Lieberman Says Obama Killing War Effort: 'Refuses To Call Our Enemy In This War By Its Proper Name: Violent Islamist Extremism'

This was the president’s intention from the start. I don’t mean directly harming America’s war effort, I mean indirectly by virtue of who he is at heart. After all, he increased the troop presence in Afghanistan and the left the military footprint largely unchanged in Iraq except as conditions and input allowed otherwise. And right or wrong, he entered into the Libyan chaos militarily. While misguided in some respects, President Obama has used the same military and counter terrorism policies as his predecessor had done. Too, it was his administration that oversaw the bin Laden raid.

The Hill | Lieberman: Obama’s concern with offending Muslims is hurting the war effort

problems with the Obama administration’s strategy was that it continues to call terrorism that aims to harm the U.S., “violent extremism” instead of “violent Islamist extremism.”

“The administration still refuses to call our enemy in this war by its proper name: violent Islamist extremism,” Lieberman said, speaking at a National Press Club event hosted by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

“To call our enemy ‘violent extremism’ is so general and vague that it ultimately has no meaning. The other term used sometimes is Al Qaeda and its allies. Now that’s better but it is still too narrow and focuses us on groups as opposed to what I would call an ideology, which is what we’re really fighting.”

Lieberman is correct in his criticism, however. From NASA’s White House led “Muslim Outreach” mission, to his world apology tours, to Homeland Defense’s propaganda videos “see something, say something” that depicts a disproportionate amount of white middle-aged men (read Tea Party/Conservatives) as terrorists, the president has greatly injected his ideological views and his academic disdain for America into all things foreign related. By doing so, he has, to some degree, neutered the US war effort.

When a war time leader removes the face and name from the enemy, the people will lose focus. They forget why they are sacrificing. Finally, without an objective and an enemy, they will grow bitter when those sacrifices are met. When those things happen, we really do look like an international police force. To protect and to serve instead of seek and destroy those who are set against the US and her interests. And those who are set against us happen to be Islamists. Americans did not ask to have Islamic terrorism as our number one threat. That was decided for us and now the conditions we must meet.

When the president was riding high the months after his election and before the euphoria hangover set in, President Obama’s example of “Smart Power” was accepted as pure genius. In fact, there was an editorial in the New York Times that suggested President Obama had effectively ended the “Clash of Civilizations” by simply giving a speech in Cairo and Istanbul. Needless to say, I had a lot to say about that.