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Since much has been said about Terrorism on this forum but here is a very concise and analytical view on Terrorism that is current internationally, based on religious dictates (?)
The author seems to sum up the ethos that has gripped the world or at least the non Islamic world, irrespective of what religion that the non Islam world professes.
The contents are that of the author but the very fact that he is a Colonel, he is well aware of the dangers of unbridled terrorism! Being from the US Army, he would know better than most since the US Army is facing the brunt!
I have highlighted the issues so that it becomes clear for rapid reading.
The author seems to sum up the ethos that has gripped the world or at least the non Islamic world, irrespective of what religion that the non Islam world professes.
The contents are that of the author but the very fact that he is a Colonel, he is well aware of the dangers of unbridled terrorism! Being from the US Army, he would know better than most since the US Army is facing the brunt!
Islam On The Warpath
Colonel (Retd.) Irving Kett
However noble the preaching of Mohammed the Prophet in the eyes of his followers, Islam today is a religion promoting violence against unbelievers. Fully 60% of the Koran is devoted to polemics against infidels. Islam, conceived in the pagan tribal society of the Arabian Peninsula, is the only major religion encouraging killing in the cause of God. Moslems throughout the world cheered the September 11th 2001 attack on the United States that killed some 3,000 people, despite its condemnation by fearful Moslem rulers. Moslem clerics applauded it as a victory of true believers fulfilling the will of Allah or remained silent.
It is instructive to begin with the Koran, which exerts far more influence on the Moslems than the Bible does on Christians or Jews. [COLOR=Red]Sura 5 contains the statement: "O Believers! Do not take the Jews or Christians as friends. They are but one another's friends. If any one of you takes them for his friends, he surely is one of them!"Sura 9 says bluntly: "...kill those who join other gods with Allah wherever you shall find them; and seize them, besiege them and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush." It instructs the believer to let them go only if they convert to Islam. Later it explains that Christians "join other gods with Allah" because they believe that the Messiah son of Mary is the son of God. The Jews - because they say "Ezra is a son of God" (which is a lie - they don't.)
The military conquests of Mohammed the Prophet of Allah and his successors underscored the essential difference between Islam and the other monotheistic religions: Islam believed in spreading the faith by war. The 14th century Imam and scholar, Ibn Qayim Al-Jawziya wrote: "...Jihad is obligatory until the word of Allah reigns supreme, until all are of the religion of Allah, until the religion of Allah triumphs over all other religions..." In those days, Moslem practice was to force unbelievers to choose between conversion to Islam, the acceptance of a humiliating "dhimmi" status involving the payment of a poll tax to the Moslem authorities or death. Al-Jawziya comments: "The dhimmis are the most disobedient of {Allah's] command... consequently it befits them to be humiliated by distinguishing them from the...Moslems whom Allah has exalted.... These He has humiliated, belittled and rendered abominable, so that the sign of contempt is manifest upon them... by their appearance." Centuries of preaching jihad and the inferiority of unbelievers are the background enabling poor countries with populations exploited by corrupt rulers to maintain national pride and to stage the Islamic resurgence of 1947-2002, exploiting the greed and stupidity of the Western world until they threatened its values and power.
Nearly all Moslem states were given their independence during the past 55 years. Except for Turkey and arguably Indonesia, they are dictatorships where the ruler and his establishment receive the lion's share of national income and foreign aid receipts. Corruption is rife throughout the Moslem world. The system, which keeps the large majority of the people poor, is a fertile breeding ground for Islamic terrorism - partly because poor Moslems tend to seek comfort in religion and partly because the sponsors of terrorism find it easy to recruit and recently have paid families of suicide bombers particularly well. As a result, Islamic fundamentalism has been spreading rapidly, side by side with the radicalization of the more "secular", including large sections of the intelligentsia and many officials of the ruling regimes. This trend has been enormously strengthened by the extremism of the Moslem religious establishments.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took over the reins of power in Iran at the beginning of 1979, after Iran deposed its pro-Western Shah. This proved a historical watershed. Khomeini offered a new answer to the perceived problem of Moslem identity. He concurred with secular critics that Moslem society was a failure, but pointed out that this was because too many had abandoned strict adherence to the tenets of Islam. He claimed to believe that the United States intended to destroy Islam and called it "the great Satan." Yet he was certain it would fail since Islam had made its believers powerful in the past and would do so again.
Iran remained the only Moslem state ruled by the Shiite sect of Islam, though the Alawi sect that controls Syria since Hafez Al-Assad became its ruler is probably closer to the Shiites than to the Sunnis. The majority of Iraq's population was Shiite, but its rulers were Sunnis. The accepted wisdom of most experts was that Khomeinism was unlikely to attract Sunni states. They were wrong. Khomeini's message appealed to the Moslem masses - even in the relatively wealthy states of the Persian Gulf. And most of the clerics embraced it, knowing that it would enhance their importance within their societies. Mosques all over the Arab world, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh began to resound with cries that America was the Great Satan and crowds burning US flags became a frequent spectacle. Other Moslem states and Moslem public opinion in non-Moslem countries were also affected.
