Ideologies v. Guns, and Hope as a Strategy

It is good to know that leftist logic never changes.  

A quote from President Obama yesterday, that would have been right at home in protests of the 1960's....

"...in order for us to defeat terrorist groups like ISIL and al Qaeda it's going to also require us to discredit their ideology -- the twisted thinking that draws vulnerable people into their ranks.  As I’ve said before -- and I know our military leaders agree -- this broader challenge of countering violent extremism is not simply a military effort.  Ideologies are not defeated with guns; they’re defeated by better ideas..."

Hmmm, are we sure about that?

http://www.protestwarrior.com

Now, yes, evil ideologies must be supplanted by better ideas, but most times that supplanting must be done at the point of a gun.  Those nasty evil guns....and lots of soldiers with guns, occupying enemy territory, and delivering defeat.

"Know what really discredits ideologies? Unconditional surrender, occupying their capitals, wrecking their cities, defeating their armies." - @20Committee

To use a time tested maxim, "Hope is not a strategy".  And "No Boots on-the-Ground" is not a winning strategy either.  

Better ideas can't retake Ramadi.  Better ideas can't retake Mosul.  And better ideas can't defeat ISIL.

Not on their own.  Our better ideas require guns to conquer the evil ideas that are washing over the landscape unabated.

Evil ideologies are not just defeated with guns, they’re defeated by better ideas backed by the threat, even the use, of guns.  The sooner the President realizes that, the better.

A Lexicon has been...failed

Last week when talking of the attempted Times Square car bombing, President Obama said the following:

...They will stop at nothing to kill and disrupt our way of life. But once again, an attempted attack has been—failed...

Awkward phrasing to say the least, but as the Weekly Standard says, "It is as if the president wanted to say the attack “has been thwarted” but then realized he could not. The attack failed because Shahzad did not do a better job of constructing his makeshift bomb. No government agency can take credit for that."

However the most interesting word in that quote from the President is 'they'. Who *is* 'they'??
If we depend upon the White House's official statements, we will never know. for as it turns out, the words words 'terrorism', 'jihad', 'Islam', and even 'enemy' are no longer welcome in the official lexicon of the Global War on Terror Overseas Contingency Operations.

There are two recent looks at this 'phenomenon'.

First from the aforementioned Weekly Standard "Don’t Mention the War", in which authors Stephen Hayes and Thomas Jocelyn ask:

"Why does the Obama administration find it so hard to utter the words ‘terrorism’ and ‘jihad’ and ‘Islamic extremism’?"

[...]

So, three attacks in six months, by attackers with connections to the global jihadist network—connections that administration officials have gone out of their way to diminish.

The most striking thing about all three attacks is not what we heard, but what we haven’t heard. There has been very little talk about the global war that the Obama administration sometimes acknowledges we are fighting and virtually nothing about what motivates our enemy: radical Islam.

This is no accident.

Near the end of their article they cite the incomparable Janet Napolitano, who said she doesn't use the word terrorism in order to avoid “the politics of fear.”

Great. We apparently want to avoid offending those who would instill us with terror (and death), by not engaging in “the politics of fear.” As Glenn Reynolds likes to say, the country is in the very best of hands.

In addition to the Weekly Standard, PJTV released an instructive look at how the lexicon has changed in the past several years.

In their video "Censorship of Islamic Terminology" from April 23d, you will see how along with 'terrorism' the offending terms 'jihad', 'Islam', and even 'enemy' are totally absent from important Obama Administration documents like the National Intelligence Strategy, FBI Counter-Terrorism Lexicon, and Lesson from Ft Hood report.



I wonder what words might be included in the report on the "Times Square Incident"? Recent evidence does not inspire confidence. I guess the real question should be...is this best categorized as cultural sensitivity, or appeasement?

At the very least, this should inspire a rise in billboard space rental....

Not the Intended Message

From the front in parts of Europe that may soon be called Eurabia....



I cannot imagine that then Candidate Obama ever thought that his message of hope would be used to promote a cult of death...

[Hat Tip: Diana West]

FT Hood MSM Meme Non-Sequitur

Noah Pollack at Commentary's Contentions blog points us to the tip of the MSM's excuse iceberg on the FT Hood story. According to Time Magazine, Hasan had "Secondary Trauma"...

Gateway Pundit provides us with a good screen shot of the Time webpage of the story.



One thing I find interesting, and totally out of place, is Time's additional link in the story, 'See pictures of suicide in the recruiters ranks'.

This will take you to a Time story from April about the issue of recruiter suicide. I ,for the life of me, cannot figure out why that would be relevant to the discussion of a mass-murdering Army psychiatrist with Jihadi tendencies. Does Time not know enough about the military to think that two are somehow related? Talk about an inappropriate non-sequitur.

And as far as their search for a to excuse Hasan for his actions, pehaps they ought to consider that Hasan's "Secondary Trauma may not have come from listening to his patients, but rather from listening to the Wahhabist clerics at the mosques he liked to attend...

Books to win Wars

The other day I had a little fun with my Army brothers concerning Counter-Insurgency. However, I do feel strongly on the subject, especially on how the Air Force has a lot to learn when it comes to our role in such a fight. We are still caught in an Air Supremacy paradigm, and need to do more thinking on how we can be relevant in a 'Small War'

The new edition of Air & Space Power Journal dedicates its current edition to 'Irregular Airpower'. It should make for interesting reading, and is in my queue.

Now speaking of Small Wars.....

The Army is continuing its drive to incorporate Counterinsurgency education at all levels, to include our coalition partners, with its Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy.

"Six years into the Afghan war, the Army has decided its troops on the ground still don't understand well enough how to battle the Taliban insurgency. So since the spring, groups of 60 people have been attending intensive, five-day sessions in plywood classrooms in the corner of a U.S. base here, where they learn to think like a Taliban and counterpunch like a politician.

The academy's principal message: The war that began to oust a regime has evolved into a popularity contest where insurgents and counterinsurgents vie for public support and the right to rule. The implicit critique: Many U.S. and allied soldiers still arrive in the country well-trained to kill, but not to persuade."

To help out this effort, the Small Wars Journal and some others have put together a book drive of sorts to help stock the bookshelves at this Academy.

So, if you really would like to help he U.S. and its allies prevail in its current fight, then go to the SWJ's Amazon wish-list, and buy a book or two for the Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy (books delivered directly to Kabul).

Quote of the Day

I think this is a good quote of the day...

"Such is the way of the world. Thousands of Sudanese men calling for the execution of a middle-aged schoolma'am over a teddy bear are "good-natured"....and I'm a "flagrantly Islamophobic" hatemonger."

Mark Steyn rocks...