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Published: February 1,
2008
http://familysecuritymatters.org/terrorism.php?id=1386463#
In War against
Islamism, We Must Listen to the Words of Our Enemies
M. Zuhdi Jasser
President George
Bush delivered his last
State of the Union address this week over a backdrop
of the 2008 Presidential primary season. Eight years of
the Bush doctrine in the misnamed “War on Terror” is
being ushered out. Yet, neither the President nor any of
his potential successors have been effectively
challenged by the media, Congress, or the voters on the
contest of ideas in this global “War on Terror.” A
review of the Presidential
candidate websites demonstrates how little depth
most candidates exhibit in their discussions of the
central ideological conflicts in the “War on Terror.” It
remains an enigma how one of the most profound concerns
on the minds of American voters in the 21st Century –
fear of militant Islamist terror attacks
– can be so obviously dismissed as we narrow the field
of candidates in the next few weeks.
In the President’s
SOTU address, he reaffirmed the Bush doctrine stating,
“We trust that people, when
given the chance, will choose a future of freedom and
peace.”
This mantra has
always been the right ideological stage for an eventual
defeat of the Islamists. Yet again, after seven years of
a Bush administration, the stage remains empty and the
idea is left for
dead. Listening only to President Bush and others in
his administration (including the likes of former
Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
Karen
Hughes) supposedly leading the contest of ideas, one
would never understand what the other side, the
Islamists, were actually all about or what they were
actually saying. They presented the Islamists with no
open challenge, debate, or critical engagement.
Mr. President, your
intentions of an ideological liberation of the Muslim
world are on the mark. But an effective execution in
this contest of ideas has yet to even begin. A national
and, more importantly, a global, critical
engagement of American ideas against Islamist ideas has
yet to take place in any measurable fashion. How can we
speak about bringing liberty and freedom to the Muslim
world when the Islamist mindset remains effectively
unchallenged by mainstream media and politicians in our
public arena? How can we liberate ideas we never
engaged?
Sadly, our nation
was left Monday evening without a clue about the ideas
which separate secular liberal democracies from Islamist
movements. The core ideological conflict between
Americanism and the militant Islamists remains inferred,
rather than in front. It is time to bring it to the
fore. It is time to expose Islamists – domestically and
on foreign soil – who exploit our protections of
religious freedom in exchange for the toxic advocacy of
their own theocratic political agenda.
If the President
will not lead and address these ideological chasms, one
would have thought that the Presidential candidates
vying for change would have been challenged to gain more
clarity on them. Much to the contrary, they are even
more evasive and dismissive of Islamism.
This tactic of
terror we are fighting will continue to exponentially
regenerate itself as long as its fuel remains. The fuel
is political Islam – Islamism. Islamism is effectively
incubated in a culture like ours in the
United States which
stubbornly (to our own detriment) refuses to engage
political Islam because of its invocation of a faith.
The American people need leadership that not only
understands the need to bring freedom and liberty to the
world, but leadership ready to confront our Islamist
enemies with the pathologies of their own ideas –
leadership which can separate personal spiritual Islam
from political Islam and genuinely engage liberty-minded
anti-Islamist Muslims.
This war is about
listening to the words of our enemies. It is about the
ideas of our enemies which make them repel from freedom.
In this debate season where vagaries are shunned and
specifics lauded, it is time for the candidates to get
specific. Here are the questions which will probably
never be asked in this year’s debates but whose answers
would separate real leaders from demagogues.
President Bush has
stated in his SOTU address that, “We
are engaged in the defining ideological struggle of the
21st Century. The terrorists oppose every principle of
humanity and decency that we hold dear. Yet in this war
on terror, there is one thing we and our enemies agree
on: In the long run, men and women who are free to
determine their own destinies will reject terror and
refuse to live in tyranny. And that is why the
terrorists are fighting to deny this choice to the
people in Lebanon,
Iraq,
Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and the
Palestinian
Territories. And
that is why, for the security of
America and the peace
of the world, we are spreading the hope of freedom.”
1.
How would you
seek to spread the hope of freedom?
2.
Why hasn’t
the Bush administration succeeded in this pursuit of
spreading the hope of freedom? Will your administration
identify the incompatibility of political Islam with
true freedom? Can we spread the hope of freedom without
identifying the great obstacles within political Islam
and its theocratic ideology which impedes freedom?
3. The Public
Diplomacy program for all intents and purposes has
failed to both spread the ideas of freedom and improve
the image of
America in the West.
