re: "Did we Lose the GWOT Bubble?"

The Phibian at Cdr Salamander ("PROACTIVELY “FROM THE SEA”; LEVERAGING THE LITTORAL BEST PRACTICES FOR A PARADIGM BREAKING SIX-SIGMA BEST BUSINESS CASE TO SYNERGIZE A CONSISTENT DESIGN IN THE GLOBAL COMMONS, RIGHTSIZING THE CORE VALUES SUPPORTING OUR MISSION STATEMENT VIA THE 5-VECTOR MODEL THROUGH CULTURAL DIVERSITY.") examined excessive self-examination.

Money quote(s):

"It is important for a man to have self-doubt. You must nurture your self-doubt; question your own motives and preconceptions. Take what you "know" is true, and seek out those who say it is false.

When you do that, one of two things happen. Either you find other side's argument lacking and so build something else a man must have; self-confidence - or you find your own ideas weak or off-center. When that happens, you reassess, modify, and reposition to a stronger place. Self-generated creative friction, if you will."

In the realm of intelligence analysis, this sort of thing manifests itself as "red-teaming" or other forms of questioning (or at least identifying) your basis assumptions and/or biases.

"One thing I do know though is this; we could be in a worse place if we did less - it could have been better if we did more; or the other way around. We don't know, do we? What we do know is where we are. What we need to focus on is how to make things better and to avoid repeating our mistakes."

Always good advice.

4/25

re: "These things happen for a reason"

Lemuel Calhoon at Hillbilly White Trash ("Commenting about politics, religion, firearms, food, Celtic music, beer, science fiction and the Asheville Vortex. Home of the Hillbilly Ecosystem.") is experiencing some existential-level cognitive dissonance. And with good reason.

Money quote(s):

"America went to war with two nations in response to Islamic terrorism and we have killed or captured most of the top leadership of al Qaeda, including bin Laden himself. However our failure to identify the nature of the problem (which is nothing more or less than Islam itself) and our suicidal fealty to the culturally lethal ideologies of multiculturalism and political correctness have rendered us almost defenseless against this kind of home grown jihad and seriously hampered our ability to deal with the problem on an international level.

Right after Sept. 11 president Bush hosted Islamic religious leaders at the White House to prove that the US was not at war with Islam. Then it came out that most of those imams were tied to terrorism in some way. TSA screeners at airports are told not to pay any special attention to people who look Arab/Middle Eastern for fear of being accused of profiling."

Islam's problem seems to be either that it never underwent a reformation (which might have shifted it from its medieval moorings) or that the reformation it has undergone took it in the wrong (from Western perspective) direction.

I understand that Pres. Bush took pains to emphasize that the West, and the U.S. specifically, was not at war with Islam so as to head-off initiating the sort of Huntingtonian "clash of civilizations" that Osama Bin Ladin dreamed of waging. Not playing into what Al-Qaida wanted is a pretty good argument for Bush's policy there, whatever else you may think of the former president.

As for TSA screening guidance.... from a security perspective, you don't want to necessarily exempt non-Arabs/Middle Eastern persons from security screenings since that sort of loophole creates a security vulnerability that just begs to be taken advantage of.

But that doesn't seem to be how things are actually done; TSA gives the appearance of being more afraid of CAIR's press releases than is healthy or helpful. Going out of the way to avoid paying attention to the patterns and indicators of likely terrorists is a losing proposition and indicates a lack of courage of conviction.

That's a recipe of losing the larger war.

"Christian and Jewish clergy must be banned from the 9/11 memorial service at Ground Zero but a building ruined by wreckage from one of the 9/11 planes (making it as much a part of Ground Zero as the WTC site) must be torn down so that a giant Islamic Victory Mosque can be built.

The United States has helped to bring about regime change in Egypt and Libya (actually going to war in Libya's case) to replace governments that were bad but not currently supporting Jihad terrorism with far worse governments that are connected with organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda.

The United States and Western Europe (that part of the world once known as Christendom) has seemingly lost faith in itself. In its value to the world. It is very likely too late for Europe but not for the US. That is if we screw up our courage and face facts and take appropriate action."


