Rumsfeld leads administration in war of ideas

The media overlooked the most important part of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s October 16 memo to aides: he questioned whether the US government is effectively waging the “war of ideas.”

After his memo was leaked, he specifically addressed the topic in an interview last Thursday with the Washington Times, and a Sunday op-ed in the Washington Post.

“To win the war on terror,” he wrote in the Post, “we must also win the war of ideas – the battle for the minds of those who are being recruited by terrorist networks across the globe. . . . The task is to stop terrorists before they can terrorize. And even better, we must lean forward and stop them from becoming terrorists in the first place.”

If the administration is finally getting serious about waging the war of ideas, it will not only have to differentiate between those wielding them against us and those who fundamentally share, or at least are not fundamentally hostile to, our values. No less importantly, the president will also have to engage the services of people who understand and can conduct this war effectively and fearlessly.