Let’s Call A Spade A Spade, Shall We?
President Obama bows his head toward the Dalai Lama as he was recognized during the 2015 National Prayer Breakfast
President Obama bows his head toward the Dalai Lama as he was recognized during the 2015 National Prayer Breakfast

So exactly why won’t President Obama use clear and specific language that ties the fundamentalist Jihadist Muslim terrorist organizations we face on so many fronts around the world directly to Islam?

I suppose that it is possible that the “why” of Obama’s refusal to directly acknowledge that this existential threat to America is based in solid Muslim ideology has to do with him being a “closet Muslim” as many have long alleged. I think it more likely that he was raised with a heavy Muslim influence, has lived for years in his childhood in Muslim countries and simply sympathizes with their cause. Whatever the reason his avoidance of the issue is undeniable.

I started writing this article about six weeks ago when it only seemed as if Obama would not use the word “Islamic” with regard to the terrorist organizations we face around the world. Since then several key members and spokespersons in his administration have made statements that removed all doubt that the word was being consciously avoided including Vice President Biden, Attorney General Holder, National Security Advisor Rice, and White House Press Secretary Earnest to name but a few… and of course the Bobbsey Twins – those loveable hash-tagging cut-ups Jen Psaki and Marie Harf, the official spokespersons for our Department of State and John Kerry.

Hashtag Princesses Jen Psaki and Marie Harf, the official spokespersons for the U.S. Department of State
Two of Obama’s favorite Hashtag Princesses Jen Psaki and Marie Harf, the official spokespersons for the U.S. Department of State

These people are perfect examples of what’s inside the Obama bubble; a crew of yes men of the most sickeningly worshipful sort. But they are only repeating (and avoiding) what they have heard their hero say (or avoid saying) in closed-door meetings in the White House.

No wonder he believes he walks on water. All of those around him hang on his every word as absolute truth and ultimate wisdom. If only the rest of us could simply see his brilliance we would know the truth of it, and the world could be saved!

Without a doubt the Obama administration is best example of the elitist Socialist Left in America. The rest of us are simply too stupid (not “nuanced” enough as Harf put it) to fend for ourselves and must be guided and cared for like retarded children.

But I digress.

President Obama’s “high horse” remarks at the 2015 National Prayer Breakfast are a perfect example of his warped philosophy. Here he presents the very same justification that the Jihadist magazine “Inspire” uses as a recruiting slogan – that we are little better than the Christian Crusaders from 1,000 years ago. Our President is actually making their argument for them!

Maybe President Obama looks out of the windows of the White House and sees the world he wishes existed instead of the one that actually does exist. Some in his own party suspect this to be true.

During his recent State of the Union speech he lead out by stating that “’the shadow of crisis has passed” referring to the terrorist threat, and later he stated that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations” than climate change.

Maybe he really believes that the changes he thinks are occurring in our climate will bring the world to ruin faster than the Jihadist threat. He is great friends with Al Gore and John Kerry after all.

Maybe he’s just a fool.

At any rate I submit that the real question is not why he won’t call a spade a spade, but why the words that our President does choose to use – usually something like “violent extremists” – even matter?

The term I use to refer to the whole group of terrorists from the Abu Sayyaf Gang on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, to the Threek-e-Taliban in Pakistan and northwestern Afghanistan, to the Caucasian Emirate Group in Chechnya, Russia, to Boko Haram in Nigeria, West Africa is “fundamentalist Jihadist Muslim terrorists.” Here’s why…

Fundamentalist”: This first term takes a while to adequately explain, so please bear with me. Simply put I use this term because the base ideology of all of these groups is a return to original Muslim fundamentals, rejecting all things Western and modern. “Boko Haram” literally means “western (or non-Islamic) education is a sin.” Much of the Muslim world never surrendered those fundamentals in the first place, so for them the goals of these terrorist groups are easy to understand and identify with. They still live very conservative lifestyles in third world countries, under Sharia law, not much different from how Muhammad himself lived in 6th century.

For this reason I don’t use the term “extremist” because really the terrorist ideology we face is actually quite the norm in much of the Muslim world, and especially throughout the Middle East.

The Islamic terrorists we now face are not calling for movement toward a new, “extremist” position within Islam; they call for a rejection of Western influence (and the ejection of Western military forces) and a return to well-established, traditional (“fundamentalist”) Muslim values and a lifestyle which has worked well for these populations for centuries.

All of the terrorist conflicts around the world in which we are engaged involve the spread of a one form or another of particularly fundamentalist versions of Islam – some of those are Sunni-based and some of those are Shia-based, but all focus on throwing out Western influence and a return to fundamental Muslim beliefs and Sharia law. These are NOT “extremist” views at all.

