Rollback #8: Senators Lieberman and Collins unapologetically name the enemy

Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee respectively have included important language in S. 1546, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Reauthorization Act of 2011.

Section 213 of the act states: "The Secretary [of Homeland Security] shall designate an official of the Department [of Homeland Security] to coordinate efforts to counter violent extremism in the United States, particularly the ideology that gives rise to Islamist terrorism …"  This language marks a significant advancement in congress to define the threat to America in specific non-politically correct terms.

Underlining the importance of this rhetorical shift, the reaction of the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was to issue a press release urging:

American Muslims and other people of conscience to call members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee about proposed legislation that singles out American Muslims for additional scrutiny over the threat of violent extremism in the United States.

…

CAIR believes that the legislation, sponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME), is too narrowly focused and does not go far enough to keep Americans safe from all types of violent extremism.

CAIR’s protests are not likely to be heeded.  On September 12 the Senators wrote a joint letter to John Brennan, chief counterterrorism advisor to President Obama, clearly stating their views on the Administration’s tepid framework for countering domestic radicalization entitled "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States":

Our enemy has a distinct ideology, and that ideology has a name: violent Islamist extremism. The Framework, however, refuses to state this clearly. First, it says that we are at war with "al-Qa’ ida and its affiliates and adherents" and later more generally talks about countering "violent extremism."

The first term is too narrow – and the second too broad.

Narrowing the threat to followers of al-Qa’ida ignores the wider violent Islamist extremist movement of which al-Qa’ida is only a part and risks focusing our counterterrorism strategy on an organization rather than the ideology.  Al-Qa’ ida is not the unifying force behind the threat and, even if it were completely rooted out tomorrow, the ideology of violent lslamist extremism would continue to threaten the homeland.

But characterizing the threat as "violent extremism" is far too broad. This vague term is never defined and could cover a range of ideologies that, while capable of causing harm, do not pose the preeminent threat to our national security today that lslamist extremism does.

Violent Islamist extremism has a particular- if twisted – message that must be understood and countered. The clearly stated goal of the Islamists is to establish a caliphate, or empire, within the Arab and Muslim world that would overthrow existing governments and impose upon the people a harsh and radical interpretation of Shari ‘ah (Islamic religious law).

Click here (PDF) to read the letter in its entirety.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s growth in America has expanded greatly since the 1990s, with their stated goal “that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands.”   The Muslim Brotherhood’s plan to impose Shariah and censorship in America reaches into our media, our government, our military and law enforcement, our textbooks and our colleges.  Anyone who openly opposes the Muslim Brotherhood – that would be well over 200 million Americans, according to polls – has been labeled an “islamophobe” by the leftwing media.

Enough is enough.  Americans across the nation have started pushing back against the Muslim Brotherhood’s trademark intimidation and threats.  The Center for Security Policy is tracking these efforts to expose and to eliminate the Muslim Brotherhood’s  influence over  how we talk and think, how we govern ourselves and  enforce our laws, and how we make our own plans for our children’s future of freedom under the Constitution, not enslavement under Shariah law.  

We call it The Rollback.