Jewish Atheist

FROM: Alan
TO: Barack
RE: Naming the enemy

Dear Mr. President:

One of the most important things to know about language — and as a politician, you’re probably already aware of this — is that how we choose to name things is a very big deal. Every American should read Hayakawa’s Language in Thought and Action, or some form of it; maybe they wouldn’t be so easily manipulated by the way things are named.

The enemy whom we are supposedly pursuing after 1992 and 9/11 (we’re about due for another biggie) has been called by many names — Islamofascists, terrorists, extremists, violent extremists – each an attempt to make the fear as vague and all-pervasive as possible. Governments do best when the people are stirred up with fear of an external enemy, especially one that threatens violence on our own soil. Unlike many citizens in the world, Americans take for granted their physical safety on their own soil.

Liberalism gone wild

Also, the government’s various names have tried to avoid targeting any particular group (though all the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis), out of political correctness and liberalism gone haywire, so bend-over-backwards nuts that they granted citizens’ rights of our great nation, which people have died for, to those who would destroy it.

Today’s speech came close to naming the enemy: al-Qaeda. I liked your contrasting its culture of death with our way of life, but they’re psychotics and don’t see it that way: they see it as a path to ETERNAL life! It’s weird how religion fucks with people’s heads, isn’t it?

But al Qaeda isn’t the enemy. Have you conveniently forgotten that the maniac who murdered American troops on American soil was not a member of al Qaeda? But he did have something very important in common with that poor brainwashed Nigerian (see below).

Mr. President, it’s time to go to war with words. If you want some idea of what I’m talking about, read Churchill’s speeches about the Nazis, and you will hear righteous anger and contempt, an elegance of language mixed with open resolve to conquer. Likewise, Ronald Reagan gave the USSR a push over the edge with “evil empire.” (If Peggy Noonan wrote that, nice work; most of her other stuff is inspirational mush.)

“I have seen the future…”

It’s hard to remember that once upon a time, Americans considered the USSR an example of a system that worked, as opposed to capitalism, which seemed to be faltering badly. Reagan made the moral call: a police state is the antithesis of all that is human and humane; it is evil. The Soviet leadership had no answer. What were they going to say? That totalitarianism HADN’T ruined their countrry? That prison camps and misused mental hospitals weren’t evil? They fell apart ideologically as well as economically and every other possible way.

War of words

You see where I’m going with this. It’s a war of words as well as bullets. What you call the enemy tells the citizenry how we must view them. I recently saw a New York Times headline from 1945 announcing that the “Japs” had surrendered. The hatred and contempt were still there, even at the end.

But for the first time the enemy isn’t easily targeted. No Barbary pirates, Confederates, Nazis to isolate. This isn’t even like the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, who, although they too blended with the locals, were kind enough to stay in Viet Nam and wouldn’t blow themselves up on American airliners or open fire on American troops at a military base.

Mr. President, what we are up against is not a country, not a people, not even a loose network of wackos (”al Qaeda” is nothing but “the base”) — but a psychotic belief system, and you must abandon your professorial restraint and GET PISSED at the real source of the problem. Eloquently, of course.

The enemy

To fight this war of words, you must isolate and clearly identify the enemy, which previous Presidents have failed to do. The enemy is a poisonous set of religious ideas which fanatics acquire as children and pass on to their children. The fantasy element is bad enough, but when it includes suicide and world domination, we are all threatened, and you must respond in kind.

Charles Krauthammer is quite right when he says that someone who murders an abortion doctor or commits eco-terrorism is a violent extremist, but the element that threatens us is religion. The enemy is thus properly referrred to as “jihadi” or “jihadists.”

Lexicon of war

The Army psychiatrist and the kid from Nigeria, along with being male, had ONE THING in common. The war of words must encompasss that one thing. Acccordingly, America’s mortal enemies should be referred to with the adjective religious whenever possible, e.g., religious terrorists (as many have noted, you cannot make war on terror, which is only a tactic), religious zealots, religious extremists. Alternate religious with Muslim and Islamic, e.g., Islamic radicals, violent Muslim extremists. If you want to go for the burn, throw in fanatics or even lunatics.

Now you have a range of choices, but they’ll all be on-message: our enemy is a vile, criminal, phantasmagorical, inhumane religion whose intent is to dominate the world by — as crazy as it seems — blowing up a few dozen people at a time. This noxious dogma has no place in the modern world, and as long as we allow it to be taught, there will be an endless supply of borderline, unstable losers who will be happy to take a few infidels with them as they forsake this tough world for a paradise of ease and sex (the profusion of virgins would not lure me - I prefer experienced women).

Peace and love

On the positive side, you can challenge them to prove that theirs is a religion of peace — by being peaceful (and adopting the ‘inner striving’ meaning of jihad). If it’s not, then — and I envision this as an update of the old Tom Lehrer song - who’s next? We’ve had two incidents in just a couple of months. Where’s the next loose screw going to come from? If an actual army psychiatrist can go over the edge, who’s next? Because guaranteed, unless these Muslim men find real love somewhere, they will continue to be vulnerable to fantasies and getting laid in the next world, because they don’t know how to (or their religion won’t let them) get laid in the here and now. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a lot of sexual repression in Islam; it hurts men as well as women.

So yes, Muslim men should find love in this world; that’s the ideal solution. Then they wouldn’t have to resort to suicidal fantasies. But their religion won’t allow that. Religion is the real enemy. It’s a case of killing the snake by cutting off the head.

It’s a WAR

BTW, don’t you have a behavioral profile on these people? They’re fighting a war that’s centuries in duration. They and their uncaptured colleagues around the world will not be impressed with our show of justice. Their version of justice is what they did to Daniel Pearl. If they’re caught, it is nothing less than liberalism gone haywire to give them lawyers and civil trials. FIND OUT who’s training, paying, and equipping them. The Ft. Hood guy too. Captured enemy combatants may be priceless resources. They are most assuredly not American citizens. I’m not saying take them out back and blow their heads off. First try them fairly and prove they did it. Get all the information you can, because the next attack will be unexpected too. Then take them out back.

Repeat the above procedure as needed. It’s a snake with many heads.

To recap:

– the enemy is an insane, destructive religious doctrine incompatible with a peaceful modern world;
– jihadis can forget about killing or converting the infidels; we’re way too numerous and strong; they should try to find love in this world instead of somewhere else (that doesn’t exist);
– America seeks peace with everyone, but the civilized world will not tolerate poisonous, dangerous ideologies, secular or religious, that manipulate people into committing crimes against humanity.

The above advice is gratis, as are my speechwriting services for your speech entitled “American at War: The Real Enemy.” Just let me know when you’d like a first draft.