Frank Gaffney: At War with Islam

Frank Gaffney

Frank Gaffney is at it again, this time he’s writing for that favorite of warmongers everywhere, The Washington Times. Gaffney stuck a real “unbiased” note right off the bat by titling his article Understanding Islam’s Threat to the U.S. Vital. Yes, in case you didn’t know, that Faith that holds sway over 1.8 Billion people around the world is a threat to the USA. For this former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy nuance is synonymous with unnecessary. It isn’t extremism or radicalism but Islam itself that is to blame for all the problems we face.

The article takes umbrage at the new policies ushered in by the Obama administration. In fact, it starts out by stating that John Brennan, the assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism was wrong when he approvingly recalled a key point in Obama’s speech, “America is not and never will be at war with Islam.” To most reasonable people that statement just sounds like common sense but for Gaffney the real question is whether or not “Islam is at war with us?”

The obvious question is: how does a belief system which has been around longer than America, which has many interpretations and practitioners get cast as the antagonist in a war against America? How do you pit a religion against a whole nation, a nation which itself has many Muslim citizens? The nuanced answers coming from Obama and John Brennan is that we are not at war with Muslims and Islam but against “violent extremists” such as Al’Qaeda. This not only makes more sense but is also more accurate which means it will also be more effective in combating extremism and violence around the world.

The other point of Gaffney’s article, borrowing a term from Robert Spencer, is that even those Muslims who are not violently propagating their murderous vision for the world are engaged in a “stealth Jihad” to undermine America. This is a common and dangerous tactic by those in the Muslim-bashing industry. It asks you to suspend your better judgment and believe that you still have to be aware and afraid of those peaceful Muslims who are law abiding citizens because they are secretly planning to take over America and the world. It is the same kind of rhetoric that was used by Jew haters to further propagate anti-Semitism. The argument went that the peaceful Jew is plotting behind the scenes to destroy the gentiles, this kind of thinking gave birth to the infamous blood libels which eventually contributed to the horrific Holocaust.