John Brennan spent a significant amount of time in his speech explaining the language changes the administration has made--to the chagrin of many foreign policy conservatives. Here he is addressing the "War on Terrorism" framework:
Indeed, it was telling that the President was actually criticized in certain quarters in this country for not using words like “terror,” “terrorism” or “terrorist” in that speech. This goes to the heart of his new approach. Why should a great and powerful nation like the United States allow its relationship with more than a billion Muslims around the world be defined by the narrow hatred and nihilistic actions of an exceptionally small minority of Muslims? After all, this is precisely what Osama bin Laden intended with the Sept. 11 attacks: to use al Qaeda to foment a clash of civilizations in which the United States and Islam are seen as distinct identities that are in conflict. In his approach to the world and in his approach to safeguarding the American people, President Obama is determined not to validate al Qaeda’s twisted worldview.
One of the most striking parts of the speech this morning was his criticism of the term "jihadists" for describing terrorists--language changes that were advised by Homeland Security officials in the Bush administration, but weren't exactly embraced:
Nor does President Obama see this challenge as a fight against “jihadists.” Describing terrorists in this way—using a legitimate term, “jihad,” meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal—risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve. Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself. And this is why President Obama has confronted this perception directly and forcefully in his speeches to Muslim audiences, declaring that America is not and never will be at war with Islam.
He's going to get hammered for this by conservatives, but I would argue that they've failed to produce evidence that name-calling is an effective counterterrorism strategy.
The change in language is part of the administration's foreign policy jiu-jitsu. Obama has earned a certain amount of goodwill in the Muslim world--the administration hopes to capitalize on it, by painting terrorists as the enemy of ordinary Muslims, and avoiding the "clash of civilizations" framework that al-Qaeda has used to its advantage. To wit:
President Obama understands that successfully defeating these extremists over the long term requires breaking this bond—exposing al Qaeda as nothing but the death cult that it is and isolating extremists from the people they pretend to serve. Often, the extremists do this themselves. Time and again, their barbarism, brutality, and beheadings have provoked backlashes among ordinary people, from Afghanistan under the Taliban to al Qaeda in Iraq and increasingly in Pakistan today.
Going forward, people must come to see that it is the likes of al Qaeda and the Taliban, Hezbollah, and Hamas—not the United States—that is holding their aspirations hostage; that of all those al Qaeda has killed, most have been Muslims; that the murder of innocent civilians, as the President said in Cairo, is not how moral authority is claimed, but how it is surrendered; that the future offered by extremists is not one of peace but violence, not of hope and opportunity but poverty and despair.
This approach could not have worked with the previous president. Bush's quasi-religious rhetoric, his behavior in the region, and the bellicose saber-rattling of those surrounding him would have made this approach sound preposterous to the intended audience. To defeat terrorist groups, the administration can't simply kill them--it has ensure that they are delegitimized, their moral authority undermined.
Brennan believes this administration can do better on that front. He spoke little about the prior administration--except to take one brief, but devastating shot at the Bushies, saying, "Eight years ago this morning I read warnings that Osama bin Laden was determined to strike inside the U.S., but our government was unable to prevent the worst terrorist attack in American history that would occur on 9/11. "
-- A. Serwer
