Is the Pentagon being hampered by the PC police?
By JSobieski Posted in War — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I have pointed out in several comments posted at RedState that it behoves us to look under the hood and get specific with respect to specific scriptural references cited by OBL and other violent jihadists. Only by getting specific can we distinguish a potential jihadist who is currently not violent from a truely moderate Muslim who wants to practice a personal faith. We should be encouraging a debate in the Muslim world on certain provisions found in the Koran, Hadith, etc. Instead, by failing to look under the hood, we get surprised when home grown terrorists strike at their native countries.
A recent article by Bill Gertz suggests that forces within the Pentagon (such as the Deputy Defense Secrety Gordon R. England) are hampering the Pentagon's ability to understand our Islamo-Fascist enemies.
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071228/NATION04/...
*"Pro-Muslim officials at the Pentagon are putting political pressure on one of the U.S. military's most important specialists on Islamist extremism, according to defense officials.
Stephen Coughlin, a specialist on Islamic law on the Joint Staff, met recently with Hasham Islam, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England's close aide. The officials said Mr. Islam, a Muslim who is leading efforts for the Defense Department's outreach to Muslim groups, sought to convince Mr. Coughlin to take a softer line on Islam and Islamic law elements that promote extremism."Does this softening make any sense? If something is dangerous, don't we want to bring it out into the open so that (1) we can identify who the violent Jihadists are and (2) we can encourage moderates to argue with the fundamentalists/literalists/violent interpretators? Is there a general consensus at RedState and its readers that this softer line is a mistake?
"There is also evidence that a whispering campaign is under way to try and discredit Mr. Coughlin as a "Christian extremist with a pen" and force him out of the building, according to the officials. Mr. Coughlin came under fire from pro-Muslim officials after a memorandum he wrote identified several groups that are being courted by Mr. Islam's community outreach program as front organizations for the pro-extremist Muslim Brotherhood."The Muslim Brotherhood is the grandfather for Al Qaeda and virtually every other modern Jihad organization. Our Pentagon is engaging in outreach with extremist organizations because it can't tell the difference between moderates and extremists. This is the kind of thing we would expect if Hillary where to win the White House. However, it is happening now.
"Mr. Coughlin based the memorandum on documents released as evidence in a federal terrorism trial that he stated "are beginning to define the structure and outline of domestic jihad threat entities, associated nongovernmental organizations and potential terrorist or insurgent support systems."This is exactly what we want a federal government to do--connect the dots between domestic organizations (e.g. front organizations) and International Jihad, Inc.
"Mr. Coughlin noted that the documents identified one of the Muslim Brotherhood front groups as the Islamic Society of North America, whose leaders were hosted by Mr. England in April at the Pentagon, raising concerns that the deputy defense secretary does not understand clearly the nature of the Islamist threat he is working against as the No. 2 official."This is embarassing. The number 2 guy at the Pentagon is engaging in outreach with people associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and there is a DEBATE as to whether this is a good thing or not?
"Mr. England has been a leading advocate of what critics in the Pentagon say is a misguided attempt to reach out to the wrong Muslims, regardless of their views, in an effort to counter Muslim extremism. That approach has kept military and civilian officials from conducting much-needed assessments of how Muslim extremists are waging war because doing so would involving analysis of Muslim religious tenets, a politically taboo subject area."*This gets to the heart of my argument. How can our government understand threats and make intelligent assessments if people don't look under the hood at religious tenets and beliefs? Every time I have ventured into this area at RedState, someone usually points out that this site is political, not religious. I understand the desire to not become a religious site (for example, the discussion on Mormonism isn't really relevant in my view to anything political). However, in this instance, Jihad is motivated by a religious belief that has specific ideological beliefs relating to system of government, human rights (or lack thereof), etc.
Is it responsible to attempt to engage in a War on Terror (I do so dislike that name, but that is a discussion for another time) if we purposely blind ourselves because of a "politically taboo subject area"? Wouldn't the entire country be better off if the Pentagon was not so hampered? Wouldn't the entire country be better off if we as a country engaged in learning more about these controversial tenets to facilitate discussion, debate, and enlightenment on the topic? How else to isolate current radicals from those susceptible ot becoming future radicals?
If we don't, are we, like certain elements at the Pentagon, trying to be purposefully blind?
tried for about 30 minutes to fix them---to no avail. If I were to use frontpage, could I just copy and past with formatting?