A great many non-violent Muslims are quite happy with their conservative lifestyle, and believe that Islam would prosper, and peace would be realized if only our Western influence – and our military forces – would withdraw. These people are not envious or desirous of Western life, rights, law, prosperity and technology. They don’t want McDonald’s or Levi’s or iPhones. Quite the contrary; they are horrified by what they see flowing out of Western nations and into their countries.

Those reading this who have not travelled to the region and who have never met face to face with Iraqis, Afghans, Egyptians, Qatari, and Jordanians as I have may have difficulty accepting this claim, but it is none the less true.

Westerners have difficulty understanding why anyone would resist modernization and technology, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and equal rights for women. The truth is that these ultra conservative, hyper religious populations don’t see any good in any of that.

In fact when most of the Muslim world – from the Philippines to the ‘Stans’ – look at Western culture they see the destruction of the nuclear family, disrespect for parents and elders, women parading their sexuality in public tempting men before Allah, rampant and glorified use of alcohol and drugs, homosexuality, paganism, and a system of laws so easily manipulated by greedy lawyers and rich defendants that they win freedom for some of the worst criminals imaginable.

Muslims see with their own eyes their children seduced by technology and the Internet, influenced by Western ‘filth’ in the form of music videos and movies out of Hollywood, a steady stream of Western sex, drugs and Godlessness.

Westerners are shocked to learn, for example, that in the Muslim world homosexuality is a death offense. Think about that for a moment and then consider how much homosexuality is displayed in the movies being produced and distributed by Hollywood!

Are many Muslims hypocritical about things like alcohol, for example? Of course they are, but that doesn’t change the societal norms that govern their societies.

Contrary to popular Western musings Muslims do not believe that they are mistreating their women when they keep them from education, refuse to let them drive or go about in public uncovered and without a male escort. Quite the contrary, they believe that they are loving and protecting them, and truth be told, as long as their women obey the law set forth in the Quran, know their place, do what they are told, and keep their mouths shut, everything is fine for the Muslim woman.

Don’t send me hate mail. I don’t buy into any of that crap. I’m just telling it like it is.

While most Americans simply cannot understand why people would actually prefer to continue to live in what we consider medieval, backward conditions, horribly oppressive to women (by Western standards), these are views that sit comfortably with most Muslims from the Afghan poppy farmer to the fisherman in southern Mindanao in the Philippines.

You may not like that characterization but it’s the truth.

Jihadist” because all of the terrorist organizations in question wrap themselves in the concept of Jihad – the “holy war” – to provide a religious foundation for the atrocities they commit. Many openly refer to themselves as Jihadists. Of course Jihad can also mean “striving in the way of God” as is often pointed out by non-militant Muslims, and this is another legitimate meaning for the word. But again, in every case these terrorist organizations themselves use the aforementioned meaning of Jihad to describe and justify the actions in which they are engaged.

Muslims” because in every case these terrorist organizations are exclusively Muslim! They don’t incorporate a small percentage of Christians, a few Jews and the occasional Atheist for God’s sake! They are all exclusively Muslim – and ultra-conservative Muslims at that! Now I suppose you could make the argument that calling these groups “Jihadist” would clearly indicate that they are also Muslims, but since Christianity and Judaism both have concepts similar to Jihad I tag on the word “Muslim” just to be clear.

So let’s call a spade a spade!

All of these groups are fundamentalist Jihadist Muslim terrorist organizations. Admittedly the term “fundamentalist Jihadist Muslim terrorists” doesn’t necessarily roll easily off the tongue but it’s accurate to a fault. I normally start out with the full phrase and then shorten that to simply “Jihadist terrorists”, or simply “Jihadists” thereafter.

The enemy we face wants nothing less than the establishment of a Caliphate spanning first the Middle East, and ultimately the entire world. They are fighting to oust Western forces and influence from their midst, then to destroy Israel and ultimately to subjugate the entire Christian world, and convert the planet to Islam in the name of Allah. We are engaged in a fight for the very existence of Christianity and our Western culture. If you don’t believe that then you should probably stop reading right here and go see a Seth Rogan movie for a good laugh.

But what’s all the fuss about anyway? Why is it so important that our President “call a spade a spade?” Why is it important for him to call out fundamentalist Jihadist Islam for what it is – not a small, extreme, fringe element, separate from mainstream Islam, but a core Islamic philosophy, supported by a large segment of the Muslim world (by some estimates as much as 25%), that is spreading and gaining momentum worldwide?

Here’s why.

The success of any conflict hinges on having the proper focus, whether that conflict is a law-enforcement action such as our current struggle against Mexican drug cartels, a diplomatic and economic struggle such as that we are waging with Russia and Iran, or whether it is an integrated and synchronized conflict against fundamental Jihadist Muslim terrorist organizations such as our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years have been, and we now wage against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL.)

