The War Against Jihadism. Why can't we call the enemy by its name? We're going to have to ...to win

What kind of campaign is this? Six-plus years after 9/11; while the Taliban attempts an Afghanistan comeback; as Islamist terrorists cause mayhem in Algeria and occupy huge swaths of tribal Pakistan; despite "United 93" and "The Kite Runner," a library-full of books, presidential commissions, congressional hearings, and four election cycles—despite all of that, a strange, Victorian reticence about naming the enemy in the contest for the human future in which we are engaged befogs this political season.

Such reticence is an obstacle to victory in a war we cannot avoid and in which we must prevail. For if there is one thing certain in this season of great uncertainties, it is that the war against jihadism will be staring the next president of the United States in the face at high noon on Inauguration Day, 2009.

That is what we are fighting: jihadism, the religiously inspired ideology which teaches that it is every Muslim's duty to use any means necessary to compel the world's submission to Islam. That most of the world's Muslims do not accept this definition of the demands of their faith is true—and beside the point. The jihadists believe this. That is why they are the enemy of their fellow Muslims and the rest of the world. For decades, an internal Islamic civil war, born of Islam's difficult encounter with modernity, has been fought over such key modern political ideas as religious toleration and the separation of religious and political authority in a just state. That intra-Islamic struggle now engages the rest of humanity. To ignore this, to imagine it's all George W. Bush's fault, or to misrepresent it because of a prudish reluctance to discuss religion in public, is to repeat the mistakes the advocates of appeasement made in the 1930s.

In the mid-twentieth century, it was important to understand the ideas that fed the totalitarian passions of fascism, Nazism and communism. It is just as important today to understand the ideas of such progenitors of jihadist ideology as the Egyptian scholar-activists Hassan al-Banna (1906–1949) and Sayyid Qutb (1903–1966). Why? Because the power of ideas that can call men and women to make great sacrifices can only be trumped by the power of more compelling ideas that summon forth nobler sacrifices. Yet while our presidential candidates have endlessly debated who-was-right-or-wrong-and-when about Iraq, the imperative of effective U.S. public diplomacy—of making the argument for freedom and decency effectively around the world—has gone largely unremarked. That failure reflects a reluctance to grasp the nature of this new kind of struggle.

This is a war of ideas, pitting two different notions of the good society against each other. The jihadist vision claims the sanction of God. The western vision of the free society, in which civility involves engaging differences with respect, has both religious and philosophical roots. Some Americans have lost touch with the deepest cultural sources of the nation's commitments to religious freedom, tolerance and democratic persuasion, thinking of these good things as mere pragmatic arrangements. But if the United States can't explain to the world why religious freedom, civility, tolerance and democratic persuasion are morally superior to coercion in religious and political matters, then America stands disarmed before those who believe it their duty to impose a starkly different view of the good society on us.

The war against jihadism is being contested on many fronts simultaneously. There is a military front, which involves Afghanistan and Iraq but also includes such unlikely places as the Caribbean, Mali and the Philippines. There is an intelligence front, an economic front, an energy front and a homeland-security front. Such a complex war, which could last a generation or more, cannot be the prerogative or burden of one political party. The war against jihadism must be owned by both political parties. Thus one measure of any presidential candidate's seriousness is this: can he or she build a bipartisan coalition capable of sustaining the long-haul struggle required to defeat jihadist nihilism?

The landscape is indeed forbidding. Still, there is some good news: the war against jihadism can lead to cultural and political renewal in America. Making compelling arguments in favor of the free society reconnects us with the great ideas on which our liberties rest. Putting faith and reason into conversation strengthens the unity of our diverse society. Defending religious freedom, and supporting Muslim reformers who seek an Islamic case for tolerance and pluralism, reminds us that American civil society is built on truths about the dignity of human life. Energy policies that de-fund jihadism by reducing our reliance on petroleum as a transportation fuel can ignite entrepreneurial energies, revitalize the American auto industry, and help the environment. Rational homeland security policies can make us safer and less beholden to political correctness.

