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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > White House Senior Advisor Brennan Defends Obama's Administration Abandonment Of War On Islamic Terrorism

White House Senior Advisor Brennan Defends Obama's Administration Abandonment Of War On Islamic Terrorism

August 7, 2009

White House Senior Advisor Brennan Defends Obama's Abandonment Of War On Islamic Terrorism

By WILLIAM MAYER and BEILA RABINOWITZ

August 6, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a much anticipated appearance, David Brennan, the president's senior counter terror and homeland security advisor, today addressed the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a left dominated think tank whose board of trustees includes Richard Armitage, Zbigniew Brzezinski, William S. Cohen and whose president John J Hamre served as a Clinton administration Under Secty. of Defense from 93-97.

Though it was Brennan's obvious intent to hype the "new thinking" and "new approach" allegedly being put forward by the Obama administration in dealing with a purposefully and vaguely defined "violent extremism," the speech revealed once again the administration's hopeless confusion on dealing with Islamic terrorism, a term which along with "global war on terror" and "jihadist," has been officially stricken from the terror lexicon.

If the speech [flash recording of which is available here, http://csis.org/multimedia/john-brennan-assistant-president-homeland-security-and-counterterrorism] had come from anyone of lesser rank in this administration it perhaps could have been written off as not being representative of the president's thinking on the matter, but in the wake of Obama's dhimmi Cairo speech [see, http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=obamaid=6.4.09%2Ehtm] and before that Homeland Security Chief Napolitano's rejection of the entire concept of a war on terror, that is clearly not the case.

Working into the main topic, Brennan first outlined what he thought were achievements by the new president, which included a "renewed" "commitment to diplomacy," a recognition of the importance of "climate change," and most of all a, "new partnership with Muslims around the world."

He offered Obama's closing of GITMO and the banning "of enhanced interrogation techniques," as a good will gesture to the Muslim world, a down payment on the idea of "promoting universal values."

Indicative of the absolute disjunct between this administration and reality displayed in other areas, it was nonetheless strikingly odd to hear Brennan state that among the universal values which team Obama feels are shared between the West and the Muslim world are "responsive governance and women's rights," two items not normally assumed to be on the must-do agenda of let's say the Saudi royal family.

Brennan said that Obama does not, "see this challenge as a war against jihadists...using the legitimate term jihad which means to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal," despite the fact that jihad has been clearly and unambiguously understood for well over a thousand years by seminally important Muslim scholars as, "fighting in the way of Allah," to expand the dominion of Islam.

Brennan added that he was, "deeply troubled by the inflammatory rhetoric, hyperbole and intellectual narrowness that has often characterized the debate," which he described as not being sufficiently "nuanced."

These policy declarations, this "new thinking" is being offered upon what appears to be a central tenet of the administration, "why should a great and powerful nation ... allow its relationship with a billion Muslims...to be defined by the narrow hatred and nihilist actions of an exceptionally small minority of Muslims?"

Taken in its entirety, Mr. Brennan's speech is both confusing and troubling.

The Obama administration's stance on terrorism is more than inadequate, in that the message of weakness and confusion that it sends has already emboldened [if we are to judge developments in Iraq and Afghanistan] those who have declared war against the West.

For whatever reason, perhaps Mr. Obama having been steeped in Islam as a young man, he can't bring himself, nor will he permit his administration, to link Islam with terrorism despite the fact that the terrorism we are experiencing is a strictly Muslim phenomenon, justified by its advocates within the confines of Islamic theology.

Rather than new thinking on the subject, the Obama administration has purposefully blinded itself in service to a greater ideology, multiculturalism, a doctrine which serves, in this case, to criminalize any reasonable response to Islamic terrorism on the basis that a culture must be judged within its own terms, and not those of the "white European imperialists," which the multiculturalists detest.

A policy developed to challenge or defeat [a word curiously missing from this administration] what can only be described as a sanitized terrorism, shorn of any reasonable descriptors or clarifying adjectives, can't possibly succeed because there is no relationship between the prescription being offered and the disease.

As a result, Obama's "terror policy" is modeled as a response to the big lie put forth by the Islamists - a remedy for a nonexistent problem. The administration's policies in this regard are predicated upon the belief that instead of the Muslim world needing to re-order itself to constrain the violent actions taken by its co-religionists, that it is the victim of these predations - by the "Jews and Crusaders" so often front and center in Islamic declarations of war - who are guilty of undeserved and prejudicial actions against Islam.

Brennan's attempt to whitewash Islam of all responsibility therefore ultimately falls flat; because while it is true that those Muslims who actually carry out and plan these terrorist operations are small in number, a myriad of surveys conducted in and out of the Muslim world indicates a level of hostility and rage against the United States and the West, as well as an at least tacit support for violence, that extends far beyond the core numbers of the hard liners and mujahideen suicide bombers.

There is nothing in Obama's response to Islamic fundamentalist based violence, that requires anything from the religion's adherents and there is no recognition that the actions taken by the United States are merely a response to an externally generated assault.

For that reason, Mr. Brennan's remarks today are profoundly dispiriting because they defend a fraudulent policy; formulated more to assuage the supposed feelings of the enemy rather than deal with the challenge he poses, which are substantial.

The Obama terror policy then is not in any sense a new partnership with the allegedly misunderstood proponents of a foreign religion, it's an intentional effort to establish a false solidarity - apparently for public relations purposes - with those who wish us great harm inside and outside the realm of Islam.

http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=brennan8.6.09%2Ehtm

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