for Brennan calling the terrorist affiliates "murderers," would he also be
willing to apply that epithet to their prophet Muhammad, who was wont to send assassins to, well, murder his
critics, including poets and one old woman, whose body was dismembered by her Muslim assailants — assailants
who were no less convinced that they were involved in a "holy cause" than were the 9/11 hijackers?
It should be further noted that this tendency to project one's own cultural norms and priorities onto others is the
height of arrogance and ethnocentrism — precisely what Liberals constantly warn against. Yet, the irony is that
"open-minded" proponents of cultural relativism are also the ones most prone to Westernizing Islam. When
Brennan insists that jihadists are really not motivated by religion, but rather are products of "political, economic
and social forces," is this total dismissal of the "other" and his peculiar motivations (in favor of Western
paradigms) not arrogant?
In the end, Brennan is not all to blame. After all, though he and I were both born and raised in North Bergen, New
Jersey, perhaps my dual Middle-East/Western background gives me the advantage to understand both the
Islamicate and American mindsets equally. No, seems the greater blame lies with the President, whose election
campaign denounced ignorance and arrogance as leading us astray — only to hire a counterterror advisor who
epitomizes both.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
American Foreign Policy -- Political & Psychological Warfare
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
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
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Raymond Ibrahim is Associate Director of the Middle East Forum, author of The Al-Qa'ida Reader, and
Guest Lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College.
The foregoing article by Ibrahim was originally published in the Pajamas Media, May 29, 2010, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-ŕ-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/2662/brennan-counterterror-adviser-disaster)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
June 2, 2010
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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