Our media and government have essentially promoted an ignorance of what motivates Muslims to undertake violent acts preferring to focus on their individual problems of being marginalized in Western societies and subject to discrimination, estrangement due to their inability to integrate or be successful. The look of benign puzzlement on the face of Attorney General Holden when asked about the common factor of "Radical Islam" in the behavior and attempted acts of terrorism by those individuals apprehended and questioned over the past year and a half of the Obama administration reveals a profound avoidance of following the dictum if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.
No, for Obama and Holder, for The New York Times and for a large majority of those who pretend to be journalists not only in the United States, but in practically all Western societies including paradoxically, those like Spain and the U.K. that have already suffered atrocious acts of wanton terrorism, the guilty are "certain people who act from a variety of motives".
On August 5th, even Holder was obliged to use the impermissible T-word (i.e. TERRORISM) in his boasting of the indictments of 14 Americans of Somali origin who had created a "a deadly pipeline that has routed funding and fighters to al-Shabab from cities across the United States,". Holder said. "We are seeing an increasing number of individuals -- including U.S. citizens -- who have become captivated by extremist ideology and have taken steps to carry out terrorist objectives, either at home or abroad."
Obama, Holder and our entire State Department prefer to be willfully ignorant, even deaf, dumb and blind
Obama, Holder and our entire State Department prefer to be willfully ignorant, even deaf, dumb and blind to what motivated practically all the terrorist acts committed by Jihadi directed Muslims directed against innocent civilians from dozens countries of all cultural political types as well as against fellow Muslims. (See a partial list below in appendix).
No matter how long the call remains unheard, lies passive, it is always there as part of one thousand four hundred years of violent expansion, it may be LATENT BUT it is always LETHAL. This is not "radical" but the standard, mainstream Islam that is inherently political and subject to the manipulation of demagogues, both "secular" and religious throughout history. A leader such as Saddam Hussein came to power through the Ba'ath political movement in Iraq devoted to "secular" Arab nationalism but when unable to fully mobilize public support for his failed policies, resorted to reforming his regime to make it appear more in line with traditional Islam, imprinting the first principle of Islam (There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet) on the country's flag and putting his portrait on the currency in the image of Saladin. In the letter he left to be read after his execution, he wrote... Dear faithful people, I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any faithful, honest believer ... God is Great ... God is great ... Long live our nation ... Long live our great struggling people ... Long live Iraq, long live Iraq ... Long live Palestine ... Long live jihad and the mujahedeen."
Jihad, Sixth Pillar of Islam
Jihad, this Sixth Pillar of Islam is not a "marginal" or "perverted interpretation" practiced by a tiny minority. It may lay dormant for generations but has the power overnight to transform tens of millions of Muslims around the globe into a mob craving blood, and "revenge" for what they perceive to be an affront to their dignity and sacred beliefs. How else does one explain the mass demonstrations involving security forces, hundreds of deaths and property damage in the millions, threats, attempted mayhem and terror and a world-wide economic boycott imposed on Denmark in 2006?
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the assassin of twelve soldiers, one civilian and the wounding of more than forty others at Ft. Hood, Texas on Nov.6, 2009 was not joking. Newspapers all over the United States carried headlines on the order of "Army authorities searching for a motive in the massacre", and "Obama finds crime Incomprehensible". Both the Army and the U.S. President bear complicity for the deaths of these soldiers, killed at the safest location imaginable, yet many observers referred to the crime as "incomprehensible", although Malik had been cited numerous times for extremist Islamist statements, sympathy with Al-Qaeda and his own personal calling card as a "soldier of Allah."
On May 13, the following exchange occurred at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee:
Rep. Lamar Smith (R.,Texas): Do you feel that these individuals might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam?
Attorney General Eric Holder: There are a variety of reasons why I think people have taken these actions....
Smith: Okay, but radical Islam could have been one of the reasons?
Holder: There are a variety of reasons why people
Smith: But was radical Islam one of them?
Holder: There are a variety of reasons why people do these things. Some of them are potentially religious-based.
