WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's advisers will remove religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the U.S. national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.
The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century."
The officials described the changes on condition of anonymity because the document still was being written, and the White House would not discuss it. But rewriting the strategy document will be the latest example of Obama putting his stamp on U.S. foreign policy, like his promises to dismantle nuclear weapons and limit the situations in which they can be used.
The revisions are part of a larger effort about which the White House talks openly, one that seeks to change not just how the United States talks to Muslim nations, but also what it talks to them about, from health care and science to business startups and education.
That shift away from terrorism has been building for a year, since Obama went to Cairo, Egypt, and promised a "new beginning" in the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. The White House believes the previous administration based that relationship entirely on fighting terror and winning the war of ideas.
"You take a country where the overwhelming majority are not going to become terrorists, and you go in and say, 'We're building you a hospital so you don't become terrorists.' That doesn't make much sense," said National Security Council staffer Pradeep Ramamurthy.
Ramamurthy runs the administration's Global Engagement Directorate, a four-person National Security Council team that Obama launched last May with little fanfare and a vague mission to use diplomacy and outreach "in pursuit of a host of national security objectives."
Since then, the division has not only helped change the vocabulary of fighting terror but also has shaped the way the country invests in Muslim businesses, studies global warming, supports scientific research and combats polio.
Before diplomats go abroad, they hear from the Ramamurthy or his deputy, Jenny Urizar. When officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration returned from Indonesia, the NSC got a rundown about research opportunities on global warming.
Ramamurthy maintains a database of interviews conducted by 50 U.S. embassies worldwide. And business leaders from more than 40 countries head to Washington this month for an "entrepreneurship summit" for Muslim businesses.
"Do you want to think about the U.S. as the nation that fights terrorism or the nation you want to do business with?" Ramamurthy said.
To deliver that message, Obama's speechwriters have taken inspiration from an unlikely source: former President Ronald Reagan. Visiting communist China in 1984, Reagan spoke to Fudan University in Shanghai about education, space exploration and scientific research.
He discussed freedom and liberty. He never mentioned communism or democracy.
"They didn't look up to the U.S. because we hated communism," said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, Obama's foreign policy speechwriter.
Like Reagan in China, Obama in Cairo made only passing references to terrorism. Instead he focused on cooperation. He announced the United States would team up to fight polio with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a multinational body based in Saudi Arabia.
The United States and the OIC had worked together before, but never with that focus.
"President Obama saw it as an opportunity to say, `We work on things far beyond the war on terrorism,"' said World Health Organization spokeswoman Sona Bari.
Polio is endemic in three Muslim countries -- Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan -- but some Muslim leaders have been suspicious of vaccination efforts, which they believed to be part of a CIA sterilization campaign. Last year, the OIC and religious scholars at the International Islamic Fiqh Academy issued a fatwa, or religious decree, that parents should have their children vaccinated.
"We're probably entering into a whole new level of engagement between the OIC and the polio program because of the stimulus coming from the U.S. government," said Michael Galway, who works on polio eradication for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Centers for Disease Control also began working more closely with local Islamic leaders in northern Nigeria, a network that had been overlooked for years, said John Fitzsimmons, the deputy director of the CDC's immunization division.
Though health officials are reluctant to assign credit to any one action, new polio cases in Nigeria fell from 83 during the first quarter of last year to just one so far this year, Fitzsimmons said.
Public opinion polls also showed consistent improvement in U.S. sentiment within the Muslim world last year, although the viewpoints are still overwhelmingly negative, however.
Obama did not invent Muslim outreach. President George W. Bush gave the White House its first Quran, hosted its first Iftar dinner to celebrate Ramadan, and loudly stated support for Muslim democracies like Turkey.
But the Bush administration struggled with its rhetoric. Muslims criticized him for describing the war against terror as a "crusade" and labeling the invasion of Afghanistan "Operation Infinite Justice" -- words that were seen as religious. He regularly identified America's enemy as "Islamic extremists" and "radical jihadists."
Karen Hughes, a Bush confidant who served as his top diplomat to the Muslim world in his second term, urged the White House to stop.
"I did recommend that, in my judgment, it's unfortunate because of the way it's heard. We ought to avoid the language of religion," Hughes said. "Whenever they hear 'Islamic extremism, Islamic jihad, Islamic fundamentalism,' they perceive it as a sort of an attack on their faith. That's the world view Osama bin Laden wants them to have."