An admirer of Ayatollah Khomeini commented on these developments: "Islam is at war with Hindus in Kashmir, with Christians and animists in Sudan, with Catholics in the Philippines and Indonesia, with Coptic Christians in Egypt and, of course, with Jews in Israel. As Ayatollah Khomeini said, we shall export our revolution to the whole world until the cry of 'Allah Akhbar' resounds everywhere. There will be struggle. There will be jihad... Islam will be victorious... and the teachings of the Koran will prevail all over the world.... This is the duty all Moslems must fulfill."
Characteristically, the cause of Islamic supremacy thrived on Western concessions and withdrawals. Here, the United States played a role that unwittingly increased the popularity of Moslem terrorism. Islam regards concessions and withdrawals as weakness, as lack of faith in your own cause. No thanks were offered for the "decolonization" of Moslem oil and gas resources owned and developed by Western companies, or for the American intervention enabling Egypt to nationalize the Suez Canal built and financed by Britain and France. The Moslem states viewed this as a natural historical development - and thus as their natural right. The West did not disillusion them, impervious to the tinge of contempt it received for its inability to safeguard its own interests, later exploited by Saudi Arabia and other Moslem states of OPEC to siphon off the wealth of the West and Japan and transfer it to the coffers of the corrupt rulers of a Moslem world bent on expansion by every means including violence.
The story of oil in the second half of the 20th century is the story of a Western suicidal syndrome. The more oil came under Moslem control, the more the West regarded it as a vital strategic asset and adjusted its policies and actions to further Moslem interests. When Moslem and Western interests clashed head on or when Moslem terrorists killed Western soldiers, the West usually retreated. This further increased the contempt Islam felt for the West. It also was and remains the prime cause of the rapid growth of Islamic terrorism. Yet not a single Western statesman - with the possible exception of President George W. Bush and some members of his administration - drew the obvious conclusion that Western policies towards Moslem states and their oil must be changed. The State Department continues to oppose such changes.
The crucial events in the development of the aforementioned syndrome were the US debacle in Vietnam, the abandoning of Lebanon to Syria after Islamic terrorists killed 241 US marines and 59 French soldiers at Syria's behest, the hurried evacuation of Somalia when some US troops sent there were killed, the ignoring of Saudi Arabia's refusal to cooperate with efforts to find and punish the culprits when American airmen stationed on its soil to protect its regime were killed by terrorists, the repeated demands on Israel to give "land for peace" to countries that had attacked after they had been defeated and the West's failure to oppose Moslem sedition and separatism all over the world.
In Moslem states and in Moslem irredentist groups elsewhere such behavior created an appearance of Western decadence. It made the vision of a world dominated by Islam a realistic goal. Moslems in general and Arabs in particular are inclined to lie and to believe their own lies. Their terrorists are always "freedom fighters", but those retaliating for their murders are "terrorists". They can conceive a temporary "peace" after an armed struggle gaining them additional territory. When they start a war, lose it and are forced to give up territory, peace is inconceivable. In April 2001, an Indian scholar summed up the problems of the non-Moslems as follows: Islam is by its very nature dishonest, treacherous, brutal, separatist and destructive. "To trust a Moslem is to fall into a trap." Islamic terrorism was the inevitable consequence of the West's abjectly futile reaction to such values and behavior.
Thus it should occasion no surprise that the last four decades brought an unprecedented growth of Moslem terror, including a phenomenal increase in suicide terrorism of which the September 11th 2001 attack on the United States is temporarily the most painful manifestation. The enemies of 21st century Islam are the United States, India, Israel and any country unfortunate enough to have a substantial Moslem minority. Western Europe is on the verge of attaining this status. In the last half of the 20th century, partly because the joint US-Soviet intervention in the 1956 war for the Suez Canal virtually liquidated British and French influence in the Middle East, the European Community's consistently pro-Arab policy tried to restore it by undermining US influence there. In the 21st century, Europe may have to pay a heavy price for this in terms of its own security.
India has its own problems with Moslems. In August 1946, they called for jihad in East Bengal demanding secession and killed thousands of Indians. India reluctantly agreed to the secession of Pakistan when the British made India and Pakistan separate independent dominions within the British Commonwealth in 1947. The Pakistanis proceeded to kill nearly one million Indians in the territories assigned to them and expelled tens of millions from their homes. In contrast to its behavior in Palestine, the United Nations passed no resolutions demanding that these Indians return to Pakistan and did nothing to help them.
In the best Moslem tradition, Pakistan took what it was given but demanded more. The province of Kashmir became legally a part of India already in 1947, when its Maharaja, Hari Singh, decided to accede to India. The population was mainly Moslem, so Pakistan instigated and aided a revolt that is still in progress. It eventually occupied some 40% of the province. Not content with this, when foreign mediation and negotiations established a "Line of Control" separating this area from the part under Indian control, the Pakistanis continued to attack Indian troops manning it and staged incursions into Indian territory.
