White House Language Cops Deny Reality

One of the most important considerations at work in foreign relations today, arguably the most important, is that of self-identification. There are legions of ways in which an individual may identify himself and establish his relations with other humans. The most common ways in which a person so locates himself in both demographic and political space are tribe, ethnicity, region, nation, language, and religion.

Typically the identifiers merge in a reinforcing way. This is particularly true in the case of genuine, mature nation-states. Citizenship, language, geography, shared sense of history and values, all combine to provide a unitary identity by which the individual can feel a loyalty to a rather large, often remotely governed abstract--the nation--circumscribed by secure, defensible borders under the effective control of a consensually accepted polity--the state.

This can be seen quite clearly with the Americans. Not that many decades ago the emphasis was on the word, "States" in the name "United States of America." Now it is on the words "United" and "America." Our primary identity has shifted from city, state, or region to nation-state as we have become ever more mobile and ever more homogenized culturally, socially, economically, and politically. Even our once very distinguishable regional dialects have melted away in the heat of mass communications.

Americans may also have secondary identities such as ethnicity, religion, and generation, but these are most often purely secondary--unless brought forward in importance by the politics of victimization. It is only in the context of playing the game of victim-and-victimizer that any secondary identifier is given pride of place.

Unfortunately, playing the victim card has become so much a feature of our political landscape in the past forty or so years that the Law of Unintended Consequences can have great and terrible effects. This is particularly the case when the sensibilities so often invoked in the politics of victimization are invoked in the practice of foreign policy.

So, Geek, just what has this got to do with the real world, anyway?

Well, bucko, it's like this. The US and the rest of the civilized world is currently at war with--here comes the nitty-gritty--someone. Since 9/11 there has been no doubt that the US and other nation-states of similar foundational values and core institutions have been under armed attack. And, we have fought back.

But who attacked us? Against whom have we been fighting?

These key questions were not answered by the Bush/Cheney administration. The conceit held by the neocon ninnies of that time was that the US was engaged in a "war on terror." That was a logical and ontological monstrosity. It is impossible to wage war on a specific tactic of war which is what terrorism constitutes. It would have made as much sense to have declared war on air attacks without declaration of war on 8 December 1941 as to fight a war against terrorism.

The Bush/Cheney administration belatedly came to understand that it was unwise at the operational level to maintain we were waging war against Islamists or jihadists--even though we were. After the early period of boisterous enthusiasm and belief we could have a pair of quick and cheap victories in Afghanistan and Iraq in which the terms "Islamic," "Islamist," "Jihad," and similar were hurled with the rapidity of an M-4 on rock and roll, fear that overblown oratory might create ever more Muslims with a deep anti-American orientation overtook the White House and environs.

The same fear has gripped the Obama administration. Its latest excrescence is the presidential directive to eliminate "offensive" terms such as "Islamist" and "jihad" from strategic planning documents. This move is meant not only to bolster the famed Obama Outreach to the Arab and Muslim world which started in Cairo a year back but to reorient the way in which the US both approaches and is perceived in majority Muslim countries.

The goal is laudable. The means are not.

The Obama Prohibition still leaves us in the dark regarding the nature of the enemy we are fighting, the motives which propel that enemy, and the signposts marking our progress toward or regression from success in the war. The enemy needs a name. His motives and goals need to be understood. The definers of success need to be prescribed.

Admittedly, naming the enemy was much easier in the "old days." In most of our previous wars the enemy was either a nation-state or a pretender to that status. Other wars, those of an interventionary nature, the enemy could at least be identified by a specific ideology or his opposition to a polity supported by the US.

Naming names was quite easy. And, usually quite effective in mobilizing and maintaining political will here at home for the war "over there."

Outfits like the many franchises grouped together under the name al-Qaeda or even country specific entities such as the Talibans of Afghanistan and Pakistan are not so susceptible to easy and accurate identification unless one is willing to run the risk of offending someone's sensibilities somewhere. And, if those offended are Muslim in their primary identification, the consequence may be harmful to both national interest and personal health.

