Israel Matzav

Krauthammer on Obama's Orwellian National Security Strategy

It’s fatuous. It borders on the Orwellian. If we weren't involved in a war against Islamic radicals and jihadism — which is what it is — it wouldn't be as tragic.

The commander in chief has just sent 30,000 Americans to fight, and some will die in battle against whom? Against what? He, himself, has said openly it's about a-Qaeda. But what is al-Qaeda? Is it just a gang of violent extremists? What does that tell us? What is their ideology? What exactly are we preventing?

The idea is to prevent it from taking over the region and the entire Middle East. Well, it's openly proclaimed itself as an Islamic movement. That's how it sees itself — [an] interpretation of the Koran and religion which would impose Sharia law in a violent way on everybody and produce in the Middle East and the world what we had in Afghanistan before the American invasion.

Now that is a specific [program] — it isn't a prejudice of ours or a stereotype of ours. That's the essence of their ideology. And to deny it is absurd.

In Pakistan, we have allies, the moderates in the government and in the army who are now at war with the same jihadists. Do you think the Pakistanis, who are Muslims, are denying that the enemy is jihadism — and the imposition of Sharia law? For us to deny it is to say that our own allies — the moderate Muslims — are deluded.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:11 PM