Kashmir has poisoned the relations between India and Pakistan for 55 years. For much of this period, India was unable to act forcefully in the matter because both the West and China sided with Pakistan. For some time, the US even had a defense pact with Pakistan, but stopped short of trying to engineer a resolution at the United Nations forcing India to cede Kashmir - probably because the Soviet Union would have vetoed it and India had a large following among Third World states.
In 1971, India, tired of Pakistani provocations and incursions, went to war. The powers did not intervene and Pakistan was soundly defeated. Nevertheless, the provocations continued. It takes more than a military defeat to end a Moslem jihad when the Moslem world feels the trend of history favors its designs.
Professor Samuel P. Huntingdon in his book The Clash of Civilizations published in 1996 provides an accurate picture of the relations between Moslems and unbelievers: "In southern Thailand Moslem groups have been involved in an intermittent insurgency against a Buddhist government, while in the southern Philippines Moslem insurgents fight for independence from a Catholic country.... The bloodiest Moslem-Christian war has been in the Sudan.... [It] has gone on for decades and produced hundreds of thousands of casualties. Nigerian politics have been dominated by the conflict between the Moslem Fulani-Hausa in the north and the Christian tribes in the south, with frequent riots and coups and one major war. In Chad, Kenya and Tanzania, comparable struggles have occurred between Moslems and Christians.... The relations between Moslems and people of other civilizations - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Hindu, Chinese, Buddhist, Jewish - have generally been antagonistic; most of these relations were violent at some point in the past; many have been violent in the 1990s. Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Moslems have problems living peaceably with their neighbors. The question arises whether this pattern of late-20th century conflict between Moslems and non-Moslems is equally true of relations between groups from other civilizations. In fact it is not. Moslems make up about one-fifth of the world's population but in the 1990s they have been more involved in intergroup violence that the people of any other civilization. The evidence is overwhelming."
The 11th September 2001 was another big milestone in Islam's struggle to conquer the world. True, the Chechens had for some time terrorized Russia, while the Bosnian Moslems and Albanians fought Serbs during the US-engineered wars to dismember Yugoslavia and detach Kosovo from Serbia, benefiting from Western military support even after Iran sent them arms and politically indoctrinated volunteers. After Kosovo, the Albanians attacked in newly independent Macedonia. But in the Balkans, the West connived in Moslem plans. Except for the murder of Israeli sportsmen at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972, a few other incidents targeting Jews, some relatively minor attacks by Algerians in France and the occasional hijacking of its aircraft, Western Europe had not been attacked by Moslems and did not regard them as a threat. Indeed, it allowed them to immigrate in large numbers.
After Khomeini denounced it as the "Great Satan", the United States was less lucky. The blowing up of a Pan-Am passenger aircraft over Lockerbie in Scotland remains an unsolved mystery, despite the conviction of a Libyan for involvement in it. All that can be said for certain is that Arab terrorists, who are as likely to have been sponsored by Syria as by Libya, perpetrated this deliberate murder of 270 innocent victims. In June 1996, Saudi dissidents - probably connected with Osama Bin Laden - blew up the living quarters of US military personnel in Dhahran. The bomb used was prepared by Hezbollah in Lebanon and transported to Saudi Arabia from the Beka'a Valley through Syria and Jordan with the knowledge and connivance of Syrian officials. Nineteen Americans were killed. In 1998, the blowing up of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania followed. There were more than 200 dead, most of them Kenyans. Osama Bin Laden took responsibility for the outrage.
In an interview granted to the newspaper Al Quds Al-Arabi on February 23rd 1998, the same Bin Laden called for a jihad against the United States because "the US is occupying the land of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula... plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers and humiliating its people." He also criticized "the continuing aggression against the Iraqi people." In fact, he was leading this jihad himself. His Al-Qaeda organization, based on Saudis and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, also includes other Arabs, Pakistanis and Afghans. It has links with Hezbollah and the terrorists of Chechenia. Iran trained some of its members.
So there was plenty of warning for anyone ready to listen and read intelligence reports. Yet when some 20 Arab suicide bombers abducted four civilian passenger aircraft and flew them into the Twin Towers of the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11th 2001, the US security services seemed taken by surprise. It transpired that some of the terrorists had even received their pilot's training in the United States! This aspect must be stressed because it may facilitate a second, even more deadly attack. The lesson has not been properly learnt. George Tenet, Clinton's choice to head the CIA, is still in this post and running diplomatic errands, though he should have resigned on September 12th. Other security services could also do with a thorough overhaul. [B]This is not a time to worry about the political effects of ethno-religious profiling. It is a time to worry about terrorists and potential terrorists.[/B]
Daniel Pipes, writing in the November 2001 issue of Commentary, described the danger: " The Muslim population in this country [the United States] is not like any other group, for it includes a substantial body of people - many times more numerous than the agents of Osama Bin Laden - who share with the suicide hijackers a hatred of the United States and the desire, ultimately, to transform it into a nation living [according to] the strictures of militant Islam... they harbor designs for this country that warrant urgent and serious attention." The continuous screening of this population is an obvious duty of US security services.