For Faisal Shahzad, the attempted Pakistani (and American citizen) Times Square bomber and the countless others, it is a wholly vain endeavor to search for some "factor" that somehow "radicalized" them apart from Islam. Just as the many millions of Muslims who participated in the anti-Danish demonstrations, there is only one factor they all hold in common --the trigger pushing them "over the line" is the ever-present allegiance to Islam which means the blind obedience to those in power able to manipulate them by resorting to the appeal of JIHAD .
Nobody among our leading journalists, politicians, television commentators and pundits and certainly not the President or the Attorney General or the many congressmen and others who had inquired about our policies vis a vis the "Muslim World" have dared ask or tried to answer the following question about their view that Islam is a noble religion and only a tiny minority can be classified as "radical Islamists"...
Question: Can you name ANY widely regarded, respected, prominent Muslim cleric or the religious authorities in any Muslim religious institution enjoying government support in a Muslim majority state ANYWHERE who has unconditionally condemned either the numerous murderous attacks carried out in the name of JIHAD against innocent non-Muslim civilians; or the wholly reprehensible malicious attacks against Denmark; or the death threats (Salman Rushdie) as well as actual assassination attempts (against the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard by an axe-wielding Somali now under arrest in Denmark); and murders carried out against writers, intellectuals, film producers and politicians (Pym Fortuyn and Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands)???
Those few brave and lonely individuals who are indeed moderates hoping to reform Islam such as Irshad Manji and M. Zuhid Jasser of the Center for Islamic Pluralism and former Muslims like Ibn Warraq and Walid Shoebat, and notably women in exile such as Nonie Darwish, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, and Talima Nasrin who are all straws in the wind with no support for help or outreach of any kind from the U.S. government because it knows that these individuals are a tiny fraction of all those who support Al-Qaeda or the Taliban worldwide.
The credo of the Muslim Brothers for which there is no possibility of misinterpreting states that "Allah is our goal, the Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle is our way and death in the path of Allah is our highest aspiration". Mawdudi, who founded the IslamistJamaat-e-Islami (Muslim Block)in 1942, argued that the ultimate goal of the Jihadi movement is to destroy all those regimes that are opposed to the precepts of Islam and replace them with a world-wide government based on Islamic principles.
The assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat
The assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (by the Muslim brotherhood) was a harbinger of the growing Jihadi threat and the desire to implement an Islamist solution wiping away the vestiges of Western and secular institutions everywhere in Muslim and Arab countries. Attempts to placate radical Islamist militancy in Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Malaysia, Lebanon and elsewhere have only led to their increased strength. At least, the political leadership in these nations is aware of the threat and knows how to combat it. The same cannot be said of our blind leaders and media. They cannot see the Jihadi writing on the wall. It comes straight from Mohammad, the Koran, the sunna and the sira, from all four schools of Orthodox Sunni Islam and the Shi'ite Thugs in power in Iran.
To understand the latent but decisive appeal of JIHAD on Muslims who for all intents and purposes are lawful, peace-abiding and "moderate" but who are clay to be molded in the hands of the Jihadist masters who dominate political Islam, one only has to look at the Danish cartoon affair throughout 2006. Denmark had given its Muslim population the same safeguards and protection as all its citizens. It supported Muslim institutions and schools and instituted costly programs designed to ease their integration into Danish society by making allowances for Muslim customs such as dietary restrictions. A Syrian-born Palestinian Muslim (Naser Khader) was elected to the Folketing (Danish Parliament) from the moderate-centrist "Det Radikale Venstre" Party that has supported Danish policy in Iraq yet, literally, at the drop of a hat, at the call of extremists, Danish Muslims and Muslims all over the world in their millions were mobilized to demonstrate, threaten, riot, commit mayhem and violence against the citizens and the flag of a country they knew nothing about.
Khader, like other Danes, was shocked and outraged by the provocation of several Muslim religious leaders in Denmark (imams who had control of the state supported Islamic religious Council) who purposely defamed the country and spread incendiary false stories about the cartoons. The motivation for the cartoons was to parody the misuse by religious extremists of Islam to glorify radical extremist views, # integration and encourage support for radical Islamist policies in the Middle East, including adding their own fabricated extra, false and fabricated truly offensive cartoons.
