Islamic Terrorism is Not Our Main Problem

By Lawrence Sellin
NewYorkDailySun.com

The problem is cowardly and submissive American politicians.

It is not ignorance that drives policies so contrary to American interests, but the shallow, contradictory and self-defeating doctrine of political correctness (PC), which prevents, not just the formulation of effective national security strategies, but even a discussion of them.

The abolition of truth and the moral equivalence of PC allow politicians sufficient ambiguity to remain forever on the popular side of issues, while eliminating the need for ever taking a principled political position.

PC is a form of political dementia, which inevitably leads to political paralysis and failed policies.

During the prelude to World War II, among the chief causes of the futile policy of appeasement was the misjudgment of Hitler’s intentions. He did not seek simply to adjust the balance of power in Germany’s favor, but rather to replace the entire European political structure through German conquest and hegemony.

A similar logic of appeasement characterizes the PC appraisal of terrorists who are imagined to be rational political actors with legitimate grievances: if one would only negotiate and make concessions, then the problem would disappear. Like the Hitler analogy, such an assessment involves the profound misjudgment that terrorists act in a rational and utilitarian manner to achieve specific and limited policy goals through compromise.

Such faulty PC judgments invariably lead to the paralysis of conflicting policy positions, which minimize the terrorist threats and then, simultaneously, warn that any effort to address such threats would unleash enormous violence against us. What unites these obviously incongruent positions, however, is that they both provide a useful rationale for doing nothing: the smaller the threat, the less need to act; the greater the projected risk, the higher the threshold for action.

Unfortunately the adherence to PC as a basis for strategy formulation will invariably lead to the wrong conclusions, particularly about the nature of Islam.

Much of the following has been gleaned from a thought-provoking article written by an individual who describes himself as a “recovered” Muslim and provides an inside perspective about the nature of the problem.

Just as there was no such thing as “Radical Nazism” or “Militant Communism,” there is no such thing as “Radical Islam,” “Islamic Fundamentalism,” “Islamic Extremism, “Political Islam” or “Islamofascism.”

There is only Islam. There are only observant Muslims who are at war with us and non-observant Muslims who are not. One should not conclude that non-observant Muslims are on our side or represent a “moderate” or more enlightened form of Islam. They are simply “practicing” life in non-Muslim countries, where they are free to live as they choose. The practices of non-observant Muslims, therefore, do not represent a separate form of Islam of which there is only one.

It is a fundamental error in national security policy to expend efforts appealing to the non-existent “moderate” faction of Islam. Although non-observant Muslims are not a problem, they are also not a solution.

There is little in Islam that constrains Muslims who want to kill non-Muslims. If an individual Muslim is personally peaceful, it is because of his individual choice. A Muslim who helps us against jihad is acting against his religion.

Many Western analysts of Islam make the mistake of not describing what Islam is, but what it is not, or what they hope it might be. In contrast, one need not go farther than news reports emanating from Islamic countries and those with significant Islamic insurrections to read stories about: misogyny, censorship, anti-Semitism, homophobia, wife-beatings, beheadings, honor killings, pedophilia, child marriages and the murder of infidels.

Islam was not hijacked by a “small minority of extremists” on 9/11, it was hijacked by faux “moderates,” who have leveraged the desires of cowardly and submissive politicians to avoid the truth and substitute more comfortable political approaches a “moderate” form of Islam falsely provides.

Make no mistake, Muslims who really care about Islam are part of an organized effort to spread Islam, and, in principle, want the same outcome as the jihadists. Any time we spend “working” with a movement that calls for our destruction, we are working towards our own destruction, consciously or not.

The “recovered” Muslim correctly noted: “We can’t be both for Islam and for ourselves.”

As senseless and sickening as the killing of a British soldier in London was, one of the terrorists spoke accurately in a part of his disturbing diatribe:

“You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don’t care about you. .. You think your politicians are going to die? No, it’s going to be the average guy like you – and your children.”

Appeasement as a national security policy is ineffective when the object of that policy is unappeasable.

Our PC politicians have proven themselves incapable or unwilling to accept that fundamental fact and they are putting all our lives at risk.

Author Bio

Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired colonel with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Sellin is the author of “Afghanistan and the Culture of Military Leadership“. He receives email at lawrence.sellin@gmail.com.