War & A Failure Of Rememberance

Last week, the elected government of Pakistan signed an effective instrument of surrender to al Qaeda and the Taliban, ceding the country's mountainous northwestern frontier provinces to the Sunni Islamist terror factions.  It's only taken a week for that disastrous el foldo to start bearing bitter and hair-raising fruit (via Newsmax Insider Report):

A dangerous al-Qaida bomb-maker, whom the Pakistan military reported was killed two years ago, is in fact alive and well and working to develop chemical, biological, and radiological weapons — and perhaps nuclear weapons as well.

That’s the chilling word from Beirut-based Ed Blanche, who writes in The Middle East magazine that Egyptian-born chemical engineer Midhat Mursi al Sayyid Umar — known as Osama bin Laden’s “sorcerer” — is working in secret laboratories in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal area....

U.S. officials have also learned that Mursi is working to manufacture cyanide, chlorine and other lethal poisons, and has helped revive the al-Qaida chemical and biological weapons (CBW) program that was disrupted by the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Former CIA analyst Chris Quillen stated earlier this year that Mursi and his associates may have made progress in their hideouts in Pakistan’s tribal region.

“I’m not saying the programs are great and ready for an attack tomorrow, but whatever they lost in the 2001 invasion, they’re back at that level at this point,” he said.

American officials have warned that al-Qaida is seeking to produce botulism toxin, smallpox, plague, or Ebola.

Blanche asserts that the U.S. believes Mursi is training operatives to carry out CBW attacks in Europe. But attacks in the U.S. have been planned previously.

A plot to launch an attack with cyanide gas in the New York City subway system was reportedly scheduled for the spring of 2003. The plot was first disclosed in 2006 in a book, The One Percent Doctrine by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ron Suskind, which was excerpted by Time magazine.

Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was apparently in charge of the plot, called off the attack forty-five days before it was to be launched, Blanche writes, “possibly because it was not deemed apocalyptic enough to surpass the 9/11 carnage.”

So; another gain of Operation Enduring Freedom has been lost, sending us back to square one.  Anybody care to rethink the criticism of Pervez Musharraf's power-retaining machinations of last fall now?  And is anybody considering that the necessity of a "US-led" invasion of Pakistan to head off an al Qaeda takeover of its government and accompanying nuclear arsenal is rapidly looming as a distinct possibility at a time when a nuclear-armed Shiite Islamist Iran has yet to be dealt with?

Evidently not.  Oh, I'm sure the Pentagon has a scenario for that eventuality somewhere in its mothball vaults, but Official Washington is far more concerned with enforcing dhimmizing political correctness, for fear of offending our eventual Muslim conquerers:

Muslim terrorists are not “jihadists.” And there is no such thing as “Islamo-fascism.”

At least that’s the word from Washington.

New government directives remove well-worn expressions from the lexicon in the war on terror, not only for the sake of political correctness but also to convey the desired message to the Muslim world.

A report from the Department of Homeland Security, entitled “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims,” was compiled based on suggestions from “a wide variety of American Muslim leaders,” the report states.

"American Muslim leaders" like CAIR, no doubt.  The "message" it "sends to the Muslim world" is that the United States is already as good as beaten psychologically, making the military aspect a mere formality awaiting the election of Rodbama to effect the formal surrender.

It instructs Americans in the counter-terrorism and diplomatic communities not to use the word “moderate” when describing broad Muslim populations and to use “mainstream,” “ordinary,” and “traditional” instead, noting that “one can be deeply religious, strictly adhere to fundamental doctrines, and nevertheless abhor violence.”

Actually, the "abhorrence of violence" ISN'T mainstream in the Muslim world, but rather the exception.  Simple observation of the past half century of Middle East history demonstrates that.  And what on Earth is wrong with the term "moderate" as a term of distinction from "jihadi"?  Isn't that both descriptive AND connotationally neutral?  Now we have to bend over backwards to not even "insult" our enemies?  This is cravenly Orwellian.

