Disconnecting the Dots: Blurring the Lines

In my childhood, one of the fun games in the daily newspaper was a "connecting the dots" puzzle. A simple system of drawing a line from one numbered dot to the other produced a picture any child could see. Every now and then a typo would occur in the printing of the paper and the result was an unsolvable puzzle with a blurred image. The newspaper would issue an apology to its readers and that was that. A harmless mistake in an innocent game.

The same solution does not hold true in more serious fields.

In the war on terrorism, substituting hard facts with esoteric rhetoric blurs the picture and creates confusion. The latest example of this situation, coming on the heels of the terrorist attack in Orlando, is the Department of Homeland Security's interim report on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Subcommittee released this month.

This was not a wartime strategy report. On the contrary, this was the administration's latest initiative to move further away from the war on terrorism and blur the picture as to who the enemy really is.

The subcommittee was formed as part of the DHS's Homeland Security Advisory Council ("HSAC") last November. It was described by the department as "an incubator of ideas." It defines CVE as the actions taken to counter efforts by extremists to radicalize, recruit, or mobilize followers to violence. Who is a violent extremist you ask? According to the report, it is an individual who supports or commits ideologically-motivated violence to further political goals. And what type of weapons would one use in this fight? The committee recommends using "soft power tools." Soft power is a conceptual idea that persuasive words are more important than the use of force in a time of war.

This formation of the subcommittee and its objectives coincided with the terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 and injured more than 350 men women and children. The sophistication of the Paris attacks and the subsequent Brussels attacks led authorities to conclude that the terrorists had received prior combat training. Some had returned to Europe after fighting with ISIS in Syria.

One month after the subcommittee was formed, another terrorist attack occurred in San Bernardino, Calif., that left 14 people dead and 22 injured. The attack was carried out by a husband and wife jihadi team, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik.

ISIS described the couple as "soldiers of the caliphate."

In Orlando at the Pulse nightclub, Omar Mateen, having pledged bayat, or allegiance, to ISIS, opened fire on the crowd killing 49 people and wounding 53 others. His goal was not political. It was to rid the world of infidels.

In the original 9/11 Commission report, the committee clearly identified the enemy: It "is not just 'terrorism,' some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism..."

And lest we think that pronouncement has changed in the 15 years since 9/11, we should look at the supplemental report issued by the commission 10 years later. In it, the members informed us that the threat of Islamic terrorism had not been defeated but had grown stronger, and had evolved in methodology, tactics and leadership.

When the current administration removes the words "radical Islamic terrorism" from the equation, it is more than a semantic faux pas. It is an intentional erasure of one of the dots necessary to see clearly the threat facing the United States. It identifies who has declared war on us.

Groups like al-Qaida, al-Shabaab, and ISIS are not looking to attract students to some philosophy or political science class.

They are soldiers, combat-hardened jihadists, sadistic killers. They are using every tool available to them to recruit more – social media, the internet, violent videos, fiery sermons. Soft power means nothing to them. They respond only to the sword.

When the president uses terms like "the full resources of the federal government" and "spare no effort" in responding to the latest terrorist attack by an Islamist, what exactly does it mean? To the average American it sounds like more rhetoric from the "incubator of ideas."

This administration and Congress must give the FBI and local law enforcement the necessary resources, including the additional manpower and equipment necessary to face the current challenge of investigating numerous leads on ISIS sympathizers within our borders. And they must restore to our intelligence agencies the ability to collect and analyze the data necessary to track Islamic terrorist organization like ISIS.

In a time of war we need decisive action, not soft power tools.

IPT Senior Fellow Patrick Dunleavy is the former Deputy Inspector General for New York State Department of Corrections and author of The Fertile Soil of Jihad. He currently teaches a class on terrorism for the United States Military Special Operations School.

Reader comments on this item

What a news!

