This war of words between President Obama and General Petraeus has profound implications on the U.S. counterterrorism strategy across the globe. Affecting high-level diplomatic discourse, to the way in which the entire U.S. military understands and defines the terrorist threat, to the policies and practices currently underway to engage America's enemies, the Obama Administration's new policy on defining the threat of terrorism as one devoid of any relation to Islam is directly at odds with the U.S. army's doctrine on counterinsurgency (COIN), a field manual written by the new Commanding General of Afghanistan, General David Petraeus.
President Obama's chief national security advisor for counterterrorism, John Brennan, recently revealed a new White House rhetorical policy regarding terrorism: detach all references made to Islam, including any statement that makes mention of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or any other group. This marks a significant shift in defining the terrorist threat to the United States, and will likely contribute to the easing of tensions carved for nearly a decade between the West and the Islamic world, but is it a smart shift in policy or an ill-guided misunderstanding of the threat facing America?
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