President Obama is using the al-Qaeda label to obfuscate and to avoid examining what common threat doctrine binds the global and domestic jihad against the U.S. and other infidels.
President Obama told the nation in the wake of the Islamic jihadi Christmas bombing attempt:
We are at war against al Qaeda, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred that attacked us on 9/11, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people, and that is plotting to strike us again. And we will do whatever it takes to defeat them.
However, any American interested in parsing Obama's understanding of al Qaeda's motivation further as to why al Qaeda is "a far-reaching network of violence and hatred" runs into a stonewall of apparent political correctness.
So, looking for more information, when one turns to remarks made by the Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, John Brennan, we learn why Americans are being repeatedly attacked and murdered on US soil during the Obama presidency:
Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents. What they have done over the past decade and a half, two decades, is to attract individuals like Mr. Abdulmutallab and use them for these types of attacks. He was motivated by a sense of religious sort of drive. Unfortunately, al Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam, so that he's able to attract these individuals. But al Qaeda has the agenda of destruction and death.
Even the not-so-astute reader recognizes that Brennan, like the President himself, is using the al-Qaeda label to obfuscate and to avoid actually examining what common threat doctrine binds the global and domestic jihad against the U.S. and other infidels.
In the recently released Department of Defense report, "Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood," Major Nidal Malik Hasan's motivation for jihadi mass murder is described as "self-radicalization." Self-radicalization is also the murder motivation attributed to jihadi underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, as well as Arkansas recruiting station jihadi murderer, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad.
If we combine the rationales offered by Obama and Brennan in an attempt to gain a more complete explanation of al Qaeda's motivation, we find, according to them, that we are facing violent, hateful, murderers dedicated to wanton slaughter who are motivated by a perverted religious drive, which is not further explained. Further, the motivation to actually act on this hateful drive is not guided by any external or objective doctrine. Rather, it is "self"-induced and it is just "radicalization" disconnected to any other doctrine, say, Islam's Shariah or legal system and jurisprudence.
Consequently, taking the President and his principal counterterrorism advisor at their own words, there appears to be no rational reason behind the self-radicalization that leads to wanton slaughter of Americans. Can Obama and Brennan really believe their public explanations? Furthermore, the combined Obama-Brennan explanation begs another question – are we only at war with al Qaeda, or are there other Muslim groups and individuals who might also become instaneously "self-radicalized" to murder Americans?
But perhaps the most vexing and crucial question that arises from trying to parse the Obama administration's understanding of our enemy's motivation is – can there be radicals without some sort of objective doctrine that compels their devotion to repeated murderous behavior? The way that Obama and Brennan have described the motivation of the jihadis who are killing our citizens, one would conclude that they just murder mindlessly for murder's sake. However, is it logical and rational that there is a far-reaching global network of violence and hatred, which transcends borders, language, and even cultures, whose sole purpose is murder and wanton slaughter of innocents? How exactly does that work?
The key component of the Obama administration's characterization of al Qaeda's seemingly inexplicable motive to inflict carnage on innocents is that "al Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam." However, this unsupported assertion is not elaborated upon; therefore, it is not possible to know how exactly the Obama administration arrived at their al Qaeda doctrinal perversion conclusion.
But the validity of the Obama administration's motivational characterization for al Qaeda does not square with the jihad mandates specifically stated in the Shariah-Islam's 1,200-year old jurisprudence, which in turn relies on the Quran, Sunnah, Hadith, and Fiqh. The al Qaeda leadership, including but hardly limited to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, has consistently maintained that in carrying out their bloody jihad against non-believers they are fulfilling the Islamic imperatives just as Muhammad had fourteen centuries ago.
So is Islam the "religion of peace" as the US Government has maintained since 9/11, or is Islam's Shariah doctrine at its foundation in fact "radical?"
The Shariah, as delineated in Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, defines jihad as "to war against non-Muslims" (o9.0) and quotes as jihad scriptural authority:
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o9:0 (1) – "Fighting is prescribed for you [Muslims]" (Quran 2:216)
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o9:0 (2) – "Slay them [non-Muslims] wherever you find them" (Quran 4:89)
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o9:0 (3) – "Fight the idolaters [non-Muslims] utterly"(Quran 9:36)
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o9:0 (3) — "I have been commanded to fight people until they [non-Muslims] testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay Zakat." (Muhammad quoted in the Hadith related by Bukhari)
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o9:8 — "Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden – who do not practice the religion of truth [Islam] . . . until they pay poll tax out of hand and are humbled." (Quran 9:29)
It would seem that President Obama and his counterterrorism assistant Mr. Brennan would be well served to actually read Islam's Shariah jihad doctrine above before labeling al Qaeda and other jihadis as "radicals" who have perverted Islam. A close reading of Islam's Shariah doctrine reveals that the jihadis are in compliance with fundamental and authoritative Islamic law. Our enemies are not mindless, radical killers, but rather quite serious Muslims practicing their religion exactly as the Prophet Muhammad and the majority of Shariah authorities after Muhammad envisioned for their followers.
