US Too Chicken to Name Its Enemy: Islamic Radicalism

The would-be Times Square bomber calls himself a "Muslim soldier," and the Fort Hood shooter calls himself a "soldier of Allah." But when Team Obama refers to our enemy, it uses euphemisms like "a loose network of violent extremists." How meaningless and cowardly, writes Charles Krauthammer. "This is not an anger-management therapy group gone rogue." Let's call a spade a spade: The nation's true enemy, "Islamist fundamentalism," is the "common denominator linking all the great terror attacks of this century."

Instead of acknowledging that truth, however, Team Obama only grudgingly admits that religion might be a factor. "Why is this important?" Krauthammer writes at the Washington Post. "Because the first rule of war is to know your enemy. If you don't, you wander into intellectual cul-de-sacs and ignore the real causes that might allow you to prevent recurrences." (More Islamic extremism stories.)