8/28

re: "Remind Me Again, We're at War in Afghanistan Because . . . ? [CORRECTED]"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner ("The one and only.") took issue with the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he Taliban is not included in State’s listing of Foreign Terrorist Organizations — not the Taliban whose terrorism and safe haven for al Qaeda are the justification for continuing to have our troops fight and die in Afghanistan"

&

"I’ve argued before (most recently here) that Congress should amend the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force — the legal foundation for conducting U.S. combat operations in the War on Terror — so that the Taliban organizations (among others) are expressly specified as the enemy. But what’s the chance that we will be clear about who the enemy is if the administration can’t even bring itself to say the Taliban is a terrorist organization?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Recollecting from the dim recesses of memory, but we went to war in the territory of the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan in order to get at Al-Qaeda, the Taliban having declined to give them up to us when we asked nicely.

That approach having lacked much in the way of positive results, a U.S./NATO-led coalition went to war with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan since the two seemed unwilling or unable to extricate themselves from one another.

"(I)f the Obama administration were encouraging negotiations with the Taliban (it is) and even anticipating a settlement in which the Taliban were brought into the Afghan government (ditto), the State Department wouldn’t want to complicate that by naming the Taliban as a terrorist organization, right? So we are putting our forces in harm’s way in the War on Terror order to fight an outfit that we won’t call “terrorists” and that we actually see as part of the future Afghan government we are building."

8/25

re: "When Will It End?"

Zenster guest-posted at Gates of Vienna ("At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe.We are in a new phase of a very old war."), courtesy of Dymphna, with Part one of an essay series.

Money quote(s):

"When Will it End?

Short answer ― It will end when the tipping point is reached.

This tipping point can be defined as follows:

When living with Islam becomes more trouble than living without Islam." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Zenster goes on to develop this idea through a cost analysis.

"If it was possible to set aside terrorism-related loss of life ― and it most certainly is not ― the financial cost alone of combating it is absurd. Let us examine just one single factor; increased waiting times at airports. An extra hour or three doesn’t seem like much until you start doing the math.

Some 1.5 million passengers per day originate from American airports. Domestic flights have a one hour minimum wait time and international travel requires an early check in of at least three hours. We will split the difference and use an average of two hours wait. Even though a majority of domestic flights are not international, please rest assured that this slightly top-heavy coefficient will barely compensate for many other downstream factors.

Two hours of wait time multiplied by 1.5 million passengers equals 3 million working hours lost due to increased airport waiting periods. Airport WiFi services do not begin to counteract these losses in productivity because of how fax machines and other appurtenances of regular business life are usually inaccessible near the tarmac. That represents 3 million hours of lost productivity each and every day just in America alone." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Zenster continued totaling up this cost estimate for a worldwide expense of over a trillion dollars.

"In a sense, it is as if Islam has found a cunning way of forestalling its own dismantling at the hands of increasingly vexed Western powers. Those one trillion dollars in annual airline security-related waiting times could finance the overturning of yet one more Muslim majority nation per year. Recall, how this is just the global expense of increased airport waiting times that is being discussed." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

There are many other costs, including those of opportunities lost.

"The overall cost burden of Islam’s culture upon Western social benefit structures, law enforcement apparatus and ― via incessant and frequently frivolous Islamic “lawfare” ― its judicial system, is orders of magnitude higher; as will be shown in the subsequent parts of this article. Taken together, these otherwise unnecessary monetary outlays could finance punitive military campaigns against Islam or, as a less bellicose alternative, sponsor all of the needed scientific research into alternative fuels that could render MME (Muslim Middle East), control of oil production moot and unprofitable."

These are all "hidden costs." That is, except for the occasional statistical report from one of a few Western European countries that notes how much of their crimes are committed by, or other prisons inhabited by, those of an Islamic "immigrant background," the increased costs get overlooked. But they are not insignificant.

"Not even the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ― both of which were directed at proven sources of international terrorism ― can be counted as truly effective responses to Islam’s assault upon the West. These so-called “liberations” have gone on to see each country cheerfully adopt shari’a-based constitutions which guarantee they will once again revert to being terrorist manufactories the instant that Western troops depart."

Afghanistan and Iraq are/were only individual theatres or campaigns in the larger war against the enemy only identified as "Terror." We will continue to see the fruits of our reluctance to properly identify and name our adversaries.