The sooner the true nature of our Islamic existential enemy is identified, the sooner our national security organization can begin devising knowledgeable countermeasures to carry out President Obama's promise to "do whatever it takes to defeat them."
One of the most difficult lessons for most Americans to learn is that there is, that there can be, a world religion claiming over a billion followers, that allows for and encourages violence. This is a real stretch for the average American, who tends to think of the little church down the street, or the fall fair at the local Catholic parish when he or she thinks of ‘religion.’ Or perhaps the image is the medical missionary serving in Haiti, or the kindly old pastor who shows up for the church youth group car wash.
In the modern Western world, religion has been domesticated, its violence stripped away. Just a few centuries ago Europeans killed each other over whether infants should be baptized, and the wars between Catholic and Protestants produced mass slaughter. Those were all folks who took their religion seriously.
But over time a new way of being Christian developed, invented by Western thinkers who sought peace. In the Anglo-American tradition, Locke and others played a major role in ‘privatizing’ religion, to the point where many Americans really do believe that religion is what goes on in your own head when you think about God. Other sources of this change were sober Dutch legal and political theorists who figured out ways for people with opposing religious views to live in the same society.
None of that happened in the Islamic world. For every quote from the Quran or provision of the Shari’a in this column, I can offer dozens more. I’ve taught university students about Islamic political thought for nearly 40 years. The Islamic tradition has no room for religious dissent; it contains no protection for what Westerners understand as ‘freedom of speech.’ The very idea–self-evidently good to Americans and many Europeans, that freedom of speech and press allows satire of religion–cannot have legitimacy in an Islamic society. And wherever Muslims live, the more devout they are, the more they regard themselves as members of the global ummah and not primarily as citizens of some specific nation-state. What can laws made by mere men say that compares with God’s own Law? What possible rights can be granted by man’s law in the face of God’s truth?
The West’s war with Islam has gone on since Islam first appeared. It will continue. And Americans have so much to learn.
Gestell
You have summed up the situation regarding Americans’ unrealistic perception of religion perfectly. Because the American concept of religion is as a beneficient and beatific endeavor, it is next to impossible for those who have not studied Islam and its history, or lived in a Sharia-dominated society, to comprehend the shear ruthlessness of the true believers.
Having also taught Islamic political thought for years on the university level, I have experienced sock and disbelief from students when the totalitarian Islamic political strictures from the Quran and Sharia were quoted to them. It was amazing that the political correctness of “diversity” is so ingrained in university students that some even refused to accept incontrovertible evidence which contradicts their notion of a benevolent Islam.
I think it is obvious to most that a reluctance to paint religious radicalism with a broader brush in this particular case reflects recognition of the potentially severe costs for doing so. To assign blame upon an entire religion, which I infer the article solicits as its objective, would alienate at least one authoritarian regime in the Middle East from whom the West purchases major stocks of petroleum. Moreover, there are few disputes
outside of the religious which exact as great a penalty in terms of loss of life and general conflagaration. Advocating greater “precision” in expression of cultural and ideological definitions without regard to political realities and real-world consequences for doing so is, in this case, is simply foolish.
Gestell’s comment that “In the modern Western world, religion has been domesticated, its violence stripped away.” is particularly insightful. We no longer use the violence of the old testament to justify war (although defense of its’ delineated real estate stands as a conspicuous exception. Ahem).
The author is right – daily life under Sharia law is an oppressive situation, and remnants of violence have still not been ‘domesticated.’ The political and personal liberty of the people is akin to pre-Enlightenment Europe.
The question becomes, do you condemn 1.5 billion people en masse because they haven’t gotten out of the middle ages or do you try to move the needle, reinforcing civil integration and interaction as slow as that goes?
