If You Can’t Name Your Enemy
(published in the Canadian Jewish News, 7/29/10)
by Sally F. Zerker
When U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama met with President Bibi Natanyahu of Israel recently (07/06/10), it appeared to have been a love fest. The handshakes went on and on and on, as if they were both determined to show their affection for each other and that of their mutual countries. But is this renewed warmth between the Obama administration and Israel real, or is it Obama’s mending of his political needs in the light of the upcoming Congressional election? One must remember that although the Jewish vote is relatively numerically small, Evangelical supporters of Israel may represent a huge negative voting bloc.
Some people simply don’t trust the president. “Can a man whose middle name is Hussein be trusted?’ the Dry Bones comic strip once asked. Frankly, I don’t put too much emphasis on the name in and of itself, but I do worry about some of Obama’s practices.
It’s as if Obama has a speech impediment. He simply cannot utter the word “Islam” in the context of the evil we have seen perpetrated in the name of Islam since 9/11. His inhibition becomes unmistakable when Islam is directly connected to terrorism, jihad, or radicalism and when he then repeatedly finds ways to avoid using that word. That is not to say that Obama cannot speak of Islam at all. When he speaks of it in glowing terms as he did in his Cairo speech, he had no difficulty lauding its “contributions’ to American society, and paying tribute to Islam as a religion of peace.
The examples of President Obama’s reluctance to identify Islam with negative stereotypes are numerous Take for example the case of Nadal Malik Hasan’s terrorist attack. When Hasan shot and killed 13 soldiers and wounded 32 others at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009, everyone everywhere knew what his motive was. He told us as much as he yelled "Allahu akbar" in accompaniment with his murderous attack. He was killing for his Islamic god. But President Obama was quick off the mark to make sure that nobody jumped to that conclusion. His immediate response was precisely that. Don't prejudge this matter, he told the world. Although there were other times when President Obama rushed to judgement, as in the case of Henry Louis Gates' arrest by a local police officer. In that instance, Obama jumped quickly to the erroneous conclusion that the police officer was motivated by racism .
Well, did the President jump to any conclusion about the motive of Abdul Mudallad on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day, 2009? Mudallad tried but failed to blow up the airplane. This time President Obama took his time before he spoke to the people of the United States and the world, and when he did he condemned Al Qaeda for this latest obscenity. But once again he managed to avoid any reference to the Islamic influence on this terrorist perpetrator, whose failure was a lucky escape for close to 278 passengers. The motive for Mudallad’s attempted slaughter of innocents may have been Al Qaeda, or it may not have been Al Qaeda, but for sure it was Islamic terrorism as we were to find out.
After the latest failed terrorist attack against the US by Faisal Shazhad to explode a car bomb in Times Square, Obama had the following to say: “Around the world and here at home there are those (italics mine) who will attack our citizens, who will slaughter innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of their murderous agenda.” I was looking in vain for his explanation of the cause of such murderous intent, and his reference to “those” indefinite persons in the world was yet another instance of Obama dodging the truth about Islamic radicalism.
Of course this evasion by Obama is not actually due to a speech impediment as I hinted—not seriously—above. I began to wonder about the psychological defenses of a man who grew up during part of his early and formative years close to Islam, as both his father and stepfather were Muslims, as are currently his sister and half-brother. Was it now too much for President Obama to have to admit that this part of his existence is the source of the hostility and danger to his country? I’m afraid we are unlikely to answer this question without psychoanalysis of the President of the United States, which is certainly outside the scope of this essay. However, whatever Obama’s personal psychological inhibitions with respect to identifying the enemy in the current terrorist war, these boundaries have now been transformed into official American policy.The Obama administration has recently announced its intent to ban all words that allude to Islamic terrorism from important national security documents. An Associated Press report has the following disturbing details: “President Barack Obama's advisers plan to remove terms such as ‘Islamic radicalism’ from documents outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism.”
But this gag order goes beyond national security documents. The Obama administration has apparently issued an internal order that forbids any official statements to include interpretations of the Islamic religion in a negative light. A case in point recently had Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., during questioning before the House Judiciary Committee, desperately and ludicrously trying to avoid uttering the term “radical Islam” when that reality was staring him and the committee in the face. So excessive is Obama’s demand for linguistic obfuscation that last year, a publication of the Department of Homeland Security, listed Jewish extremism and various forms of Christian extremism as threats, but made no mention of any form of Muslim extremism.
Does Obama really think that appeasing Muslims by fudging language will somehow alter Islamic radicalism’s war against the United States. Perhaps he does! In the Cairo speech (6/4/09) early in his presidency, in which he promised amelioration of relations between America and Muslims, he stressed the role of language as follows: “ I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear”.
