En Focus

by Eric Martin

Matt's Atomic Duss Bin highlights some key takeaways from the just released National Security Strategy (quoted in full with permission from the author):

One of the starkest differences between the Obama administration’s new National Security Strategy (pdf) and the Bush administration’s (pdf) is its tighter focus on Al Qaeda and affiliated extremists, and its recognition that responding to Al Qaeda with fear and overreaction is playing right into Al Qaeda’s hands.

Where Bush’s 2006 NSS stated the goal of “defeating global terrorism,” Obama’s is very specific, stating “The United States is waging a global campaign against al-Qa’ida and its terrorist affiliates.” The new NSS also makes very clear what this effort is not:

We will always seek to delegitimize the use of terrorism and to isolate those who carry it out. Yet this is not a global war against a tactic — terrorism or a religion — Islam. We are at war with a specific network, al-Qa’ida, and its terrorist affiliates who support efforts to attack the United States, our allies, and partners.

Here’s the section that Liz Cheney should read:

The goal of those who perpetrate terrorist attacks is in part to sow fear. If we respond with fear, we allow violent extremists to succeed far beyond the initial impact of their attacks, or attempted attacks — altering our society and enlarging the standing of al-Qa’ida and its terrorist affiliates far beyond its actual reach. Similarly, overreacting in a way that creates fissures between America and certain regions or religions will undercut our leadership and make us less safe.

There’s also a welcome assault on Al Qaeda’s religious legitimacy:

Finally, we reject the notion that al-Qa’ida represents any religious authority. They are not religious leaders, they are killers; and neither Islam nor any other religion condones the slaughter of innocents.

As Malcolm Nance writes in his new book An End To Al Qaeda, challenging Al Qaeda in the realm of ideology is a hugely important and thus far neglected aspect of the effort to diminish and defeat them. On the other side, you have people like Frank Gaffney who argue that Islam is inherently violent, and that therefore Osama bin Laden and his allies are the true Muslims, which is a clever way of effectively ceding the entire ideological debate to our enemies. Fortunately, the new NSS seems to recognize the foolishness of that idea.  

Not only do al-Qaeda's leaders lack religious credentials, but we know from profiles of known terrorists that they tend to be ill-informed about Islam themselves, without a solid base of knowledge to draw from in order to spot the ways that al-Qaeda and its ilk pervert the Koran and related theology.

In fact, Marc Sageman has found that attending a maddrassa at a young age tends to lessen the risk of engaging in such extremist behavior at a later time, and the Koran itself is often used as a tool to rehabillitate convicted terrorists.

UPDATE: Marc Lynch has more.

Comments

[Oyster Tea]

Even though Obama has been a huge disappointment, this should remind us of how much worse the alternative would be.

[Eric Martin]

McCain/Palin.

Nuff said.

[vanmojo]

Why does Frank Gaffney hate the troops?

mojo sends

[Ugh]

McCain/Palin.

Nuff said.

I continue to wait and see if McCain survives until Jan. 2013 with all of his faculties intact, and if so, then until Jan. 2017. That McCain is still a member in good standing of the Beltway crowd after selecting the utter disaster that is Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008 is about as great an indictment of that crowd as any.

Really, what a complete and utter fncking disaster a McCain presidency would have been, with Palin lurking in the wings.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Ugh said:
I continue to wait and see if McCain survives until Jan. 20132009 with all of his faculties intact..

Fixed, and the answer is "no".

[jrudkis]

In fact, Marc Sageman has found that attending a maddrassa at a young age tends to lessen the risk of engaging in such extremist behavior at a later time, and the Koran itself is often used as a tool to rehabillitate convicted terrorists.

I have long believed that being exposed to a moderate religion is like using cowpox to innoculate against smallpox. It makes it more difficult for people to be indoctrinated into an intolerant extreme view. My kids attend a nice hippy sunday school just for this purpose, even though I don't believe. I think if they do choose to beleive, it will be in a loving and tolerant God.

[Eric Martin]

That was basically what he found.

The stereotype is of the madrassa students, rocking back in forth in hypnotic prayer, being indoctrinated with radical anti-Americanism.

