The Obama administration’s fear of offending Muslims will hurt the U.S. war against terrorism, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Thursday in a speech blasting the president’s new counterterrorism strategy.
Lieberman said that Obama’s strategy, which was released in June, “was ultimately a big disappointment,” and while it successfully identified the core of the domestic radicalization problem, it did not establish a clear plan of attack to deal with the growing issue.
The four-term senator and one-time presidential candidate said one of the key problems with the Obama administration’s strategy was that it continues to call terrorism that aims to harm the U.S., “violent extremism” instead of “violent Islamist extremism.”
“The administration still refuses to call our enemy in this war by its proper name: violent Islamist extremism,” Lieberman said, speaking at a National Press Club event hosted by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).
“To call our enemy ‘violent extremism’ is so general and vague that it ultimately has no meaning. The other term used sometimes is Al Qaeda and its allies. Now that’s better but it is still too narrow and focuses us on groups as opposed to what I would call an ideology, which is what we’re really fighting.”
Lieberman, who as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has held numerous hearings on the issue of Islamic extremism, said that Obama needs to stop being afraid of offending the overwhelmingly large portion of law-abiding and well-intentioned Muslims with his rhetoric.
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5 Responses
Both Bush and Obama see the matter the same way. Our goal is not to destroy Islam or to conquer the Muslim world, but to co-opt it. We want to isolate the small group that is causing all the trouble, and get the rest to be on our side. This is a good idea.
Consider WWII. The Americans were very circumspect in what they did to the Germans – they tried Nazis, and allowed the other Germans to deny they were ever Nazis (we knew they were lying, but so what). The US rejected suggestions to permanently destroy Germany as a nation. In the end, Germany is democratic, has the world’s toughest anti-Nazi laws (if you want to walk around wearing a swastika, do it in Washington or Tel Aviv -you’ll get arrested if you do it in Berlin), and is a close ally of the US, and one we can count on. Obama (and Bush) before want the Muslims to be on our sides when we next get into a war with someone we probably haven’t really met yet. This is actually quite clever, in the long run.
Sen. Lieberman is correct but in his “blasting” is being far too gentle. Obama is not only refusing to label the source of terrorism properly, but he also is bending over backwards to give them preferential treatment. Watch carefully on your next flight how there is a total refusal on the part of Federal passemger inspectors to “profile”. Watch how they will stop an old lady for inspection and wave through an obvious Middle East-looking person. Watch how Obama makes certain to attend as many Islamic events as possible despite the fact that Moslems themselves worldwide have repudiated his “love-a-Moslem” policies. And finally Watch how the Ground Zero Mosque, Obama endorsed, is getting a pass, while we constantly have problems getting new shuls/mosdos approved.
Terrorism is here to stay. Any pursuit of piece with muslim terrorists through regular diplomacy is futile. There’s a better chance of Obama quitting smoking than making piece. But I wouldn’t bet on that either.
Now if I was president…
Right or wrong, Joe – Go away. You’re a “has-been”.
“Watch how they will stop an old lady for inspection and wave through an obvious Middle East-looking person.”
That is no proof whatsoever that no profiling is being done. Non-Middle Easterners have committed plenty of acts of terrorism, and you have to profile them, too. Timothy McVeigh was not from the Middle East. Neither was Jared Loughner. Neither was Anders Behring Breivik. Neither was Anne-Marie Murphy. YOUR method of profiling, however, would have allowed Anne-Marie Murphy to get on the plane with the bomb.