Winds of War: Is Our Leadership Starting to Get It?

Yesterday I wrote a post giving examples of an organized resistance developing to counter the Islamist agenda, and for now, leaving the fight up those anti-jihadist in the private sector who ‘get it’.

Well, it’s be slow in coming but the political leadership is getting an earful of what we already know here on the starboard side of the bloggospher – “It’s the ideology, stupid!”

Bush administration is waging its "war on terror" without really understanding the enemy and thereby strengthening the hand of Jihadists, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence heard today. Stephen Ulph of the West Point Academy testified that while US is focused on fighting terror in the battlefield, center of gravity for the jihad lies in the ideological struggle.

Where did Ulph get such a tip? From the think tanks? The education establishment? The Bush Administration? Nope. From the Jihadists themselves.

He cited an entry from a Jihadist Internet forum which claimed that "'infidels are still fixated on fighting individuals, oblivious to the fact that they are actually fighting an idea, one that has spread across the globe like fire and which is embraced even by those whose faith is a mustard seed."

Straight from the camel’s mouth.

Ulph explained that that at least 60% (this is a conservative estimate) of the materials circulated on jihadist chat forums and specialist sites were not located in the sections devoted to news commentary or audio-visual propaganda. They populated instead the
'doctrinal' and 'cultural' sections.

According to him, these 'doctrinal' and 'cultural' works in constant circulation are meticulously composed and written for purposes specific to the jihad and form its life-blood, its intellectual infrastructure.

He argued that Jihadists have painstakingly constructed, over decades, a serious, cogently argued, academically and ideologically coherent intellectual infrastructure to their 'holy war'. He claimed that they are engaged in a massive re-education project, and they are going about this unopposed.

Not quite. Mr. Ulph obviously is unaware of the hundreds and hundreds of anti-jihadist bloggers that have been trying to inform and educate the pubic about the Islamist ideology.

Ulph testified that the Jihadists are not waging war on physical infrastructure of the US but the respect for personal privacy, for the open nature of society, for multiformity, diverse interests and other ethical and ideological orientations, the active will to promote social cohesion, trust and the harmonization of interests, and the support of community-based organizations.

Ulph is a bit in error here. He is speaking of results – not tactics. He misses the real tactics of the Islamist – their multiple types of jihads – Litigation Jihad, Education Jihad, Cultural Jihad, Demographic Jihad, Economic Jihad, Institutional Jihad, Media Jihad, Financial Jihad, Criminal jihad as detailed in my Gathering Storm eBook – all part of their intimidation, infiltration and disinformation campaigns.

Ulph said that it is "simply unbelievable that we are now in our sixth year after theattacks on September 11th and still without a coherent map of the enemy, of their cause and their ideological methodology."

Umm… Mr. Ulph. Read my book. Your map awaits. And a tip to the Senate. You already have one tireless watchdog in the Capital who still has the burning memory 9-11 and understands the threat of the jihadists.

One tireless watchdog is Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., who earlier this year founded the Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus to educate fellow lawmakers and Americans in general about the threat from militant Islam.

"The general public doesn't understand the threats we face from radical jihadists — who they are, what they want and what we can do about the threat," the feisty Myrick says on her Web site. "Americans are not being properly informed about the nature of the jihadist threat and their plans to do us harm."

The media and academia have whitewashed jihad or ducked the issue entirely, petrified as they are of looking intolerant toward Muslims. Meantime, well-funded apologists such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations have gone on the offensive against the few critics who have spoken out, further confusing Americans about the gravity of the threat.

"The jihadists have become incredibly advanced in their public relations efforts," Myrick lamented. And we have limited tools to counteract their propaganda, thanks to institutionalized religious tolerance even for creeds hostile to our way of life.

To counter this problem, Mr. Myrick created the Anti-Jihad Caucus.

The Anti-Jihad Caucus dares to right that imbalance. Its main goal is to educate members of Congress about the Islamic threat so they can talk candidly to their constituents about it. Myrick has already recruited more than 80 members to join her — including even some Democrats, such as Bud Cramer of Alabama and Ben Chandler of Kentucky.

"The group is currently learning about a variety of issues involving jihad, such as the history of Islam, the differences and similarities of Sunni and Shia Muslims, terrorist financing, terrorist use of the Internet, and terrorist infiltration techniques," Myrick said.

Good start. Now, if the Anti-Jihad Caucus will widen the definition of jihad from militant jihad to the understanding of the multiple jihads like Litigation Jihad, Education Jihad, Cultural Jihad, Demographic Jihad, Economic Jihad, Institutional Jihad, Media Jihad, Financial Jihad, Criminal jihad, then they and Congress may finally realize the immensity of the Islamist threat before us and create counter tactics to oppose them.

A tip to Mr. Myrick. Keep your eye on the Mapping Shari'a in America Project. You’ll find all you need there to educate your fellow Congressmen.

Get a FREE TRIAL COPY of the The Gathering Storm eBook which includes the Forward by Walid Shoebat, Introduction, and first 50 pages of The Gathering Storm eBook.