Whether reality imposes risks or not, whether the Obama administration likes it or not, not properly identifying the enemy, his motivations and goals makes the possibility of being successful in our efforts against him diminishingly small. The ironic elephant in the room is that by its very insistence upon extreme sensitivity to Muslim sensibilities, the Obama administration just like that of George W. Bush in its later years implicitly admits the nature and character--the identity, if you will--of the enemy.

The enemy is, of course, Islam. More accurately and specifically it is that segment of the Muslim population which accepts as a prime motivator and goal the universal, all encompassing identity of Islam. Make no mistake about it, Islam is a far more totalistic belief system than the other monotheistic religions. There is no daylight between faith and any other aspect of human life. Not only is there no daylight, there is no possibility that any will or can emerge.

Adherents of politically oriented, expansionist Islam, the Islamists, are not misunderstanders of Islam; they are good Muslims. True Believer Muslims. To think otherwise is to diminish both the power of the Belief and the sincerity of the Believer.

While some operatives of Islamism may be stooges, may be suffering from personality or character disorders, may be incomplete personalities, such is not the case with the movers, shakers, leaders, and commanders of Islamism and its armed, conjoined twin, Jihadism. The leadership cadre, even many of the trigger pullers and suicide vest wearers, are motivated by a sincere and pervasive belief that through their actions, the will of Allah to conquer the infidel and punish the apostate is being followed. They are convinced to their very marrow that their actions, including their deaths, will bring a better world, a more faithful and peaceful world into existence.

Other communities of faith have held similar, even identical views in the past, often the not too distant past. Even today there are Christians and Jews willing and able to commit murder and other crimes in the True Belief that by so doing they are following the will of the deity, and they are suffering in order to prevent sin, rectify past sins, or ushering in a better, more godly future.

The difference between the Islamists and jihadists on the one hand and True Believers in other faiths or secular ideologies is their greater number on the ground. Where the number of American "pro-life" advocates willing to commit murder on behalf of their faith is quite small or the number of ultra-orthodox Jews willing to kill archeologists who dig up inconvenient, long buried facts which contravene Biblical accounts is diminishingly small, this is not the case with respect to Islamists and jihadists.

This implies that the latest generation of language police in the White House are doing no good service to either the security and interests of the US or the best interests of Muslims by failing to properly and narrowly define the enemy. Ultimately it is up to Muslims throughout the world to decide: Is their religion is best represented by the totalistic interpretation of the Islamists or would it be better if observant Muslims rigorously rejected the blandishments and threats of those of their brethren who maintain that the way of Allah demands jihad, requires the suicide bombings, the wholesale killings, the waging of wars without end or conclusive result?

The vision of the world espoused by the Islamists is, at root, a recreation of the culture, the values, and the worldview of the Arabian Peninsula over a thousand years ago. The question for the one and a half billion Muslims today living in all countries of the world is simply what do they want for their future--life in Seventh Century Arabia or today?

This is the choice implicitly presented to the Muslims by the Obama administration's underlying strategy of engagement. It is impossible to discuss science, health care, investment opportunities, trade, education as the administration desires without challenging Muslims to choose between the Islamist worldview and agenda and one which allows for fully observant Islam lacking only the totalistic, expansionist, and death oriented features of Islamism.

This decision requires identity politics. It requires every Muslim to decide if the primary definer of faith demands acceptance of the Islamist understanding of what it takes to be a True Believer in the One True Faith. This is a decision which is not easy to make, particularly for people who have no tradition, no experience with the tortured process of evolving the sort of identity and consequent loyalty which typifies the nation-state.

Making this sort of difficult choice is not made any easier by our refusal to name our enemy in the wars today. You don't have to make a choice when you don't know there is a choice which must be made.

Mr Obama and others of the apprehensive, politically correct, multi-cultural persuasion have to understand that it is not only impossible to succeed in a war when the enemy cannot be properly, openly, and consistently named. It is also impossible to gain allies when they do not know with whom they are joining and against whom they are fighting.

Those are two very good reasons for naming names. Two good reasons for telling one and all, Muslims most of all, that our enemy, the enemy of both the present and the future, is the Islamist, the jihadist. By presenting a clear definition and thus a choice, the Muslims of the world can decide to reject the enemy in their midst.