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Seek and Destroy What Exactly?

Benjamin Kafferlin

July 20, 2010

President Ronald Reagan called out American adversaries and unquestioningly fought their ideas with thoughtful principle, strong rhetoric, and authoritative action; all backed by the very real and threatening force of the United States military. President Reagan said things like, "Communism... is the focus of evil in the modern world" at places like the National Association of Evangelicals, urging Christians never to remove themselves from the great battle of good and evil. Unfortunately, such principles, rhetoric, and action have notcome from the White House in awhile. It would be nice--in fact, it is entirely necessary--to hear the president say something like, "radical Islamism is the focus of evil in the modern world." However, it seems those days are long gone.

Remember on September 11, 2001 when President Bush addressed America: "Our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts." Yes, our way of life is under attack, and not just by Jihadists, but also by long-term world domination. Yet now, the Obama Administration even shies away from terms like "terrorist," let alone the issue of the real root of terrorism. The Administration has used words such as racism and poverty to explain the motivations for Jihadist and anti-American sentiments, but these words hide the main motivation behind the extreme actors of radical Islam. The heart of it is unconventional worldwide war motivated by the Eastern Islamic and Western Christian (or at least, post-Christian) civilizations--it is "a clash of ideologues: ‘the Enlightenment' versus Islamism."  Fundamentally, it is a conflict over the higher things of society: We are talking about two different ways of approaching life, culture, policies, and justice--all stemming from religious ideology and traditions.

How can the American people--let alone the military, law enforcement, and other branches and twigs of the Executive branch--identify the enemy and confront the threat? Great slogans like "seek and destroy" are obsolete without a specific target. Seek who? Destroy with what? Such ambiguity is the problem America finds herself in today. The Executive refuses to properly define the enemy. Meanwhile, Congress will not fund the war against terrorism, despite repeated warning that the war chest is running dry. National defense is a Constitutional mandate, which the Federal governmentcontinues to completely ignore, as Charles Kessler pointed out.

The National Security Strategy, which was released by the Administration in late May, gives no explicit reference to Islam, extremism, and so forth. As is common with the Obama Administration, it dances around the real issue. The Administration refuses to get at the root of the terrorist problem: radical Islam. It is time to turn the spotlight on the elephant in the room.

The Washington Institute Strategic Report was just released entitled, "Fighting the Ideological Battle: The Missing Link in U.S. Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism." Here is an excerpt of the summary:

Unfortunately, the United States is not well equipped to fight on this ideological battleground, and U.S. efforts to confront the ideology worldwide have not kept pace with more successful military targeting of high-level al-Qaeda leaders.

To successfully defeat Islamist terrorism at its most fundamental source... rather than avoid any mention of the religious motivation behind the terrorism of al-Qaeda and other like-minded organizations, the Obama administration should sharpen the distinction between the religion of Islam and the political ideology of radical Islamism.

Metaphysical ideology cannot be effectively combated with physical bombs alone. Ideology against ideology--take for example, the Cold War: capitalism vs. communism. In America's current case, it is radical Islamic ideas pertaining to restricted speech and religion versus "enlightened" Judeo-Christian values of natural rights-"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," to quote the great American Declaration.

President Obama's approach has been to wipe out, obscure, and deny traditional American values in an effort to appease Muslims so they will leave us alone. To acknowledge our Christian beliefs would imply we should use them in our national policies, something that American liberals are loath to do.

The reasons to hide any reference to radical Islam are easily refuted. The dominant interpretation of Sharia (hopefully a misinterpretation) is a motivation for Jihadist terrorism. Radical Islam is evil and it is the motivation for evil acts. Furthermore, it is not imprudent or unwise to come right out and say what is meant by Muslim extremism, viz. America will seek and destroy terrorists and potential radical threats.

There is a way to reach the "hearts and minds" of Islam (short of proselytizing) and that is finding and basically subsidizing moderate Islamic countries with religious freedom, and not just "freedom of worship," as the Administration is fond of calling it nowadays. America hardly endears herself to the Muslim community (Turkey being a recent case in point) by noncommittal language, nonspecific goals, and nonchalant execution.