Obama y su juego de palabras

After the passage of the health care bill, a more defined picture of the man Americans elected president in November 2008 suddenly started to emerge for most of the country. Slowly but surely, the public is finally getting to realize what the election of Barack Obama really entailed: A redefinition of the United States in every aspect, from the military, social, economic, scientific, cultural, to the political realm. One of his most recent initiatives is a reflection of the transformational president’s efforts to inject his promised “change.” This one has to do with America’s approach to terrorism.

 

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the United States seemed to have taken global jihadism at its word. The 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism was America’s grand strategic response to 9/11 and marked the launching of the Global War on Terror. The 2006 National Security Strategy clearly stated that, “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict in the early years of the 21st century.” But the paper also stated very forcefully that “terrorists confronting us today exploit the proud religion of Islam to serve a violent political vision.” The Bush Doctrine never made it a matter of “us vs. Islam.”

 

However, with most Westerners suffering from terminal political correctness and utopian pacifism, many voices from different corners screamed foul when the document unabashedly pinpointed the ideological drive and nature of the enemy. President Bush hit a bull’s eye here whether we agree or disagree about the details of his normative approach to the problem. But, make no mistake, despite the current semantic gymnastics about jihadism, the general public already has a pretty clear idea of who the enemy is by now.  

 

Jihadism is the current global expression of terrorism and the existential challenge of our lifetime. Even those who don’t share this sense of urgency do understand that terrorism is a lethal danger that cannot go unchecked. The deterrence weapon doesn’t work with jihadists since martyrdom through suicide is the ultimate goal to advance their “righteous” cause on earth while earning them a place in heaven. We are immersed in a conflict that is an ideological struggle as much as a security threat because jihadism is a thanatophile ideology and it’s no secret that its totalitarian practitioners seek our annihilation.

 

One important aspect that strategy developers must take into account is the nature of the enemy. Most people assume that the Government does so, assessing rationally and accurately the enemy out there and taking the best decisions to confront him. Every administration allegedly has many highly talented advisors and experts at hand who can offer sound advice in the best interest of the nation. Yet policymakers often allow idealistic and unrealistic assumptions about man cloud their analyses. The renowned and no-nonsense terrorism expert Walter Laqueur brilliantly captured reality in a nutshell when he wrote that, “Terrorism… is the contemporary manifestation of conflict, and conflict will not disappear from earth as far as one can look ahead and human nature has not undergone a basic change.” Perhaps believing in the perfectibility of human nature, the current occupant of the White House is the new American Adam, seemingly ready to eradicate Islamic radicalism as we know it. The idealists at the State Department constitute the perfect complement to this President’s chimerical agenda. Just as with Jimmy Carter, the price to pay for this quixotic adventure will be steep.

 

The Associated Press recently informed that, “President Barack Obama’s advisors plan to remove terms such as ‘Islamic radicalism’ from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism.” President Obama seeks not to alienate Islamic nations by using the wrong vocabulary. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley tried to deflect the controversy saying that, “We do confront a global movement of terrorists, violent extremists… not all of them are Islamic.” Well, not all. Yet reality tells us that most terrorist acts in our days have been perpetrated in the name of Islam – with Muslim societies bearing the brunt of the death tally. Mr. Obama shouldn’t ignore this terrible fact when drafting his policies to combat a foe who knows no geographical or moral boundaries. This enemy represents a threat not only to the West, but to the Islamic world itself.

 

Masterful military strategist Sun-Tzu taught us that, in order to guarantee victory, we must know two things: who we are and who the enemy is. But the new doctrine calls for giving the boot to Sun-Tzu’s time-tested advice and trading it for a more toned-down, less in-your-face terminological line. Apparently, this policy is in the making but adopting more neutral and bland wording to refer to the enemy lies at the very foundations of Mr. Obama’s unorthodox, soon-to-be-unveiled approach.

 

By going through all this trouble, it’s obvious that the administration understands that words matter. Definitions are important because they convey clarity by describing in words the essential character of something. When the administration gets lost in linguistic disquisitions and calls terrorism “man-caused disaster,” or the fight against terrorism becomes “Overseas Contingency Operation,” people suspect intended ambiguity to stifle the need to pronounce moral judgment about terrorism. It sets a terrible precedent when clarity is fundamental to developing a winning strategy to confront such determined enemies. It’s also to buy into the jihadist rhetoric and indirectly support their ridiculous assertion that the West is at war with Islam. In contrast, those same enemies have no problems openly acknowledging their final goal: The destruction of our civilization. These guys go in for the kill – literally. We don’t heed their words at our own peril. It’s the return of the 9/10 mentality.

 

While Mr. Obama’s diplomatic outreach to the Muslim world is positive per se as a way to put America’s strategic influence to work in the nation’s interests, attempting to obscure the real nature of jihadism and being in denial about the theological drive behind its motivations is like trying to cover the sun with one finger. Jihadism postulates that its followers are on a divine mission to wage war against anyone who doesn’t accept its purist interpretation of Islam and that the restoration of the caliphate as the only accepted form of polity is to be globally imposed. No amount of newly-minted expressions or nice gestures can change that reality. If according to President Obama’s own words to justify the surge in Afghanistan, “We are at war with al-Qaeda,” why do we have to play into the hands of the enemy with this name charade?

 

Americans don’t give Islam a bad name; the jihadists do.