Jihadi Du Jour

How “Overblown” Can Blow up in Our Faces
Metaphorically and Literally
Darrell Pack

Don’t you hate it when your informed perspective on a matter goes against your personal inclinations and preferences. You know, like when some doctor comes on T.V. at 1:30 A.M. and tells you that the entire medical establishment is just manipulating us to avoid overeating red meat when, in fact, there’s no chance that too much fat in your diet could be bad for your heart. He’s saying exactly what you want to hear, what you wish to heaven you could believe (and convince your wife of) but, you know the guy is half nuts and when you’re having a major heart attack you will rue the day you listened to him and started your all-you-can-eat-baby-back-ribs diet.

I’m in just such an irritating situation right now. Recently, a plethora of books has come out all espousing the premise that Islamic terrorism is not, as they say, “an existential threat” to the Western World’s way of life. This is just what I want to hear. What we all want to believe. Suddenly there is a cottage industry focused upon calming us all down. A few of the well known works are, Ron Suskind’s “One Percent Solution,” “Trapped in the War on Terror” by Ian S. Lustick who is Professor of Political Science, at the University of Pennsylvania, and “Overblown” by John Mueller, Professor of Political Science, Ohio State University. They all pretty much agree - Yeah, terrorists are bad and we out to try to go get them and put them in jail, but the way we are going at it with this whole “War on Terror” approach is overblown, over dramatic, and little more than scare tactics. It may be that our cure to Islamic Terror is worse than the disease.

It’s sad when bright people publish stupid stuff. While there is much that is objectionable in these theories, I will only point out one part of their fallacious reasoning. Islamic Terror does NOT have as a first, or second, or seventh, etc. goal the destruction of U.S.A. or Western society. All Islamists that are not psychopaths know that such an option is not on the table at this point. Their goals are as follows:

1.) To position themselves within the minds of the Muslim populations of Islamic lands as the legitimate, rightful, and Allah-ordained leaders of their respective nation-states.
2.) To win control of Islamic majority nation-states, a la Khomeimi.
3.) To coordinate said nation-states in their joint jihad against the West.
4.) To have placed within Western nations an active fifth column of pro-Islamists who will be well placed to facilitate their eventual jihad.

To argue over whether this Islamist agenda is likely to succeed or not is legitimate. To pretend that even small successes toward this agenda would not be a radical socio-political re-making of our world culture is stupid. Imagine a world with two more Iran-like nations that feel that they are in common cause with President Ahamdinejad. Now imagine them nuked up.

Writers like John Mueller have the advantage of saying exactly what most of America wants to hear, “We need not feel threatened.” He does this by an inane use of statistics that illustrate how unlikely one is to die from a terrorist attack - you are more likely to die from being hit by a meteor. I’d like to have him answer, with actuary tables in hand if need be, what the odds of 9/11 happening were the month before it actually occurred. Or, whether he has heard any malevolent threats from meteors with pathological hatred against the U.S. No one likes the pressure of feeling threatened. No one wants to contemplate a significant loss of life. No one wishes to let an already intrusive Federal U.S. government get any pretext for further restricting American freedoms. Works like “Overblown” appeal to those sentiments.

America and the West are long-term enemies for Islamists for lots of reasons. However, at this point, Islamists are not trying to destroy the West but to utilize the West in an effort to show to Muslim populations in their own lands feats of strength and daring. Every time they strike the Great Satan, they prove that they bold enough to take on evil for Allah’s sake. They are betting that eventually this will allow them to win the hearts and minds of Muslim who will appoint them to be kings for life in the Muslim world.

While it is fair to ask if we are fighting the War on Terror as wisely as we should and as comprehensively as we need to if we are to win, it is foolish to act as if we need not fight it as the long war of attrition that it really is. When I was a youth, I once went into the boxing ring with a guy to spar. He pummeled me even though I was the better boxer. After a few rounds, my corner demanded to see my opponent’s gloves. They both had been loaded with small lead rods. I was being badly beaten because I went in “just to spar” with someone who was there to really fight. I was playing by rules that he was not applying. A similar, but much more deadly, situation will apply if we go with the pleasant but misguided perspectives of those who wish to turn the War on Terror into an exercise of sparring. It will blow up in our faces, or more likely, in the faces of our children.