A Few Words on “Radical,” “Extremist,” Ideology and Doctrine

Terror Trends Bulletin ^ | 3 Feb 2015 | Christopher Holton

[LSUfan]

Over the past few months we have heard increasing calls for the Obama administration to “call the enemy what it is” or “identify the enemy by name.”

It is true that you can’t defeat an enemy you don’t identify.

These calls are invariably followed up by naming the enemy. Only the names assigned to our enemies seem to always be wrong. A few of the wrong names:

• Radical Islam

• Islamic extremism

• Radical Islamic extremism

• Islamist extremism

• Radical Islamist extremism

The problem with all these names is that they are names that we in the West have made up to describe our enemies. They don’t use any of them. No member of the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, HAMAS, Hezbollah, Lashkar e Taiba, the Taliban, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab or Abu Sayyef ever refers to himself as “radical” or “extremist.” No where in their communications will you see the modifiers “radical” or “extremist.”

They don’t subscribe to radical Islam or Islamist extremism.

In fact they claim that the basis for what they do is simply Islam.

[MrBambaLaMamba]

Outlaw Islam
Expel all Muslims
Stop all aid to Muslim lands

[bicyclerepair]

Pedophile-worshipping misogynists (aka mozlums) are incompatible with civilization.

They are the cancer of the planet, lower than scum.

[Capt. Tom]

The author is right on target.

I call them fundamentalists who follow the religion as written in the Koran and Hadiths.

They certainly are not radicals or they wouldn't be killing us Infidels as Islam requires.

The didn't hijack the religion, they follow it as written.

They are not extremists anymore than a Christian doing a good Samaritan deed is an Extremist Christian. -Tom

[The_Reader_David]

The problem is, saying we are at war with Islam or Muslims makes enemies of many of our allies in this fight — as, for instance, most pointedly today, all the Muslims in Jordan who are loyal to King Abdullah and outraged by the immolation of Lt. al-Kasasbeh at the hands of the Daish.

Name what we are at war with: Salafism, that is the sect or ideology of Sunni Islam that regards the generation of Muslims who were Mohammed’s companions as models for all conduct, to be followed scrupulously in all matters. Both the Daish and al Qaeda are Salafist movements, and none of the Muslims who are at present our allies are Salafists. Being clear that we are at war with a sect or tendency within Islam that is rejected by most Muslims has all the virtues that are sought by applying adjectives or suffixes of not alienating allies or potential allies, while making clear that this is fundamentally a religious war.

Yes, I know, we also have problems with the Shi’ite sect that runs Iran (the Ta’ajili or “Hasteners”) but for now that is a cold war, and in the hot war against the Daish and al Qaeda, Shi’ites are natural allies.

[TBP]

Islamofascism, terrorism in the name of Islam. It’s simply Hitler in a headscarf.

[skully]

There is no radical islam, there is only islam.

[LSUfan]

The Muslim Brotherhood aren’t Salafi and neither is HAMAS.

And the Shia of Iran are far from allies.

[The_Reader_David]

But *we*, the U.S., are not at war with the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas. We are at war with salafists (and so are the Iranians, who are also flying bombing runs against the Daish — and evidently sharing IFF data with us, since we and they have not had any run-ins over Iraq).

[LSUfan]

You do realize that the basis in Islamic jurisprudence for the method of execution of the Jordanian pilot comes from Sunni Islamic law, not Salafism, right?

We are not at war with the Muslim Brotherhood and HAMAS but they are most assuredly waging civilizational Jihad against us.

[The_Reader_David]

Let's fight one battle at a time. Right now, we are in a hot war only with salafists, and saying this, rather than saying we are at war with Islam, keeps the considerable number of Muslim allies we have -- the Kurds (remember them? they're almost all Sunni Muslims), the Iraqi government, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, all anti-Taliban Afghans, the factions in the Pakistani government who provide the basis for our nominal alliance with Pakistan (there are other factions who are plainly on the side of the Taliban) -- on board, but provides the clarity of a named and identifiable enemy and recognition that this is a religious war.

You do know that salafis are all Sunnis, right?