Many American Moslems want Islam to become the dominant religion in the United States. An influential commentator, Shamim Siddiki, published a book in 1989 under the title The Need to Convert Americans to Islam. In Siddiki's judgment, the need to control the United States is even more pressing than the need to sustain the Islamic revolution in Iran or to destroy Israel because "doing so will have a much greater positive impact on the future of Islam." He adds: "Establishing Islamism here would signal the final triumph over its only rival, that bundle of Christianity and liberalism which constitutes contemporary Western civilization." Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson, in a Wall Street Journal article on May 31st 2001, point out that Al-Qaeda hopes the United States will eventually be ruled by Moslems.
Thus the 11th September 2001 suicide bombings not only constituted the first major Moslem attack on the United States, but also signified that the conquest of the West is now one of the goals of Islamic terrorism and that the terrorists feel confident they will win.
The reactions in the Moslem world were instructive. "We are ecstatic," said a Lebanese. "Bulls-eye!" commented Egyptian taxi drivers as they watched a rerun of the World Trade Center collapse. Other Egyptians expressed the wish that President Bush should have been buried in the rubble or said this was their happiest moment since the war of 1973. In many Arab states, there was dancing in the streets. The Palestinians did the same in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza strip, threatening an Associated Press cameraman with death because he photographed thousands of Arabs celebrating in the alleys of the Balata refugee camp near Nablus. A member of Arafat's Fatah said: "Bin Laden is the most popular figure in the West Bank and Gaza." The official PLO daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jedida, commented: "The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of their noble predecessors, the suicide bombers who taught the US Marines a tough lesson in Lebanon. These suicide bombers are the salt of the earth, the engines of history. They are the most honorable people among us."
Outside the Middle East, the reactions were similar. In the southern Philippines, 5,000 Moslem demonstrators shouted: "Long live Bin Laden!" In northern Nigeria, Osama Bin Laden became a heroic figure and his admirers killed 200 infidels. A Moslem in Kenya shouted: "Every Moslem is Osama Bin Laden." In Kashmir, a huge banner proclaimed: "Osama is not an individual but the name of a holy war." In Pakistan people declared: "Bin Laden is Islam. He represents Islam." In France it was reported that Moslem youth chant Bin Laden's name as they throw stones at unbelievers.
Ignoring or forgetting such manifestations of hate for everything Western civilization represents seriously endangers the security of North America and the European Community. The inability of Western statesmen, businessmen, academicians and journalists to accept the Moslems as they are, even to the extent of ignoring their hatred and violence, is a weakness the West can no longer afford. Moslems are not peaceful. They glorify wars with unbelievers. On Friday October 26th 2001, Arafat's Voice of Palestine radio station broadcast a sermon including the following: "These heretic nations, the United States and Britain, are once again attacking like dogs Moslem Afghanistan and are fighting Islam everywhere. Hostile American planes are killing innocent people. These nations seek to destroy Islam. Imperialism is returning to the Arab region in the guise of a 'war against terrorism'. We urge all Moslems to unite in a war against these Crusaders." And recently an Egyptian (!) newspaper called the United States "the cancer, the malignant wound in the body of Arabism, for which there is no cure but eradication." The West learnt, but refused to digest, that the large majority of Arabs support terrorism that kills civilians, women and children. America and Western Europe were shaken, but only the instant courage of President George W. Bush in declaring war on terrorism prevented a continuation of their suicidal policies.
Perhaps the most deadly aspect of Western attitudes to the Moslem world during the last five decades was the belief that Moslem goodwill can be bought with concessions and retreats. Moslems regard such bonanzas as a sign of Allah's favor and despise those who give them for their weakness. Bin Laden himself made this very clear in an interview he gave to John Miller of ABC News on May 28th 1998. He said: "We have seen during the last decade the decline of the American Government and the weakness of the American soldier, who is ready to wage cold wars but unprepared to fight long wars. This was proved in Beirut when the Marines fled after two explosions.... [and] was repeated in Somalia.... [They] were surprised at the low morale of American soldiers.... After a few blows, they ran.... They forgot about [the US] being the world leader and the leader of the new world order. [They] left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat."
Moslems would have shown far more respect for the United States if, after the murder of its 241 marines, it had bombed Damascus to smithereens, though this would undoubtedly have evoked howls of rage. Indeed, the West should stop appeasing the Moslem concept that gaining territory previously controlled by the enemy is a noble victory and losing control of territory is a defeat. The West is now at war with Islamic terrorism, yet it still seeks diplomatic shortcuts to a "peace" the enemy does not want and agreements he has no intention to honor. By now it should know that Moslems regard this as weakness encouraging them to go on fighting.
To understand the precepts of the religion they are dealing with, Americans and Europeans should pay heed to the destruction of huge Buddhist statues of great historical and cultural importance by Moslems in Afghanistan. This should remind them that throughout the ages Moslems have destroyed churches, synagogues and other buildings of significance to other religions, often building mosques on their sites. They encourage conversion to Islam, but a Moslem who converts to another religion may be punished with death. And they expect no retribution because they know they are feared.
