General John Allen: US must “defeat the idea” of the Islamic State

The Truth About Islam

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You can’t defeat an enemy that you refuse to name or speak of (in accordance with Obama’s sharia-compliant restrictions on jihad), as I have said so many times that I think my tongue is going to fall off.  Despite this simple piece of logic, the political, military and media elites still fail to grasp the theological issues that drive this savage movement.
Last week Maj. Gen. Michael Nagata said, “We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it.” They do not understand the “movement” because Obama’s sharia compliant policy prohibits any criticism or mention of Islam.
They do not understand the movement because terror groups like CAIR and MAS demanded (and got) the Obama administration to stop true scholars of Islam like Robert Spencer and Ibn Warraq from speaking to and educating the FBI, CIA, et al about the jihadic doctrine.

Now General Allen has said, we must “defeat the idea,” “the brand” of the Islamic State. Is Christianity a brand? Judaism a brand? These statements reflect Allen’s breathtaking ignorance on these grave issues. It’s an ideology, a religious mandate, not an idea. And when he says that he doesn’t believe that Obama  intended to imply the “annihilation of Daesh” (using Obama’s new word choice for the Islamic State), what then? How can we hope to defeat the Islamic State if we refuse to destroy it?
And how you can “defeat an idea” if you refuse to identify it?

Let’s be frank, this is long overdue from the military. They know. They see. When our brave men and women are fighting in jihadi nations and the Muslim soldiers are citing Quran chapter and verse, slaughtering in the cause of Islam and killing non-Muslims and heretical Muslims (apostates in their minds), how can reality be denied?
But reality denial is Obama policy, and these generals finally speaking out is long overdue.
How many hundreds of thousands of victims of jihad wars is it going to take before the West finally confronts the truth about Islam? This is Islamic jihad. That doesn’t mean that every Muslims wants to wage jihad, but so what? We must deal with the millions that do.

General Allen: US must “defeat the idea” of the Islamic State (thanks to Robert Spencer) January 3, 2014

General Allen: US must “defeat the idea” of the Islamic State (thanks to Robert Spencer) January 3, 2014
There is no indication that General Allen has any idea of what he is talking about. What “idea” does he propose to defeat? He probably means that he is going to destroy the idea that the Islamic State constitutes the new caliphate — which is no doubt one reason why the media establishment keeps churning out its endless stream of disingenuous and deceptive “ISIS is not Islamic” articles. But he is part of an Administration that has prohibited examination of the jihadis’ belief system; that is going to hamstring his efforts to combat it.
“Obama Envoy John Allen: No ‘Short-Term Solutions’ for Stopping Islamic State,” by Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark, Spiegel, December 31, 2014:
In an interview, US General John Allen, Washington’s special envoy for countering the Islamic State, discusses why he believes the recent military campaign has reversed the terrorist group’s momentum but warns the battle to stop its ideology could take years.
General John Allen, 61, has served as special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State (IS) under US President Barack Obama since September. He previously served for three years as the deputy commander of the US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In an interview with SPIEGEL, Allen uses the Arabic term “Daesh” when referring to IS in order to prevent having to say the word “state”.
No, it’s to avoid having to say the word “Islamic.”
…SPIEGEL: President Obama has stated he wants to “ultimately destroy and dismantle” IS. Was it a mistake to set such a maximalist goal that is almost impossible to reach?
Allen: It’s important to have a clear understanding of what we ultimately seek. I don’t believe that the president intended to imply the “annihilation” of Daesh. That is far beyond our thinking in this regard. We want to deny Daesh the ability to have safe havens either in Iraq or, ultimately, in Syria, to preclude its capacity to organize an existential threat to those countries. Annihilation requires a great deal of investment, resources and time. The defeating, dismantling and degrading of Daesh, and ultimately destroying the idea, is the long-term objective. It’s important to understand that what we’re undertaking as a coalition is much bigger, much broader, than simply the military role. The military role is the most conspicuous right now and attracts the most attention. We have five lines of effort that in the end converge to degrade and defeat Daesh: providing military support to our partners; impeding the flow of foreign fighters; stopping IS’s financing and funding; addressing humanitarian crises in the region; and exposing IS’s true nature….
SPIEGEL: Another huge challenge is IS’s propaganda. It was a brilliant move to declare an “Islamic State”. How are you going to deal with this?
Allen: We need not only to expose Daesh for the darkness that it is, but also to celebrate the values within countries that help defeat the attractiveness of Daesh. You asked about “destroying” before: We can only destroy Daesh when we destroy the attractiveness of its brand. When you can defeat the idea, then you have destroyed the organization. We want to build capacity in countries in the region and the Coalition to reduce its attractiveness for recruiting….