I think the reason Obama is so careful (“religious sort of drive” is a particularly awkward phrase), is not because he isn’t aware of the hold Islam has on it’s adherents (though I doubt he knows their scripture as well as you), but because he’s specifically trying not to unnecessarily inflame the 1.45 billion people who would not otherwise have a gripe with the US, but still have to live sucky lives anyway.
Labeling everyone an “Axis of Evil” and “Terrorists” didn’t work out for us that well, so I find a bit of circumspect specificity refreshing.
Interesting: Malcom Nance, author of “An End to Al Queda” is on Rachel Maddow right this second saying that “AQ is a virus.” Says it takes hold of young men, like a cult, and even their families can’t relate to them. He said “in the war against Al Queda, our allies are the ordinary Muslims” who see their communities torn apart.
Nance is a “counter-terrorism and terrorism intelligence consultant for the U.S. government’s Special Operations, Homeland Security and Intelligence agencies” so it would seem the Pentagon and Obama are getting some good advice.
Michaelbp and Chasm miss the point of the article. The reason to accurately identify Shariah-compliant Islam as the US’ enemy is to educate Americans so that they do not fall victim to believing that not naming Shariah-compliant Islam as the enemy will somehow induce Islamic jihadis, who are carrying out their Shariah mandated duty to kill those they cannot convert or subdue, to desist killing Americans. Since 9/11 we have done exactly as Michaelbp and Chasm have advocated, and yet Islamic jihadis have not ceased their war that is the very core of their religion. Why would they? Shariah-compliant Islamic jihadis are conducting a war to the death against non-Muslim infidels as they are ordered in Quranic Sura 9:5 and Islamic Shariah o9:0; not what non-Muslim think or say about them.
We cannot pretend away the jihadi threat, as the Clinton administration proved for eight years. Bush and now Obama have continued to pretend that they are in some sort of imaginary Harry Potter drama flailing away against “an evil that must not be named” when all of the Muslim world know for a fact that Shariah-compliant Islamic jihadis are merely carrying on the 1400 year-old jihadi war to subdue Western Civilization. Our leadership dwells in a fantasy land fearful of an unnamable enemy, while in the real world Islamic jihadis are killing our people and attempting to subjugate our civilization.
Michaelbp’s and Chasm’s acceptance the Islamist psywar premise that Muslims are only making war on us because of things we have done or are doing is the reason why Americans must be educated about the true nature of Shariah-compliant Islam. Shariah-compliant Islamic jihadis are conducting a war to the death against non-Muslim infidels as they are ordered in Quranic Sura 9:5 and Islamic Shariah o9:0.
Actually the Muslims began making Jihad against the US as soon as we became an independent country in 1786. As American ambassadors to France and Britain respectively, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with the Tripolian ambassador to negotiate a peace treaty and protect the United States from the threat of Barbary piracy being conducted from Tripoli.
These future United States presidents questioned the ambassador as to why his government was so hostile to the new American republic even though America had done nothing to provoke any such animosity. The Tripolian ambassador answered them, as they reported to the Continental Congress, “that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Muslim who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” So Islam had declared itself as one of America’s first and oldest enemies, as it remains today.
The Barbary pirates were not a “radical” or “fundamentalist” sect that had twisted religious doctrine for power and politics, or that came to recast aspects of their faith out of some form of insanity.
They were simply a North African warrior caste involved in an armed jihad— a mainstream Muslim doctrine. This is how the Muslims understood Barbary piracy and armed jihad at the time, and, indeed, how the physical jihad has been understood since Mohammed revealed it as the will of Allah – a war against non-Muslims. It should be noted that the Tripolian jihad was long before the founding of Israel or the discovery and Western development of Middle East oil. So much for the Palestinian and Western oil exploitation reasons for jihad.
I don’t hold the premise that the ‘only’ reason to wage Jihad on us is because of “things we have done or are doing” (nice euphemism for invading and occupying two, if not three, Muslim countries, btw). I thought I was pretty careful in avoiding that direct assumption, actually, as I talked specifically about the oppressive nature of sharia law itself.
But I guess you’re in the “declare outright and open war on the 1.5 billion” camp.
Listening to Malcom Nance, a 10 year veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, talk about this in comparison to the above essay was most instructive, as Nance indicated that our current view exactly contradicts this premise, that is, that there really does seem to be a “switch” that goes off, and that joining in radical jihad is like joining a cult. If such a bright line is indeed indicated, why on earth go of our way to alienate even more those still on the ‘safe’ side of the line?
