Frank Gaffney Comes Closer

....than Don "Big Dog" Rumsfeld did the other day in describing the GWOT - which, for reasons that escape rational perception, the White House has suddenly felt the need to "re-brand":

So — despite possible dissidents — the Bush Administration says we are no longer waging the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Instead, we are told that it has become the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE). If we are not careful, the changes in focus implied by this new nomenclature could give rise to conditions described by a new acronym: GODSAVEUS (Global Order Defined by Sharia Afflicted by Virulent Enemies on the United States).

Actually, GWOI (Global War on Islam), or simply "World War IV," would be perfectly adequate. Either would have the virtue of being both straightforward and candid in describing the scope of the conflict.

Or perhaps I should say "war":

Let’s get a few things straight. This may be a war unlike any other we have ever fought, but it is a war. Nothing less than our survival as a free, democratic and secular nation is at stake.

We confront in this war ideologically driven enemies, not simply the instrument of their aggression, terrorism. They are bent on our destruction just as surely as were their predecessors — the Nazis, the fascists, and the Communists. Their stated goal is to establish a global “caliphate” subject to a repressive, Taliban-like interpretation of sharia.

Gaffney also emphasizes that we're all on the front lines in this war because the front lines can be anywhere, including where we live, and that consequently it is up to all of us to be vigilant.

Unfortunately even he makes a fatal concession to the political correctness orthodoxy that is the biggest threat to our ultimate victory:

Today’s totalitarian ideology has no agreed-upon name, although its political qualities can be properly described as Islamofascism. The absence of a descriptor embraced by its adherents is no accident. It is a natural byproduct of their desire to portray themselves not as a leading vanguard, discreet cadre, or elite but rather as the representatives of all Muslims. By so doing, they seek simultaneously to dominate the Islamic faith and to benefit from the tolerance the United States and other Western democracies have traditionally shown toward minorities in the name of religious freedom.

Today's totalitarian ideology does have a name; it's called Islam. And while the active jihadis aren't representative of all Muslims, they do enjoy the passive support of most of them. Certainly far, far more than could be dismissed as a "leading vanguard, discreet cadre, or elite." The absence of condemnation of the terrorists' activities and motivations is, it seems clear to me, less motivated by fear of retaliation than it is tacit approval, as the quasi-shifty machinations of domestic Islamic groups like CAIR amply illustrate. Certainly that possibility should at least be considered when making war policy, especially since ignoring it and pretending our enemies are "rogues" and "religion hijackers" and other such wishful thinking is causing the war effort to noticeably stagnate.

Avoiding such illusions is as important as vigilence - indeed, it is part of it. Projecting the unavoidable reality to the Muslim world that we are the "strong horse" and are going to stay that way, and not this hypersensitive pandering and mental masturbation about fictional "extremists" and "moderates," is part & parcel of why the broader Muslim world is not actively fighting against us. Arab culture is patently front-running, and respects strength above all else.

If we project strength, both material (i.e. military) and spiritual (i.e. will and resolve and tough-mindedness), the jihadis will, on the battlefield at the least, remain a "discreet cadre" because they will be seen by their co-religionists as losing (i.e. the "weak horse"). If we project weakness through ducking the true scope and nature of our enemies and allowing that to cause us to duck the unfinished military business in Syria and Iran, we will be perceived by that same audience as indecisive and hesitant, and the jihadis will, if not turn things around, at least be able to hang on longer, and bleed us in Iraq and Afghanistan more and longer than need be the case. And that may be long enough for al Qaeda to engineer another big attack or a series of "little" ones - or both.

It was only after the Second World War that we learned of how close both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan came to the deployment of (for the time) superweapons that may have significantly lengthened that "global struggle against violent extremism" or perhaps even turned the tide back in their favor. But then pretty much any war, particularly in the modern era, is as much against time as it is the enemy, to beat him to the punch before he can obtain and unleash any nasty surprises.

In this one, though, whatever silly label it's given, we are dawdling, even though the truth of the full identity of the enemy and the steps still needed to crush his "leading vanguard" once and for all are staring us right in the face. We just don't want to look.

Which means we'll never see the next blow coming.

Hardly a "war footing," it seems to me.