BTW, this plan was already tried in the UK. It is a proven failure.
Not all terrorism: Obama tries to change subject
By MATT APUZZO
Apr 7WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s advisers plan to remove terms such as “Islamic radicalism” from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counterterrorism officials say.
The change would be a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. It currently states, “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.”
The officials described the changes on condition of anonymity because the document is still being written and is unlikely to be released for weeks, and the White House would not discuss it. But rewriting the strategy document is the latest example of Obama putting his stamp on U.S. foreign policy, as with his promises to dismantle nuclear weapons and limit the situations in which they can be used.
The revisions are part of a larger effort about which the White House talks openly, one that seeks to change not just how the U.S. talks to Muslim nations, but also what it talks to them about, from health care and science to business startups and education.
That shift away from terrorism has been building for a year, since Obama went to Cairo and promised a “new beginning” in the relationship between the U.S. and the Muslim world. The White House believes the previous administration based that relationship entirely on fighting terrorism and winning the war of ideas.
“You take a country where the overwhelming majority are not going to become terrorists, and you go in and say, ‘We’re building you a hospital so you don’t become terrorists.’ That doesn’t make much sense,” National Security Council staffer Pradeep Ramamurthy said.
Ramamurthy runs the administration’s Global Engagement Directorate, a four-person National Security Council team that Obama launched last May with little fanfare and a vague mission to use diplomacy and outreach “in pursuit of a host of national security objectives.” Since then, the division has not only helped change the vocabulary of fighting terrorism, but also has shaped the way the country invests in Muslim businesses, studies global warming, supports scientific research and combats polio.
Before diplomats go abroad, they hear from the Ramamurthy or his deputy, Jenny Urizar. When officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration returned from Indonesia, the NSC got a rundown about research opportunities on global warming. Ramamurthy maintains a database of interviews conducted by 50 U.S. embassies worldwide.
And business leaders from more than 40 countries head to Washington this month for an “entrepreneurship summit” for Muslim businesses.“Do you want to think about the U.S. as the nation that fights terrorism or the nation you want to do business with?” Ramamurthy said.
To deliver that message, Obama’s speechwriters have taken inspiration from an unlikely source: former President Ronald Reagan. Visiting communist China in 1984, Reagan spoke at Fudan University in Shanghai about education, space exploration and scientific research. He discussed freedom and liberty. He never mentioned communism or democracy.
“They didn’t look up to the U.S. because we hated communism,” said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, Obama’s foreign policy speechwriter.
Like Reagan in China, Obama in Cairo made only passing references to terrorism. Instead he focused on cooperation. He announced the U.S. would team up to fight polio with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a multinational body based in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. and OIC had worked together before, but never with that focus.
“President Obama saw it as an opportunity to say, ‘We work on things far beyond the war on terrorism,'” World Health Organization spokeswoman Sona Bari said.
Polio is endemic in three Muslim countries — Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan — but some Muslim leaders have been suspicious of vaccination efforts, which they believed to be part of a CIA sterilization campaign. Last year, the OIC and religious scholars at the International Islamic Fiqh Academy issued a fatwa, or religious decree, that parents should vaccinate their children.
“We’re probably entering into a whole new level of engagement between the OIC and the polio program because of the stimulus coming from the U.S. government,” said Michael Galway, who works on polio eradication for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also began working more closely with local Islamic leaders in northern Nigeria, a network that had been overlooked for years, said John Fitzsimmons, the deputy director of the CDC’s immunization division.
Though health officials are reluctant to assign credit to any one action, new polio cases in Nigeria fell from 83 during the first quarter of last year to just one so far this year, Fitzsimmons said.
Public opinion polls also showed consistent improvement in U.S. sentiment within the Muslim world last year, though the viewpoints are still overwhelmingly negative.
Obama did not invent Muslim outreach. President George W. Bush gave the White House its first Quran, hosted its first Iftar dinner to celebrate Ramadan and loudly stated support for Muslim democracies like Turkey.
But the Bush administration struggled with its rhetoric. Muslims criticized Bush for describing the war on terrorism as a “crusade” and labeling the invasion of Afghanistan “Operation Infinite Justice” — words that were seen as religious. He regularly identified America’s enemy as “Islamic extremists” and “radical jihadists.”
Karen Hughes, a Bush confidante who served as his top diplomat to the Muslim world in his second term, urged the White House to stop.
“I did recommend that, in my judgment, it’s unfortunate because of the way it’s heard. We ought to avoid the language of religion,” Hughes said. “Whenever they hear ‘Islamic extremism, Islamic jihad, Islamic fundamentalism,’ they perceive it as a sort of an attack on their faith. That’s the world view Osama bin Laden wants them to have.”
Hughes and Juan Zarate, Bush’s former deputy national security adviser, said Obama’s efforts build on groundwork from Bush’s second term, when some of the rhetoric softened. But by then, Zarate said, it was overshadowed by the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and a prolonged Iraq war.
“In some ways, it didn’t matter what the president did or said. People weren’t going to be listening to him in the way we wanted them to,” Zarate said. “The difference is, President Obama had a fresh start.”
Obama’s foreign policy posture is not without political risk. Even as Obama steps up airstrikes on terrorists abroad, he has proven vulnerable to Republican criticism on security issues at home, such as the failed Christmas Day airline bombing and the announced-then-withdrawn plan to prosecute self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York.
Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist and former Bush adviser, is skeptical of Obama’s engagement effort. It “doesn’t appear to have created much in the way of strategic benefit” in the Middle East peace process or in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he said.
Obama runs the political risk of seeming to adopt politically correct rhetoric abroad while appearing tone-deaf on national security issues at home, Feaver said.
The White House dismisses such criticism.
In June, Obama will travel to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, and is expected to revisit many of the themes of his Cairo speech.“This is the long-range direction we need to go in,” Ramamurthy said.
Actually I like the idea of getting rid of the term. Then we can be free to discuss whether " Islam" inspires violence, intolerance, and hatred without constantly having to pay homage to the "moderate". If there's no "radicals" then by the same token there's no "moderates". With that barrier out of the way let's get on studying Islam's role in trouble spots around the world.
Yes, there is no radical islam. Just islam.
Chris, take note!
Obama, Pelosi and Reid are living proof that you just plain cannot fix stupid….and a good many muz are too. The solution for all of that is to just get rid of them. Pelosi and Reid will be either voted out or marginalized, and Obama will have his hands tied by a Republican House and Senate (if the polls are any indicator) for the rest of his term and then he will be voted out. He'll hang around for a while like that retard Carter, then fade away……and we'll all cuss those clowns for the mess they're making. The muz just need to get re-exported like the illegals will be. Put them back where they came from and they can happily kill hell out each other like they have for centuries.
XX We just have to hold on until the next presidential election.XX
Really?
01/07/1881 Garfield
06/09/1901 Mc Kinley
22/11/1963 Kennedy.
Enough said.
You forgot Lincoln. And who was the idiot why died from the flu after not wearing a coat while giving his inauguration address? And didn't Roosevelt die in office too?
No way do I want to see Obama, or any of his resident assholes assassinated. That would make them martyrs and given much more respect than they deserve….like Kennedy (who was a dope addict that almost started WWIII). He was a total piece of human waste and is revered way beyond reason just because he got whacked. Now, if he('bama) caught AIDs from Pelosi, the clap and venereal warts from Barney Franks, multiple sclerosis form Reid and leprosy from Dodd and died of the screaming purple shits, that'd be PERFECT!
Impeachment might be the way to go then. Utter humiliation.
That is definitely in the works. You will be seeing the beginning of that on Nov 3 when the midtem elections get rid of the democrap majority in Congress. Then it begins.
So if these people are not RADICAL what are they? Another thing…..comparing this Kenyan to Reagan is the laugh of all laughs.
Yes, he's more like Dhimmi Carter.
Obama makes Carter look like a country rube. Obama is a Chicago politician…..some of the dirtiest, low-down skunks the world of dirty politics has ever seen. They are some of the lowest of the low.
Carter was a country rube. Peanut farmer from Georgia. Remember his hick brother Billy and the fuss they made over his beer?
Why am I getting replys to comments that have not even been published yet???
How do you mean? It showed up, I replied 20 minutes later.
Or did it not appear immediately for you? Better get an Intense Debate account.
You're just lucky I guess.
Nope. All I can see is the origional 3 comments. Ending with Tonto at… five hours ago.
Hmm … are you seeing these comments via email?
Perhaps try reloading the page.
Aha! THAT worked!
Cheers mate!
It is the USA which created Osama to fight the Russians in Afghanistan with Pak help. Everyone knows that Pak itself is a creation of Britain and USA to punish India for getting freedom. Even now knowing fully well that Pak is the terror factory they are pouring money and weapons which wil only feed the terrorism which they are fighting in Afghanistan.
Funny, today I learned that the swedish police force has been forbidden to use the "foreigner" at all! Orwell anyone? This is Newspeak at it's finest!
Correction: Funny, today I learned that the swedish police force has been forbidden to use the term "foreigner" at all! Orwell anyone? This is Newspeak at it's finest!
That's going to make things interesting in Sweden.
Life's getting more surreal day by day. 🙁
Screw Obama and all those PC cork suckers. The bottom line is, people worldwide are getting fed up with all of it. It's just a matter of time before Obama and other lame dicks like him will be marginalized and we can start really kicking muz ass.
That really should have started happening with Bush. But, from what I understand, there was already a serious amount of arselifter and dhimmi infiltration going on at the Pentagon, FBI, etc.
Roger that! However, the vast majority of folks here have been very busy sitting on their butts enjoying "Dancing with the Stars" on TV and their new cars, plastic tits and tha antics of Paris Hilton etc. Obama has done the entire world a favor by waking up the conservative majority in th USA and lining himself up for an ass kicking, while destroying the democrap party for the next 20 years or more. The Republican Party, which lost it's way and basically sold out has had a harsh reawakening too, and hopefully, will now get off their butts and get back to their roots too.
Yes, I've been reading a lot of the political sites lately – Breibart, FrontPage Mag, etc. Lots of angry folks with comments to make.
I think Americans have to start worrying when their president gets exposed as a fraud – http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2…
Someone asked Who's pulling the strings? Makes me wonder how long before we find out.
(We've had a similar problem with Prime Minister KRudd in Australia. Not as bad as O'Bummer but the general problem's the same.)
It is not Obama, he is just their pointman.
Whatever the way you veiw Islamic beliefs there is a need to share it with others.