Many of us were ambivalent about last spring’s decision in the pol-mil ranks to eschew such words as “Islamist” and “jihadi” when discussing our enemies in the war on terror. Like most policy pronouncements, it had at its core a sensible rationale: The really bad actors in the current global struggle are at most a tiny fraction of the Islamic ummah, even if tiny fractions on a population of 1.2 billion people adds up to a lot of opportunities for realistic marksmanship training. Did it really make sense to alienate the other 99.9% by declaring that their core philosophy of life was the center of gravity in our assault on terrorism?
And “jihad” is a word with textured connotations. It can of course mean the religious requirement for Muslims to take arms everywhere against “oppression”, “injustice” and “occupation” brought by non-believers in any co-confessional land. But the much more common meaning – the everyday jihad – is a requirement for continual self-improvement, a struggle against mankind’s inherent iniquities fought on the terrain of the believer’s own mind.
But the decision to avoid using the words seemed almost supersitious, as though “naming” truly did “call.” It also left us with a perplexing strategic gap: If we weren’t fighting against Islamist jihadis, then who was the enemy? And, since our enemies clearly define themselves in that way, did it matter in the least to those of us marked for destruction for our insults to the faith what we called them? “Violent extremists,” was the chosen term, a category so broad – is not all violence extreme? – as to render the term meaningless.
And it wasn’t like such delicacies would, in the end, even constrain them to killing us last. The war against terror has not just seen the most asymmetric application of restraint in the history of warfare – never has one combatant so meticulously striven to avoid civilian casualties even as the other so energetically sought them – it has also been the most painstakingly politically correct: In elder times the newspapers heralded our successes against “Japs” and “Krauts,” but today we cannot even agree among ourselves who it is we are fighting, or at least, what to call them.
Into the maelstrom all of this moral ambiguity comes a breath of common sense:
A U.S. military “Red Team” charged with challenging conventional thinking says that words like “jihad” and “Islamist” are needed in discussing 21st-century terrorism and that federal agencies that avoid the words soft-pedaled the link between religious extremism and violent acts.
“We must reject the notion that Islam and Arabic stand apart as bodies of knowledge that cannot be critiqued or discussed as elements of understanding our enemies in this conflict…”
“The fact is our enemies cite the source of Islam as the foundation for their global jihad,” the report said. “We are left with the responsibility of portraying our enemies in an honest and accurate fashion.”
We could never kill our way to victory against either “violent extremists” or “Islamist Jihadis.” This struggle will be won or lost in the minds of believers – those who yearn for modernity’s freedoms, and those who burn to strangle them. The ummah has seen what evils can be done in the name of Islam, and now they see what freedoms are available to those who reject the vision of jihad-as-sayf – the struggle of the sword.
It will help the unradicalized 99.9% to realize that in our application of full-spectrum persuasion we can distinguish between the them, and those who would subject them.
The recommendation is straightforward and sensible. If the term doesn’t apply to you, why should you be offended? I’m not offended at the label “extreme right” or “Christian right.” The extreme aspects of some followers don’t represent me. I can oppose them as easily as anyone else can.
What are the chances that this fresh air thinking will be accepted, particularly under the new Islamo-friendly democratic leadership? Salafists support The One; he likely to avoid offending them in any way.
No, the religion of peace is to be highly exalted, even as many of its proponents endanger our lives and liberties.
99.9?
You’re a generous and gracious man brother Lex.
Ooooo-kayyyy. I’ll play along; follow your lead Skipper. Hearts and minds, strategic implications of public discourse and all that…
Agree. I think Mark Steyn and others have estimated 90% reasonable guys. Which therefore is only a bit over 100 million mortal enemies of peace.
I believe this is a vast improvement over a previous policy of: “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. ”
Meaning, at least we’re attempting to make an effort toward figuring out how/where to direct the vitriol.
Just luvin your Google ad at the bottom of this page – a link to the International Muslim Matrimonials site, featuring a headscarved female.
Lookin’ like somebody’s watching you (or me!).
As they have names to denote our social status in their culture, we’ll likely come up with a few new “socially acceptable” (for the moment, anyway) names for our opponent.