Hughes and Juan Zarate, Bush's former deputy national security adviser, said Obama's efforts build on groundwork from Bush's second term, when some of the rhetoric softened. But by then, Zarate said, it was overshadowed by the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and a prolonged Iraq war.
"In some ways, it didn't matter what the president did or said. People weren't going to be listening to him in the way we wanted them to," Zarate said. "The difference is, President Obama had a fresh start."
Obama's foreign policy posture is not without political risk. Even as Obama steps up airstrikes on terrorists abroad, he has proven vulnerable to Republican criticism on security issues at home, such as the failed Christmas Day airline bombing and the announced-then-withdrawn plan to prosecute 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York.
Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist and former Bush adviser, is skeptical of Obama's engagement effort. It "doesn't appear to have created much in the way of strategic benefit" in the Middle East peace process or in negotiations over Iran's nuclear ambitions, he said.
Obama runs the political risk of seeming to adopt politically correct rhetoric abroad while appearing tone deaf on national security issues at home, Feaver said.
The White House dismisses such criticism. In June, Obama will travel to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, and is expected to revisit many of the themes of his Cairo speech.
"This is the long-range direction we need to go in," Ramamurthy said.
Obama at odds with Petraeus doctrine on 'Islam'
The
White House's official policy of banning the word "Islam" in describing America's terrorist enemies is in direct conflict with the
U.S. military's war-fighting doctrine now guiding commanders in
Iraq and
Afghanistan.
John O. Brennan, President Obama's chief national security adviser for counterterrorism, delivered a major policy address on defining the enemy. He laid out the
White House policy of detaching any reference to Islam when referring to terrorists, be it
al Qaeda, the
Taliban or any other group.
But Army
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the man tapped by
Mr. Obama as the new top commander in
Afghanistan, led the production of an extensive counterinsurgency manual in December 2006 that does, in fact, tell commanders of a link between Islam and extremists.
The Petraeus doctrine refers to "Islamic insurgents," "Islamic extremists" and "Islamic subversives." It details ties between Muslim support groups and terrorists. His co-author was
Gen. James F. Amos, whom
Mr. Obama has picked as the next
Marine Corps commandant and Joint Chiefs of Staff member.
Mr. Brennan on May 26 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 a speech that also severed the
Obama administration from President
George W. Bush's "war on terror,"
Mr. Brennan also said: "The president's strategy is absolutely clear about the threat we face. 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.""Once you attach a religious thing, you're basically saying somehow or other this is caused by the religion,"
Mr. Korb said. "Most Muslims are not that way."
He added, "If you put that term [Islamic terrorist] on there, it causes you more problems in the long run. You don't want to see this as a war on quote unquote the Muslim world. If I took a look at all the people, for example, who killed abortion doctors and I said they're Christian terrorists, or something like that, and they are all who have done that. That is their interpretation of the Bible. But most people are not. Some of these people will quote the Bible and say I had to go after this doctor because he's killing innocents."
Asked how to define the enemy, Mr. Korb answered, "Al Qaeda. That's what we went in there for." Mr. Brennan said that describing the enemy as Islamists "would actually be counterproductive. It would play into the false perception that they are religious leaders defending a holy cause, when in fact they are nothing more than murderers, including the murder of thousands upon thousands of Muslims."
Mr. Obama made an outreach to Muslim countries one of his early priorities as president. He has praised Islam and its contributions to American life. His new NASA director recently said one of his agency's "foremost" goals is reaching out to Muslims.
The Petraeus counterinsurgency manual takes the position that, to understand the enemy, commanders must recognize terrorist links to Islam — its leaders in some cases, its fundraising and its infrastructure. Forces must fight "Islamic extremists," it says, differently from the Viet Cong or followers of Saddam Hussein.
"Islamic extremists use perceived threats to their religion by outsiders to mobilize support for their insurgency and justify terrorist tactics," the manual states.
In a section on the ideological source for Islamic terrorists, the doctrine says, "For many Muslims, the Caliphate produces a positive image of the golden age of Islamic civilization. This image mobilizes support for
al Qaeda among some of the most traditional Muslims while concealing the details of the movement's goal. In fact,
al Qaeda's leaders envision the 'restored Caliphate' as a totalitarian state similar to the pre-2002
Taliban regime in
Afghanistan."