How would you execute a more effective PD program?
4. Have
al-Hurra TV and
Radio SAWA been effective in their mission? Why not?
Would it not be more effective to take on the Islamists
in their own media and challenge their ideas on their
turf rather than our own media which none of them watch?
5. Is the War
on Terror appropriately named? If not, what should it be
named?
6. What is the
relationship between secular dictatorship and monarchies
in the Muslim world and radical Islamism? Shouldn’t both
heads of the snake be equally condemned in this war of
ideas?
7. What will
you do to defend anti-Islamist Muslims in the Muslim
world? Will you make a promise now to unwaveringly
defend the rights of liberty-minded dissidents in the
Muslim world? For example, how would you have responded
to the jailing of
Egyptian blogger Abdelkarim Soliman by the Mubarak
regime in February 2007?
8. Will you
support liberty-minded Muslims in
Syria,
Egypt,
Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan, or
Iran? Or will your
administration continue to appear to lift up the
Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood?
9. Will you
remain silent about the global scourge of Wahhabism and
its source –
Saudi Arabia – while
performing photo-ops with the Kingdom? Will we allow oil
supply to dictate our ideological confrontation (or lack
thereof) with the Islamists, Salafists, and Jihadists.
10. On the
domestic front, how will you hold American Muslim
organizations accountable for their stances on Islamism
and their dangerously vague and non-specific
condemnations of terrorism and terrorist organizations?
Where does political correctness end and the security of
our nation begin? Will you challenge American Muslims to
join our nation in this ideological battle and take on
the responsibility of leading an anti-Islamist movement
from within the Muslim consciousness?
11. International
Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood are
now conveniently condemning terrorism in order to
mainstream themselves and fit into the Western construct
of anti-terrorism. Is anti-terrorism enough? Shouldn’t
anti-Islamism be a more defining litmus test for the
organizations and networks we positively engage?
12. Should we
remain dangerously silent under the false guise of
political correctness? Why would you not critically
engage countries which enforce medieval laws against
their populations in the name of Islam?
Sudan tried to enforce
medieval blasphemy laws against a British teacher. A
Saudi court turned a rape victim into a criminal and an
Afghani court tried a citizen for apostasy laws after he
left Islam. At what point is it incumbent upon the
President of the
United States to set
the stage for the contest of ideas between the west and
our United Nations Declaration of Human rights and the
Islamist world?
For anti-Islamist
Muslims, the answers to these questions are obvious:
never compromise the principle of freedom in the name of
political expediency and fear of our enemies.
The tactic of
terrorism is employed for the furtherance of radical
political Islam. If radical political Islam is our
enemy, non-violent political Islam is certainly not our
friend. Muslims who believe in and advocate universal
liberty, freedom, and pluralism should hear us honestly
advocate for them and help them succeed against the
Islamists. Playing both sides will further hurt our
credibility and undermine our security. Muslims who
believe in and advocate political Islam should hear us
articulate a national strategy to discredit and disavow
their ideas in the ideological market place of the
Muslim world.
Will the candidates
for leadership of the free world ever be tested on these
questions going into Super Tuesday and into the
conventions and beyond? Probably not.
Americans have not
forgotten about terrorism. Quite to the contrary. It is
still a primary concern among voters. But rather, the
politics of victimization and the minority politics of
political correctness have trumped reason in this most
vital debate of the 21st Century.
# #
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor M.
Zuhdi Jasser is the founder and Chairman of the
American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in
Phoenix Arizona. He is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant
Commander, a physician in private practice, and a
community activist.
He can be reached at
Zuhdi@aifdemocracy.org
read full author bio here
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are
those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions, views, and/or philosophy of The Family
Security Foundation, Inc.
Other Articles by M. Zuhdi
Jasser...
 In
War against Islamism, We Must Listen to the Words of Our
Enemies
Challenge
to the American Pakistani Community: Make a Difference
for Freedom
With
Friends Like These: CAIR Reaches Out for a Setup
Begin
the Debate: Nine-Point Guide to Discern Islamist from
Non-Islamist Schools
Islamism
on Trial
What
Ramadan Is Really About: Atonement and Renewal
Ideological
Standards Needed to Confront Militant Islam: What Are
They?
The
Muslim World Needs Advocates for Freedom, Not Democracy
Which
Islam? Whose Islam? All Muslims Own Interpretation of
the Koran (Part Four of Four)
Which
Islam? Whose Islam? All Muslims Own Interpretation of
the Koran (Part Three of Four)
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