"Islamic terrorism will end. It is both unsustainable and an intolerable burden upon the civilized world. Ending it is a matter of obtaining sufficient political willpower and an educated electorate that will no longer put up with ineffectual Politically Correct politicians who continue to ignore, obfuscate or simply deny the need to eliminate such a monstrous drag on global progress."

9/21

re: "Action Figure Therapy"

Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes ("") remarked on a disconnect between civilian leadership (and military leadership at the policy-making level) and the troops.

Money quote(s):

"One of the objectives that it would be nice to see a SECDEF try to achieve, is to retain some semblance of respect from the troops. That is not a vital and minimalist goal, of course…you could say it is one for the Generals but not for the suits that hold civilian command over the armed forces…but it would be good if the working relationship was a good one, or if there was at least some effort expended to make it a good one."

Well, if you're planning to get-rid-of (i.e., "downsize," "re-engineer," or otherwise "rightsize" a lot of them anyway, what matter if you have a good relationship?

"I understand this argument about recruited-terrorists, how when these pictures appear it makes it look like the United States is declaring a war on Islam, which is not a perception we can afford to have out there. But there is something about this that I’m having a tough time figuring out: One, this would obviously be a vexing puzzle for us, and a dangerous one, far more important than many of the others. How do we expect to win at it, then, without discussing it more openly? Since 2004 the only rule that’s been in place about it is “just don’t do it” — with a strong undertone of don’t talk about it."

This has been an ongoing sore point with a lot of folks since just after the 9/11 national realization that someone is at war with us.

(And that we have real problems talking about or defining just who that someone might be.)

"(T)wo: Has it ever occurred to these geniuses that some may be reacting to situations like this with a quite reasonable attitude of “I’m not going to take you seriously if you don’t take yourself seriously”? There’s quite a lot to be said for a response, from the top, of: Look, if you don’t want your dead body defiled, don’t shoot at our guys."

Just so.

1/13

re: "Barack Obama: Anti-Terror Warrior?"

MikeM. at Confederate Yankee ("Because liberalism is a persistent vegetative state.") still has a liberal friend (or two).

Money quote(s):

"(H)e was also exercised that al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was not given a proper civilian trial before being executed. Irony challenged, my acquaintance.

As to Awlaki's citizenship, the facts are clear. Awlaki was an American citizen, but a citizen who took up arms against America. We know this because he explicitly told us, many times, that he was at war with America. We know that he was a top enemy commander and that he was directly involved in the planning and execution of attacks against America, American interests and Americans, attacks resulting in American deaths, the Fort Hood attack being only a single example.Arguably, this would make Awlaki guilty of treason, and if captured, he could be tried for that offense. However, capture and trial were not required for one very powerful and well understood—legally speaking—reason: we are at war.

It is hard for most Americans to understand this simple fact: we are at war and have been since at least the first attack on the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993 and probably since the Islamic takeover of Iran in late 1979. Because most Americans have to make no sacrifice, because the ongoing war does not disrupt or directly affect their lives in any way, the very concept of war seems a matter of semantics, a debating topic, not a deadly, personal or national reality. We will almost certainly be at war for a generation or more. We may not consider ourselves to be at war with our Islamist enemy, but he does not share our peaceful convictions.

In war, our declared enemies may be killed whenever and wherever they are found. This simple fact does not change because of the nationality of the enemy. This too is a well-settled fact of law. There are no clear demarcation lines on a worldwide battlefield. Americans have, in past wars, gone over to the side of America's enemies and have as a result become indistinguishable from any other enemy soldier or leader. We have killed them when necessary and captured them when possible. When captured they were tried by military commissions." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

These are facts, stated plainly and without adornment. It pains me how many of my fellow citizens, even some of my FS colleagues, seem not to understand them.

"Some have suggested that due to the unique nature of our current world wide conflict, the Congress should enact standards for stripping Americans of citizenship so that they may be killed without trial when acting as an enemy of America, but this is unnecessary and likely designed to impede rather than assist America in her war fighting efforts. American and international laws and standards are quite clear on all of the issues involved and have been since the early 1900s."

