LORD HUSSEIN OF MUNICH

Critics: Obama too low-key on Islamic radicalism

Posted on July 13, 2010
by creepingsharia

Obama low-key on jihad?

There’s an understatement.

Unfortunately, if you read what the “critics” have to say, it’s doesn’t bode well for America. via The Associated Press: Critics: US too low-key on Islamic radicalism talk.

The Obama administration’s recent move to drop rhetorical references to Islamic radicalism is drawing fire in a new report warning the decision ignores the role religion can play in motivating terrorists.

Several prominent counterterror experts are challenging the administration’s shift in its recently unveiled National Security Strategy, saying the terror threat should be defined in order to fight it.

In the report, scheduled to be released this week, counterterrorism experts from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy argue that the U.S. could clearly articulate the threat from radical Islamic extremists “without denigrating the Islamic religion in any way.”

In the report, which was obtained by The Associated Press, the analysts warn that U.S. diplomacy must sharpen the distinction between the Muslim faith and violent Islamist extremism, identify radicalizers within Islamic communities and empower voices that can contest the radical teachings.

Not all that different from what Obama is doing.

Militant Islamic propaganda has reportedly been a factor in a spate of recent terror attacks and foiled attempts within the U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan, the suspect in the Fort Hood, Texas, mass shootings last year, is believed to have been inspired by the Internet postings of violent Islamic extremists, as was Faisal Shahzad, who pleaded guilty to terrorism and weapons charges in the May 1 attempted car bombing in New York’s Times Square.

The report acknowledges that the Obama administration has beefed up efforts to work with the Muslim community in the U.S. and abroad and has also expanded counterterrorism operations and tried to erode and divide al-Qaida and its affiliated groups.

But the administration’s two-pronged approach of stepping up counterterror operations while tamping down its rhetoric, the critics argue, needs to also include an ideological counteratteck with policies and programs that empower moderate Islamic voices and contest extremist narratives.

“There is an ideology that is driving al-Qaida and its affiliates,” said Matt Levitt, one of the authors of the study on countering violent extremism.

The administration, Levitt said, has to separate discussion of Islam as a religion from the radical Islamic ideology that is producing and fueling global insurgencies. The study is due out next week, but the authors, Levitt, a former FBI and Treasury official, and co-author J. Scott Carpenter, were to preview it Monday.

Separating the “religion” from the political extremist ideology seems a particularly challenging task for Levitt and others considering Islam, according to Muslims, is not merely a religion but a complete way of life that includes jihad to spread Islam. One need look no further than the best Muslim of all – Mohammad – whom all Muslims are to emulate.

To further complicate the separation of religion (Islam) and politics (Islamism) as suggested in the report, one of the authors, Mr. Carpenter, helped draft Iraq’s new constitution that states, “Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation,” and that no law that contradicts Islam can be established.

Read the report and its recommendations which, valid points aside, read like Obama’s outreach on steroids.

More, via Obama at odds with Petraeus doctrine on ‘Islam’:

A 2008 U.S. Central Command “Red Team” report, or contrarian analysis, warned that divorcing Islam from jihadist terrorism is a mistake.

“The sources of Islam (Quran, Hadith, Shariah) claim divine origin and include a large body of Islamic jurisprudence on warfare that is detailed, instructive and directive,” the report said. “A balanced, intellectually critical approach must be taken in order to deconstruct the prime underpinnings and language of the concept of jihad, which rest firmly in the sources of Islam and not solely as contrivances within the criminal minds of a small number of violent extremists.”

Douglas Feith, who as undersecretary of defense for policy under Mr. Bush helped plan the war on terror, said, “There always has been a sensitivity that we do not want to do or say anything that will allow our efforts to be mischaracterized credibly as a war against Islam.”

Mr. Feith, an analyst at the Hudson Institute, is now working on a paper on a U.S. strategy for countering “Islamist extremism.”

“What Brennan has done in this speech, I think, he’s bent over backwards to avoid using the term Islam at all and it makes discussions of what we’re really up against artificial, unrealistic and strategically unhelpful,” Mr. Feith said. “I think they need to be a little bolder and a little more honest and a little more assertive in making this extremely important distinction. To say Islam has nothing to do with it is ridiculous.”

He describes the distinction this way:

“People in the administration should be making the clear distinction between Islam, which is a religion and which is not our enemy, and extremist Islamism, which is a political ideology and is our enemy. … The fact is our enemies fly the banner of Islam. They claim to represent the religion. There are other people in the religion who say they don’t. What we need to be clear about is, our enemy has an extremist political ideology. They describe that ideology as the true religion. And there is no way we can deal with this phenomenon without confronting the fact that the enemy political ideology is rooted in a religion.”

Again, according to Feith there must be some kind of Islamism that isn’t extremist and isn’t our enemy. This is nowhere identified or classified. Where is the separation between politics and faith in Islam?

How would Feith categorize CAIR, ISNA, MAS, MSA, and other Muslim Brotherhood entities that operate freely in the United States?

Related:

“TO OUR GREAT DETRIMENT”: IGNORING WHAT EXTREMISTS SAY ABOUT JIHAD (pdf)
The Semantics of Islamic Terrorism and Jihad
Preventing the West from Saying, and Understanding Jihad, Part I
Preventing the West from Saying, and Understanding Jihad, Part 2
Preventing the West from Saying, and Understanding Jihad, Part 3

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