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Confronting Radical Jihad

Page history last edited by Mike 5 years, 9 months ago

Confronting Radical Jihad

 

Jihadism – violent, radical, fundamental Islam – is this century’s nightmare. It follows the same dark path as last century’s nightmares: fascism and Soviet communism. Many still fail to comprehend the extent of the threat posed by radical Islam, specifically by those extremists who promote violent Jihad against the United States and the universal values Americans espouse. Yet, the consequences of ignoring this threat – such as a radicalized Islamic actor possessing nuclear weapons – are simply unacceptable.

 


 

CHALLENGE: Jihadism – violent, radical, fundamental Islam – is this century's nightmare. It follows the same dark path as last century’s nightmares: fascism and Soviet communism. Many still fail to comprehend the extent of the threat posed by radical Islam, specifically by those extremists who promote violent Jihad against the United States and the universal values Americans espouse. Yet the Jihad has been with us for some time.

 

Radical Islam has one goal: to replace all modern Islamic states with a worldwide caliphate while destroying the United States and converting all nonbelievers, forcibly if necessary, to a fundamentalist form of Islam.

 

Merely closing our eyes and hoping that Jihadism will go away is not an acceptable solution. U.S. military action alone cannot change the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of Muslims. In the end, only Muslims themselves can defeat the violent radicals. But we must work with them. The consequences of ignoring this threat – such as a radicalized Islamic actor possessing nuclear weapons – are simply unacceptable.

 

Today, we face a new generation of challenges, globally and here at home. We will do as Americans have always done: we will rise to the occasion. We have all that we need. We have technology, technology that would have been beyond the imagination of our grandparents. We have national wealth. And most important, we have the heart and passion of the American people - always the greatest source of our strength as a nation.

 

I think many of us still fail to comprehend the extent of the threat posed by radical Islam, by Jihad. Understandably, we focus on Afghanistan and Iraq. Our men and women are dying there. We think in terms of countries, because we faced countries in last century's conflicts. But the Jihad is much broader than any one nation or nations. Jihad encompasses far more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For radical Islam, there is an over-arching conflict and goal - replacing all modern Islamic states with a caliphate, destroying America, and conquering the world." 

 

To meet today's challenges, we must mobilize and integrate all elements of national power in unstable areas where traditional civilian agencies cannot operate effectively and traditional military power alone cannot succeed.

 

Create A Special Partnership Force (SPF). The SPF will integrate all elements of national power under a new force with leadership drawn from a core group of our Army Special Forces trained to work with civilian governments and intelligence personnel to form a new capability that is:

  1. Focused on locally-targeted efforts to win support in the community while identifying, isolating and eliminating terrorist elements. 
  2. Highly integrated and able to mobilize all elements of national power, including humanitarian and development assistance and rule of law capacity building.
  3. Closely coordinated in partnership with local governments.
  4. Intelligence driven.
  5. Agile and flexible in its operations.
  6. A sustainable effort in contested areas and sanctuaries of Jihadist groups.

 

Launch A New Type Of Marshall Plan Unifying Nonmilitary Sources Of Power To Support Moderate Muslims. As President, we will call together our Middle East allies and the major nations of the developed world to establish a "Partnership for Progress and Prosperity."

 

This Partnership will assemble the resources of all developed nations to assure that threatened Islamic states have public schools, micro-credit and banking, the rule of law, human rights, basic health care, and competitive economic policies. Resources would be drawn from public and private institutions, and from volunteers and NGOs.

 

Strengthen Global Alliances**. The failure of efforts such as the United Nations Human Rights Council has given multilateralism a bad name. America’s strength is amplified when it is combined with the strength of other nations.

 

We need to expand alliances such as NATO and efforts among the world's leading nations to face the new threat of radical Jihad and increase our homeland security. We need to build global and regional capacities and networks of law enforcement and intelligence officials to confront Jihadists and other transnational threats.

 

This Special Partnership Force would work hand-in-glove with local host governments. Together, they would seek to target and separate terrorists from the local population, and to disrupt and defeat them. They would have the authority to call in all elements of civil assistance and humanitarian aid. Where they felt it was necessary, they could call in Delta and SEAL military resources. Their goal would be to build national institutions of stability and freedom, and to promote the rule of law and human rights." (Governor Mitt Romney, Remarks At AEI World Forum, 6/21/2007)

 

And further, if I were fortunate enough to be elected your President, I'd call for a National Summit of Nations to create a new partnership – a Partnership for Progress and Prosperity."

 

"This Partnership would assemble the resources of all the nations of the world to work to assure that Islamic states that are threatened with violent Jihad have public schools that are not Wahhabi madrasas; that they have micro-credit and banking, the rule of law, human rights, basic health care, and competitive economic practices." (Governor Mitt Romney, Remarks At Yeshiva University, 4/26/2007)

 

"The inaction, if not the breakdown, of many Cold War institutions has made many Americans skeptical of multilateralism... But such failures should not obscure the fact that the United States' strength is amplified when it is combined with the strength of other nations. Where institutions are fundamentally incapable of meeting a new generation of challenges, the United States does not have to go it alone. Instead, we must examine where existing alliances can be strengthened and reinvigorated and where new alliances need to be forged." (Governor Mitt Romney, "Rising To A New Generation Of Global Challenges," Foreign Affairs, July/August 202007)

 

 

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