Standards already exist for expatriation (i.e., loss of citizenship) as part of the public law, incorporated as part the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. I'm sure I don't understand why this hasn't been utilized, but I'm not sure it's ever even been considered in cases like these. Perhaps the legal bar is simply too high, would provide a public soapbox for avowed enemies of the U.S. as they (or their lawyers; i.e., lawfare) appealed such measures, and it's purely simpler (and just as legal) to kill them.

10/2

9/11 Memory

Ten years ago today, I was in Washington, D.C., taking a course at the Foreign Service Institute; something I had done many times prior to, and subsequently since, that day.

But on that Tuesday morning, something very different occurred. One of the FSI instructors came into the classroom and announced that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers.

Being a suspicious sort, and due to the nature of the specific course I was taking, I wondered whether this was some sort of training scenario that was being run on us. I kept this thought to myself.

Sometime later, an instructer came in to the classroom to announce that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center.

At the end of that particular class component, we were given a break. One of the things about working for the State Department is that your employer actively enables those of its employees who are news junkies. That enabling tendancy manifests itself, in this instance, by the phenomenon that there are televisions mounted in various public spaces within FSI where people congregate between classes or during lunch breaks.

So it quickly became clear that this was not a training scenario.

By training and inclination, I holds to the dictum that “once is accident or happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.”

My professional history with State had, up to that fateful day, made me very familiar with the those who sought to attack U.S. diplomats overseas and how the Department works to made that more difficult. I’d studied the nature of our attackers, how they’d attacked us in the past, and what the gruesome consequences of those attacks had been. I knew, for instance, that while the single greatest cause of injury in explosive attacks on office buildings was due to flying glass, the greatest killer was catestrophic structural collapse. So it was with a sinking feeling that, as the towers collapsed upon themselves one after another and I looked around at my colleagues at FSI, I thought “Welcome to my world.”

While many lives were ended or altered that day, and the course of United States’ history changed, the world itself didn’t change, only the awareness of Americans themselves. And even that awareness has proven impermanent, as I feared it would nearly from the day of 9/11 itself.

Over a million U.S. service members have, in the decade since 9/11, deployed to combat zones around the world as part of the America’s response, the inelegantly named Global War on Terror. Thousands of them have died as a result of that combat and tens of thousands wounded. Barrels of ink and trainloads of paper have been expended in efforts to make sense of what often seems senseless. Whole academic and media careers have been launched and wrecked in a rolling series of intellectual fads that have their genesis in 9/11.

This past week, this past month, readers of national security media have seen many articles where some very good questions have been asked. Where were you on that day? Are you safer today? Who is winning this war?

While I’ve answered the first of those questions and I’d have to say that the second two questions remain open to debate. Osama Bin Laden is dead. Saddam Hussein no longer rules Iraq and its security services no longer provide support to terrorist organizations. The Taliban’s rule was overthrown and Al-Qaeda denied Afghanistan as a base of operations.

Other developments may prove to be harbingers of progress or setback. The “Arab Spring” threatens or has overthrown longterm dictatorships in Tunesia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, while their successor regimes may prove to be even more problematic for civilization. South Sudan gained its independence from the vicious wannabe “Arab” Khartoum government, but the fate of non-Arabs in Darfur, Abyei, and Nubia remains in doubt. Iran’s carnival show of nuclear proliferation continues and Israel’s neighbors carry out a pantomime of peaceful intentions while enabling terrorist attacks on civilian targets.

So forgive me if I don’t think anything is over or won or lost. Not yet. The outcomes of all these trends and struggles remains very much in doubt, not least of which those which directly involve the United States.

The war on the United States is not yet over, but all we have to do is not lose. Really. It’s that simple. Our enemies lose if we don’t. And as others have said, the important thing is that we not lose our nerve. Don’t go wobbly. Keep focused on what’s important and what we’re about. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be smart about how and where we spend our money. The arsenal of democracy’s shelves will become bare and empty awfully fast if those who beat plowshares into swords aren’t paid on time and in cash. Oh, and we still need plowshares.

So take today and remember our dead, from 9/11 and the battles ever since. Remember why they died and who killed them. Remember who celebrated those deaths and who still takes comfort and joy from our sorrow. Rededicate yourself to the battles not yet fought. Never forget. Never forgive.

re: "Unfinished Business"

Lex at Neptunus Lex ("The unbearable lightness of Lex. Enjoy!") knows who's been naughty.

