On May 26, John Brennan, President Obama's chief national security adviser for counterterrorism, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that "describing our enemy in religious terms would lend credence to the lie propagated by al Qaeda and its affiliates to justify terrorism, that the United States is somehow at war against Islam. The reality, of course, is that we have never been and will never be at war with Islam. After all, Islam, like so many faiths, is part of America." In another speech he said: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is but a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind and, as Americans, we refuse to live in fear. Nor do we describe our enemy as jihadists or Islamists because jihad is holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam meaning to purify oneself of one's community."
Now let me get this straight: the people we are fighting in Afghanistan and the people who attacked us in New York, Washington, and Fort Hood were not all devout Muslims who define jihad as Islam's struggle to take over the world and rid it of against all non-muslims (Islam's historical goal from the start). And they are not using terror as their primary weapon. And they are not fighting us for ideological reasons at all, but because...uh, why exactly are they fighting us? If it's not because they believe they are obeying the Koran, then why is it?
Mr. Brennan is either dangeroiusly naive or he is actually working to advance our enemy's cause.
