The Nothing Man

John Brennan, Obama’s weasely, resentful-looking terrorism advisor, said earlier this year that jihad is a legitimate tenet of Islam and that it means internal spiritual struggle. In June, during a visit by Brennan to the Washington Times editorial offices, senior editorial writer James Robinson got Brennan to admit that sometimes in history jihad has meant violence to win territory for Islam. But when Robinson asked him for an example, Brennan terminated the interview and walked out. Gateway Pundit has the video. Powerline has the transcript, which is also below:

The Washington Times: You mentioned jihad, for example, and would you agree with the lesser and greater and lesser jihad framework? I mean, that’s pretty standard.

BRENNAN: Sure, it is … absolutely.

TWT: Can you give me an example of a jihad in history? Like, has there ever been a jihad … an armed jihad anywhere in history? Has it ever existed for real, or is it just a concept?

BRENNAN: Absolutely it has.

TWT: Example?

BRENNAN: I’m not going to go into this sort of history discussion here.

TWT: But it’s important to frame the concept, because we want to say that what al-Qaeda is doing is not jihad. They say it is, and Abdul Azzam has said, in fact, ‘there’s not even a greater jihad.’ That that’s just a myth—that hadith didn’t even really happen. That there’s only armed jihad. Ayatollah Khomeini said ‘there is only armed jihad, and it would be useful to be able to characterize or to contrast what they’re doing and what they claim against a legitimate armed jihad in the past.

BRENNAN: I think we’ve finished. I have to get going.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 25, 2010 10:00 AM | Send