ISIS terrorist executing - yes, you guessed it! A fellow Muslim!
ISIS terrorist executing – yes, you guessed it – a fellow Muslim!  Probably caught the poor bastard playing Soccer!

In war one strives against one’s adversary’s center of gravity. Without their center of gravity they are no longer able to wage war. Sometimes there are multiple centers of gravity. In order to overcome an adversary’s center(s) of gravity you have to correctly identify your enemy, study him, learn their center(s) of gravity, determine the critical requirements that support it and search for a possible critical vulnerability that will allow you to overturn it. In order to do that you need focus – and clear, unambiguous guidance. With respect to the United States, for a global conflict, that can only come from our Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States.

To help you understand how focus applies to warfare I have listed several specific examples of how achieving and maintaining proper focus when conducting war is critical to success…

  • Focus guides the professional development of diplomatic, military and law enforcement planners. During the conduct of warfare it is critical that commanders, planners and senior staff understand the adversary’s ideology and steep themselves in relevant doctrine, texts and writings regardless of how warped and skewed those materials may be.
  • Focus guides the entire Intelligence Community enabling them to develop the sort of deep understanding of the histories, governments, social, religious and economic systems and cultures of our adversaries necessary to perform their work. It’s impossible for an Intelligence analyst to be a master of all geographic regions and typically each will spend many years or even an entire career focused on a particular geographic area, sometimes even to the point of learning the appropriate language.
  • Focus guides the training of a cadre of American military and law enforcement linguists who speak, read and write languages relevant to the conflict. The training of linguists amongst the ranks of America’s Police and armed forces has always been a great challenge. Americans are simply not a people given to being multi-lingual. Like Intelligence analysts, linguists will typically focus on a particular language or family of languages for their entire career.
  • Focus guides the process of locating – and vetting for security – sufficient numbers of American citizens from the cultures resident in the area(s) of conflict who provide cultural expertise in support of operations. These people are out there and the Department of Defense already employs thousands of them. They provide invaluable insight helping to craft Psychological Operations messages that are very much more likely to sway particular target audiences due to having the correct cultural crafting.
  • Focus guides the allocation and pre-positioning of our military and law enforcement resources to appropriate geographic areas. Having existing agreements for things like the use of ports and airfields, and pre-negotiated passage into and out of problem areas is critical to rapid military success.
  • Focus guides the cultural awareness training for our military. Despite the overall lackluster results from our training programs for the average Soldier this is a crucial component of the overall anti-terrorist campaign.
  • Focus guides our national strategic communications messaging – the messages we convey to our adversaries, our allies and to the rest of the world through our words and deeds (or lack thereof.) Our President appears to not fully understand the conflict in which we are engaged. This is evident in his confused and inconsistent statements from his recent State of the Union speech, where he downplayed the global war on terror, claimed nonexistent victories and went out of his way to tell the world that climate change was the thing about which he was most concerned.
  • Lastly focus guides “profiling” by law enforcement personnel… or at least it should. Israel uses “profiling” to great effect, but of course the United States refuses to make use of this tool.

So when our President refuses to call out fundamentalist Jihadist Muslim terrorists with clear and specific language, as Commander-in-Chief and the leader of our government, he handicaps – even cripples – our entire war effort. But President Obama has taken a significant step further. He, his entire cabinet and all of his senior advisors, have fostered a culture in Washington, at the White House, in the Pentagon, throughout the Intelligence Community, and in every major department of the government and even in the military that if one focuses too directly on Islam as the source of this conflict one’s career may well be at an end. This is particularly true for departments whose operations are conducted primarily within the borders of the United States such as the Department of Justice, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Simply put by refusing to acknowledge exactly who and what our enemy really is, and punishing those who do, the coordination between critical U.S. government agencies is not as efficient as it should be and consequently full spectrum operations are hampered.

You cannot defeat an enemy that you don’t admit exists.

Muslim Woman in Traditional Garb
Muslim Woman in Traditional Garb

I conclude that our current adversary is a collection of generally Middle Eastern-based terrorist organizations, who’s primary or secondary language is Arabic, who’s cultural and social practices revolve around the Islamic calendar and in general conform to Arabic norms… and WHO ARE ALL EXCLUSIVELY AND FANATICALLY MUSLIM! They are all fundamentalist Jihadist Muslim terrorists.

By the way, with about 25% of the Muslim world supportive of achieving a global Caliphate through militant action in accordance with the fundamentalist Jihad, that is a larger population than we faced in all of the countries of the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan during World War II!

In the end we may contend and still fail, but one thing is certain… if we fail to admit to ourselves just who we are fighting we assure our own defeat.

I submit that as we are engaged in a war for the continued existence of Western civilization it would be wise for us to put forth our full and best effort.

The good news is that Obama has less than two years remaining in office. Maybe our next President won’t be playing with underinflated balls.

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