The jihadist merchants of death must be defeated morally as well as militarily. Doing so offers the American people the opportunity for national self-renewal and the chance to defend the cause of human dignity throughout the world. The stakes—the future of freedom—are very high indeed. It's past time for those who would lead us to acknowledge that.

We are in a long-term, protacted war with radical Islam.

One of their war strategies is Jihad...but that is not all we fight. There are other military components (ie. state sponsored insurgents, state armies (Iran), and non-suiicide terror attacks).

There are also economic and political components where even states that we ally with have large componenets of their population who support the fight against us (Pakistan, Saudie Arabia, etc.) and other more radical states (Syria, Iran, Palistinians) use their influence directly in favor of the fighting forces we face.

There is also a cultural component that squashes any dissent within their own ranks to the point where very, very few so-called moderates (if there is such a thing) are willing to risk fatwahs against them by denouncing radical Islam.

And the reason is that what we call radical Islam is really fundamental ISlam becaus ethey all know, both the ones actively fighting us through all these different avenues, and the more moderate ones, that these enemies are literally doing what the Koran and Mohammed told them to do.

Not really. "Jihadism" is still a big dodge.

The enemy is ISLAM. Full stop.

It is the Islamic nations, not the Jihadi scum, that created OPEC that has been screwing with the world economy since Nixon.
It's Islamic nations, not Jihadis, who invaded Israel in 1948, 1954, 1967, 1973 and many times since.
It is Islam itself, not Jihadis, that gives support to the terrorist Palistinians, 1/2 of whom are not Jihadi's, but semi-secularized.
It is Islam, the religion, that oppresses woman and continues to put forward the customs of female cicumcision, honor killing, oppressive traditional polygamy.
It is Islam itself which has created the madrassas that poison the minds of millions, some small percentage of who eventually become Jihadis.
It is Islam itself, not Jihadis, that does not acknowledge freedom of religion and supports the death penalty for aposty.
It is Islam, not the small Jihadi offshoot, that has turned huge swaths of Europe into "no-go" zones for the native Europeans.
It is Islam, itself, not just Jihadis, that enjoins followers to war continously against all other faiths.
It is everyday Moslems, not Jihadis that continuously riot over cartoons, the Popes speech and anything else.
It is Islam, and it's followers that is so stealthiy taking over institutions and using them to squelch dissent. (Such as the Canadian Human Rights Comission, the Finland Internet censors, etc.
In summary it is ISLAM that is the problem.
There. I've named it.
This article STILL misses the damn point.

I'll tell you honestly. I don't want to fight the whole 1.5 billion Muslims. There is no Machiavelli , Sun Tzu or Paton who would prefer to do that. I think that its easier for us to fight "only" 200 millions of Jihadists. They successfully subvert the West's left to do their bidding. Why should not we pull all that Muslims who don't ACT jihadi to our side?

Note that I am not disagreeing that Jihad is born out of Islam. What I don't want to do is to know what they think their theology tells them, only how they act. There are hundreds upon hundreds of millions of Muslims who don't act jihad in their daily lives. If some muslims call them bad muslims for that - its their internal struggle. Look what happened in Iraq. Sunni turned away from Al Quada and call them "bad" muslims now. Did you read any of Michael Yon and Michael Totten reports from there?

That's the point. If you want to announce that 1.5 billion people are your enemies no matter what, what are you going to do? Nuke the hell out of them? If that is your solution, I am not with you. It won't be good for our sole neither. If we will be pushed into it - its totally different matter, but not by our choice. As Iraq and Afghanistan show, we can have muslim allies fighting radicals along side with us. Look at India - outside of some hot spots, the Muslims there enjoy relative democracy and peace.

My recipe is to fight smartly, confront them here and there as a confident "strong horse", with lots of self-respect and more of the type of work our guys in Iraq and Afghanistan doing, more Petraeus, Machiavelli and Sun Tzu and less of "nuke'm all, god will sort 'em out" - there is a difference between our Judeo/Christian philosophy and theirs after all, isn't it?

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