The greatest mistakes the West can make during its war against Moslem terrorism - which is a war for the survival of non-Moslem civilizations - is to allow fear to influence its decisions and to underrate the enemy. Moslem leaders can smell fear at a distance of 10,000 miles. At this point of time, when "that bundle of Christianity and liberalism which constitutes contemporary Western civilization" faces the possibility of defeat and extinction, those attempting to save it must be courageous and as ruthless in confronting their enemy as he is in confronting them.
http://www.westerndefense.org/bulletins/June-02.htm
Colonel (Retd.) Irving Kett
However noble the preaching of Mohammed the Prophet in the eyes of his followers, Islam today is a religion promoting violence against unbelievers. Fully 60% of the Koran is devoted to polemics against infidels. Islam, conceived in the pagan tribal society of the Arabian Peninsula, is the only major religion encouraging killing in the cause of God. Moslems throughout the world cheered the September 11th 2001 attack on the United States that killed some 3,000 people, despite its condemnation by fearful Moslem rulers. Moslem clerics applauded it as a victory of true believers fulfilling the will of Allah or remained silent.
It is instructive to begin with the Koran, which exerts far more influence on the Moslems than the Bible does on Christians or Jews. [COLOR=Red]Sura 5 contains the statement: "O Believers! Do not take the Jews or Christians as friends. They are but one another's friends. If any one of you takes them for his friends, he surely is one of them!"Sura 9 says bluntly: "...kill those who join other gods with Allah wherever you shall find them; and seize them, besiege them and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush." It instructs the believer to let them go only if they convert to Islam. Later it explains that Christians "join other gods with Allah" because they believe that the Messiah son of Mary is the son of God. The Jews - because they say "Ezra is a son of God" (which is a lie - they don't.)
The military conquests of Mohammed the Prophet of Allah and his successors underscored the essential difference between Islam and the other monotheistic religions: Islam believed in spreading the faith by war. The 14th century Imam and scholar, Ibn Qayim Al-Jawziya wrote: "...Jihad is obligatory until the word of Allah reigns supreme, until all are of the religion of Allah, until the religion of Allah triumphs over all other religions..." In those days, Moslem practice was to force unbelievers to choose between conversion to Islam, the acceptance of a humiliating "dhimmi" status involving the payment of a poll tax to the Moslem authorities or death. Al-Jawziya comments: "The dhimmis are the most disobedient of {Allah's] command... consequently it befits them to be humiliated by distinguishing them from the...Moslems whom Allah has exalted.... These He has humiliated, belittled and rendered abominable, so that the sign of contempt is manifest upon them... by their appearance." Centuries of preaching jihad and the inferiority of unbelievers are the background enabling poor countries with populations exploited by corrupt rulers to maintain national pride and to stage the Islamic resurgence of 1947-2002, exploiting the greed and stupidity of the Western world until they threatened its values and power.
Nearly all Moslem states were given their independence during the past 55 years. Except for Turkey and arguably Indonesia, they are dictatorships where the ruler and his establishment receive the lion's share of national income and foreign aid receipts. Corruption is rife throughout the Moslem world. The system, which keeps the large majority of the people poor, is a fertile breeding ground for Islamic terrorism - partly because poor Moslems tend to seek comfort in religion and partly because the sponsors of terrorism find it easy to recruit and recently have paid families of suicide bombers particularly well. As a result, Islamic fundamentalism has been spreading rapidly, side by side with the radicalization of the more "secular", including large sections of the intelligentsia and many officials of the ruling regimes. This trend has been enormously strengthened by the extremism of the Moslem religious establishments.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took over the reins of power in Iran at the beginning of 1979, after Iran deposed its pro-Western Shah. This proved a historical watershed. Khomeini offered a new answer to the perceived problem of Moslem identity. He concurred with secular critics that Moslem society was a failure, but pointed out that this was because too many had abandoned strict adherence to the tenets of Islam. He claimed to believe that the United States intended to destroy Islam and called it "the great Satan." Yet he was certain it would fail since Islam had made its believers powerful in the past and would do so again.
Iran remained the only Moslem state ruled by the Shiite sect of Islam, though the Alawi sect that controls Syria since Hafez Al-Assad became its ruler is probably closer to the Shiites than to the Sunnis. The majority of Iraq's population was Shiite, but its rulers were Sunnis. The accepted wisdom of most experts was that Khomeinism was unlikely to attract Sunni states. They were wrong. Khomeini's message appealed to the Moslem masses - even in the relatively wealthy states of the Persian Gulf. And most of the clerics embraced it, knowing that it would enhance their importance within their societies. Mosques all over the Arab world, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh began to resound with cries that America was the Great Satan and crowds burning US flags became a frequent spectacle. Other Moslem states and Moslem public opinion in non-Moslem countries were also affected.
An admirer of Ayatollah Khomeini commented on these developments: "Islam is at war with Hindus in Kashmir, with Christians and animists in Sudan, with Catholics in the Philippines and Indonesia, with Coptic Christians in Egypt and, of course, with Jews in Israel. As Ayatollah Khomeini said, we shall export our revolution to the whole world until the cry of 'Allah Akhbar' resounds everywhere. There will be struggle. There will be jihad... Islam will be victorious... and the teachings of the Koran will prevail all over the world.... This is the duty all Moslems must fulfill."
