PPI’s Will Marshall is quoted in Government Executive on why anti-Islamic extremism has no home port in the U.S., speaking on a panel of foreign policy specialists at the Hudson Institute:
Will Marshall, founder and president of the Progressive Policy Institute, speculated on why anti-Islamic extremism “has no home port in the U.S. government.” He said Americans are skeptical that Islamic extremism would catch on inside the United States and are uneasy attacking an ideology that has a religious provenance.
“There’s a consoling myth that it’s just a handful of fanatics, but it has spread to places like Sinai and Mali,” Marshall said. “We also may lack confidence in our own story” and hence fall back on “moral relativism” on such issues as the Palestinian-Israel conflict. He said the office would target moderate Arab populations to help send a message of economic opportunity and “rewrite the rules of war” so that U.S.-based Muslims would no longer conclude that jihad is somehow not as bad as terrorism.
