I have posted before about the very British stance that the Obama administration is currently taking to its counter-terrorism policy. More evidence of this was provided last week, when Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the House Judiciary Committee.
Referring to the three major terrorist attacks attempted in the US in the past year - the Fort Hood shooting, the Detroit bombing and now the Times Square bombing - Republican Congressman Lamar Smith asks Holder whether 'radical Islam' may just have been one of the contributing factors to these attacks. This seems like a reasonably straight forward question to answer. Radical Islam is, you would guess, quite hard to whitewash out of the Islamism-inspired terrorism that is so common these days.
However, US government policy is to now remove all references to Islam when discussing terrorism. It is one of those British policies that our American allies seem to have unfortunately taken to with some relish. With an almost heroic disconnect from reality, Holder can not bring himself to accept that all those terrorists who say they are acting in the name of Islam are actually terrorists acting in the name of Islam.
It's a painful watch - a bit like trying to persuade a terrified Hogswarts student to say 'Lord Voldemort'. But - as in the Harry Potter series - if you are too afraid to name the enemy, chances are you won't have the will or know-how to defeat it either.
