Monday, December 27, 2010

"Refusing To Name The Enemy"

Blogpal Michael over at the Political Commentator sends us this article (PDF), from the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and I recommend it to Joshua's Army members.

It's called "Refusing to Identify or Name Our Enemy," and deals with something I've discussed with you before, category error - the inability to solve a problem because of incorrect labeling. Here's a slice:

The fundamental principles of intelligence, as they are for war, have been understood since the beginning of time. The ancient Chinese warrior Sun Tzu taught his army to “know your enemy” before going into battle. For if you “know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” But…“If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.”

Intelligence and military officers know this, and it is common sense. But something has changed. When the enemy, in this modern era, cleverly uses the cloak of religion, we are reluctant to name the threat,and we are urged not to judge, nor recognize, or name, the followers of that religion as terrorists, or silent co-conspirators. But it is precisely their silence—and our denial of who they really are—that worries me.

Not until the 9/11 attacks did America wake up to the fact that we were in a war. We had ignored scores of earlier Muslim terrorist attacks against Americans, and others outside the U.S. Yet even earlier, a subtle, more insidious challenge from Islamic radicals began to take root. In 1976, President Carter made a series of ludicrous responses to violent Muslim extremists who besieged our embassy in Tehran; a situation that held the staff hostage for 444 days. It made Carter a virtual media hostage to the situation, as well.

The event was misidentified as an uprising of “Iranian terrorists.” The missing word: “Muslim.” When gifts of birthday cakes and a Christian bible didn’t work [a clear example of not understanding the enemy], Carter then implemented a poorly planned, disastrous, and globally embarrassing rescue attempt—an operation with no chance of success.

Emboldened, more Muslim terrorism followed.

When Pan Am 103 was shot down, when our embassies in Africa were fire-bombed, when the Navy ship USS Cole was attacked, followed by the attacks of 9/11,
and then the London transit system bombings, and the Spanish train bombings—the sleeping American giant took brief notice, and refused to precisely name that one, obvious, and unifying characteristic of all these terrorists and their acts: all were Muslims proudly committing violent acts in the name of Islam.

This avoidance of identifying the driving forces common to all these terrorists, created a vacuum of truth, quickly filled by Muslim lies that 9/11 was manufactured by America and the Mossad, that the other Muslim acts of terror were fake, or misrepresented, and that any blame is nothing less than blatant acts to defame their “religion of peace”: Islam. America’s unwillingness to counter these fictions, has left a surprising number of our own citizens believing this rubbish.

Our tepid response is clear to Islam; America is weak, reeling, broke… a shadow of the nation it once was. America is so frightened, we dare not speak the name of the enemy coiling around our necks.

Read the rest here.

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