Capt Lex,
I’m sure ’twill get me labeled a rudenik, heathen, barbarian, and scum-sucking pig to point out that I neither care nor wish to find the correct name for “them”, since I can’t use Jihadi (which they are), Islamic terrorists (which they are), raghead (which many, but not all are), etc….. ad nauseum, as their description.
But somehow, sh*thead covers entirely too much ground to accurate target my nukes at the correct location. There would be a plethora of targets and a surfeit of weapons and ammunition of the nuclear variety. For there are far too many of the latter next door to me than I can discern amongst the multitudes of sh*heads in this world.
Sorry to PG rate the comments, but I’m damn tired of being told what I can call my enemies and what I can’t. It is so like the government and the MSM trying to tell me what to think, what thoughts and speech are “bad”, and so forth, that I am just tired of learning new buzzwords and concepts to more finely define an enemy of freedom. It is like people who roll their crap into tinier and tiner balls just so they can have more labels for each other’s denigrated and victimized categories. It’s all still crap.
As far as I am concerned they are Muslim terrorists and they always will be. Not all homicide bombers in the world today are Muslim, but factually and statistically speaking, that IS the way to bet, now isn’t it?
Subsunk
can i call any specific individual member of the group a dick?
RetRsvMike;
But what if they are already “dicks?”
“It will help the unradicalized 99.9% to realize that in our application of full-spectrum persuasion we can distinguish between the them, and those who would subject them.”
That 99.9% are the quietest sons of bitches I’ve ever come across.
Yeah, well those are dangerous waters they’re swimming in, and there’s a certain degree of fatalism inherent to the culture.
Nose, darn good phrasing about the 99.9%.
Lex, if that 99.9% are not willing to speak out against the 0.1%, then I would rather they leave America since they apparently are not willing to risk anything for it.
Lex,
There’s more than a little fatalism inherent in Islam. Kismet is an idea that is, in a word, states a predestinarian idea as bad as anything Calvinism ever produced. The arrival of the French Foreign Legion in Algeria was a serious culture shock to the Muslims that observed them. It is also the reason they are so backward.
The 99.9%, as well as the 90% figures floated are seriously charitable. The radicals swim in a sea of sympathy. Most will flare only when they are directly confronted, but they will help another Muslim unless they are forced to see that the radicals endanger them and their progeny. We don’t have to kill our way out anymore than we did with Germans or Japanese. They simply need to be converted from “unbelievers” to “believers.” It will take blowing a few away, whether we like it or not.
Not to worry, however, as the left will prevent us from winning this like they did Vietnam and Korea.
“…Not to worry, however, as the left will prevent us from winning this like they did Vietnam and Korea.”
Perhaps. But. Over. My. Dead. Bankrupt. Body.
Note to self. Send another check to the ADF, ACLJ and NRA-ILA.
Thanks for the link. I did a little thinking about that out loud a couple of years back, mentioned it might be useful to shift to some other name, but once you put a name on something it tends to stick. Although I still do like ‘splodeydope’.
We’ve been using ‘irhabi’–terrorist–a lot at work. Mainly because that’s what the Arabic press uses, no IW considerations made. There’s something called “ijtihad” which is a very interesting concept and well worth consideration–apparently potentially powerful among them what have faith without having that faith twisted into something ugly and nihilist.
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Off topic, but not: some folks get a right bit uncomfortable when I translate ‘jihad’ into German.
“جحد” , the root word, means “struggle”, among other things. In German? “Kampf”.
A certain book of that name is a perpetual best seller in that region, by the way. Written by some German guy; I forget his name.
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Speaking of books I hear a friend with some real smarts has one coming out soon about the subject trying to be properly named. As soon as I get the okay from him I’ll send some comments about it across the ‘sphere; might be a really good book if it is what I think it is.
I’m with Subsunk on this issue.
My sweet old granny, who was one smart woman, used to say “No matter how you slice it or how you dress it up, it’s still boloney.” And no one is going to dissuade me from calling a Muslim terrorist a Muslim terrorist, not a “disturbed misunderstood person of the Islamic persuasion.” I dislike political correctitude and I refuse to practice it.
Marianne
P.S. And by the way, I’m still waiting for those “moderate Muslims” to show themselves and rein in their radical, honor-killing brethren.
