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.

Finally--An End To The "Global War On Terrorism"

Among the idiotic actions of the Bush/Cheney administration was declaring war on terrorism. The notion of fighting a war against a specific tactic was both illogical and distracting. One fights an enemy--not the tactics the enemy employs.

Finally, the abominable circumlocution has been heaved out of the official US lexicon. Counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan gave the old "GWOT" the heave ho in a speech at Georgetown yesterday. The Geek applauds.

The Geek is not ready to give Brennan and the Obama administration kudos for abandoning the term "jihad" and its cognates. Tossing out "jihad" is an exercise in the absurd. It is also lacking in logic.

Brennan admits that our enemy, which he defines as al-Qaeda and akin groups, are seeking the establishment of a "global caliphate." Well, golly-gee, ain't that a religiously motivated goal? You know, Shariah and all that?

Then, gosh, what is wrong with "jihad?"

According to Brennan, the term means the internal struggle on the part of the believer to be an ever better Muslim. He is right. That is one of the word's denotative values. The lesser one.

The greater meaning is armed struggle against the infidels and apostates. It is an obligation on all good Muslims. It is the means by which "The House of Peace" (Islam) will defeat, conquer and occupy "The House of War" (everyone else.)

What is hard to understand about this? It is in the Sacred Writings of Islam as well as all the revered commentaries by Islamic scholars over the centuries. Heck, it is even what the jihadists say they are waging--jihad against the infidels and apostates.

Certainly as an old Mideast hand for the Agency, Mr Brennan is quite well aware of the word, its primary meaning, and its widespread currency. There is no need to attenuate the reality--particularly as Mr Brennan has correctly described the long-term goal of the Islamists including their armed component, the jihadists.

It is not, as Mr Brennan and others would pretend, a matter of elevating criminals to the dignity of religion. Not that at all. Rather it is a matter of correctly identifying the use of religiously rooted terms and concepts to justify criminal acts.

The religious coloration given to criminal acts by quoting Koranic verses, issuing fatwas, and insisting that jihad is incumbent on every true Muslim does not alter the basic nature of the act. Rather, acknowledging the use of concepts and terms from religion by terrorists and other criminals allows the proper parsing between observant Muslims and jihadists.

Getting beyond terms--important as these are in the definition of the enemy--and looking at motivations, Brennan seems to have adopted the socio-economic-political stance. He appears to have bought into the thesis that economic marginalisation, political marginalisation, and poor education are the root causes of Islamist terrorism.

While the poor, the disenfranchised, and ignorant are to be found in the ranks of Islamist jihadist groups including al-Qaeda, so also are the un-poor, the enfranchised, the educated. One need not be a former CIA officer nor a counter-terrorism specialist to know that the overwhelming majority of the leaders, the planners, even the executors of high profile attacks, have been drawn from the ranks of the economically well-founded, the educated, the upwardly mobile, even those who could have a most comfortable and well-integrated existence in their host society.

Even in the Gaza Strip an appreciable number of wannabe martyrs to say nothing of those who command and control them are not the flotsam of the refugee camps, the detritus of war. Even in that armpit of the human race, the chief jihadists, and most of the trigger pullers and suicide vest wearers are not poor, alienated, hopeless.

Social work, psychiatric intervention, economic uplift, educational outreach will not dent the population of actual or potential jihadists and the Islamists who direct their lives--and deaths. It beggars the imagination to believe that a man with the experience of Mr Brennan does not know this.

Islamists and jihadists alike are True Believers as Eric Hoffer defined the term. Their identity as individuals with worth and meaning is derived completely from their acceptance of and subscription to a particular interpretation of Islam. Some of the Islamists and jihadists are also nationalist True Believers. The combination of religious and nationalist True Belief cannot be addressed by mere economic or political reforms. Nor can it be countered by "public diplomacy" and education.

To the Islamist jihadist True Believer, other Muslims, even the most observant who do not share their world view of a global caliphate, Shariah for all, and the use of all means--fair or foul--to attain these goals, are suspect at best. The Islamist jihadist True Believer is more totalistic in his motivation than was even the most committed Nazi or Marxist-Leninist. Get a grip on that ground truth.

Mr Brennan has spent most of his adult life at the Agency. That sort of experience is noted for its breeding of a cynical but realistic view of people and their motivations. It is difficult to accept that Mr Brennan escaped this. Or that he really believes the pap about social work, economic development, and education as even a partial counter to the enemy before us.

However, Mr Brennan's boss, POTUS Obama is probably so naive as to believe that some ACORN style community organizing will end the jihadist (OOPS! Bad Geek! You should have written "violent extremist.") menace. And, as the hoary cliche has it: You have to go along to get along.

Sure, use the soft power tools to peel away the softest of the soft-core support for the Islamist jihadist agenda. That might work. But, for the hard core, the True Believers, there is but one sovereign remedy. They must be killed.

As the white eyes used to say about a chunk of the Geek's ancestors: "The only good Apache is a dead one." Every now and then as in the recent case of Baitullah Mehsud, we do manufacture a good Islamist jihadist.

The real deal is the need to make a whole lot more "good jihadists" not rename them.