Money quote(s):

"Iran is stepping up their nasty little tricks in neighboring Iraq"

Well, why wouldn't they? Is there an imaginable possible downside?

"(W)hile it’s true that the military’s nation building capacity is already stretched to its limits, much of our nation breaking capacity is idling. As an oil exporting country that is hugely reliant on imported processed fuel, Iran is vulnerable at sea and in the air. Just four weeks of the kind of effort undertaken against the strategically meaningless Libyan regime would bring the mullahcracy to its knees and help liberate the creative energies of a rising generation that has no personal memory of the SAVAK, the shah or the revolution.

We have expended enormous sums of blood and treasure rebuilding Iraq, and what happens there as we draw down forces matters. The Iranians simply cannot be trusted to play a useful role. And whether you call it a Global War on Terror, a War Against Violent Extremism or Overseas Contingency Operations, there is little doubt that we have been very much trimming around the edges of the problem rather than digging at its roots. Iran supports terrorists in the Levant who attack a US ally, and the country’s leadership is elbow deep in the blood of US soldiers – it has been for decades."

Iran has been consistent in implementing its policy stance (i.e., implacable hostility) towards the U.S. since the revolution overthrew the Shah's government.

"The bottom line comes down to this: Iran is in a de facto state of war with the United States.

There ought to be a reckoning."

Gotta love those Serenity/Firefly allusions.

re: "Like Watching a Car Wreck...."

Deebow at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") finds fault with the law-enforcement model of counter-terrorism.

Money quote(s):

"(E)vidently, the Attorney General of these here United States believes that the best weapon to use against terrorists isn't an M-4 with a SOPMOD package and a rucksack full of ammo in the hands of a skilled operator, it is a Miranda Warning Blaster Cannon, a Search Warrant Launcher and a Legal Discovery Bomb."

It's not that the Justice Department doesn't have a role in the GWOT, it's just not that of "lead agency." Nor should it be. Ever. At least not in more than an advisory and assist role, and that only within the U.S. itself.

Frankly, given the enemy's proven skills at lawfare, this should be more than enough to keep AG Holder occupied.

"(R)emember all those brave barristers that kicked in the doors at the Bin Laden compound and aggressively read Osama his Miranda rights and moved immediately to a speedy trial. This is not one of the most laughable things the Attorney General has ever said, nor is it the most clueless thing either, but it is consistent."

re: "Small Flags"

Vanderleun at American Digest ("Dispatches from the New America") sees through the popular narrative.

Money quote(s):

"That, at least, is the mind set that I assume when I read how the "War on Terror" is but a bumper strip. In a way, that's preferable to the the mind set that now, in increasing numbers among us, prefers to take refuge in the unbalanced belief that 9/11 was actually something planned and executed by the American government. Why many of my fellow Americans prefer this "explanation" is something that I once felt was beyond comprehension. Now I see it is just another comfortable position taken up by those for whom the habits of automatic treason have become just another fashionable denigration of the country that has made their liberty to believe the worst of it not only possible but popular." (Bold type added for emphasis. - CAA)

re: "What do I do with my medals?"

Cdr Salamander ("Proactively “From the Sea”; leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.") asked a practical question (one that had crossed my mind as well).

Money quote(s):

"Do we rename them, or do I just put them in the corner with my Cheney Shrine?"

re: "Obama's Foreign Policy: Nothing Personal"

Charlie at Undiplomatic ("dedicated to covering the intersection of diplomacy, global issues, U.S. politics, and pop-culture") pegs our new chief diplomat as a realist.

Money quote(s):

"The object is to defeat al Qaeda, not get bin Laden. Similarly, the Administration has made it clear (albeit informally) that it no longer will refer to the conflict with al Qaeda as the “Global War on Terror.”

So what do these stories and statements have in common? For Obama, foreign policy is not a frat party. Brown is not his “staunch friend.” Medvedev is neither a “soul” mate or “troublesome and unhelpful.” ; and Osama bin Laden is not an “evil-doer.”