What was entirely missing from the coverage of Muslim reaction in much of Europe and the United states by the media was the decided split among Danish Muslims. Several hundred contacted Khader to express their support of his brave stand and his new organization of "Democratic Muslims" and believed that the imams misused their power and that ordinary Muslims must support the democratic values of the host society in which they live. Also lacking in international coverage was the growing resistance of Danes who were and are not racist but have been stirred as in the heroic days of 1943 to stand up and be counted to defend their country.
As a result, Danes cancelled more than 100,000 vacation trips to Egypt and Turkey, the two most popular holiday sites in Muslim countries (where violent demonstrations and flag burning rioting in front of the Danish embassies occurred). This is clearly the case even though the ever ready Danish willingness to compromise were present and both former Prime Minister Fogh and the editors of Jyllands-Posten apologized for any unintended offence. This, of course, was insufficient. The call to Jihad, no matter from where, launched by the most extremist elements within political Islam always trumps the moderates.
The message of Islam is clear --to strike anywhere anytime. It reads "Yesterday Israel, Today Denmark, Tomorrow the World!"
Appendix A (for the further attention of Attorney General Eric Holder: The list below contains information about "Certain People Who May Potentially Act from a Variety of Motives")
1. The eight-year-long war 1980-88 between Iraq and Iran resulting in almost a million killed.
2. The First Gulf War; Invasion of Kuwait (Aug. 1990-Feb.1991), Operation Desert Storm, the Second Gulf War, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
3. Massive violence between Muslims and Hindus in India following partition and three India-Pakistan wars, terrorism in Kashmir and India resulting in several million killed and at least fifteen million people displaced.
4. Pakistan-Bangladesh conflict, 1971 (following civil war and secession). This war saw the highest number of casualties in any of the India-Pakistan conflicts. It is believed that from one to three million Bangladeshis were killed as a result of this war. Very little media coverage.
5. Ongoing Yemeni and Somali Civil Wars. Thousands killed. No media coverage.
6. Inter-sectarian Muslim violence between Shias and Sunnis in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
7.Border disputes between Syria and Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
8. Jordan's crackdown on "Black September," 1970. PLO crushed by Jordanian Legion under command of King Hussein (at least 25,000 killed).
9. Syria's suppression of the Muslim Brothers and opponents of the Assad regime; destruction of the city of Hama (at least 20,000 killed)to wipe out Muslim Brotherhood. Media barred from entering the city. Uprising in Hama by Muslim Brotherhood crushed by Assad regime in Syria Feb. 1982.
10. Al-Qaeda and Taliban violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan (Muslims both perpetrators and largely victims for such crimes as sending girls to school, wearing make-up and listening to Western music).
11. Inter-Palestinian factionalism in Gaza; dozens killed.
12. Decade-long mass violence between Muslim religious extremists (Salafist movement) and Algerian government beginning in 1991 estimated to have cost between 150,000 and 200,000 lives.
13. Sixteen-year-long civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 130,000 to 250,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people (one-third of the population) were wounded, half of whom were left with lifetime disabilities.
14. Iraqi, Iranian, and Turkish suppression of Kurdish autonomy; approximately 180,000 Kurds killed, mostly civilians in Iraq, by Saddam Hussein's forces via poison gas attacks.
15. Muslim terror against civilians in Chechnya,and additional hundreds killed in Moscow and other Russian cities including children at primary school. Russia's two biggest terrorist attacks both came from Muslim groups. The Chechnyan separatist "Special Purpose Islamic Regiment" took an estimated 850 people hostage in Moscow in October 2002 at a theater. At least 129 hostages died during the rescue, all but one killed by the chemicals used to subdue the attackers.
In the September 2004, 1,200 schoolchildren and adults were taken hostage at a secondary school in Beslan, North Ossetia-Alania, which was overrun by an Islamic terror group. About 500 people, including 186 children, died in the attempt to free the hostages. According to the only surviving attacker, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, the choice of a school and the targeting of mothers and young children by the attackers was carried out in order to generate the maximum outrage possible and ignite a wider war in the Caucasus with the ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic Emirate across the whole of the North Caucasus.
16. Muslim secessionist activity and terrorism in the Philippines (with almost monthly reports by American media that do not mention the words "Muslim" or "jihad").
