Obama's Anti-Terror Plan Protects the Threat's Identity

by Robert Spencer

12/13/2011

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The Obama administration unveiled a new anti-terror strategy on Thursday that for the first time in history aims to battle a foe without naming it, and while denying that foe’s stated beliefs, identity and motivation. This recipe for disaster is so profoundly ridiculous that even as they were unveiling their plan, administration officials found themselves tangled up in logical absurdities.

Obama officials decided that the new strategy was necessary after a hard-Left reporter,Spencer Ackerman, published several articles detailing how FBI agents and other law enforcement officials were being taught about the Islamic texts and teachings that jihad terrorists use to justify violence and supremacism. That would never do in Obama’s politically correct America: NPR reported with breathless horror that “Islamophobia had crept into both federal and local law enforcement training.”

“Islamophobia” is a term devised by a Muslim Brotherhood organization, the International Institute of Islamic Thought, in order to stigmatize any criticism of the global jihad or Islamic supremacism. Analysts who dare note that Islamic jihadists are, well, Islamic jihadists are branded with the label. The enemy freely says they’re fighting us because of Islam, based on Islamic principles. But to notice that would be “Islamophobic,” no matter how helpful such notice might be for understanding the motives and goals of the enemy and devising an effective way to defeat him.

No one can call the new Obama strategy Islamophobic: When Rep. Dan Lungren (R.-Calif.) asked Paul Stockton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, whether “we are at war with violent Islamist extremism,” Stockton did his best to dodge the question and finally answered: “I don’t believe it’s helpful to frame our adversary as Islamic with any set of qualifiers that we might add, because we are not at war with Islam.”

What linguistic gymnastics will Stockton and his colleagues employ to avoid framing our adversary as Islamic when the adversary frames himself as Islamic? How will they refer to Palestinian Islamic Jihad? What about Hamas, which is an acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement? Or Hezbollah, the Party of Allah? What will Obama officials call the unfortunately acronymed Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)? Moros I’d Like to Frag?

The new plan entails still more absurdities. Quintan Wiktorowicz of the National Security Council explained that “the new program will focus on behavior, not religion or appearances.” What kind of behavior? “There are potential behavioral signals,” he explained. “For example, has someone in the community seen them watching violent extremist videos? Are they publicly coming out in defense of Osama Bin Laden? Are they talking about the kuffar [unbelievers]?”

Wait a minute. “Talking about the kuffar” is a “behavioral signal” for terrorism? But that’s what Muslims do, Wiktorowicz! The Koran is full of imprecations against, appeals to, warnings about, and exhortations to warfare against the kuffar. Surely you don’t mean to suggest that every Muslim who rails against the kuffar would be considered a potential terrorist? Wouldn’t that be focusing on religion, which is exactly what you said you would not do?

After gamely trying to keep the lion at bay during persistent questioning from Lungren, Stockton likewise finally admitted that jihad mass-murderer Maj. Nidal Hasan’s “Soldier of Allah” business card would also be an indicator of possible terror activity. But who would have a “Soldier of Allah” card except a pious Muslim—a most inconvenient fact for those who insist that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism.

The Obama administration is trying to do the impossible: fight against jihad terror without naming it as such, or saying anything about it that Muslims might find offensive. But Islamic supremacists in the U.S. claim to be offended by any mention of anything Islamic in connection with jihad terror. And so I’m sure that once Ibrahim Hooper of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) gets wind of Wiktorowicz’s or Stockton’s remarks, he will get them on the phone and tell them to cut out all this talk about how railing against the kuffar or carrying a “Soldier of Allah” business card might be indicators of future jihad terror activity.

They will doubtless meekly comply, and vacuum their own statements and even their minds of any remaining vestiges of truth or accuracy about the jihad terror threat—and further cripple law enforcement agents’ ability to understand what they’re dealing with in regard to jihad terrorism.