Islam Watch - "Who are We Fighting—Jihadists or Extremists?"

Islam Under Scrutiny by Ex-Muslims

Who are We Fighting—Jihadists or Extremists?

by Jeffrey Imm

26 Apr, 2008

From Counter Terrorism Blog on 24 April, 2008:

Now we officially know the answer - the U.S. Government states that America is definitely not fighting "jihadists", based on new guidelines directing federal agencies not to even use the term "jihadist". So who is America fighting? Defense Secretary Robert Gates tells us: "the enemy is extremism".

A. National Counter Terrorism Center Memo and DHS Report on Terminology

Associated Press reported today that the Extremist Messaging Branch at the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) prepared a memorandum in March 2008 entitled "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication." The memorandum approved for distribution by the State Department today sets out guidelines for federal agencies in describing terrorists and their organizations. The AP report suggests that the NCTC memorandum is also supported by a January 2008 Department of Homeland Security report entitled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims".

Per the AP report, the NCTC memorandum tells federal agencies that they are not to use the terms: "jihadist", "jihadi", "mujahedeen". Specifically, the NCTC memorandum states: "Never use the terms 'jihadist' or 'mujahedeen' in conversation to describe the terrorists... Calling our enemies 'jihadis' and their movement a global 'jihad' unintentionally legitimizes their actions." It also states: "We are communicating with, not confronting, our audiences. Don't insult or confuse them with pejorative terms such as 'Islamo-fascism,' which are considered offensive by many Muslims."

Another AP report states that the NCTC memorandum advises:
- "Don't use 'caliphate' when explaining al-Qaida's goals, as this has positive implications."
- "Don't use 'salafi,' 'Wahhabist,' 'sufi,' 'ummah' and other words from Islamic theology unless you are able to discuss their varied meanings. Particularly avoid using 'ummah' to mean the Muslim world, as it is a theological term."

AP also states that the January 2008 DHS report calls for "caution in using terms such as, 'jihadist,' 'Islamic terrorist,' 'Islamist,' and 'holy warrior' as grandiose descriptions."

B. The Inconvenient 9/11 Commission Report

What the "Extremist Messaging Branch" of the NCTC and the Muslim outreach division of the DHS have not addressed are the inconvenient writings in the 9/11 Commission Report, the closest thing that America has yet in terms of a "strategic" document on Jihad (in itself that speaks volumes as the 9/11 Commission Report is not a strategy document).

The 9/11 Commission Report uses the term "jihad" in referencing the enemy 79 times and specifically defines "jihad" as a "holy war" executed by Osama Bin Laden and his compatriots (Section 2.3, Paragraph #302 on page 55), as well as defining "mujahideen" as "holy warriors" (Paragraph #302, same page). The 9/11 Commission Report refers to such "mujahideen" 22 times.

The 9/11 Commission Report refers to the term "jihadist" 31 times, including the references to the "worldwide jihadist community" (Section 5.1, Paragraph #691 on page 148), to "Islamist Jihadists" (Section 5.3, Paragraph #741 on page 158), to "Islamist and jihadist movements" (Section 6.3, Paragraph #887 on page 191), and multiple references to an NSC memo on "Jihadist Networks".

Most importantly, the 9/11 Commission Report provides the definition of "Islamist terrorism" as being based on the ideology of "Islamism" (Notes, Part 12, Note 3: "Islamism", page 562).

How do the NCTC and the DHS reports reconcile the 9/11 Commission Report with their guidelines on terminology? The 9/11 Commission Report has most of the "offensive" language on "jihadists", "jihad", "mujahideen", and even "Islamism" decried by the NCTC and DHS reports on terminology. What is the position of the NCTC and the DHS on this report containing such "offensive" language? Does the NCTC now claim that the 9/11 Commission Report "legitimizes" the actions of Jihadists?

The U.S. Government-printed 9/11 Commission Report is accessed daily on a U.S. Government web site, and sold in U.S. Government Printing Office bookstores. The 9/11 Commission Report is in federally funded libraries around the nation, and no doubt on the desks of many federal employees.

In keeping with their guidelines, will the NCTC and the DHS call for the closing of the 9/11 Commission Report website, call for the end of sales of the 9/11 Commission Report by the GPO, and the removal of the 9/11 Commission Report in federally funded libraries? Will the 9/11 Commission Report become the next "Alms of Jihad" -- forbidden for sale and forbidden to be kept in libraries -- due to Islamist influence and petrodollars?

One of the key missions of the NCTC is to provide "Strategic Operational Planning". The NCTC should explain how they are performing that function if they seek to silence the same introspection on and analysis of Jihad and Islamism that was found in the 9/11 Commission Report.