Submitted by Rosaline Costa, Jun 25, 2016 00:14

If the information given above regarding the higher and important positions held by Muslims in the USA or in any other country such as "Homeland Security Adviser", or "FBI agent" or in other important higher position, the danger will golf the country very slowly and when that will happen, it will be hard to stop the Muslims. One of the major things happening today is that the way the Muslims from Muslim majority countries of the countries where ISIS/ISIL have invaded, are heading towards Europe and America, is a matter of grave concern for the safety of those countries. Those country should see deeply how the religious minorities (especially the Christians) live in those countries and what kind of treatment they get from the Muslims. Who knows how many members of ISIS are entering in disguise to Europe and America? We have seen the tragedy in Germany in the beginning of this year how the Muslims refugees treated the women on the first day of the year. Don't we learn from the events?

One request, please help the Christians living in very critical situation in those Muslim majority countries and help them come out of those hell.

Islam period

Submitted by Linda S, Jun 23, 2016 23:28

Why don't we use better terms to describe what is actually happening? Instead of the word "radical" why don't we use "original" or "Mohammedan"? The behavior of Muslims which we deem as threatening is actually exactly what Islam's founder did personally and made the standard for all his followers. When we use the quantifier "radical" it sounds like an aberration, when the jihadists are the most perfect Muslim according to Mohammed. And why isn't he ever mentioned or his text? The Muslims who decide to begin acting out terroristic behavior are only obeying what is written throughout the Qur'an and Hadiths and Sunna. They are not "radicalized" by the Internet. Local Imams are teaching the texts and exhorting young men to get serious and obey Allah. It's really no different than any motivational speaker or preacher trying to get his audience to change and DO something rather than just read/hear about it.

If we had been living in 700 AD in Europe we would have witnessed all sorts of attacks and barbaric acts by hordes of Muslim armies determined to literally use the sword to take over every spot of earth for Allah. They didn't use the word "radical". They simply called the marauders Mohammedans. We're freaking out because we don't know history and its merely repeating itself. Do we have the courage to fight for our lives as at the Battle of Tours in 742 ish and at the Gates of Vienna 1483? The only societies which have survived an Islamic takeover have been those who fought against it. All those which allowed Islam an entrance have been swallowed up and are now Islamic. What a shame. What will history write about America? Or Europe?

Taking over high positions in government

Submitted by Joan C., Jun 23, 2016 01:34

Great Article! But it's useless to say what this administration, or this Congress, or this FBI, or this local law enforcement SHOULD do. Nothing will change, when we have the foxes watching over, and in charge of the henhouse!

Example:

We have Attorney General Loretta Lynch saying "Best Response To Terrorism Is Love And Compassion"!!

I'm not able to post the link to that article, but it's on jihadwatch.org, and taken from The Washington State Beacon.

Also have an article that says Lynches Pro-Muslim Rhetoric Stems From Her Own Ties To A Pro-Terrorist Group (taken from FreedomOutpost.com)

When there are so many uneducated, ignorant individuals (of islam) in high positions of government, you can take it to the bank, that this country, Britian, and all those other countries, ( that millions of these "people" are immigrating to) are just going to simply let these "people" take over these governments, one seat, one chair, at a time. All because of ignorance of islam, and thinking there's no difference in this religion with any other, when we are clearly told, that satan's time is short. Wouldn't anyone believe that he's in charge of this earth, for now, (there's a verse or two of that), and that his time just picked up the pace, with him taking control of his immigrating army?

It's mentioned in Revelation, that everyone will have to take a mark in their right hand or forehead, or get beheaded. Is there any question now, of who will be in charge of that, when the time comes?

Here's another example taken from jihadwatch.org from the Daily Caller.

Muslim who said 9/11 "changed the world for good" is on the Homeland Security Advisery Council.

And one more, from jihadwatch taken from PJMedia:

Muslim former FBI agent who refused to wiretap fellow muslims now Homeland Security Adviser

And the list goes on and on. They'll be no decisive action on this as long as our commander and chief keeps vowing to bringing in thousands. And I have TOO many articles on THAT!

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