The manual also discusses support networks for "Islamic extremists:"
"A feature of today's operational environment deserving mention is the effort by Islamic extremists, including those that advocate violence, to spread their influence through the funding and use of entities that share their views or facilitate them to varying degrees. These entities may or may not be threats themselves; however, they can provide passive or active support to local or distant insurgencies."
Among these support groups, it says, are "religious schools and mosques."
In the successful prosecution of an Islamic charity in Dallas that funneled money to the designated terrorist group Hamas, the U.S. Justice Department listed scores of
U.S.-based Islamic groups as unindicted co-conspirators.
The counterinsurgency doctrine also talks of people "committed to anti-
United States terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism."
How to define the enemy has been debated in Washington since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Liberal groups such as the
Center for American Progress advocated no Islam link, while conservatives generally say a more precise definition of the enemy is needed if the
U.S. hopes to win.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, some Muslims criticized the Republican candidate,
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for using the term "Islamic extremism."
"If it's not our intent to paint everyone with the same brush, then certainly we should think seriously about just characterizing them as criminals, because that is what they are," Muneer Fareed, who then headed the Islamic Society of North America, told The Washington Times.
Douglas Feith, who as undersecretary of defense for policy under Mr.
Bush helped plan the war on terror, said, "There always has been a sensitivity that we do not want to do or say anything that will allow our efforts to be mischaracterized credibly as a war against Islam."
Mr. Feith, an analyst at the Hudson Institute, is now working on a paper on a
U.S. strategy for countering "Islamist extremism."
"What
Brennan has done in this speech, I think, he's bent over backwards to avoid using the term Islam at all and it makes discussions of what we're really up against artificial, unrealistic and strategically unhelpful,"
Mr. Feith said. "I think they need to be a little bolder and a little more honest and a little more assertive in making this extremely important distinction. To say Islam has nothing to do with it is ridiculous."
He describes the distinction this way:
"People in the
administration should be making the clear distinction between Islam, which is a religion and which is not our enemy, and extremist Islamism, which is a political ideology and is our enemy. … The fact is our enemies fly the banner of Islam. They claim to represent the religion. There are other people in the religion who say they don't. What we need to be clear about is, our enemy has an extremist political ideology. They describe that ideology as the true religion. And there is no way we can deal with this phenomenon without confronting the fact that the enemy political ideology is rooted in a religion."
Mr. Brennan, in a June 24 meeting with reporters and editors of The Times, said that the
administration's goal of not describing
al Qaeda and its allies in Islamic terms is aimed at denying them legitimacy.
A 2008 U.S. Central Command "Red Team" report, or contrarian analysis, warned that divorcing Islam from jihadist terrorism is a mistake.
"The sources of Islam (Quran, Hadith, Shariah) claim divine origin and include a large body of Islamic jurisprudence on warfare that is detailed, instructive and directive," the report said. "A balanced, intellectually critical approach must be taken in order to deconstruct the prime underpinnings and language of the concept of jihad, which rest firmly in the sources of Islam and not solely as contrivances within the criminal minds of a small number of violent extremists."
Holder raises question on Sept. 11 death penalty
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder says there's a real question about whether a terrorist suspect such as self-professedSept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed can face the death penalty if he were to plead guilty before a military commission.
Holder proposed last year trying Mohammed and four alleged accomplices in civilian courts in New York City. But that idea generated so much controversy that it's all but been abandoned.
He told CBS' "Face the Nation" that it's possible to impose the death penalty in a civilian setting for someone who pleads guilty. But he says there's far less legal certainty about that possibility in a military setting.
Since January, Holder has said that all options are on the table about where to try Mohammed and the four other terrorist suspects. That includes the possibility of having them go before a military commission in Guantanamo Bay, where they are now held.
Mohammed, who was captured in Pakistan in 2003, has proclaimed his involvement in the Sept. 11 plot and has said he wants to plead guilty and be executed, achieving what he views as martyrdom.
Holder said the Obama administration is working through issues about a site for the proceedings, taking into account the need for Congress to approve funding and trying to address concerns expressed by local officials.
"As soon as we can" resolve those issues, "we will make a decision as to where that trial will occur," Holder said.
He said "the politicization of this issue, when we're dealing with ultimate national security issues, is something that disturbs me a great deal."