Characteristically, the cause of Islamic supremacy thrived on Western concessions and withdrawals. Here, the United States played a role that unwittingly increased the popularity of Moslem terrorism. Islam regards concessions and withdrawals as weakness, as lack of faith in your own cause. No thanks were offered for the "decolonization" of Moslem oil and gas resources owned and developed by Western companies, or for the American intervention enabling Egypt to nationalize the Suez Canal built and financed by Britain and France. The Moslem states viewed this as a natural historical development - and thus as their natural right. The West did not disillusion them, impervious to the tinge of contempt it received for its inability to safeguard its own interests, later exploited by Saudi Arabia and other Moslem states of OPEC to siphon off the wealth of the West and Japan and transfer it to the coffers of the corrupt rulers of a Moslem world bent on expansion by every means including violence.
The story of oil in the second half of the 20th century is the story of a Western suicidal syndrome. The more oil came under Moslem control, the more the West regarded it as a vital strategic asset and adjusted its policies and actions to further Moslem interests. When Moslem and Western interests clashed head on or when Moslem terrorists killed Western soldiers, the West usually retreated. This further increased the contempt Islam felt for the West. It also was and remains the prime cause of the rapid growth of Islamic terrorism. Yet not a single Western statesman - with the possible exception of President George W. Bush and some members of his administration - drew the obvious conclusion that Western policies towards Moslem states and their oil must be changed. The State Department continues to oppose such changes.
The crucial events in the development of the aforementioned syndrome were the US debacle in Vietnam, the abandoning of Lebanon to Syria after Islamic terrorists killed 241 US marines and 59 French soldiers at Syria's behest, the hurried evacuation of Somalia when some US troops sent there were killed, the ignoring of Saudi Arabia's refusal to cooperate with efforts to find and punish the culprits when American airmen stationed on its soil to protect its regime were killed by terrorists, the repeated demands on Israel to give "land for peace" to countries that had attacked after they had been defeated and the West's failure to oppose Moslem sedition and separatism all over the world.
In Moslem states and in Moslem irredentist groups elsewhere such behavior created an appearance of Western decadence. It made the vision of a world dominated by Islam a realistic goal. Moslems in general and Arabs in particular are inclined to lie and to believe their own lies. Their terrorists are always "freedom fighters", but those retaliating for their murders are "terrorists". They can conceive a temporary "peace" after an armed struggle gaining them additional territory. When they start a war, lose it and are forced to give up territory, peace is inconceivable. In April 2001, an Indian scholar summed up the problems of the non-Moslems as follows: Islam is by its very nature dishonest, treacherous, brutal, separatist and destructive. "To trust a Moslem is to fall into a trap." Islamic terrorism was the inevitable consequence of the West's abjectly futile reaction to such values and behavior.
Thus it should occasion no surprise that the last four decades brought an unprecedented growth of Moslem terror, including a phenomenal increase in suicide terrorism of which the September 11th 2001 attack on the United States is temporarily the most painful manifestation. The enemies of 21st century Islam are the United States, India, Israel and any country unfortunate enough to have a substantial Moslem minority. Western Europe is on the verge of attaining this status. In the last half of the 20th century, partly because the joint US-Soviet intervention in the 1956 war for the Suez Canal virtually liquidated British and French influence in the Middle East, the European Community's consistently pro-Arab policy tried to restore it by undermining US influence there. In the 21st century, Europe may have to pay a heavy price for this in terms of its own security.
India has its own problems with Moslems. In August 1946, they called for jihad in East Bengal demanding secession and killed thousands of Indians. India reluctantly agreed to the secession of Pakistan when the British made India and Pakistan separate independent dominions within the British Commonwealth in 1947. The Pakistanis proceeded to kill nearly one million Indians in the territories assigned to them and expelled tens of millions from their homes. In contrast to its behavior in Palestine, the United Nations passed no resolutions demanding that these Indians return to Pakistan and did nothing to help them.
In the best Moslem tradition, Pakistan took what it was given but demanded more. The province of Kashmir became legally a part of India already in 1947, when its Maharaja, Hari Singh, decided to accede to India. The population was mainly Moslem, so Pakistan instigated and aided a revolt that is still in progress. It eventually occupied some 40% of the province. Not content with this, when foreign mediation and negotiations established a "Line of Control" separating this area from the part under Indian control, the Pakistanis continued to attack Indian troops manning it and staged incursions into Indian territory.
Kashmir has poisoned the relations between India and Pakistan for 55 years. For much of this period, India was unable to act forcefully in the matter because both the West and China sided with Pakistan. For some time, the US even had a defense pact with Pakistan, but stopped short of trying to engineer a resolution at the United Nations forcing India to cede Kashmir - probably because the Soviet Union would have vetoed it and India had a large following among Third World states.
In 1971, India, tired of Pakistani provocations and incursions, went to war. The powers did not intervene and Pakistan was soundly defeated. Nevertheless, the provocations continued. It takes more than a military defeat to end a Moslem jihad when the Moslem world feels the trend of history favors its designs.
