Don't Worry--They're Just "Radical Extremists"

Or, maybe the suicide bombers and other brands of wannabe martyrs are "extremist radicals." Or, perhaps they are simply radically extreme or extremely radical. Whatever they might be, all those who desire to enter Paradise through the killing of "infidel" or "apostate" civilians are most definitely not "jihadists." Nor are they "Islamists."

And, they are not and never have been "terrorists."

So pontificated John Brennan, the senior guy in the White House in the field of "counterterrorism" and "homeland security" in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. One can only wonder why this example of vocabulary warped, twisted, and perverted by the requirements of presidentially imposed political correctness was not met by gales of derisive laughter.

It was one more demonstration of the current administrations pathological inability to look reality in the face for fear that someone, somewhere, somehow might take offense and decide to claim his Virginal Reward at the cost of a bunch of American lives. Or, some hyper-sensitive Muslim somewhere might take it into his challenged cerebellum that the US was "waging war on Islam" with consequences too dire to contemplate.

The one time CIA lower, upper level factotum was right in rejecting the notion that the US was fighting a war against "terrorism" per se. Everybody with enough intellectual horsepower to differentiate between the moon and the sun has long commented on the inapposite nature of the George W. Bush formulation. No one would dissent from the proposition that one does not wage war on a specific tactic of war but rather against the practitioners of the tactic.

Mr Brennan was less correct when he averred we were not fighting against "terror" as terror constitutes a state of mind and we Americans refuse to live in fear. That sounds great even if the aftermath of every terrorist episode--even those which failed--shows a residue of fear of greater or lesser extent and magnitude. So it does the American people no disservice to admit that we can have the flaming piss scared right out of us--at least every now and then and at least for a short while.

However the always-on-the-reservation Mr Brennan is totally out-to-lunch when he got around to declaring that the US was not engaged in a war with either "Islamists" or "jihadists." You see, in the view of this newly minted Scholar of Islamic Theology and Jurisprudence, the real deal is simply that "jihad" is a legitimate tenet of Islam denoting the inner struggle of the believer to purify his belief and that of his community.

Duh!

Leaving aside such inconsequential factors as the Koran, the Sunnah, and the long standing and readily available conclusions of all the major schools of Sunni and Shia Islam which underscore time and time again the affirmative duty laid upon the believer to use armed force in order to protect and advance the Islamic faith, there is no doubt but Mr Brennan's interpretation is accurate. Of course, ignoring this much of the heart and soul of Islam cheapens and demeans the religion. (It is interesting that in this effort to be ever-so-sensitive-and-tolerant, Mr Brennan and others have the effect of deprecating the nature and character of the faith as well as the dedication of many of the adherents of the faith.)

Once the sensitivity based deprecation of a faith and its power to move believers is commenced, the speaker is on a very steep, exceptionally slippery slope. This reality came in Mr Brennan's remarks when he thundered that the US would "disrupt, destroy, and defeat" al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. He named the names but could not bring himself to acknowledge that the leaders of al-Qaeda and, to an even greater extent, Taliban, relied upon the authority of their religion--Islam--as total justification for all they did and will do.

Continuing on his slippery slope to the destruction both of language and the necessary ability to know and understand the enemy so he might be successfully defeated, Mr Brennan invoked the usual suspects as to motivation. He trotted out the list of long discredited social, economic, and political factors such as poverty and marginalization which have been the favored icons of those of a "progressive" bent.

To replace the reality of religion with the fantasy of social and economic factors required that Mr Brennan put aside completely the well documented information regarding the background of many, even most, of those who lead the "martyrdom seekers" as well as those who personally seek the solace of the next life. As those boring facts show time after (literally) bloody time, the background of leaders and followers alike is disquietingly privileged. From KSM to the failed "Underwear Bomber to the guy in the Times Square SUV, education and money lurk in their personal pasts.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton's campaign slogan from 1992, "It's the religion, stupid!"

Finally there is Mr Brennan's confusing formulation describing just who we are fighting, "radical extremists." Is this Deep Thinker of the view that there exists a creature called the "moderate extremist? Or, perhaps, a "reactionary extremist?"

Maybe he even believes that out there somewhere in the mountains of the FATA and Afghanistan or in the deserts of Yemen or Somalia there lurks the dreaded, "uncommitted extremist."

Ah, yes, bucko, that must be it! That must be the reason for his and the administration's mushy wording and pudding thinking, a justification for abusing both language and logic, a need for the soft speaking of political correctness.

Should the US be so bold as to call an Islamist an Islamist, the uncommitted extremist just might turn radical.