At any rate, considering Obama’s continuing success in rounding up and killing Taliban (another one today!) it would seem there is more to his grasp of the war he is waging that what you can parse in a few press releases.
Let me put it this way: I agree that if the fundamentals upon which are ‘evil,’ than the apple will rot from the core. And the fundamentals in this case have wrought a deeply oppressed society: paranoid, sexist, bigoted, tribal. And there’s no doubt that there is only so much a human person can take.
That’s why I give this ‘cult’ idea a bit of credence. Since, as Bush repeatedly told us, and I agree, people yearn for freedom and liberty, any normal person brought up in such an environment of total oppression usurpation of rights is just going to buckle down and do what humans do: deal. Cope. Hope you can get through the day in a normal day without getting hassled.
But under such intense social stress and oppression, it certainly seems reasonable to me that a certain percentage of the population, particularly those most prone to manipulation, could succumb ‘whole hog’ to the most radical elements and react violently.
I think any attempt to ‘win’ a war against terrorists is going to require understanding this kind of mindset if we are to undermine and defeat it.
If I correctly understand the author, he is criticizing the President for not specifically saying, in public speeches and press releases, that the core assumptions of Islam are violence and death against non-Muslims, and thus Evil. With the implication being that if we are at war with Jihad, we are at war with Islam itself.
I don’t think we should be at war with Islam simply because the history of their religion is based on violence and exclusion, any more than I want to be at war with Christians because the history of their religion are based on the exact same things. We got over the violence in our Holy Book, shouldn’t we be helping them to get over the violence in theirs.
And yes, killing or capturing those that try and do us harm.
It’s unfortunate that wfalcon’s ideological blinders compel him to reflexively lump those with whom he would disagree into some sort of perceived solidarity with radical authoritarianism regardless of its DNA composition. I emphasize “would” because he apparently also either reads poorly or, worse, chooses to misrepresent the position of others in order to supply a pretext for his contention. Contrary to what wfalcon infers (if indeed he has read my comments) I have written nothing which could be logically construed as an apologist’s justification for previous “jihadist” attacks on the basis of enemy reciprocation. Calling attention to possible consequences does not constitute acceptance of a “psywar premise.” I would ask that wfalcon at least temporarily engage in some intellectual honesty in assessing the comments of others rather than assume an ideologically contrived disposition from which to resonate with the Snodgrass charge of “political correctness” and “obfuscation” on the part of public officials seeking to avoid ignition of interreligious warfare.
It is apparent that Chasm and I share the same fundamental objective of protecting Americans from Islamic jihadi attack – “And yes, killing or capturing those that try and do us harm” – but we differ on the means to achieve that objective.
However, there seems to be a misreading of the means I am advocating, so allow me to take a different tack. There is a war going on inside Islam for control of the Islamic worldwide community (ummah) between the Shariah-compliant jihadis and non-Shariah-compliant Muslims (AKA “moderates’”).
To lay the predicate for my case, I quote Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, one of South Asia’s leading nuclear physicists and perhaps Pakistan’s preeminent intellectual. He holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is chairman of the department of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad where he is a high-energy physicist.
“Muslims are at war with other Muslims. If the radicals win, or can at least terrify the moderates into following their restrictions, then there will be no personal and intellectual freedom and hence no thinking, ideas, innovations, discoveries, or progress. Our real challenge is not better equipment or faster Internet connectivity but our need to break with mental enslavement, to change attitudes, and to win our precious freedom.” (http://www.meforum.org/2593/pervez-amirali-hoodbhoy-islam-science)
Unfortunately there are actually very few Muslim intellectuals like Dr. Hoodbhoy who are publicly leading the battle against the Shariah-compliant jihadis. Over the 14 centuries of Islamic history Muslims have never been able to “moderate” Islam by displacing Shariah-mandated-jihad advocates from Islamic leadership. Those Muslims who have tried have usually met an untimely and unpleasant end, so I personally put little faith in their prospect of success, but nevertheless we should assist them when and how we can.
It must be noted throughout my posts I am careful to specify that America’s enemies are “Shariah-compliant Islamic jihadis.” Allegiance to the Shariah and its call to jihad (Quranic Sura 9:5 as implemented by Islamic Shariah o9:0) is what differentiate America’s jihadi enemies from “moderate” Muslims. Here is how we can assist those few Muslim intellectuals who are publicly battling against the Shariah-compliant jihadis – identify the Shariah-compliant jihadis for who they are.
