Leon Panetta, Barack Obama’s Director of the CIA (2009-2011) as well as Obama’s Secretary of Defense (2011- 2013) just released his autobiography Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace (472 pages excluding the endnotes). The mainstream media reports that Panetta is generally critical of Obama while he seems to endorse a Hillary Clinton run for the presidency. (Might Panetta hope for the vice-president slot on a Clinton ticket?) In light of Panetta’s many years of public service, especially his years at the CIA and the Pentagon, what valuable insight does Panetta shed on the correlation between Islam and Islamic terrorism? 

The terms “jihad,” “Muslim” and “Islam” are conspicuously absent from the book’s index.  However, “Terrorism” appears along with “Al Qaeda,” “Taliban,” “Koran Burnings” and the like. 

Thanks to Amazon Kindle’s search function, one finds that the terms “Islam,” “jihad” and “Muslim” do indeed get some mention in the book.

 “Jihad/Jihadist” appears a scant six times in the book, never in the same sentence with “Islam” or “Muslim.” 

“Muslim” also gets four mentions in the book, first in relation to “Christians and Muslims in conflict” (Kindle Locations 4371-4372), second regarding the disposal of Osama Bin Laden’s body (Kindle Location 4744), next in relation to that “inflammatory anti-Muslim video” (Kindle Location 6248), and finally in relation to “radical anti-Muslim pastor Terry Jones” (Kindle Location 6251). 

“Islam/Islamic” appears eight times, only once in relation to terrorism: “Obama had campaigned as a critic of the Bush administration’s overreliance on military solutions, particularly its conflation of Islam and terrorism.” (Kindle Locations 3639-3640) In criticizing the Bush Administration, Panetta implies that Islam and Islamic terrorism are wholly unrelated.  Therein lays the core problem with the Obama administration’s approach to Islamic terrorism.  How does one fight Islamic terrorism while denying its roots to Islam, extremist or otherwise?

Ironically, as of this writing the book is “#1 Best Seller in Political Intelligence” on Amazon.  Where is the intelligence in denying the relationship between Islamic Jihad and Islam?  

Grizzly Joe blogs at OccupyBawlStreet.com. Follow him on Twitter @OccupyBawlStree