Govt Partners with Communities to Stop Terror

Partnering with Communities to Prevent Violent Extremism in America

For example, we know there are many different reasons why individuals—from many different faiths—succumb to terrorist ideologies. And there is no one easy profile of a terrorist. But based on extensive investigations, research and profiles of the violent extremists we’ve captured or arrested, and who falsely claim to be fighting in the name of Islam, we know that they all share one thing—they all believe that the United States is somehow at war with Islam, and that this justifies violence against Americans.

So we are actively and aggressively undermining that ideology. We’re exposing the lie that America and Islam are somehow in conflict. That is why President Obama has stated time and again that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.

On the contrary, we’ve strengthened alliances and partnerships with Muslim-majority nations around the world, from Turkey to Indonesia. As a result of the President’s speech in Cairo, we’ve forged new partnerships with Muslim communities to promote entrepreneurship, health, science and technology, educational exchanges and opportunities for women. In fact, the President insisted that his National Security Staff create a new office, a Global Engagement Directorate, to make these partnerships a priority.

We also undermine al Qaeda’s ideology by exposing the lie that it is somehow defending Islamic traditions when, in fact, al Qaeda violates the basic tenets of Islam. The overwhelming majority of al Qaeda’s victims are Muslim. In contrast to the ethics and accomplishments of the Islamic Golden Age—a period of scientific learning; networks of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish intellectuals and philosophers; advances in mathematics, agriculture, technology, and the arts—al Qaeda practices nothing but religious bigotry and glorifies suicide bombing.
We undermine al Qaeda’s ideology by showing that it is the power of nonviolence and democratic change that leads to progress, not senseless terrorism. And now people across the Arab world are proving the point.
Consider this. Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri, an Egyptian, has spent decades trying to overthrow the government of Egypt through terrorism. But in just a few short weeks, it was the people of Egypt—men and women, young and old, secular and religious, Muslims and Christians—who came together and changed their government, peacefully. It is the most dramatic change in the Arab world in decades, and al Qaeda had nothing to do with it. And so President Obama made it a point to commend the Egyptian people and their embrace of “the moral force of nonviolence—not terrorism, not mindless killing.”