17. Darfur in the Sudan; genocidal attacks against non-Muslim Black Sudanese. On July 13, 2008, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed ten charges of war crimes against Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, charges that included three counts of genocide, five crimes against humanity, and two of murder. The ICC's prosecutors have claimed that al-Bashir "masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part" three tribal groups in Darfur because of their ethnicity.
18. Muslim grievances and violence in Thailand.
19. Terrorist activity against the Han Chinese in Western China. More than a hundred fatalities.
20. Division of Cyprus to satisfy Turkish Muslim minority.
21. Muslim unrest and violence against Christians in Nigeria and Ghana; several thousand killed. No media interest.
22. Muslim terrorist attacks against the U.S. in New York and Washington. Almost 3,000 civilians killed.
23. Terrorist attacks throughout Europe -- London Underground, Atocha Train Station in Madrid; in Africa at American embassy in Kenya; in Bali nightclub where most victims were Australian tourists; foiled attempts in the U.S. and elsewhere.
24. Jihadi-inspired sniper and terror attacks by deranged lone Muslims in the United States against military bases (Ft. Hood), synagogues, and airports, and at Times Square.
25. Continued terrorist attacks against the State of Israel and Jews throughout the world.
26.Widespread piracy on a scale not seen for 150 years along the Somali coast of East Africa preying upon international shipping.
27. Indonesian Muslim suppression of East Timor population's (98%) desire for independence. Tens of thousands of civilians killed or died from malnutrition, imprisonment(1974-1998).
28. Continued civil war in West Sahara between the Polisario Movement and Moroccan authorities , low-level guerrilla attacks and hundreds of thousands of displaced refuges.
29. Terrorism against civilian airline passengers committed by operatives of different Palestinian Arab terror organizations.
30, Murderous terrorist bombings against civilians, passers-by and personnel of the Jewish Community Center and Israeli Embassy in Israel planned and carried out by Iranian operatives.
31. At the end of May, 2010 one of the most inhuman incidents involving the slaughter of innocent civilians took place in Lahore Pakistan. There was essentially no media interest, such as on-the-spot coverage or interviews with survivors. The victims were all Ahmadis, a "deviant" sect within Islam. Ahmadis comprise the sect that is distinguished as being the most peaceful; they have always lived in peace with their neighbors, both Muslim and non-Muslim. The Ahmadis were attacked by those "mainstream" Muslims who are sympathizers of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan.These Muslims attacked the two Ahmadi mosques packed with hundreds of worshipers. At least ninety people were killed. The assaults in Lahore were carried out by at least seven men, including three suicide bombers.Some of the attackers acted as snipers from an adjacent mosque to kill their fellow Muslims.
Ahmadis are reviled as heretics by mainstream Muslims for their belief that their sect's founder was a savior foretold by the Quran, Islam's holy book. The group has experienced years of state-sanctioned discrimination and occasional attacks in Pakistan, but never before in such a large and coordinated fashion.
Not one reputable, representative, acknowledged Muslim religious leader anywhere has seen fit so far to issue a condemnation of the attack. Not one media commentary anywhere (except in Israel) saw fit to mention that the only place within the Middle East where Ahmadis live in peace and harmony with their neighbors and enjoy full civil and religious rights is Israel.
The Kababir neighborhood in Haifa was established in 1928. The neighborhood's first mosque on Mount Carmel was built in 1931, and a larger grand mosque was built in the 1970s. The grand mosque has two white minarets standing one hundred feet tall. They dominate the low-rise skyline of the residential neighborhoods on the ridges nearby. The mosque is subsidized entirely by the members of the local Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
Jihad is directed not "just" against the unbelievers (the kaffirs, i.e., non-Mulsims), but all those who have "deviated" -- the Shi'ites, the Alawites, the Ahmadis, the Druze, Bahais, Yazidis, etc. It is holy war by armed resistance to all those who do not accept Muhammad's message as interpreted by the sacred traditions hallowed by all the schools of Sunni jurisprudence across fourteen hundred years of history.
Dr. Norman Berdichevsky nberdichevsky.com, Ph.D. - Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974, is an author, freelance writer, editor, researcher, lecturer, translator and teacher with sophisticated communications skills.
