Unwarranted Attack on Petraeus Aide

Diana West's holier-than-thou attack on Dr. David Kilcullen of Gen. David Petraeus' senior staff in Baghdad must be a delight to al Qaeda and Hizballah propagandists and anti-American brainwashers worldwide.

In a June 1, 2007 Washington Times essay entitled “Pay attention to jihad,” she slams the Australian-born anti-Terrorism strategist for an assertion several months ago that so-called "jihad" (holy war in the name of Allah, etc.) has assumed the stature of heroic "adventure" in the minds, hearts and souls of many young Muslims.

She distorts Kilcullen's words into the preposterous speculation that  he approves of this development and asks whether if he had grown up in Hitler's Germany he “might have become a Nazi” — when, in fact, the man and his fellow counterinsurgency (COIN) experts are attempting to discover an effective antidote for a highly seductive “Jihadi martyrdom” factor which is providing al Qaeda-style Terrorism with an endless supply of enthusiastic young suicide mass murderers.

Recall, please, the Cold War situation in which Communism's so-called "wars of national liberation" became the heroic cause celebre of young "progressives" and "patriotic fronts" — and how outraged their Western apologists, sympathizers and "useful idiots" became when Ronald Reagan dared to call their Soviet sponsors "The Evil Empire."

And recall, also, that during the Reagan years almost everyone was referring routinely to Soviet “adventurism” in Central America, Africa and worldwide. This was simply because we opted not to call their rampant imperialism and colonialism by those truthful words — just as Ms.West is now mindlessly opting to call al Qaeda killers “holy” rather than satanic.

But when David Kilcullen attempts to strip the so-called "Jihadists" of their holy and godly standing in the Muslim World, she objects loudly and insists that we stick with the "holy guys" imagery which this much-debated term so falsely implies. (By this perverse standard, she may well have wasted her time insisting that we condemn the Soviets as damnable "liberationists.")

Addiction to the “Jihad” Label

This addiction to the "Jihad" label is so powerful as to exclude from her own lexicon virtually all of the Arabic and Islamic labels which would serve to draw a bright-line distinction — a "disaggregation" Dr. Kilcullen calls it — between these suicide mass murdering terrorists (genocidal irhabis in Arabic) and those "moderate Muslims" who most experts say constitute the great majority, albeit a frustratingly passive majority, of the Muslim World.

Perhaps she has not noticed that a very similar distinction is made by the now famous PBS-funded — and PBS-suppressed — film produced by former Reagan Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney makes between quietly worshipful Muslims and the bloodthirsty "Islamists." Clearly, this film affirms that the latter, while professing to act “in the way of Allah,” are actually the deadly enemies of the "peaceful, compassionate, merciful and just" Allah who is worshiped by the moderates.

Strangely enough, Ms West strongly supports the Gaffney film and its "good guy" versus "bad guy" distinctions while at the same time lambasting Kilcullen for his efforts in this same strategic direction, though by slightly different and more specifically religious tactics — in words which challenge Osama bin Laden's patently false claims of holiness and godliness. But all the while, Ms West is inadvertently  polishing al Qaeda's halo, instead. For example,

• UBL calls what he and his killers are doing "Jihad." Diana West enthusiastically agrees and even seems to insist that no other word will do.

• UBL wants his genocidal evildoers to be called "Jihadis." Again, she agrees. (She used to berate President Bush for calling them "evildoers" (mufsiduun in Arabic) rather than holy war "Jihadists.")

• UBL calls their suicide bombing "Martyrdom Operations." And so does Diana West — but never has she uttered the "irhabi murderdom" condemnation which reveals the true nature of such atrocities.

• UBL promises his "young lions of Islam” a clear path to Paradise — with 72 virgins in the receiving line. The lady has never denied or ridiculed that false postulation but, instead, ridicules Kilcullen for worrying that this vivid image of an Allah-approved sex-orgy Paradise must sound like one hell of an "adventure" to thousands of young Muslim men.

• UBL justifies all of these holy, heroic and Paradise-bound activities as a proper reward for killing all of us "infidels." Here again, Ms. West fails to point out (as she most certainly knows) that the Quran itself quite clearly states that Christianity and Judaism are not infidel religions — but are brotherly Abrahamic religions, instead.

So, while Dr. Kilcullen is searching prudently for labels in both English and Arabic which will not inadvertently enhance al Qaeda's legitimacy but will make it an apostate enemy of Quranic Islam, Diana West strenuously objects. Remarkably, she insists that bin Laden's carefully concocted lexicon of self-justification and self-canonization is fine and dandy — and that those who refuse to parrot these pro-UBL labels are somehow "indifferent" toward the terrorists.

Believes That Islam Is The Enemy

The problem here is that Ms. West has apparently decided that Islam itself is the enemy and that the "Irhabi Murderdom" terrorists are, in fact, a true and faithful embodiment of that religion. She seems to believe that to call these ruthless killers munafiquun (hypocrites) mufsiduun (evildoers) and murtaduun (apostates) and khawarij (outside the religion deviants) and to condemn them for waging Hirabah (Unholy War) is to draw an improper distinction between them and Quranic Islam.

This is, of course, exactly the picture which the Irhabi masterminds (bin Laden, al Zawahiri, al Sadr, Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, Mullah Omar and their satanic ilk) want her to paint — namely, a persecuted but unified Islam representing an all-approving Allah, which is under ruthless attack by an "occupying" and "humiliating" and “arrogant” America representing an all-evil "Great Satan."

While General Petraeus, Dr. Kilcullen and their COIN colleagues are prudently attempting to convey the message that it is the AQ-style, hyena-like Terrorists who are the real enemies of "moderate" Islam, both Generals Nancy Pelosi and Diana West are busy chopping these good men to bits — one from the "Progressive" (i.e., communoid) Left and the other from the Well-Intended but Thoroughly Confused (WITC) Right.

As for David Kilcullen, he should simply continue his search for the truthful words and frames of reference which will finally begin to demonize the Terrorists in their language, their culture and their religion – hopefully, in ways which are as least as effective as the deceitful ways in which they have long been demonizing us.

In due course, it will become quite obvious that it is not Dr. Kilcullen but Diana West herself whose remarks convey a deep “non-comprehension” and an “indifference” to the satanic nature of so-called “jihad” – and to the bloody consequences of calling it “holy” and its ungodly perpetrators “martyrs.”

Jim Guirard – TrueSpeak Institute  703-768-0957  [email protected]   (and TrueSpeak.org).  A Washington DC-area attorney, writer, lecturer and anti-Terrorism strategist, Jim Guirard was longtime Chief of Staff to former US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long. His TrueSpeak Institute is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.