Op-Ed: Global Cultural Jihad

I have often asked myself why that is, knowing the answer long before I ever uttered the question. The attacks stem from not having the slightest concept of the threats our culture faces, our culture being Traditional Americana. Many people understand the threats "radical Islam" presents yet are painfully silent not wanting to make waves and they themselves being the brunt of intolerant rhetoric. So be it...they have fallen prey to the cancer of political correctness. Recently, in an article in the Washington Times, I read the following:

"U.S. officials are being advised in internal government documents to avoid referring publicly to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as Islamic or Muslim, and not to use terms like jihad or mujahedeen, which "unintentionally legitimize" terrorism."

This is nonsense coming from the US State Department disguised as rational thought. I can understand the mindset of not wanting to legitimize terrorism but I don't have to accept the premise and neither should anyone else that understands the mind set of a terrorist and the leaders of such groups. It doesn't matter how you perceive them. They are what they are and diplomatic psycho-babble will not diminish the terrorists that have proclaimed that their end result and goal of their international Jihad is to wipe out Britain and the United States.

"We want to eradicate Britain and America, and to shatter the arrogance and tyranny of the infidels. We pray that Allah will enable us to destroy the White House, New York, and London. We place our trust in Allah. Soon, we will witness the miracles of jihad. I myself have experienced many miracles. Every time I was determined to do something, I prayed to Allah, and he made it possible. Our jihad is defensive jihad. Our determination is great, and it is directly entirely against Britain and America. The soldiers of heresy who have come here to oppress the Muslims - we will respond to their injustice and tyranny. One of the miracles of jihad will be that sooner or later, we will destroy their countries."

The very fact that we are embroiled within a war with "radical Islam" legitimizes their very existence. When the leaders of these groups, and there are quite a few of them all intertwined and networked one with another, call for the destruction of entire nations, how can we not take them seriously? All of the poli-speak known to man cannot take away from the fact that Islamic Jihad does in fact exist and has existed for as far back as I can remember in my lifetime. Also, from my studies in American Studies and from American History, America faced the Islamic Jihad during President Jefferson's Administration. The war involving the Barbary Coast is a matter of historical record and fact.

"When Jefferson became president in 1801 he refused to accede to Tripoli's demands for an immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000. The pasha of Tripoli then declared war on the United States. Although as secretary of state and vice president he had opposed developing an American navy capable of anything more than coastal defense, President Jefferson dispatched a squadron of naval vessels to the Mediterranean. As he declared in his first annual message to Congress: "To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean....."

Prior negotiations with Islamic Jihad in the late 1700s and early 1800s clearly did not work and there weren't any politicians demanding that we don't legitimize them by calling them what they were...Islamic Jihad Pirates. As then, so it is now, today in 2008. One cannot negotiate with "radical Islam" anymore than one can negotiate with a rabid hyena. They see that as a sign of weakness and capitalize on it for as long as anyone will let them. Doug Ross writes at Director Blue:

"Did you know that -- during World War II -- the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) banned the use of the words Nazi, Reich and Führer when describing the enemy?

I'm guessing you never heard of such a thing. Because it never happened.

In today's politically correct environment, however, identifying the enemies of civilization is verboten."

Thus my theme of Global Cultural Jihad gains merit and credence and validity. When the enemy can create such a media coup as to force a Super Power to try and be nice by "not calling them names", they have won a battle. The first order of battle is to identify one's enemy. The enemy has our State Department pegged as soft and afraid of public opinion. They have us identified and know that politicians are gutless and live in fear of being considered as intolerant. The enemy we are fighting at this moment of time had been, at one time, referred to as enemy combatants. Apparently, that was quite unacceptable to someone because we no longer hear the reference. We hear terminology such as "radical extremists" like that doesn't legitimize the enemy in some magical context. What do you call an ideology that believes that it is quite natural and acceptable to strap on explosive vests on adults, children and indigents and instruct them to walk or drive into a populated area of non-combatants and self-detonate? What do you call the people that believe in and accept that ideology as the norm and a natural way of life - or death? How does one not legitimize the enemy when we are at war with terrorists and the terrorist ideology? The concept of not calling or labeling the enemy for what they are escapes myself and others capable of rational thought processes. Last week, President Bush rendered a Press Briefing and after some reporters tried to team up on him and corner him, he himself used the term "jihadists" and I was pleased that he did because someone in a leadership position must inform the general public just who and what it is we are at war with. The United States and the Western World whether they like it or not are at war with Islamic Jihadists. Not all Muslims are of this mindset but the ones that are have become capable of international operations due to years of regarding them as a backward people that are merely a nuisance in some other far away place. That all changed on 91101...lest anyone forgot. As Andrew McCarthy once said, you cannot take Islam out of Islamic terrorism. Politically correct fought wars are not winnable - the Korean and Vietnam Police Actions being the shining examples. I have spoken to many a warrior still fighting and those not and they have told me that calling them Islamic Jihadists is being nice. Robert at Jihad Watch is perplexed by these new internal guidelines at the State Department as well and he writes:

The argument, of course, is the old Streusand/Guirard claim that by using the word jihad, we're validating the jihadist claim to be waging jihad. Of course, it's ridiculous to think that the U.S. State Department carries any validating authority within the Islamic world to determine what is Islam and what isn't. This would be the first time that unbelievers have set the meaning of Islamic theology for Muslims.

As the enemy wages Global Cultural Jihad, our leaders are playing political football with our very way of life - our culture - in order to curry favor with our enemies. Political Correctness will be the death of us all. My eldest son now waiting for transport back home from Iraq after serving with the 101st Airborne has often asked me what our politicians back stateside are doing. I have no answers for him and he and his comrades are not pleased with them. Being the brunt of political correctness and playing nice with the enemy is unacceptable.