Professor Samuel P. Huntingdon in his book The Clash of Civilizations published in 1996 provides an accurate picture of the relations between Moslems and unbelievers: "In southern Thailand Moslem groups have been involved in an intermittent insurgency against a Buddhist government, while in the southern Philippines Moslem insurgents fight for independence from a Catholic country.... The bloodiest Moslem-Christian war has been in the Sudan.... [It] has gone on for decades and produced hundreds of thousands of casualties. Nigerian politics have been dominated by the conflict between the Moslem Fulani-Hausa in the north and the Christian tribes in the south, with frequent riots and coups and one major war. In Chad, Kenya and Tanzania, comparable struggles have occurred between Moslems and Christians.... The relations between Moslems and people of other civilizations - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Hindu, Chinese, Buddhist, Jewish - have generally been antagonistic; most of these relations were violent at some point in the past; many have been violent in the 1990s. Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Moslems have problems living peaceably with their neighbors. The question arises whether this pattern of late-20th century conflict between Moslems and non-Moslems is equally true of relations between groups from other civilizations. In fact it is not. Moslems make up about one-fifth of the world's population but in the 1990s they have been more involved in intergroup violence that the people of any other civilization. The evidence is overwhelming."
The 11th September 2001 was another big milestone in Islam's struggle to conquer the world. True, the Chechens had for some time terrorized Russia, while the Bosnian Moslems and Albanians fought Serbs during the US-engineered wars to dismember Yugoslavia and detach Kosovo from Serbia, benefiting from Western military support even after Iran sent them arms and politically indoctrinated volunteers. After Kosovo, the Albanians attacked in newly independent Macedonia. But in the Balkans, the West connived in Moslem plans. Except for the murder of Israeli sportsmen at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972, a few other incidents targeting Jews, some relatively minor attacks by Algerians in France and the occasional hijacking of its aircraft, Western Europe had not been attacked by Moslems and did not regard them as a threat. Indeed, it allowed them to immigrate in large numbers.
After Khomeini denounced it as the "Great Satan", the United States was less lucky. The blowing up of a Pan-Am passenger aircraft over Lockerbie in Scotland remains an unsolved mystery, despite the conviction of a Libyan for involvement in it. All that can be said for certain is that Arab terrorists, who are as likely to have been sponsored by Syria as by Libya, perpetrated this deliberate murder of 270 innocent victims. In June 1996, Saudi dissidents - probably connected with Osama Bin Laden - blew up the living quarters of US military personnel in Dhahran. The bomb used was prepared by Hezbollah in Lebanon and transported to Saudi Arabia from the Beka'a Valley through Syria and Jordan with the knowledge and connivance of Syrian officials. Nineteen Americans were killed. In 1998, the blowing up of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania followed. There were more than 200 dead, most of them Kenyans. Osama Bin Laden took responsibility for the outrage.
In an interview granted to the newspaper Al Quds Al-Arabi on February 23rd 1998, the same Bin Laden called for a jihad against the United States because "the US is occupying the land of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula... plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers and humiliating its people." He also criticized "the continuing aggression against the Iraqi people." In fact, he was leading this jihad himself. His Al-Qaeda organization, based on Saudis and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, also includes other Arabs, Pakistanis and Afghans. It has links with Hezbollah and the terrorists of Chechenia. Iran trained some of its members.
So there was plenty of warning for anyone ready to listen and read intelligence reports. Yet when some 20 Arab suicide bombers abducted four civilian passenger aircraft and flew them into the Twin Towers of the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11th 2001, the US security services seemed taken by surprise. It transpired that some of the terrorists had even received their pilot's training in the United States! This aspect must be stressed because it may facilitate a second, even more deadly attack. The lesson has not been properly learnt. George Tenet, Clinton's choice to head the CIA, is still in this post and running diplomatic errands, though he should have resigned on September 12th. Other security services could also do with a thorough overhaul. [B]This is not a time to worry about the political effects of ethno-religious profiling. It is a time to worry about terrorists and potential terrorists.[/B]
Daniel Pipes, writing in the November 2001 issue of Commentary, described the danger: " The Muslim population in this country [the United States] is not like any other group, for it includes a substantial body of people - many times more numerous than the agents of Osama Bin Laden - who share with the suicide hijackers a hatred of the United States and the desire, ultimately, to transform it into a nation living [according to] the strictures of militant Islam... they harbor designs for this country that warrant urgent and serious attention." The continuous screening of this population is an obvious duty of US security services.
Many American Moslems want Islam to become the dominant religion in the United States. An influential commentator, Shamim Siddiki, published a book in 1989 under the title The Need to Convert Americans to Islam. In Siddiki's judgment, the need to control the United States is even more pressing than the need to sustain the Islamic revolution in Iran or to destroy Israel because "doing so will have a much greater positive impact on the future of Islam." He adds: "Establishing Islamism here would signal the final triumph over its only rival, that bundle of Christianity and liberalism which constitutes contemporary Western civilization." Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson, in a Wall Street Journal article on May 31st 2001, point out that Al-Qaeda hopes the United States will eventually be ruled by Moslems.