Chap,
It was that one by Shiklegruber right? I think I saw a moderate muslim with a copy under his arm just yesterday. I wanted to ask him about it but that just wasn’t in the pogrom.
@Curtis: Yeah, that’s the book. Maybe you saw a guy who said he was moderate. Or thought he was, compared to that other salafist dude up the street there.
@Marianne: There’s plenty of reason to complain–but also it’s useful to note that there is counterexample. I know enough fellow Americans of Islamic faith by now that I’ve shed some of the apprehension á la Robert Spencer et al that I used to have. (Spencer has strong feelings but tries hard to base his arguments intellectually; would that we had more intellectual argument in that sphere.) Certainly there are plenty of jackasses out there, but there are also folks who have their faith and serve alongside me in uniform, guys who homeschool because they know the madrassas are too radical in their neighborhood (and say so), guys who serve and risk a lot more than I do in doing so. I also have met a lot of folks who risk a lot in even being associated with us to advance American interests, and guys just trying to get by.
Lotta nasty, ugly stuff out there. But America is exceptional because it’s an exception.
And it’s easier to believe in “moderate” when you serve alongside a dude who’s putting not just himself but his whole family at risk to work alongside fellow countrymen under the same oath-especially if that dude’s first or second generation American, and the family back home doesn’t get it and is ready to declare him persona non grata in a culture structured around family status. We used to call some guys like that nisei back in WWII. I’ve seen what happens when a dude tries to keep Ramadan (a whole month supposed to be given over to God with serious fasting going on) and maintain shore duty hours; it’s absolutely exhausting, and to do both requires extreme dedication.
I’ve also seen guys try hard and fail; a couple months back you might have seen a Pentagon dustup where two sides of the argument went at each other and both sides didn’t come out too well. I’ve got opinions of what happened not for this circuit but I think it’s useful to note that we’re talking about individuals on occasion, not just movements.
Like I said, lots of ugly out there. But it ain’t all ugly all the time.
Hey, CYA accomplished: I did mention in January I might have been all wrong about the hirabah thing.
Yeah, I’m thinking that changing the name ain’t gonna happen even if there was a better one to use. (Although the local news still does use “irhab”.)
Chap, I respectfully disagree with your chapomatic post, and I would point to your line, we’re looking for fish in the sea, not the sea. I work CT daily, that’s looking for fish in the sea. Problem is, the sea is rising. It used to be out there on the beaches. Now it’s backing up my sewers and I have to wear gummy boots all day long. How long till I have to wear waders? A dry suit? Live in a yellow submarine?
The sea matters, and the sea is a far greater threat than the random barracuda or shark.
Sorry I’m late to this but could not resist. Out here in ‘ol Kandahar, we don’t say “Islamist” or “jihadi” or “Islamist jihadi”. We describe these “people” with bad words. Really bad word. Prolly not family friendly.
Oh and Lex? Could somebody give me some kind of cite about 99.9% not being radicalized. I really do not buy that.
Heh. I can live in a submarine.
What’s the better alternative? How long has the sea been rising? In what way? What affects the character of that sea? We can’t go isolationist, should not go genocidal even if effective, can’t ignore the problem.
Sure, changing the sea matters, especially if one looks at the situation we’re in in terms of a millennium, or at least the last sixty years. We’ve got a Navy in our constitution because of people who might sound familiar–check this out.
We can drain a swamp, not a sea. Unless you plan on massive use of nuclear weapons, which would be absurd and wrong as well as counterproductive, then show me–I’ve been looking for it–a more effective alternate idea. I’d start with people who know and understand the Muslim Brotherhood’s 30-year plan for the US, know who Qutb is, and who knows there’s a difference between a Mecca and a Medina sura. Then we can think about affecting the sea–that’s a Mao quote, by the way–to make the bad fish go away. Where we are took a long time to get here; where we want to be is not instant and can’t be reached with any other means I know of. Heck, we can’t even name the war well.
I look forward to your specific criticisms of that piece. What part do you particularly dislike?
Chap, I’ll hit you up by email. I think we’re pretty much on the same page, just different emphases largely driven by where we’re sitting right now.
Richard Cook, you weren’t splitting your time between Tampa and Qatar 2003-2007, were you, followed by a year in the Green Zone?
Zane
Sorry dude, not me.