If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

As the House hearings on Islamic recruitment and domestic radicalization wind down, the Obama administration thought it would be a good idea to counter the inevitable findings of the committee. Figuring that the best defense is a good offense, the administration has published a policy paper entitled: "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Extremism in the United States." You can read the document here.

Repeating itself almost like a case of literary hiccups, the document is designed to convince gullible Americans that the best way to combat Islamic terrorism is to utilize high-profile and well-funded Islamic organizations to do the fighting for us. It smacks of recruiting Nazis to counter Hitler. Or communists to counter Castro. It also smacks of the deaf, dumb and blind whistling-past-the-graveyard liberal mindset which won't call a war a war, or call terrorists terrorists.

Note that the words "terrorism" and "Islamic" are used, but almost never in conjunction with each other. As so often happens in these documents, the first mention of domestic terrorists is awarded to neo-Nazis. You know, the guys who flew Fokkers and Messerschmidts into the World Trade Center. Lest you think they might be ignoring terrorism originating in Jihadistan, the report mentions al-Qa'ida in the first paragraph, so as to single it out as a nasty group divorced entirely from mainstream Islam.

At that point in the opening page, signed by His Majesty Barack Obama, "Islamic terrorism" essentially disappears to be replaced by "violent extremism." As The One says: "Protecting America's communities from al-Qa'ida's hateful ideology is not the work of government alone. Communities--especially Muslim American communities whose children, families and neighbors are being targeted by al-Qa'ida--are often best positioned to take the lead because they know their communities best." Well, there's a revelation. Al-Qa'ida isn't recruiting at the local Baptist churches. Whoda thunk it?

Thereafter in the main body of the document, the writers repeat, ad nauseam, that associating Islam with terrorism leads to terrorism. That's a thought that is coming to full fruition after being bandied about ever since 9/11. If you think and talk happy thoughts about Islam, the problem will go away, particularly if you have the right Muslim organizations helping to get the message out that Islam is the religion of peace. Organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist plans.

While the government can help, local communities and prominent civilian organizations are in the forefront of combating the outbreak of neo-Nazi, radical Christian, disaffected youth, and the occasional Muslim extremist attacks. And they must be encouraged, yea, even supported by the government. While we're at it, we must make sure that local law enforcement assists in getting the word out that rare "violent extremists" who are only incidentally Muslim must be countered by "good Muslim" groups such as CAIR. Why am I reminded of San Francisco former Mayor Willie Brown's plan to end gang violence on the City's buses and trains by hiring gang members as security guards?

Quintan Wiktorowicz is the main inspiration for the policy paper. Would you like to hazard a guess as to where he is coming from? Well, after 9/11, he authored several treatises on how al-Qaeda (my preferred spelling) must be distinguished from moderate Muslim organizations such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. He also distinguishes between good Salafists and bad Salafists (a very violent offshoot of the Brotherhood). That's a bit like distinguishing between the SS and the Gestapo. His arguments haven't changed with time, and now the President of one of the largest Muslim nations on earth has singled him out to plot American strategy to bring Islam into mainstream America and deflect violent extremism.

The underlying philosophy of Barack Obama, as evidenced by this paper and his choice of the authors, is that if the fox keeps killing your chickens, put the fox in charge of the henhouse. The paper actually suggests that the most devout Muslims are the ones who are best for combating radicalism. "Very religious Muslims are the most resistant to radicalization while those most likely to be radicalized lack a good grounding in Islam." Very religious Muslims like bin-Laden, al-Awlaki, and Adam Gadahn ("Azzam the American")?

The great patriotic and anti-terrorist organizations of CNN, NPR, the New York Times and the Huffington Post have all praised the report. The Times went so far as to include the opinion of Political Research Associates, but only referred to PRA as "a liberal group." In fact, PRA is a wingnut organization that proclaims that Christians are plotting to take over the American government. The Times emphasized the wisdom of PRA's and the ACLU's concept that Islamic terrorism must be soft-pedaled when recruiting law enforcement to assist in searching for violent extremists. They want no serious discussion or investigation of widespread Islamic terrorism, and so must reduce a few hundred million Muslims to the equivalent status of the lone Oslo "Christian mass murderer" or Turner Diaries nutcase Timothy McVeigh.

As Daniel Greenfield puts it: "The Orwellian blankness of the new strategy is a spate of ignorance to mask the truth of terrorism. The enemy is reduced to a social problem, terrorism to violent extremism and the war on terror to programs teaching Muslims about the dangers of violent extremism on the internet. The same dead-end European counter-terrorism strategies imported to the United States." Indeed, there are no Muslim terrorists, there are only misguided disaffected youths. He believes that "the new strategy begins with Obama carefully using the Arabic transcription spelling of 'Usama' and 'al-Qa-ida,' and ends with cautioning that, strong religious beliefs should never be confused with violent extremism. Unless you're Christian, of course."

Personally, I prefer to wait for the report coming out of the House committee chaired by Rep. Peter King (R-New York). More importantly, I will wait for the committee's recommendations and the list of organizations that the committee believes should be involved in countering growing domestic Islamic terrorist recruiting. Will CAIR be among them?