The attorney general said it is his hope that Congress provides money to move Guantanamo detainees to a new location in Thomson, Ill., where an underused state prison now exists.
"There is no reason to believe that people held in Guantanamo cannot be held wherever we put them in the United States. Again, very safely and very effectively," Holder said.
The need for congressional approval of the money for the project stands in the way of doing so, withRepublicans and some Democrats objecting to bringing those prisoners into the United States.
Terror Experts Blast Obama for Dropping References to Islamic Extremism
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's recent move to drop rhetorical references to Islamic radicalism is drawing fire in a new report warning the decision ignores the role religion can play in motivating terrorists.
Several prominent counterterror experts are challenging the administration's shift in its recently unveiled National Security Strategy, saying the terror threat should be defined in order to fight it.
The question of how to frame the conflict against Al Qaeda and other terrorists poses a knotty problem. The U.S. is trying to mend fences with Muslim communities while toughening its strikes against militant groups.
In the report, scheduled to be released this week, counterterrorism experts from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy argue that the U.S. could clearly articulate the threat from radical Islamic extremists "without denigrating the Islamic religion in any way."
President Obama has argued that words matter, and administration officials have said that the use of inflammatory descriptions linking Islam to the terror threat feed the enemy's propaganda and may alienate moderate Muslims in the U.S.
In the report, which was obtained by The Associated Press, the analysts warn that U.S. diplomacy must sharpen the distinction between the Muslim faith and violent Islamist extremism, identify radicalizers within Islamic communities and empower voices that can contest the radical teachings.
Militant Islamic propaganda has reportedly been a factor in a spate of recent terror attacks and foiled attempts within the U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan, the suspect in the Fort Hood, Texas, mass shootings last year, is believed to have been inspired by the Internet postings of violent Islamic extremists, as was Faisal Shahzad, who pleaded guilty to terrorism and weapons charges in the May 1 attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square.
The report acknowledges that the Obama administration has beefed up efforts to work with the Muslim community in the U.S. and abroad and has also expanded counterterrorism operations and tried to erode and divide Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups.
As it unveiled its new National Security Strategy last May, administration officials said the shift in emphasis was critical in undercutting Al Qaeda's efforts to portray its attacks on the U.S. and the west as a justified holy war.
Terror leaders "play into the false perception that they are religious leaders defending a holy cause, when in fact they are nothing more than murderers, including the murder of thousands upon thousands of Muslims," said top administration counterterror deputy John Brennan during a May 24 speech explaining the shift. He added that "describing our enemy in religious terms would lend credence to the lie -- propagated by al-Qaida and its affiliates to justify terrorism -- that the United States is somehow at war against Islam."
But the administration's two-pronged approach of stepping up counterterror operations while tamping down its rhetoric, the critics argue, needs to also include an ideological counteratteck with policies and programs that empower moderate Islamic voices and contest extremist narratives.
"There is an ideology that is driving Al Qaeda and its affiliates," said Matt Levitt, one of the authors of the study on countering violent extremism.
The administration, Levitt said, has to separate discussion of Islam as a religion from the radical Islamic ideology that is producing and fueling global insurgencies. The study is due out next week, but the authors, Levitt, a former FBI and Treasury official, and co-author J. Scott Carpenter, were to preview it Monday.
Juan Zarate, a former top counterterror official in former President George W. Bush's administration, added that the U.S. government has always been uncomfortable dealing with ideological battles. Zarate, who also participated in the report, said there are a number of non-governmental groups already speaking out against violent preachings.
The report follows the public disclosure of an exchange earlier this year between Sen. Joe Lieberman and Brennan over the effort to scale back the Bush administration's portrayal of Islamic extremism as a root cause of terrorism.
Lieberman, an independent, raised the issue in a letter to the White House, saying that "the failure to identify our enemy for what it is -- violent Islamist extremism -- is offensive and contradicts thousands of years of accepted military and intelligence doctrine to 'know your enemy."'
In a response to Lieberman, Brennan said the administration hasn't specifically issued any directive barring the use of specific words or phrases. But he said it is important to accurately define the enemy and assess the threat.
"In my view, using 'Islamic extremist' and other variations of that phrase does not bring us closer to this objective," Brennan said in a letter to Lieberman. "Rather, the phrase lumps a diverse set of organizations, with different motivations, goals, capabilities and justifications for their actions, into a single group in a way that may actually be counterproductive."
