McMaster: A good man for another job

The New York Times has reported that National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster believes that using the term “radical Islamic terrorism” is counterproductive. Further explaining this belief, he further indicated “the phrase is unhelpful because terrorist organizations like ISIS represent a perversion of Islam, and are thus un-Islamic.” Just off the runway, and even before he has retracted his landing gear, McMaster has driven a stake deep through the heart of Donald Trump’s most prescient of visions.

Weren’t the frustratingly feckless counterterrorist policies of the Obama administration based on this same horribly flawed premise? Haven’t we learned that imposing exercises of academic etiquette on the field of battle serves only to complicate the already convoluted exercise of incisively identifying and isolating the enemy?
Like Obama, McMaster labors aimlessly under the outworn pretense that it is our obligation to paper-over the inherent ideological defects of Islam. The reality is that the viciously aggressive movement of political Islam, which in varying degrees, has raged globally since the birth of Islam in 728 AD, exists inside of the religion of Islam. It is the obligation of the adherents of the religion of Islam to take decisive action which definitively breaks with Islam’s 1,400 year old track record of violence and racism. Since 9/11, Islamist terrorists have claimed responsibility globally for over 30,388 acts of terror.

The process of defining and extracting the religion of Islam from the “Koranically” inspired movement of political Islam, can only be accomplished through the courageous efforts of Muslim adherents who stand up and reject those portions of the Koran which inspire racism and violent subjugation of non-believers. Despite a clear majority of Muslims who do aspire to a more Westernized template, this requirement poses a massive hurdle. By a long shot, more Muslims have died at the hands of Islamists than any other religion or sect. Hence to most peace-seeking Muslims, the price of admission would appear prohibitive. Without assisting Muslims in the task of building a credible fire-wall between themselves and Islamists who would otherwise aggressively pursue their destruction, there can be no productive advances in the complicated task of extracting the peaceful tenets of the Koran, from the heinously imperialistic tenets.

The most important step in the process of extraction for Muslims is for those Muslims to gain confidence in the West’s commitment to defend them against the unquestionable repercussions that will result from their blasphemous rejection. It is not a lot different than building the confidence of battered woman who, through vigilant support of friends, builds the confidence to seek legal protection from her abuser. Up until this point, Western nations, following the lead of the failed Obama doctrine, have chosen to substitute diplomatic sanitization of Islam’s obvious barbs, over the forthright confrontation of the undeniably obvious truth. Muslims who would like to move out from underneath the crushing burden of this obsolete seventh century dogma, are stymied by this diplomatic “shucking and jiving”. The groveling that this unctuous squirming conveys is far from the respect that its uninformed authors intend to communicate. Rather it is seen for what it is; a confused and non-coordinated response, which thereby leaves aspiring Muslims dazed, confused and discouraged that even with perceived strength of Western power, that Western leaders cower before the same subjugators that they do.

McMaster, in addition to his reputation as a brilliant tactician has been billed as an astute observer of history. Absent the essential reading of Islamic history that his ill-advised reticence conveys, this “Paton-like” persona is dangerously deficient. McMaster seems to emerge from his corner not with the lion-like fury demanded by the task, but more like a muzzled poodle, constrained by the dictates of an outmoded CENTCOM playbook. Instead of confronting political Islam in all of its ravenous appetite, this outdated volume defers to the irrelevant sensibilities of yesterday’s oil-barons, who now more than ever feel the need to reverse the regional unwinding that has resulted from the last eight years of American neutrality.