But while he soothes his own psyche and placates Muslim sensitivities, he is missing out in explaining to his people in accurate language exactly who and what they have to watch out for. If the president of the United States cannot be straight on the question of national security, there's no doubt in my mind that this enhances the power of dangerous jihadists and weakens American ability to prepare and respond. Why? Because, the United States cannot defeat an enemy that its president and hence his administration is unwilling to name.
by Sally F. Zerker
When U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama met with President Bibi Natanyahu of Israel recently (07/06/10), it appeared to have been a love fest. The handshakes went on and on and on, as if they were both determined to show their affection for each other and that of their mutual countries. But is this renewed warmth between the Obama administration and Israel real, or is it Obama’s mending of his political needs in the light of the upcoming Congressional election? One must remember that although the Jewish vote is relatively numerically small, Evangelical supporters of Israel may represent a huge negative voting bloc.
Some people simply don’t trust the president. “Can a man whose middle name is Hussein be trusted?’ the Dry Bones comic strip once asked. Frankly, I don’t put too much emphasis on the name in and of itself, but I do worry about some of Obama’s practices.
It’s as if Obama has a speech impediment. He simply cannot utter the word “Islam” in the context of the evil we have seen perpetrated in the name of Islam since 9/11. His inhibition becomes unmistakable when Islam is directly connected to terrorism, jihad, or radicalism and when he then repeatedly finds ways to avoid using that word. That is not to say that Obama cannot speak of Islam at all. When he speaks of it in glowing terms as he did in his Cairo speech, he had no difficulty lauding its “contributions’ to American society, and paying tribute to Islam as a religion of peace.
The examples of President Obama’s reluctance to identify Islam with negative stereotypes are numerous Take for example the case of Nadal Malik Hasan’s terrorist attack. When Hasan shot and killed 13 soldiers and wounded 32 others at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009, everyone everywhere knew what his motive was. He told us as much as he yelled "Allahu akbar" in accompaniment with his murderous attack. He was killing for his Islamic god. But President Obama was quick off the mark to make sure that nobody jumped to that conclusion. His immediate response was precisely that. Don't prejudge this matter, he told the world. Although there were other times when President Obama rushed to judgement, as in the case of Henry Louis Gates' arrest by a local police officer. In that instance, Obama jumped quickly to the erroneous conclusion that the police officer was motivated by racism .
Well, did the President jump to any conclusion about the motive of Abdul Mudallad on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day, 2009? Mudallad tried but failed to blow up the airplane. This time President Obama took his time before he spoke to the people of the United States and the world, and when he did he condemned Al Qaeda for this latest obscenity. But once again he managed to avoid any reference to the Islamic influence on this terrorist perpetrator, whose failure was a lucky escape for close to 278 passengers. The motive for Mudallad’s attempted slaughter of innocents may have been Al Qaeda, or it may not have been Al Qaeda, but for sure it was Islamic terrorism as we were to find out.
After the latest failed terrorist attack against the US by Faisal Shazhad to explode a car bomb in Times Square, Obama had the following to say: “Around the world and here at home there are those (italics mine) who will attack our citizens, who will slaughter innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of their murderous agenda.” I was looking in vain for his explanation of the cause of such murderous intent, and his reference to “those” indefinite persons in the world was yet another instance of Obama dodging the truth about Islamic radicalism.
Of course this evasion by Obama is not actually due to a speech impediment as I hinted—not seriously—above. I began to wonder about the psychological defenses of a man who grew up during part of his early and formative years close to Islam, as both his father and stepfather were Muslims, as are currently his sister and half-brother. Was it now too much for President Obama to have to admit that this part of his existence is the source of the hostility and danger to his country? I’m afraid we are unlikely to answer this question without psychoanalysis of the President of the United States, which is certainly outside the scope of this essay. However, whatever Obama’s personal psychological inhibitions with respect to identifying the enemy in the current terrorist war, these boundaries have now been transformed into official American policy.The Obama administration has recently announced its intent to ban all words that allude to Islamic terrorism from important national security documents. An Associated Press report has the following disturbing details: “President Barack Obama's advisers plan to remove terms such as ‘Islamic radicalism’ from documents outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism.”
But this gag order goes beyond national security documents. The Obama administration has apparently issued an internal order that forbids any official statements to include interpretations of the Islamic religion in a negative light. A case in point recently had Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., during questioning before the House Judiciary Committee, desperately and ludicrously trying to avoid uttering the term “radical Islam” when that reality was staring him and the committee in the face. So excessive is Obama’s demand for linguistic obfuscation that last year, a publication of the Department of Homeland Security, listed Jewish extremism and various forms of Christian extremism as threats, but made no mention of any form of Muslim extremism.
Does Obama really think that appeasing Muslims by fudging language will somehow alter Islamic radicalism’s war against the United States. Perhaps he does! In the Cairo speech (6/4/09) early in his presidency, in which he promised amelioration of relations between America and Muslims, he stressed the role of language as follows: “ I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear”.
But while he soothes his own psyche and placates Muslim sensitivities, he is missing out in explaining to his people in accurate language exactly who and what they have to watch out for. If the president of the United States cannot be straight on the question of national security, there's no doubt in my mind that this enhances the power of dangerous jihadists and weakens American ability to prepare and respond. Why? Because, the United States cannot defeat an enemy that its president and hence his administration is unwilling to name.
posted by Professor Sal at 12:41 PM
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