Analyst's note:  Absolutely must read.  The Obama administration’s attempts at dealing with terrorism are so half-hearted they cannot be considered credible nor anything but planned.

[....] With trumpets and drum rolls, the White House in early August released a policy paper on methods to prevent terrorism, said to have been two years in the making. Signed personally by Barack Obama and with rhetoric vaunting "the strength of communities" and the need to "enhance our understanding of the threat posed by violent extremism," the document looks anodyne. 

But beneath the calm lies a counter­productive–and dangerous–approach to counterterrorism. The import of this paper consists in its firm stand on the wrong side of three distinct counterterrorism debates, with the responsible Right (and a few sensible liberals) on one side, and Islamists, leftists, and multiculturalists on the other.

[....] Into these three debates waddles a 4,600-word, poorly-written, ill-organized White House report vehemently advocating the Islamist/Leftist/multiculturalist position. 

• Nature of the problem? "neo-Nazis and other anti-Semitic hate groups, racial supremacists, and international and domestic terrorist groups."

• Name the enemy? The paper itself never mentions Islamism. Its title, Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, avoids even mentioning terrorism.

• Appropriate response? "Just as we respond to community safety issues [such as gang violence, school shootings, drugs, and hate crimes] through partnerships and networks of government officials, Mayor's offices, law enforcement, community organizations, and private sector actors, so must we address radicalization to violence and terrorist recruitment through similar relationships and by leveraging some of the same tools and solutions."

[....] While the document unobjectionably emphasizes American constitutional values and the need to partner with Muslims, it says not a word about the need to distinguish between Islamist and anti-Islamist Muslims. Empowering finesses the dismal fact that Islamists dominate the organized American Muslim leadership and their objectives share more with terrorists than counterterrorists. Rep. King correctly worries that the White House document condemns "legitimate criticism of certain radical organizations or elements of the Muslim-American community," something urgently needed to distinguish foe from friend.

[....] the Obama administration's willingness to partner with Muslims who reject the Constitutional order accounts for Islamist organizations' delighted responses to this paper. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a terrorist-supporting front organization, praised it as "objective and holistic," while the likeminded Muslim Public Affairs Council deemed it "very useful."

[...] What now, with the enshrining of a fringe study as national policy? There are no shortcuts: Those who want a genuine counterterrorism policy must work to remove the Left and the multiculturalists from government.