THE DAILY BLADE: If We Call Them "Islamists" The Terrorists Will Have Won
The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense have issued Congressionally mandated quadrennial reviews outlining threats to U.S. security and the words "Islam," "Islamic" and "Islamist" are nowhere to be found. The Obama administration - like the Bush administration before it – does not believe that some part of Islam is at war with us. Counterterrorism consultant Patrick Poole tells The Washington Times that “The current administration seems hellbent on doubling down on the previous administration's failure to comprehend this threat, and there are American citizens and armed service members [who] are going to die as a result.”
The 108-page Quadrennial Homeland Security Review and the 128-page Quadrennial Defense Review repeatedly use the terms “terrorist,” "al Qaeda," "violent extremism" or "extremism" and "radicalism" but never describe “the ideology that motivates terrorists,” reports the Times:
"There was not an active choice" to avoid using terms derivative of Islam, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy David Heyman told reporters on a conference call. President Obama had "made it clear … our principal focus is al Qaeda and global violent extremism." … He declined to use the I-word. …
"I understand the reluctance to play up religion as a part of violent extremism," said Stewart Baker, who held Mr. Heyman's job at the Department of Homeland Security in the last administration. "But it's easy to take that too far. Which communities [in the
Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said in a statement that she was "struck" by what she called the "glaring omission." …
"To understand a threat and counter it, we must know our enemy," said Collins, the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "While there are other threats to our national security from other types of violent extremism, the gravest threat comes from Islamist extremists. ... In a review such as this, it is critical that we identify and address the specific threat posed by Islamist extremism."
Ms. Collins noted that the publicly available portions of the recent Pentagon report on the attack at Fort Hood also did not use terms related to Islam. "We shouldn't be reluctant to identify our enemy," she said. …
The Heritage Foundation's James Carafano poured scorn on the idea that the omission was not deliberate, pointing out that the quadrennial reviews were subjected to a comprehensive interagency editing and approval process. "It's not like this is an oversight. ... No one is slapping their forehead going, 'Oh, yeah, we forgot to use the word.'"
A homeland security official explains that the department’s quadrennial review used euphemisms because it is not designed to provide a definition of the enemy. That’s like saying that a facial composite should use Mr. Potato Head features because a Wanted Poster is not designed to provide a likeness of the criminal.
Editorial Note: Melvin Bledsoe, the father of 24-year-old Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (born Carlos Bledsoe) who (allegedly) killed killing one soldier and wounded another in a jihadist attack on a military recruiting center in Little Rock, is asking the questions that the FBI, DHS and our national security apparatus should be asking about home-grown terrorism and the radicalization of Muslim converts. The New York Times reports:
Though he has hired a lawyer for his son, visits him in his cell in Little Rock on weekends and contributes to his defense, Mr. Bledsoe, 54, says he has no illusions about his son’s guilt.
“My heart bleeds for the families of the victims,” he said.
What he wants, Mr. Bledsoe says, is to understand how “evildoers” brainwashed his son, as he puts it. And he wants the F.B.I. held accountable for what he considers its negligence in preventing the attack.
“They didn’t pull the trigger, but they allowed this to happen,” Mr. Bledsoe said. “It is owed to the American people to know what happened. If it can happen to my son, it can happen to anyone’s son.”
Life Imitates “F Minus” (Sorta)
At his wedding reception in June 2008, Ryan Kessler, 27, was involved in an altercation with Kevin Gartland, 35, who was dating his wife’s cousin. Kessler, who served tours in Iraq in 2003 and 2005 and earned a Bronze Star, confronted Gartland upon learning that he had thrown a drink at his sister. After the two men shoved each other around a bit, Gartland (allegedly) bit off part of Kessler’s left eyebrow and was charged with aggravated assault. At the trial, Kessler (above right) testified that Gartland gouged out “a chunk of flesh and hair” from his forehead, reports The Associated Press:
"It happened, and then there was just sort of extreme pain all of a sudden and blood started running down my face. ... I was just, like, 'I just got bit.' I started screaming, 'You just bit me.'" …
[The eyebrow] was never found ...
Kessler ... needed plastic surgery to address the wound.
Gartland claims he acted in self defense, and one of his lawyers questioned Kessler about how many drinks he had had before the fight (“Kessler said he'd had two beers, at least one gin and tonic and a shot of tequila, reports AP).
If convicted, Gartland faces up to 15 years in behind bars.
Sign The Mount Vernon Statement
The Conservative Action Project, a coalition founded after the 2008 election to unite social, economic and national security conservatives, has produced The Mount Vernon Statement - modeled on the Sharon Statement - which intends to "remind economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America's safety and leadership in the world," former U.S. Attorney General Edward Meese tells Politico.
Join Meese, president of Concerned Women for America Wendy Wright, president of the Media Research Center Brent Bozell, president of the American Conservative Union David Keene, president of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist, co-founder of the Federalist Society and other leading conservatives by adding your name to the petition.
In Memoriam
Sylvia Pressler, circa 1035 - February 15, 2010
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