If I were a PR guy for the jihadists, hell bent on humiliating and eventually destroying the Great Satan, I would be jumping for joy at the events of the past year.

On Christmas Day, the most important of all Christian religious holidays, an alleged jihadist suicide bomber rattled our security cage without even killing a single American. He didn’t have to, and who knows if that was his real intention. He got through our vaunted security apparatus revealing how vulnerable and inefficient we are, illustrating to his vast pool of wannabe jihadists that we can, indeed, be defeated. Is that a great recruitment tool or what?

Indeed, any sign of American weakness and bumbling is a recruiting tool of more potency than ten thousand Gitmos. In fact, shutting down Gitmo is a PR gift to the jihadists for exactly the opposite reasons we have been told. It is merely one more illustration of our weakness and naïveté. Keeping Gitmo open made a lot more propaganda sense for our side.

Worse, putting the mastermind of the September 11th attack on trial in New York, will give the jihadists an unprecedented ability to orchestrate a propaganda coup that will rumble like a tsunami through the Arab world. Think of the drumbeat of anti-American agitprop that will ensue in the Arab street. Wannabe jihadists will be lining up in front of terrorist recruiting offices to join the fight against what they will perceive as the Great Satan with the clay feet.

Then there is the Fort Hood jihadist smash hit. A United States Army Major, an officer of Great Satan’s military, takes his martyrs stand by killing thirteen fellow soldiers at Fort Hood and the icing on the PR cake is that he is influenced by an Imam in Yemen who is actually a citizen of the United States. Talk about penetration from within. Evidence abounds, the jihadist must snicker, as bona fide American citizens, all Muslims, show their bravery and devotion to the cause by planning to bomb the New York subway system. So they are caught. Big deal. There are others in line to take their place.

Who knows how many like-minded Americans are just itching to get into the martyrdom business. Why worry, the jihadist masterminds must be whispering, nobody is profiling. Besides, every time they pick up a group of American jihadists, they throw them into American civilian courts. Jihadists love that. The more noise, the more press conferences, the more reasons for recruitment can be pumped out to the Arab street. It shows that the American idiots are on the run.

And this business with the CIA guys and the Jordanian who blew them up in Afghanistan. Now there is one helluva PR victory. The guy that blew them up has done his preparation with masterly precision. He actually made a TV presentation with the head of the Taliban in Pakistan before he did his martyr business. What does that tell the Arab jihadist wannabe? The American CIA is not very smart either. Join with us, we’re really the smart guys. The Americans are always shooting themselves in the foot.

It seems apparent to me that we are losing the PR battle with the jihadists. We might even be losing the war. Indeed, we might call it a war, even if it’s hedged by our President as just a war against Al Qaeda. It should be obvious to anyone that a giant umbrella group of jihadists has been formed and is proliferating, perhaps with a sophisticated command and control operation that encompasses a lot more than we have been told.

The fact is that if I were the PR advisor to the jihadists, I would be asking for a raise and an expansion of my expense account.

At this point I should confess that I was a PR guy in Washington for years, waiting for my novel writing career to kick in. My clients were politicians, causes and business entities. My job was to teach them the art of persuasion, tell them how to make the right moves to look good, saleable, admired. I was a technician in mass appeal and manipulation, the creator of winning façades. Sometimes the façades reflected the real inner purpose, sometimes not. It taught me that Shakespeare was wrong at times. You can make a sows ear look like a silk purse. It’s done every day.

If I had been hired as the PR guy for our side to counter jihadist’s recent upswing, my advice to the President would be to reverse course, keep Gitmo open and stop pussyfooting around with language. We are not fighting militants or insurgents, we are fighting ruthless terrorists and they are not only Al Qaeda, but a conglomeration of jihadists of the Muslim faith. We should vigorously profile those who fit the category without regard to political correctness.

I would tell him that he should reverse the boneheaded advice of our Justice Department to try terrorists in civilian courts. Instead, they should be defined as soldiers of an enemy Army, which is what they are. Shakespeare was right on about lawyers. If you don’t know the quote, look it up.

I would advise the President to increase our war footing by preparing the country for a greater mobilization, so that the burden of sacrifice in fighting our enemy becomes a lot more equitable. Indeed, it may require more incentives or even a draft to relieve the burden on our professional soldiers who have served in the battlefronts multiple times with astounding forbearance and courage.

I would advise him to encourage American Muslims, most of whom are decent and loyal, to mount demonstrations against those who would hide behind their religion to wreak havoc on their fellow citizens. We are, after all, a tolerant nation that is forever grappling with our diversity and mounting such demonstrations would show those of the Muslim faith in other countries as well as our own that we, whatever our religion, creed or race, are united against our enemies.

I would advise him to stop apologizing for the imagined sins of America, especially to the Europeans who we have pulled from the brink of disaster more than once.

If they don’t like us, too effing bad. It is they who should be apologizing to us for their refusal to join the battle against the jihadists, which is their war as well as ours. I would advise him to stop bowing down to dictators, literally, especially to the Saudis who pay lip service to us and are the principal financiers to our jihadist enemies. Besides, it is unseemly and makes us look like toadies.

I would advise him to stop making oratorical nice nice to other countries in the hopes that they will suddenly turn from their corrupt and recalcitrant ways. It makes us look weak as if we were begging for their support. Besides, the butt kissing is futile. I would have advised him to decline the Nobel Peace Prize which made him look like a hypocrite, a glutton for praise.

I would urge him to project a more militant visage. The professorial pose and the endless oratorical flourishes are beginning to look tired and shopworn. His use of Truman’s famous phrase about the “buck stopping here” seems like a good start. He should start cracking heads, getting rid of the deadwood and incompetents around him. Get tougher, I’d advise. Hell, Lincoln fired his Generals if they didn’t perform. Look what Truman did to MacArthur.

Indeed, I’d put it to him straight, whisper in his ear. You look like a pussy Mr. President. The country knows you’re a helluva smart guy and there are lots of folks pulling for you to make good, but your street creds needs a reset.

I’d advise him to go a little easy on those prompters. It makes him look too contrived and programmed. I’d also advise him to dump the Blackberry. Makes it seem he can’t make a move without talking ten times a day to Rahm, David or Michelle. Maybe cut down on his golf game especially in times of heavy national anxiety.

Oh yes, on the domestic side, I’d tell him he needs lots of help as well. Maybe take a course in accounting. I’d advise him to hire another PR guy for that side of things. Your foreign stuff is more than enough for one guy to handle. Besides, I’m no longer in that business.