I again quote from a Muslim intellectual in the forefront of the internal Islamic war to “moderate” the Muslim religion, Dr. Tawfik Hamid, an Egyptian medical doctor who was a jihadi colleague of Ayman al-Zawahiri in the Jihadi-Muslim group-Jamaat Islamiyah. Dr. Hamid subsequently renounced jihad and wrote the following:
“Some apologists thought that ignoring the ideological component of the problem of Islamic radicalism would appease the Muslim world and prevent a possible clash of civilizations. However, by adopting such a defenseless attitude, the apologists actually made things worse and increased the possibility for such a culture collision.
“The impact of ignoring the role of ideology in creating Islamic radicalism has resulted in the following three outcomes:
“The apologetic attitude toward radical Islam has impeded reformation efforts within the Muslim world. Ignoring the role ideology played in creating the problem has made reformation within Islam simply unnecessary. The Muslim world is unlikely to consider changing violent interpretations of the religious text as long as western apologists insist that ideology played no role in creating the problem.
“In other words, ignoring the truth provides no incentive for Muslims to make any changes in the traditional interpretations of their religion. Criticisms of the violent interpretations of Islam are needed to encourage the Muslim world to make a change in such interpretations and to adopt more moderate understanding of the religion.
“The apologetic attitudes toward Islamic radicalism encourages jihadists and terrorists to attack more because they recognize that, whatever they do, Western apologists will find justifications. The same applies to those who practice stoning of women as part of Shariah and the Western apologists who claim that Shariah is compatible with human rights!
“To make it clearer: Why should someone change his violent behavior if everyone is telling him that it is “peaceful”?
“The apologetic attitudes toward radical Islam have made many policymakers in the West unable to make appropriate decisions to deal with it. Postulating non-ideological reasons for the problem and ignoring the obvious ideological factors have misled many leaders and directed their efforts to the wrong cause(s) of the problem.
The integration of the above outcomes of the apologetic attitudes to radical Islam has given more fuel to the fire of Islamic radicalism and actually made things worse. If the apologists for radical Islam were honest enough to admit the role of the ideology, appropriate steps and measures to prevent violent atrocities could have been taken years ago.
“Ignoring the true cause of the problem has only made things worse.”
(http://www.newsmax.com/tawfik_hamid/radical_islam_terrorism/2009/12/04/294350.html)
I take the testimony of those like Dr. Hamid who are in the middle of the battle against Shariah-compliant jihadis to be a more effective strategy over that of American non-Muslims who advocate peace through what amounts to appeasement.
As to the quarrelsome latest post by michaelbp, all I have seen from him are “foolish” and “ideological” (his intellectually open-minded characterization of my comments – that’s what I love about liberals – they accuse you of what they practice) personal opinions. His personal opinions, without facts, are scarcely worthy of comment, except to point out their lack of intellectual foundation.
I’m not sure how useful it is to call what is being called here ‘shari’a compliant Islam” with the label ‘radical Islam,’ as if to distinguish it from some sort of ‘moderate’ Islam. All Muslims are supposed to live according to shari’a. It is the Law of God as applied to human beings living in society. It is precisely parallel in function to Jewish Law, to Torah and the mitzvot. The distinction that really matters is how Muslims choose to act in the world as Muslims. For example, most Western Christians claim to share a set of basic beliefs, but there are gradations among them as to how rigorously they live, or try to live, their beliefs. There are very, very few evangelical Christians, for instance, who actually live according to New Testament teachings about not loving worldly things. Perhaps only small groups like really traditional Amish manage something like this.
So it is with Muslims. I know Muslims who are Muslim in the same way that Christians who go to church unless they have something better to do, and write out checks to support missionaries, are Christians. Which is to say, not much, according to religious people who are more strict in their views.
As one of yo pointed out, many Jews no longer pay much attention to the bloodier parts of the Old Testament. And Christianity has almost nothing in its scriptures that can be used to justify violence, which is not to say that Christians are blameless either.
Now what is the political sense of all this? First, the US plainly cannot wage war against Islam as a religion. And while we should do what we can to encourage those we regard as ‘moderate’ Muslims, we must also note how utterly isolated such people are in their own societies, where they are regarded as being–to borrow from conservatives–Muslims in Name Only (MINOs). Instead, we must be willing and able to act decisively against any and all threats to our security posed by Muslims (or anybody else). To this end, our government needs to be much more aggressive in exposing and criticizing powerful Muslims such as some of the Saudi princes who do far more with their money to support terrorism than anybody we’ve returned to Yemen. There should also be strong efforts to expose the Saudis who funnel millions of dollars into university Arab/Middle East studies programs.