Thus the 11th September 2001 suicide bombings not only constituted the first major Moslem attack on the United States, but also signified that the conquest of the West is now one of the goals of Islamic terrorism and that the terrorists feel confident they will win.
The reactions in the Moslem world were instructive. "We are ecstatic," said a Lebanese. "Bulls-eye!" commented Egyptian taxi drivers as they watched a rerun of the World Trade Center collapse. Other Egyptians expressed the wish that President Bush should have been buried in the rubble or said this was their happiest moment since the war of 1973. In many Arab states, there was dancing in the streets. The Palestinians did the same in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza strip, threatening an Associated Press cameraman with death because he photographed thousands of Arabs celebrating in the alleys of the Balata refugee camp near Nablus. A member of Arafat's Fatah said: "Bin Laden is the most popular figure in the West Bank and Gaza." The official PLO daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jedida, commented: "The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of their noble predecessors, the suicide bombers who taught the US Marines a tough lesson in Lebanon. These suicide bombers are the salt of the earth, the engines of history. They are the most honorable people among us."
Outside the Middle East, the reactions were similar. In the southern Philippines, 5,000 Moslem demonstrators shouted: "Long live Bin Laden!" In northern Nigeria, Osama Bin Laden became a heroic figure and his admirers killed 200 infidels. A Moslem in Kenya shouted: "Every Moslem is Osama Bin Laden." In Kashmir, a huge banner proclaimed: "Osama is not an individual but the name of a holy war." In Pakistan people declared: "Bin Laden is Islam. He represents Islam." In France it was reported that Moslem youth chant Bin Laden's name as they throw stones at unbelievers.
Ignoring or forgetting such manifestations of hate for everything Western civilization represents seriously endangers the security of North America and the European Community. The inability of Western statesmen, businessmen, academicians and journalists to accept the Moslems as they are, even to the extent of ignoring their hatred and violence, is a weakness the West can no longer afford. Moslems are not peaceful. They glorify wars with unbelievers. On Friday October 26th 2001, Arafat's Voice of Palestine radio station broadcast a sermon including the following: "These heretic nations, the United States and Britain, are once again attacking like dogs Moslem Afghanistan and are fighting Islam everywhere. Hostile American planes are killing innocent people. These nations seek to destroy Islam. Imperialism is returning to the Arab region in the guise of a 'war against terrorism'. We urge all Moslems to unite in a war against these Crusaders." And recently an Egyptian (!) newspaper called the United States "the cancer, the malignant wound in the body of Arabism, for which there is no cure but eradication." The West learnt, but refused to digest, that the large majority of Arabs support terrorism that kills civilians, women and children. America and Western Europe were shaken, but only the instant courage of President George W. Bush in declaring war on terrorism prevented a continuation of their suicidal policies.
Perhaps the most deadly aspect of Western attitudes to the Moslem world during the last five decades was the belief that Moslem goodwill can be bought with concessions and retreats. Moslems regard such bonanzas as a sign of Allah's favor and despise those who give them for their weakness. Bin Laden himself made this very clear in an interview he gave to John Miller of ABC News on May 28th 1998. He said: "We have seen during the last decade the decline of the American Government and the weakness of the American soldier, who is ready to wage cold wars but unprepared to fight long wars. This was proved in Beirut when the Marines fled after two explosions.... [and] was repeated in Somalia.... [They] were surprised at the low morale of American soldiers.... After a few blows, they ran.... They forgot about [the US] being the world leader and the leader of the new world order. [They] left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat."
Moslems would have shown far more respect for the United States if, after the murder of its 241 marines, it had bombed Damascus to smithereens, though this would undoubtedly have evoked howls of rage. Indeed, the West should stop appeasing the Moslem concept that gaining territory previously controlled by the enemy is a noble victory and losing control of territory is a defeat. The West is now at war with Islamic terrorism, yet it still seeks diplomatic shortcuts to a "peace" the enemy does not want and agreements he has no intention to honor. By now it should know that Moslems regard this as weakness encouraging them to go on fighting.
To understand the precepts of the religion they are dealing with, Americans and Europeans should pay heed to the destruction of huge Buddhist statues of great historical and cultural importance by Moslems in Afghanistan. This should remind them that throughout the ages Moslems have destroyed churches, synagogues and other buildings of significance to other religions, often building mosques on their sites. They encourage conversion to Islam, but a Moslem who converts to another religion may be punished with death. And they expect no retribution because they know they are feared.
The greatest mistakes the West can make during its war against Moslem terrorism - which is a war for the survival of non-Moslem civilizations - is to allow fear to influence its decisions and to underrate the enemy. Moslem leaders can smell fear at a distance of 10,000 miles. At this point of time, when "that bundle of Christianity and liberalism which constitutes contemporary Western civilization" faces the possibility of defeat and extinction, those attempting to save it must be courageous and as ruthless in confronting their enemy as he is in confronting them.
http://www.westerndefense.org/bulletins/June-02.htm
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