In reality, a firm grounding in actual Islam makes it much harder to be seduced by extremist perversions of Islam.

Most of the al-Qaeda-esque terrorist footsoldiers came to Islam later in life (were nominally Muslim, but not notably religious), were looking to mosques for a sense of belonging due to alienation from their then-current society, had the zeal of the newly converted (or born again) and were swayed by radicals in their midst.

[hairshirthedonist]

I went to a High On Fire concert at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia last month. I've felt particularly well-innoculated against religious extremism since then. (They let you bring your own beer, too. Now there's some tolerance I can get behind.)

Who would be worse in high office - Sarah Palin or Liz Cheney? (I'm not picking on women here. They are just two very high-profile and scary potential candidates that have been mentioned in this post and its comments.)

[Eric Martin]

Liz Cheney by a hair.

SP is vapid and opportunistic, so she would be more prone to take the politically expedient route which, on occasion, might also be the right thing to do.

Liz, like her father, will pursue the wrong course even into strong political headwinds.

[Tony P.]

It may be true that terrorists "tend to be ill-informed about Islam". I just wonder whether it's true in the same sense as the statement that "Pat Robertson is ill-informed about Christianity" would be. Decent Muslims, like decent Christians, may like to think their religions belong to them. But the fanatics are seldom at a loss to cite chapter and verse of the scriptures which fanatics and moderates alike consider holy.

--TP

[hairshirthedonist]

I had a thought (amazingly enough): Sarah Palin runs for president with Liz Cheney as her VP. It would be about as close as you could come to the Shrub ticket all over again, but probably worse.

[Hartmut]

Fortunately (?) that would be even beyond the GOP's level of tolerance. Not tolerance of extremism that is but of females in lead positions. A female vice? OK. A female candidate for the top job? Borderline. But a double female ticket? Fat chance. Even Palin needed a special dispense from her religious guardians (and the first dude) to be accepted by the Kristians(TM).

[Nell]

Scott Horton's post on the National Security Strategy document is also worthwhile. The excerpt below reminds me how frustrating I found Hilzoy's abrupt departure from blogging at the very time that it had become impossible to deny the extent of the current administration's solidification of the Bush-Cheney policies, and how loudly her continued silence speaks.

Jes has been proved correct in her pessimism and outrage at Obama retaining Gates as Defense Secretary. Those of us who offered possible rationalizations for the decision (whether or not we supported it) have not seen those arguments pan out.

Horton:

The Obama Administration came to Washington promising to clean up the Bush-era detentions policy and make it conform to the clear requirements of law. Then it seems to have decided that the law wasn’t so convenient and that simply providing for unbridled executive authority à la Bush-Cheney wasn’t such a bad idea after all. In terms of Washington power politics, that decision seems to have taken the form of letting Robert Gates make the call on all these issues. The two figures in the Administration who took the most credible stance for implementing the Obama campaign-era promises on detentions policy -- Greg Craig and Phil Carter -- resigned within a few weeks of one another, offering no believable reasons for departing. Then press reports began to appear about secret prisons, operated by JSOC and DIA and applying rules different from those applied in the "normal" DOD prisons, including plenty of torture-lite techniques under Appendix M of the Army Field Manual (PDF).

This passage in the National Security Strategy makes clear that Barack Obama and his team have abandoned the promises they made to reform detentions policy in the 2008 campaign. Even the commitment to stop torture does not appear to have been fully implemented, given the unaccountable practices of JSOC and the DIA in Afghanistan. Barack Obama’s belief in the rule of law apparently takes the back seat to Barack Obama’s belief in his own ability to make the right call as executive.

[emphasis added]

[envy]

I continue to wait and see if McCain survives until Jan. 2013 with all of his faculties intact, and if so, then until Jan. 2017.

The history of what didn't happen has never been written. We must recall that the real question would be how well McCain survived through 2017 with the added stresses of the executive. Fortunately, we shan't ever have to find out.

[Hartmut]

What if the original idea of the defeated candidate becoming the VP was still in place?
OK, Gore as VP to Shrubya would have at least spared us Chain-Eye.
Now imagine a Hillary-Palin administration as a result...