It was just announced that the White House, in the wake of the mass murders in France, plans to reactivate an old idea of convening a “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism.”
Is this an accurate news account or some sort of cruel satire?
Is there something about the recent attacks in Boston, Canada, Australia, and France, in the larger landscape of what the Islamic State is doing in the Middle East, that the Obama administration does not understand?
Such a summit that mentions neither terrorism nor Islam in its title would be like fighting Nazi Germany as if it were a crusade against “extremism” — perhaps true but utterly trite. What global threat could be included under the rubric “violent extremism” in addition to Islamic terrorism? Are Hindu nationalists threatening the Boston Marathon, Puerto Rican independence thugs storming U.S. army bases to shoot soldiers, anti-abortionists filming ritual beheadings, or Buddhist reactionaries blowing up European media offices? Have skinheads hijacked German airliners and rammed them into the Brandenburg Gate? Is the Tea Party attacking New York policemen with hatchets?
And what possibly could the Obama administration offer to such a global effort? Can one imagine the administration’s 15-point conference agenda?
I. The power of euphemisms — how “workplace violence” and “man-caused disaster” lessened violent extremism.
II. Understanding your enemy — why the Muslim Brotherhood is largely “secular” and jihad is really a “holy struggle”.
III. Mythology at work — the Cairo Speech as a means to win hearts and minds
IV. The art of swapping hostages — the Bowe Bergdahl paradigm for ending hostage-taking
V. Miranda rights and civil trials — why foreign terrorists are not really enemy combatants
VI. Closing Guantanamo — how releasing Islamic terrorists makes us safer
VII. Calming the waters — the Iraq model of how to stabilize postwar societies by withdrawing all U.S. peacekeepers.
VIII. The Benghazi video maker — how demonizing our own and attacking free expression win respect
IX. The Value of silence — why ignoring the Iranian Green Revolution and Egyptian president Sisi’s recent speech makes sense
X. Clapper, Brennan, and Holder — why the right experts matter and how they mitigate extremism
XI. Drones are the answer — how blowing up suspected terrorists is better than interrogating live confessed ones
XII. The art of the redline — why issuing but not enforcing deadlines, redlines, and step-over-lines are game-changers
XIII. Courting Iran — how concessions, weakening sanctions, and allying with Iran in Iraq thwart extremism
XIV. Isolating Israel — when Netanyahu is called a “chickens***” and a “coward” the West wins allies
XV. Russia to the rescue — utilizing the resource of Vladimir Putin as a way to lessen Middle East tensions
Under Obama’s helm, the United States is like an aircraft carrier drifting at sea. Big, powerful, and utterly useless without a commander, a purpose and a direction.
Excellent post. Everyone can understand your example.
Thank you, Dr. Hanson, for another (as usual!) splendid, sarcastic screed, rightfully leveled at the powers that be. I wonder if any of them read your insights about our inept leaders in Washington. Probably very few.
I said in my last blog that you are “the best—bar none” and I mean it from someone who grew up reading James Reston regularly for years, etc. And, your above article ridiculing our President in his either living in total denial for years on radical Islam’s assault on the West ;or as I believe, is quite brilliant and knows exactly whose side he’s on and what he’s doing on behalf of what looks more and more to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which by the way, many Egyptians after their overthrow of Morsi claimed they have proof that in fact he is!
I agree with your post and believe Obama is, at the minimum, sympathetic to the muslim cause, which is why we seem to be fighting a war not to win or even slow down the terrorist march, but to run out the clock on his watch.
You forgot:
XVI: Why the US is really to blame – Understanding extremism in the context of past Colonial Guilt and current economic exploitation.
XVII: Strategic Disarmament – Dismantling the Military-Industrial Complex in order to approach alienated people as an equal.
I guess no conference can cover everything when dealing with a problem this large and complex.
Demented “aloha Akbar” was twice elected to the highest office in the land—the joy of unrestricted immigration keeps on giving. Out today,”” House budget chair: the problem is the debt”. Obama and the retiring boomer’s is a lethal combination
Simple truth: The Obama White House are sympathizers to Islamic Terrorists.
It is reality.
True?
Your one sentence says it all.
It’s beginning to feel like an updated form of holodomor for those who starve for America again
The only person more capable than Dr. Hanson of proving Barak Obama to be a morality moron is Barak Obama himself.
The legal academic’s solution to every problem is to conference on it, till blue in the face.
You don’t negotiate or communicate rationally with rattlesnakes – you kill them!