THE HOME FRONT IN THE WAR ON TERROR

Industrial warfare has introduced the concept of the home front, the efforts required of the civilian population to achieve victory. Increased manufacturing of war materials, the conscription of manpower, rationing of goods and food needed for the war effort are all manifestation of the efforts of the home front. Nothing exemplifies the home front more than Rosie the Riveter, and her inspiring call to victory on behalf of the War Production Coordinating Committee, We Can Do It!

We Can Do It in the War on Terror too. And in fact, we must if we are to be successful. While much of the fighting and death happens elsewhere, our actions on the home front help keep us safe from threats we fear here, and help counter the ideology and propaganda of our enemy.

Today’s war is very different, and therefore so too is the burden on the civilian population of the home front. For starters, our military is well staffed, armed, and provisioned for the international mission at hand. But today’s enemy is unlike any before: amorphous; simultaneously scarce and omnipresent; using fear as a weapon and Twitter as a recruitment tool; and just as ideologically extreme, if not even more so, than past foes. In fact, today’s enemy is so malleable that ISIS can be fighting the Iraqi army and committing public shootings in San Bernardino, CA at the same time. Barring martial law, America’s military can do little to protect us from the latter; the home front today is as important as ever.

Radical and extreme Islamic terrorism against the West is fueled ideologically by the narrative that the West is at war to purge the world of Islam, leading a modern anti-Muslim crusade. The transgressions of the West, real or perceived, find their way across the globe in the form of online jihadi recruitment propaganda. Young, disaffected Muslim men women all over the world hear about the war against Islam, and are encouraged to join the fight. In the global war, that doesn’t require them to leave their neighborhoods, as the shootings in Beirut, Paris, and San Bernardino show.

However the same openness and technology that drive the recruitment of young jihadis and the spread of violent extremism are also the most effective ideological counterweights to debunking the myth of the Western war on Islam. This is why the home front matters so much. ISIS needs America to turn itself into an anti-Muslim police state. Their terrorism in France and America is designed to encourage the repression of Muslims in those societies, not to liberate them. Jihadis justify their attacks on Western societies as defense of Islam, so when we react to those attacks by condemning and discriminating against Muslims, the jihadis get their self-fulfilling prophecy. This response is lethal. An open, tolerant, and equitable society poses a fundamental threat to the ISIS worldview. Therefore, if we mimic ISIS in our behavior towards others, we lose.

We on the home front must counter this ideology by using openness and technology to show the opposite. We must engage in dialogue with our Muslim friends and communities at home and abroad. We must say and show that there is nothing incompatible between Islam and democracy in America and other western democracies. We must welcome Muslims into our communities and hold them to the same standards as we would hold those who look exactly like us, that is if you live peacefully and safely among us, then you are welcome here. You are free to practice your religion as long as you follow the laws of our land.

The west is not at war with Islam. Islam is not incompatible with democracy, western culture, or our way of life. Violent and extreme jihadi Islam is, but ISLAM is not. If we make friendship, tolerance, and acceptance of Islam the norm, we help rip the roots from the jihadi tree.

Victory in the global and ideological War on Terror will not be quick or easy. Already a decade and a half old, it is easy to imagine this conflict stretching much longer. For this reason, it is even more important that we on the home front play our role in the fight by showing and asking for tolerance, respect, and equality from Muslim-American brothers and sisters. Friends don’t make good jihadis, and I would much rather make friends today than fear jihadis tomorrow.

And therein, I believe, is what is most missing from we the citizens on the home front. While there are no shortage of people willing to respond to the hateful and inane comments of our politicians, or to stick up for their Muslim friends and neighbors after such hate is flung their way, the process of building and maintaining relationships is ongoing, and requires a commitment beyond responding to the paranoia of the moment. We would rightly be furious if law enforcement missed obvious signs of a homegrown jihadi who went on to commit a terrorist attack in the US. We lose sight of the fact that we are active participants in the struggle to make sure that potential threat never materializes. It is daily displays of friendship and friendliness that blunt the pernicious jihadi ideology, not just rallying to the defense of the Muslim community when a few blowhards starts stereotyping a diverse global population of over one billion people.

Imagine if during WWII, the home front was only asked to construct planes on days when the Allies would be making bombing runs. Probably not the best strategy against an enemy who was rushing Messerschmitts off the assembly line. Jihadi terrorism is no different. There is no day off from recruiting would-be mass murders, no day off from training them, or plotting attacks against innocents. In order to win the propaganda battle, Americans cannot afford to take a day off in showing our fellow Muslim citizens — and those around the world — that America is a tolerant and inclusive nation. For everyone.

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