Unlike his predecessor, who personalized everything, Obama is keeping his distance, regardless of whether he is dealing with a friend, competitor, or enemy. He is pursing a businesslike approach to foreign policy, focusing on country-to-country relations, not private relationships.

That is pretty much a textbook example of realism. He views relationships as a function of American interests, and acts accordingly. The downside of this approach is that some issues, such as human rights, are less likely to impress the President as priorities simple because it’s the right thing to do. He still may (or may not) champion human rights, but he’ll do so because it is in America’s best interest."

re: "GWOT's The Point?"

Lt Col P at OPFOR ("a blog dedicated towards expanding milblogging topics to include foreign policy, wargaming, grand strategy, and hippy bashing") notes that the war hasn't gone anywhere, by whatever name.

Money quote(s):

"I never liked the term, Global War on Terror, or GWOT. I found that it failed singularly to identify the enemy, a fine but crucial point. Words have meaning. Like so many of the previous administration's efforts, it was a game try but only a partial success. ("The Long War" was a much, much better choice.) But at least it identified a global war going on out there."

&

"The first step in solving a problem is to admit that you have one. If you don't square up to the fact that you're in a war, that some other entity is not only wishing harm on you and your interests but is actively pursuing the policy, you're ceding the initiative. No amount of euphemizing will wish away the facts: we are at war. We didn't ask for it, we didn't start it. The previous administration might not have fought the war as well as they should have, but at least they fought it."

re: "It's not a War On Terror, it's an "Overseas Contingency Operation" "

Robert at Jihad Watch ("dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts. We hope to alert people of good will to the true nature of the present global conflict.") takes this opportunity for some sharp mockery.

Money quote(s):

"(I)t certainly isn't a defense action against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism."

&

"(A)fter sputtering and coughing for many years, the War On Terror appears to be finally over. It was always a silly thing, a war on a tactic of the enemy rather than on the enemy as such, but as we all know, the Global Jihad is The Enemy Who Cannot Be Named.

And so now we are engaged in a great Overseas Contingency Operation, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. And be assured: if the Overseas Contingency Operatives succeed in pulling off another Contingency Operation on American soil on the scale of 9/11, or more than one, we will indeed be sorely tested -- and utterly unprepared to meet the multifaceted cultural, military, political, and spiritual challenge the enemy presents."

re: "A New Term"

Nikolas at The (Ex) Washington Realist ("thoughts on U.S. foreign policy and world affairs--as observed from Newport, RI") has a suggestion.

re: "The war on terror, RIP"

Christian Brose at FP's Shadow Government ("Notes from the loyal opposition") remarks on the end of the GWOT.

Money quote(s):

"So this means an end to preemptive strikes against "gathering threats", no more hard slogging on the "central fronts" (either Afghanistan or Iraq), a quick resolution to that whole Guantanomo problem, and no more need for the president to worry about what authorities he has to detain "enemy combatants", or whatever you want to call them?"

"(N)o one human being, only a government committee, could come up with something so awful as "Overseas Contingency Operation.""

&

"We could speak of fights, and confrontations, and violent extremism, and everyone would know what we were talking about. The policies wouldn't change. And we would avoid signalling that the most powerful nation on earth was at war with Islam, which though obviously wrong, most Muslims believed nonetheless."

re: "Mr. President: War Is Not A 'Struggle' Or 'Situation' "

Mark Tapson at Big Hollywood is adamant about nomenclature (among other things).

Money quote(s):

"President Obama jettisoned the admittedly empty and useless phrase “war on terror,” a label which pleased pretty much no one, primarily because it didn’t specify an enemy"

"The aim of all this muting of the language in the War with No Name is twofold: for the Obama administration to distance itself from George W. Bush’s “politics of fear,” and to whitewash a plain fact that liberals are suicidally reluctant to acknowledge - that we are at war with radical Islam."

"“Our administration does not believe in a clash of civilizations,” Vice-President Joe Biden announced at his February address in Munich, referring to the now-famous title of Samuel Huntington’s prescient 1998 book The Clash of Civilizations. Well frankly, I don’t believe in it either; I believe instead that we’re embroiled in a clash of civilization versus barbarism, and that it is the defining conflict of our time."

Mr. Tapson should be forgiven if he overlooked that the 1998 book was based upon the late Prof. Huntington's 1995 article in Foreign Policy.

