DENIS McDHIMMI: BILL SIEGEL
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.8911/pub_detail.asp
Denis McDhimmi
White House National Security Adviser Speaks to Hamas-Linked Group
On March 6, in anticipation of Congressional hearings on domestic radicalization, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough stated the following:
“President Obama recognizes that through our words and deeds we can either play into al Qaeda’s narrative and messaging or we can challenge it and thereby undermine it. We’re determined to undermine it. For example, we know there are many different reasons why individuals—from many different faiths—succumb to terrorist ideologies. And there is no one easy profile of a terrorist. But based on extensive investigations, research and profiles of the violent extremists we’ve captured or arrested, and who falsely claim to be fighting in the name of Islam, we know that they all share one thing—they all believe that the United States is somehow at war with Islam, and that this justifies violence against Americans. So we are actively and aggressively undermining that ideology. We’re exposing the lie that America and Islam are somehow in conflict. That is why President Obama has stated time and again that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.”
This statement encapsulates so much of what this writer has identified as the “Control Factor:” that function of our minds which will distort our perceptions so as not to present ourselves with the ever so fearful reality that confronts us under the banner of Islam today. That is, rather than to clearly see, focus upon, and set about to create strategies to properly confront the threat which we currently face- a threat that by definition we do not control and see little way over which to regain control- our minds essentially collude to reconstruct in a manner which deludes us with the sense that we are in control.
1. The statement essentially reduces the threat we face to that of terrorism caused by al-Qaeda. By defining and limiting the threat to a band of “radical extremists” who have distorted the doctrine of a great religion, we buy into the sense that our military might and criminal detection methods will ultimately save the day. The fantasy is that this is a problem that we can get our arms around because under our Constitutional principles, terrorism is a violation that we are permitted to fight against.
Yet terrorism is only one of three levels upon which the threat is attacking us and al-Qaeda is only a piece of the terrorism level. The second level, the “Civilization Jihad,” a term used by the Muslim Brotherhood itself to describe its long term effort to peaceably infiltrate American and Western society at all levels in order to bring it down from the inside through the freedoms that Western Constitutions afford, is well at work and in process today. This has also been called the “Stealth Jihad.”
There is a third level, the “International Institutional Jihad,” upon which organizations such as the UN, along with its 57 Member State bloc the Organization of the Islamic Conference, work to push through those principles of Sharia Law and Islamic doctrine which it Members can agree upon such as the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights which is fully at odds with U.S. Constitutional tenets. Once these principles become international standards, the institutions seek to push them into Western societies through treaties and trade deals over which the Members have leverage.
McDonough’s words, by limiting the threat to Al Qaeda, intentionally ignore the other levels of threat which, for all intents and purposes can be even more dangerous because our Constitution does not afford us easy means to combat. Nor does our desired general sense of morality.
2. By focusing on “reasons” for this terrorist piece of the pie, the Control Factor further sets out the narrative that we can gain control over the problem. By looking for “root causes,” we advance the notion that by eliminating or reducing those elements we can eliminate the symptom-terrorism. This is part of a long-engaged Leftist narrative that has been utilized across a vast array of social problems in order to gain control over funding and policy. Now, it is being used to avoid seeing a problem clearly, much less addressing it intelligently.
It is this administration’s (and also, unfortunately, many members of Bush’s as well) distortion to frame terrorism as a result of victimhood. That is, by establishing the root causes of terrorism as either a response to U.S. policy, to economic conditions, to Israeli occupation, and so on, the Control Factor sells the buried wish that since we cause the conditions, we can fix the symptom without the grueling costs of war and confrontation. When both sides collude in this form of narrative, we allow it to continue and grow. Yet placing the cause of the problem within ourselves is false and strips us of the proper incentive to stand up and fight against a threat that simply seeks our destruction no matter what we do.
3. McDonough fights the enemy’s battle for us in the simple phrase of those “who falsely claim to be fighting in the name of Islam.” Here, the Control Factor refuses to accept what the enemy has repeatedly made clear—there is a Holy War between Islam and the Western world, it has been declared by a significant faction of Muslims and agreed upon by many more either explicitly or through silence and omission, and the war is defined by the enemy itself under the banner of Islam to seek the destruction of Western society as it is and to replace it with a Sharia based global Islamic Ummah. This is what the enemy says itself. The Control Factor tells us that this can not be, that Islam is a “peaceful” and “great” religion that has been “hijacked” by a few “crazies” and that most Muslims worldwide are much like us peace loving Westerners who seek a world based on mutual tolerance. If there is any “war,” it emanates from those of us Westerners who are “racists,” “bigots,” or otherwise and fail to acknowledge the realities of the Muslim peoples. The critical issue here is that the Control Factor, as expressed through McDonough, takes full responsibility for defining Islam and identifying the enemy. The enemy, however, defines itself and needs to identify itself both through its actions, its words, and importantly what it does not do and say.
This “transfer of responsibility” from the enemy to ourselves that McDonough’s words so freely take on is symptomatic of the deep addictive style the West has adopted to avoid hard confrontation. Once again, the Control Factor utilizes Western guilt to define the conflict as resulting from improper acts of its own. It then seeks to redeem itself by accommodating the enemy. This shows up in America’s dealings with Islam as well as the “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict;” responsibility for the problem is transferred to the West or Israel in a grand psychological effort to avoid facing the terrors and costs of hard confrontation, terror, or war. And in each example, as with all psychological defenses, the defense creates the very conditions it seeks to avoid. Until the West is fully able to place responsibility back upon the Islamic world for the actions it takes and omits to take, the West will only dig itself deeper into a weaker position. Unfortunately, the game of guilt gives us no guidance as to how it is to end; when enough has been repaid. Instead, it is geared to continue indefinitely.
4. McDonough’s statement that the U.S. is not at war with Islam is a pleasant Control Factor fantasy but does little to eliminate the fact that the enemy has declared it so. We can walk away and pretend there is no war, follow the deceptive words of those in this country engaged in the Civilization Jihad who attack us for any response to the war other than bending over backwards to accommodate Islam and tolerate that which does not tolerate anything other than itself. Yet that path leads only to further the cause of the enemy.
5. Perhaps most telling of all of McDonough’s statement is the word “never.” To claim we will never be at war with Islam regardless of what Islam or Muslims worldwide do to us is the height of Dhimmitude—a phrase coined by Bat Yeor, an expert on Dhimmi behavior throughout Islamic history. In Islam, a Dhimmi is generally a Jew or Christian (there are others) who has agreed to accept a lesser and humiliating status with duties including the payment of a special tax, in exchange for life in an Islamic controlled land. It is a protection contract: you can live as long as you abide by these conditions. In claiming that we could “never” be at war with Islam, McDonough has staked out Dhimmi status for all non-Muslims in the U.S. and has put words to the famous act of Obama in bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia.
By denying that we are at war with Islam, McDonough has admitted that those words have meaning, just that they do not fit U.S. policy. By denying that the U.S. would ever be at war with Islam, McDonough has sent the message of unconditional surrender in advance. This is pure Control Factor maneuvering and threatens our nation worse than the underlying threat itself. Put simply, our Constitution does not afford us easy ways to combat the threat we face- we can fight certain types of terrorism in certain (albeit still under great dispute) ways yet we have no effective means to combat the Civilization Jihad and are fast losing leverage to resist the International Institutional Jihad. Unless and until we all obtain better control over our Control Factors so that we can develop sufficient acceptable means to fight on these levels, we are headed to self-destruction.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Bill Siegel lives in New York and is the author of the forthcoming book, The Control Factor ©.
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