C. The War On Extremists - and Surrender to Islamists

In a reactive-only approach to war that stubbornly refuses to make the strategic commitment in defining the enemy, it is no surprise that seven and half years after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government is reduced to calling for a "War On Extremists". It is hard for most to disagree with the idea of being against "extremists" - because everyone has a different definition of the term.

Indeed, the NCTC, Defense Secretary Gates, Osama Bin Laden, and Islamists all agree on this point - they are all against "extremists".

Echoing Defense Secretary Gates' recent comments that in Iraq, "the enemy is extremism", Osama Bin Laden also shares this sentiment. In his October 22, 2007 message calling for Jihadists in Iraq to unite, Bin Laden warns of the "ta'assub" (fanatics, extremists), who would sow dissension among Jihadist mujahideen. CENTCOM head nominee General Petraeus' recent testimony also calls for fighting against "extremists". One would think that the U.S. Secretary of Defense and Osama Bin Laden would have different definitions of the enemy in Iraq, but in fact they all claim to be fighting against "extremists". This nonsensical state is where the "War On Extremists" takes us.

Moreover, in the documentary Islam versus Islamists, Tempe Wahhabist Imam Ahmad Al Shqeirat views anti-terror Muslims like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser as an "extremist". According to the NCTC, use of the term "extremist" is fine, but pointing out that Imam Ahmad Al Shqeirat is a "Wahhabist" - that's a problem.

The drift towards a "War On Extremists" position was telegraphed in President Bush's January 2008 State of the Union Message -- defining the enemy as "terrorists and extremists" (without the term Islamist or Islamic), and again in the February 2008 Annual Threat Assessment from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) which predominantly referenced the enemy as "extremists" (not using the terms "Jihad", "Jihadist", "Islamism", or "Islamist"). The latest DHS and NCTC reports are a culmination of a specific direction that the current U.S. government administration wants -- movement towards a "War On Extremists".

The basic philosophy of the "War On Extremists" position is summarized by Defense Secretary Gates: "It's those who are not willing to participate in the political process and do so peacefully. Those are the enemy."

In short, since the current U.S. political leadership has consciously ignored the definition of Islamist terrorism being based on Islamism per the 9/11 Commission Report, and since tactical-centric operations have required alliance with pro-Islamist nations, the current U.S. political leadership is basically willing to allow Islamists grow as long as they do not take violent action against Americans.

The "War On Extremists" approach has resulted in agencies with the mission of protecting Americans engaged in outreach to Islamist and pro-Jihadist organizations. It was just last Labor Day that the DOJ, DHS, and the FBI were attending the Islamic convention coordinated by unindicted HLF terror trial co-conspirator ISNA, with the DHS booth reportedly next to the virulently Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. In February 2008, the CIA and FBI were reported recruiting for staff in the pro-Hamas, pro-Islamist Washington Report for Middle East Affairs (WRMEA). In April 2008, the FBI was reported recruiting for staff in the pro-terrorist Arab American News. Also in April 2008, the Pentagon cleared Deputy Defense Secretary England's aide Hasham Islam and his "diplomatic outreach program". Mr. Islam reportedly had pressured former Joint Staff analyst Stephen Coughlin "to take a softer line on Islam and Islamic law elements that promote extremism", when Mr. Coughlin reportedly identified "several groups that [were] being courted by Mr. Islam's community outreach program as front organizations for the pro-extremist Muslim Brotherhood." Moreover, the U.S. government outreach to Islamist groups has extended far beyond our own borders.

The U.S. State Department's Kurt Volker has supported Afghanistan President Karzai's attempts to "mainstream" the enemy Taliban Islamists into the Afghanistan government and political system. On April 24, 2008, Pakistan Dawn reported that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher stated that the U.S. was not against any talks with Islamist militants and the Taliban that would lead to peace; Boucher's only concern is the ability to enforce the peacefulness of Pakistani Islamists. The efforts of Islamists to transform Pakistan into a Sharia-based nation is apparently not a concern to Assistant Secretary Boucher. Prior to Mr. Carter's apparent Logan Act violations in negotiating with the Islamist terror group Hamas, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice even referred to Hamas as a merely a "resistance organization". The point is that Islamist ideologies are not concerns to the State Department, just the level of violence that such groups promote.

