*Â Robert Spencers latest take on the fantasy-based policy making of the state department:
Break out the flowers and tie-dye t-shirts: the jihad is over — if you want it. Or at least, if you’re listening to the Bush Administration.
Last week the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center issued new guidelines forbidding personnel from using the words “jihad” or “jihadist” in reference to Islamic terrorism and its perpetrators.
A Homeland Security report tellingly entitled “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims” explains that this initiative comes from a concern not to offend moderate Muslims. By calling the terrorists “jihadists,” American officials could be “unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims.”
* Policy like this must be cooked by the likes of Hesham Islam & Gordon England
Using the term “jihad” may not be “strategic.” Why not? “Because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world.” American officials “should not concede the terrorists’ claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam.”
As long as Condi plays the fiddle there will be no more jihad!
Let’s all wish now that Koranism disappears overnight. If we wish it hard enough it will surely happen, right?
When I first heard about the “Christian zealot with a pen” thing, I was angered. When I found that Hesham hired in Coughlin’s place ANOTHER MUSLIM, I became FURIOUS! The info in this article gives me a great sense of satisfaction. Now, what about Hesham’s new muslim underling? Shouldn’t his appointment and background should be thoroughly investigated too.
Hugh Fitzgerald:
“unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims.â€
— from the original government announcement, banning use of the word “Jihad”
Terrorists do not “lack moral and religious legitimacy.” Sheik Tantawi, formerly the sheik al-Azhar, and Al-Qaradawi, and many others have managed to find ways to assimilate what we call “terrorism” to the Muslim notion of “qitaal” or combat, and have done so largely on the basis that such methods of attack are, you see, legitimized by the relative weakness of Muslim armies. So necessity justifies this form of combat.
In similar fashion, what we call “suicide bombing” has been justified by mainstream Muslim clerics, who have managed to define such acts not as “suicide” (which is forbidden in Islam) but as simply “enormous risk-taking while engaged in the praiseworthy act of killing Infidels” — likened to the brave Muslim warrior, sword in hand, who might a thousand years ago have attacked a large group of Infidels, knowing he would almost certainly be killed but not committing suicide because, you see, you never know what might happen, given the whims and ways of Allah.
The Administration, with the comical
Rice — with her well-tailored tailleur, but with little brains — in the lead, is worried about offending Muslims. And they know that use of the word “Jihad” will offend Muslims. How do they know? Because Muslim diplomats are careful to tell them so, and Muslim groups in this country echo that. In other words, they fall for this line, fall for the very idea that Muslims are more likely to collaborate if we do not show that we, the Infidels, are making the clear and obvious connection between Muslim behavior, including the behavior of those who participate directly in violent Jihad, and the very large group of Muslims to justify, or finance, or lend moral support to those who directly participate, and the texts, and tenets, of Islam.
In fact, the reverse is true. The more we show Muslims that we are making, that we will continue to make, that connection, with untellable consequences for Muslims (including the position of Muslims living in the Western world, which they are worried about, and should be made to worry), the more likely it is that they will be less aggressive — they are quick to sense when the enemy is on to them, and quick to change words and tactics if they have to — in making constant demands for changes in Western legal and political institutions. The more we show how much we know, and how suspicious we are of them, the more they will feel compelled — only out of temporary self-interest, not for any other reason — to be less aggressive, and even to change behavior.
If, for example, members of Congress were to speak and write openly about the Money Weapon, and to demand that Saudi Arabia stop its massive funding of mosques, madrasas, public relations campaigns, and employment of Western hirelings, this is more likely to get results, especially if there is talk that someday Saudi-owned assets might be seized, as the assets of enemy aliens making war on us — then that Saudi funding might actually be much diminished.
Finally, the policy of banning the very words that we most need to employ, and employ constantly, until everyone knows what they mean — such words as Jihad, and dhimmi, and Jizyah — will not only not obtain the desired results among Muslims, who will rightly interpret this as a sign of Infidel weakness and pusillanimity, but it also ignores entirely the need to educate the peoples of the West. For until a sufficient number of Americans, and British, and French, and German, and Italian, and Spanish, and others in Western Europe (or in the greater Infidel world), can learn about the meaning, and permanent menace for Infidels, of Islam, there will be little chance of obtaining support for the kind of intelligent measures — far less “military” in nature, and far less expensive, than the idiotic long-term project in Iraq, where instead of coolly exploiting fissures, we are still attempting, despite all the evidence that our undertaking not only cannot work, but if it were to work, would not in any way diminish the world-wide menace of Jihad (would not, for example, have any effect on the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da’wa, and continued demographic conquest by Muslims in Western Europe), would do nothing except rescue the Camp of Islam from its own ethnic and sectarian fissures, fissures we should devoutly welcome, and work to widen.
Posted by: Hugh