My nuanced take on Mr. Tapson's last point is that the whole objective of much of former Pres. Bush's soft-pedaling was to prevent the clash of global/Western civilization with certain Islamic barbarians from escalating into a true clash of civilizations and cultures.

There would be considerable differences of scale between our "global" war as we've fought it thus far and a "world war" as could have resulted (and might yet).

"(T)he left in general think the conflict is just one big cultural misunderstanding which can be resolved by reassuring fundamentalist Muslims (like the mythical “moderate Taliban“) that we’ll sit down with them, listen to their so-called grievances, and make whatever concessions are necessary (like throwing Israel under the bus) to move forward as mutually respectful partners in a brave new world of prosperity and inter-faith pablum."

"Muslim extremists have been hammering home the point for decades, all across the Muslim world, that America, the Great Satan, is the enemy. Believing he can defuse Islamist hostility by being more “respectful,” by engaging them in still more “dialogue,” and by offering to make their grievances right - all of which the Islamists consider signs of weakness - is a fantasy."

"(A)s much as Islamists would like us to believe this clash is about American foreign policy, it isn’t about their grievances, though their skewed perspective on our foreign policy sometimes provides them with useful recruiting points. In the words of a former Hezbollah leader: “We are not fighting you because we want something from you. We’re fighting you because we want to destroy you.”"

&

"(O)ur Islamist enemies love death more than life, reject freedom in favor of absolute submission to a totalitarian ideology, and won’t be happy until the world is entirely Islamic. They cannot be swayed from their goal by promises of economic prosperity and peaceful coexistence with infidels."

re: "Freedom And Power, Part 3: The Shape Of Things To Come"

The Curmudgeon Emeritus at Eternity Road talks about language, about calling things by their true and proper names, and about who's winning the war.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he tactic, as it's currently practiced, is executed with superlative skill."

"Mr. Gardner, unlike so many of us, has actually been watching as events have progressed. Moreover, his assessment -- that Islam is winning the conflict -- strikes your Curmudgeon as entirely accurate."

"Islam's primary targets are the peoples and nation-states of the Western world: the nations of Europe and North America. Thus, it has chosen to attack a population that masses to about a billion people, that produces an aggregate annual product of over $25 trillion, and that possesses numerous armies equipped with the most fearsome weaponry ever devised. One would think that so puny and poverty-stricken a force as Islam would have no chance against such a group of targets -- that its humiliation would be a mere finger exercise for the West, and its elimination would follow as a matter of course.

Yet Islam is winning. It advances on the war's every front.

If you doubt this, ask plainly: Who is making concessions to whom? Whose legal and political systems are being forced to accommodate whose demands? Whose violence and disruptive demonstrations are being treated as evidence of a need to conciliate whom? Whose institutions are faced with lawsuits, prosecutions, and other disruptions by whom, on what grounds, and with what "adjustments" suggested as remedies?"

"With vanishingly few exceptions, America's governments and public men did not consciously create or assist the rise of the Islamic menace. Islam's visionaries -- never doubt that it has them -- merely peered across the oceans at our progressive surrender to multiculturalism, moral relativism, and the weakening of the American character, and decided that the time had come to strike. Though some of the subsequent events have been showier than the rest, the panorama, from Muslims' demands for workplace accommodations all the way to the destruction of the World Trade Center, displays a unifying theme: We will conquer you, for you are too soft to resist us."

&

"Governments throughout the West have rejected the notion that our borders should be closed to Muslim entrants. With regard to the overt acts of violence Muslims have committed against free peoples, governments' reactions have exaggerated the imperative of "not surrendering to hatred and bigotry" -- that is, not taking Islam at its word that what its jihadists are doing to us is precisely what it commands of all its adherents. Most notably, no public figure of importance has dared to state that Islam itself is the driving force behind the campaign to terrorize the West into submission. The closest anyone has come was President Bush's fleeting attempt to define the enemy in the War on Terror as "Islamism," which he retracted almost immediately in the face of denunciations from Muslim-mouthpiece groups."


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Hat tip to KG at Crusader Rabbit ("Islam has two allies here in the West - the Left and political correctness. The fight is with all three.").