Another document circulating through Washington was prepared by the Extremist Messaging Branch at the National Counter Terrorism Center. Among the memo’s instructions:

Never use the words “jihadist” or “mujahideen” to describe terrorists. “A mujahed, a holy warrior, is a positive characterization in the context of a just war,” the memo explains. “In Arabic, jihad means ‘striving in the path of God’ . . . Calling our enemies jihadis and their movement a global jihad unintentionally legitimizes their actions.” The term “violent extremist,” however, is encouraged.

Okay, what's the Muslim term for "pussy"?  Or shall we just call THEM "infidels"?  At least that would have the ring of irony to it.

It would not, however, have the ring of truth.  Yes, the Islamic Fundies are "violent," but it is their religious texts which they follow that are "extreme."  That's WHY they're called Islamic Fundamentalists.  To refer to them as "violent extremists" suggests that the Koran does not fuel their war, holy or otherwise, against us - which it most definitely does, and which they will see as "legitimatizing their actions" regardless of how we refer to them.  Indeed, it is this chicken-hearted word parsing that will encourage them second only to the world-wide retreat that is already ongoing.

Don’t invoke Islam. “Although the al-Qaida network exploits religious sentiments and tries to use religion to justify its actions, we should treat it as an illegitimate political organization, both terrorist and criminal.”

Again, this is counter-factual.  Like the Roosevelt administration saying we dare not "invoke Nazism" with reference to Germany's Hitler regime, or communism when discussing the old Evil Empire.  al Qaeda does not "exploit religious sentiments" or "try to use religion to justify its actions"; Islamic Fundamentalism is the core lifeblood OF its actions by definition.  The Muslim world needs to be confronted with this reality if it is ever to experience its own Reformation and Renaissance, just as Christiandom had to half a millenium ago.

If we're petrified of even invoking the term to the point of superstition, like it was an invocation to a curse or something, we're pre-emptively putting ourselves in far more dire straits than would the random ruffling of "moderate" Muslim feathers here and there.

Using “pejorative” terms such as “Islamo-fascism” is taboo, because they are “considered offensive by many Muslims,” according to the memo.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but tough bleep, Mustapha.  In war, the "feelings" of the enemy are the lowest consideration, if indeed they ought to be considered at all.

That being said, I've never cared for the term because it seems a redundancy.  With the exception of Turkey, and now Iraq, there is not a Muslim state on the face of the planet that isn't actively fascistic, the only difference being the degree of theocratic leavening.  But the time for curing that civic disease is AFTER the war itself is won.  This pathetic etymological hand-wringing illustrates just how impossible that task has become.

Shun references to the “caliphate,” which has positive connotations for Muslims, in reference to the goal of al-Qaida and associated groups. “The best description of what they really want to create is a ‘global totalitarian state,’” the memo instructs.

The difference being?

Ya gotta love the fine print: "The advice is 'not binding,' according to the memo."

Well, that's a relief.  But for how long?  Until a nerve gas attack in Los Angeles or a dirty bomb blast in Chicago cures us (temporarily, of course) of such namby-pamby foolishness and reminds us of the war of annihilation in which we're still engaged?

To call our society "overcivilized" is to vastly understate our cultural weakness and psychological vulnerability.  It leaves the singular question of just how low pampered, decadent Americans (and I do not except myself from that designation) will have to be brought before a majority of us realize what we have to fight for and will be willing to do what it takes to defend it, and defeat this enemy, once and for all.

I don't think we're going to like the answer.

UPDATE: That supposition is confirmed:

Top Pakistani Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud on Saturday said jihad, or holy war, would continue in Afghanistan, despite peace negotiations between the militants and Islamabad.

“Islam does not recognise boundaries and jihad in Afghanistan will continue,” he told a group of reporters invited to his stronghold of South Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border.

In other words, they already consider the Global Caliphate to exist, with us "infidels" unjustly squatting upon a large portion of it.  And since the entire planet belongs to Allah, in their minds, we must be driven off of it - or six feet under it - unless we all convert to Islam.

How is it that our enemies tell us who and what they are, and what they believe, and what they intend to do, and we're STILL more concerned with their "feelings" than our own survival?