For those who still didn't understand the administration's intentions regarding global Islamism, in February 2008 President Bush named Sada Cumber as the U.S. envoy to the largest Islamist, pro-Sharia organization in the world, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The OIC is an organization that only two months earlier had sought to redefine freedom of religion in the world based on Sharia principles. U.S. envoy Cumber views the OIC's pro-Sharia, anti-religious freedom values as similar to American values, stating: "I think the Muslim values that they are aspiring here are exactly in sync with American values." On April 8, 2008, U.S. envoy Cumber was interviewed by the Muslim Brotherhood founded group, the Muslim American Society (MAS), on Cumber's support for the Islamist OIC, and his views that concerns about Islamism are merely a "clash of ignorance"; Cumber also stated "I don't even use the terms when it comes to Islamic terrorism or Islamic terrorist".

This pattern of U.S. concessions to global Islamism bears the clear and unambiguous message of the U.S. government's "surrender" to the global forces of Islamism. In effect, the current U.S. administration is telling Islamists that America is already tired of fighting, and that Islamists can go about their efforts to control the world as long as they do it peacefully.

The "War On Extremists" philosophy is an approach to reduce military action required against Jihadists, to accommodate pro-Islamist nations, and to find "peace in our time". This philosophy incorporates a great deal of the concepts behind the non-interventionist ideologies of ex-CIA members Michael Scheuer and Marc Sageman. Like Mr. Scheuer's ideology, the "War On Extremists" ignores the totalitarian ideology of Islamism itself, and derides the concept of Islamism seeking to create a global caliphate (another term that NCTC says the federal government shouldn't use). Outside of the Iraq theater of battle, the do-anything-for-peace positions between Mr. Scheuer's non-interventionism and those of the advocates of a "War On Extremists" are not that far apart. Mr. Sageman's view that Islamist terrorists just do it for the "glamour" is much more in line with the NCTC position outlined in NCTC's March 2008 memorandum. Similar to the position of the NCTC's "Extremist Messaging Branch", Mr. Sageman downplays the ideological component of Jihadists, which Mr. Sageman bases on a psychological study that he believes proves that Jihadists are really only in it for the thrill. Mr. Sageman argues that if Americans just leave Islamists alone and quit bothering them, violent "extremists" will diminish. That sounds a lot like the U.S. State Department... and now the NCTC and the DHS.

D. Why "The War On Extremists" Fails to Understand the Islamist Imperatives

Where the weary U.S. administration's retreat into a non-ideological "War On Extremists" (which would be aptly abbreviated as W.O.E.) truly fails is in its belief that America can wage a non-ideological battle against Jihad. Such advocates are wrong that by merely calling Jihadists other names such as "extremists" - that it will encourage peace with Islamists.

Their major failure is the inability to understand that Islamism is an activist ideology. Islamism is not just a supremacist way of thinking like racism or other supremacist viewpoints.

Islamism is an activist conflation of Islam with a political form of governance driven by imperatives for control and action. The imperatives for control and action inherent in Islamism itself are what resulted in impatient Islamists like Osama Bin Laden to adopt terrorism as a tactic.

The Islamist imperatives of control and action can be seen daily in: (a) Islamist condemnation and denunciation of democracy, (b) Islamist calls for expansionism and separatist territories within other nations (e.g., Thailand, Philippines), (c) Islamist groups calls for a global caliphate, (d) Islamist efforts to dictate legal standards by Sharia and to enforce Sharia law (e.g., Pakistan, Afghanistan), (e) frequent protests by Islamists against any perceived slight, (f) Islamist violence to demonstrate their peaceful nature, (g) Islamist calls for control of media and freedom of speech, (h) Islamist demands for controls over freedom of religion based on Sharia concepts, (i) Islamist suppression of religious beliefs that challenge theirs, (j) Islamist demands for their own set of laws separate from the rest of a society -- as shown in the push for Sharia in the United Kingdom and Canada.

A pro-freedom nation like the United States of America remains on a collision course with totalitarian Islamism, regardless of the goals of the current administration behind the "War On Extremists". The choice is whether America will face the ideology behind Jihadism and confront it with the courage of our ideological convictions, or whether America will hide behind the delusion that if we can just control "extremists", and don't say any "offensive" words to Islamists, we will have gained a respite from Islamist terrorism.

As George Weigel stated in his February 2008 commentary about the inability to define the enemy as Jihadism, "if the United States can't explain to the world why religious freedom, civility, tolerance and democratic persuasion are morally superior to coercion in religious and political matters, then America stands disarmed before those who believe it their duty to impose a starkly different view of the good society on us."

While the current administration may seek "peace in our time" with Islamists, the only peace that the Islamist imperatives will truly accept will be in our submission and surrender as a freedom-loving nation.

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