Group criticizes U.S. for dropping references to Islamic extremism
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Obama administration's recent move to drop rhetorical references to Islamic radicalism is drawing fire in a new report warning the decision ignores the role religion can play in motivating terrorists.
Several prominent counterterror experts are challenging the
administration's shift in its recently unveiled National Security Strategy, saying the terror threat should be defined in order to fight it.
The question of how to frame the conflict against
al Qaeda and other terrorists poses a knotty problem. The
U.S. is trying to mend fences with Muslim communities while toughening its strikes against militant groups.
In the report, scheduled to be released this week, counterterrorism experts from the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy argue that the
U.S. could clearly articulate the threat from radical Islamic extremists "without denigrating the Islamic religion in any way."
President
Obama has argued that words matter, and administration officials have said that the use of inflammatory descriptions linking Islam to the terror threat feed the enemy's propaganda and may alienate moderate Muslims in the
U.S.In the report, which was obtained by the
Associated Press, the analysts warn that
U.S. diplomacy must sharpen the distinction between the Muslim faith and violent Islamist extremism, identify radicalizers within Islamic communities and empower voices that can contest the radical teachings.
Militant Islamic propaganda has reportedly been a factor in a spate of recent terror attacks and foiled attempts within the U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan, the suspect in the Fort Hood, Texas, mass shootings last year, is believed to have been inspired by the Internet postings of violent Islamic extremists, as was
Faisal Shahzad, who pleaded guilty to terrorism and weapons charges in the May 1 attempted car bombing in
New York's Times Square.
The report acknowledges that the
Obama administration has beefed up efforts to work with the Muslim community in the
U.S. and abroad and has also expanded counterterrorism operations and tried to erode and divide
al Qaeda and its affiliated groups.
As it unveiled its new National Security Strategy last May, administration officials said the shift in emphasis was critical in undercutting
al-Qaida's efforts to portray its attacks on the
U.S. and the west as a justified holy war.
Terror leaders "play into the false perception that they are religious leaders defending a holy cause, when in fact they are nothing more than murderers, including the murder of thousands upon thousands of Muslims," said top administration counterterror deputy
John Brennanduring a May 24 speech explaining the shift. He added that "describing our enemy in religious terms would lend credence to the lie — propagated by
al-Qaida and its affiliates to justify terrorism — that the
United States is somehow at war against Islam."
But the
administration's two-pronged approach of stepping up counterterror operations while tamping down its rhetoric, the critics argue, needs to also include an ideological counteratteck with policies and programs that empower moderate Islamic voices and contest extremist narratives.
"There is an ideology that is driving
al Qaeda and its affiliates," said
Matt Levitt, one of the authors of the study on countering violent extremism.
The
administration,
Mr. Levitt said, has to separate discussion of Islam as a religion from the radical Islamic ideology that is producing and fueling global insurgencies. The study is due out next week, but the authors,
Mr. Levitt, a former FBI and Treasury official, and co-author J. Scott Carpenter, were to preview it Monday.
Juan Zarate, a former top counterterror official in the
Bush administration, added that the U.S. government has always been uncomfortable dealing with ideological battles. Mr. Zarate, who also participated in the report, said there are a number of non-governmental groups already speaking out against violent preachings.
The report follows the public disclosure of an exchange earlier this year between
Sen. Joe I. Lieberman, Connecticut Independent, and
Mr. Brennan over the effort to scale back the
Bush administration's portrayal of Islamic extremism as a root cause of terrorism.
Mr. Lieberman raised the issue in a letter to the White House, saying that "the failure to identify our enemy for what it is — violent Islamist extremism — is offensive and contradicts thousands of years of accepted military and intelligence doctrine to 'know your enemy.'"
In a response to
Mr. Lieberman,
Mr. Brennan said the
administrationhasn't specifically issued any directive barring the use of specific words or phrases. But he said it is important to accurately define the enemy and assess the threat.
"In my view, using 'Islamic extremist' and other variations of that phrase does not bring us closer to this objective,"
Mr. Brennan said in a letter to
Mr. Lieberman. "Rather, the phrase lumps a diverse set of organizations, with different motivations, goals, capabilities and justifications for their actions, into a single group in a way that may actually be counterproductive."
