"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."-Sun Tzu, The Art of War.Sun Tzu is credited with writing those words 2,500 years ago, but they could have been written as a warning to President Obama and his National Security advisers as they refuse to acknowledge who we are fighting against, Islamist extremists. Instead, this administration believes that by letting the Islamists "off the hook" by calling our enemies something else, the rest of the Muslim world will start embracing the United States.
Yesterday reports leaked out of Washington that the Obama administration that the administration may change the National Security Strategy, a document which is exactly what it is titled a document which lays out our security concerns and strategies to keep us safe. The proposed changes will exclude use of terms which might "offend" our enemies such as Islamic Radicalism used in the paragraph below:
The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century and finds the great powers all on the same side – opposing the terrorists. This circumstance differs profoundly from the ideological struggles of the 20th century, which saw the great powers divided by ideology as well as by national interest.Many experts such as Elliot Abrams and Dr. Walid Phares have criticized the move as not helpful to both the US and to moderate Muslims who are fighting the radical
As if to prove their point, the US-Based Arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, The The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) rushed out a press release to announce their support of the White House Action.
..."We welcome this change in language by the Obama administration as another step toward respectful and effective outreach to Muslims at home and abroad," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. "We hope this positive change in language will lead to policies that will deal more effectively with important issues such as peace with justice in the Middle East and withdrawal of our nation's forces from Iraq and Afghanistan."That organization which spoke so glowingly about the President's actions is the same CAIR that was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Terrorism Funding case.
He recommended that media professionals and commentators adopt similarly neutral and objective language and avoid "loaded" terminology. Awad noted that CAIR has been calling for changes in the use of terminology falsely linking Islam to terrorism for a number of years.
In 2008, the National Counter-Terrorism Center produced a document, called "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counter-Terrorism Communication," which encouraged government agencies and officials to avoid characterizing al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups as "Islamic" or "Muslim," as that could "unintentionally legitimize" their tactics.
One key piece of evidence in the case was the Wiretap evidence heard in the case put CAIR's executive director quoted above, Nihad Awad, at a Philadelphia meeting of Hamas leaders secretly recorded by the FBI. Participants hatched a plot to deceive Americans and disguise payments to Hamas as it launched a campaign of terror attacks. CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad joined Awad and the Hamas big shots at the summit.
Despite this and other pieces of evidence implicating CAIR, the Hamas splinter group has constantly objected to the unindicted co-conspirator label. But as recently as March 2010 the FBI issued a letter to congress reaffirming CAIR's terrorist ties.
As you try to evaluate the President's changes to the National Security Strategy, keep in mind that it was criticized by a former National Security Adviser, but endorsed by an organization that raises money for terrorist attacks. That alone should tell you all you need to know.
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