The West and Islam have been at odds since Islam first appeared. Muslims rebuke the West for the Crusades, but few in the West know much about the Islamic assaults on Europe. And yes, these old wars are relevant today, because one side–the Islamic side–chooses to use them for its ideological purposes.
Finally, as a liberal academic, I can say that the situation in universities is perhaps even worse than some conservatives imagine. The only political voice that most students hear or that most academics acknowledge is that of militant Islam. Most of my younger colleagues hate and loathe Israel and prostrate themselves before Hamas. this is because they regard the Palestinians as poor, oppressed people of color oppressed by the ‘white’ Israelis. The legacy of such as Franz Fanon is alive and well and its carriers are getting tenure. Israel is also seen as ‘Western’ and thus as the natural oppressor of Third World peoples. I note, however, that no Islamic nations have thus far sent aid to Haiti, and Israel had its expert health forces deployed very quickly.
wfalcon, excelling points. You are much better versed in the specifics of the intellectual battle than I, and for the most part we agree (even though I’m one of those hypocrite liberals ;) I was really speaking more in the realm of what Gestell called “‘moderate’ Muslims… Muslims in Name Only (MINOs)” but include the masses that are under the influence that your citations so eloquently put it.
Clearly, the heart of the matter is, “Why should someone change his violent behavior if everyone is telling him that it is “peaceful”?” and I take your point. But the flip side is, who listens to another word you say after you call their religion “evil.” And that’s where we are, a difficult situation, no doubt.
Not to go way off track or anything, but perhaps the best thing to do is buy electric or CNG cars and leave the middle east entirely (except for Special Forces and CIA, of course). This would take their excuses away, and they can just spend their oil money while they can get it (I told you I was a liberal).
Chasm, I don’t engage in intellectual dialogue to personally disparage anyone personally — liberal, conservative, or libertarian. I agree or disagree with the policies they advocate. I uncharacteristically made reference to “liberal” tactics of argumentation because I was provoked by the ad hominem accusation that I “misrepresent the position of others in order to supply a pretext for his contention” and that I was “foolish” and ideological.” My response was out of place in an intellectual discourse, as were the ad hominem accusations against me.
Regarding your statement, “who listens to another word you say after you call their religion ‘evil’,” I was simply using a well-known (or so I thought) comparison to the Harry Potter series – “an evil that must not be named” – to make the point that it is not rational to ignore a threat that would kill you. If you will notice, in the second reference I wrote I used “enemy – “Our leadership dwells in a fantasy land fearful of an unnamable enemy.” And an “enemy” the Shariah-compliant Islamic jihadis truly are, and it not rational to try to ignore them. (I personally do believe that Shariah-compliant Islamic jihadis are evil, but I am not advocating advancing that judgment in our public policy.)
As to your suggestion that electric cars would permit us to disengage from the politics of the Middle East – we still require carbon and nuclear energy to recharge the proposed electric cars, so as long as Democrats block North American drilling, additional coal plants, and nuclear development (Obama’s nuclear loan guarantee pledge is next to meaningless because there is no where to store the waste after he closed Yucca Mountain), the Middle East will remain a player we must contend with.
I could not agree more with you more regarding withdrawing conventional US combat forces from the Middle East. Counterinsurgency-nation building are doomed to fail in the Islamic world because of the cultural resistance of Islam (see http://www.meforum.org/2593/pervez-amirali-hoodbhoy-islam-science) to change from 7th century beliefs. The CIA, Special Operations Forces, and drone operations should remain to maintain an Intel presence and to continue to kill Shariah-compliant Islamic jihadi leadership.
wfalcon, the ‘intellectual battle’ I was speaking of the battle for the minds of the Muslim populace, of which your description of the poles was spot on. Any snarky inference to lib v con battles was un-intentional and sorry if I was unclear. Believe me, I get called an “idiot” with an intolerant “liberal agenda” every day twice a day. Water off a duck (not that you have done so.)
As far as energy transitioning, that takes time but we need to be aware of the problem and begin actively transitioning now. Whatever sources you prefer (I go more green electric, myself) will be worked out by the market, but the transition needs to be stated as a goal, and movement made.