Time To Put The Blame For Islamic Terrorism In The Right Place
That place is not on the innocent people who are being slaughtered. Douglas Murray makes some great points in The Telegraph/UK about all the ridiculous self-blaming we do:
"It is your foreign policy," [people] say. Perhaps after Brussels people might question this response a little more searchingly. Aside from Bhutan, Belgium probably has the least interventionist foreign policy of any country in the world.Other apologists answer that terrorists are moved to blow up trains and gun down people in cafes because they feel disenfranchised and ostracised, with few employment opportunities. This is particularly strange when you consider that there is record unemployment in Southern Europe right now and none of our cities has yet been visited by a jobless Catholic Italian modelling a suicide vest. It is about poverty, excuse-seekers say. Yet nobody from the most deprived estates of Glasgow has yet carried this idea to its illogical conclusion.
Indeed, people like to think that deprivation and radicalisation go hand in hand; they claim that the areas these young men are forced to live in aren't nice enough and it makes them feel marginalised. Molenbeek in Belgium lacked "gentrification", apparently, and this was a causal factor. If only we could only find them somewhere nice to live, they would find it easier to integrate.
What nonsense. Earlier this month I was in Holland, visiting their predominantly Muslim ghettos, including the one where Mohamed Bouyeri was living when he assassinated the filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004 for making a film which criticised Islam. This mini-Morocco was not Mayfair, but it was a lot nicer than most estates in Britain. We really have gone mad if we're blaming the mass-murder of fellow citizens on inadequate social housing.
It all tracks back to this infuriating idea that we have not done enough to "integrate" people. But immigrant groups nearly always want to stick together. Some Muslims in Britain want to live in entirely parallel societies with their own system of laws and customs. "Perhaps they don't want to live with us because we're racist" is the final fail-safe of the self-abuser. In fact, it is more commonly the other way around.
...The problem of Islamic extremism is caused - astonishingly enough - by Islamic extremism. As France, Belgium and many other societies can now attest, the larger your Muslim population, the larger your Islamic extremism problem. Not because most Muslims are terrorists. Obviously not. But because that "small minority" we always hear about grows proportionally bigger the larger the community is.
The real problem is Islam, which commands Muslims to slaughter the "infidel," and tells them they'll get a special pass to salvation for doing it. There are myriad violence-commanding passages from the Quran at the bottom of this post, if you'd like to see for yourself.
Well, yes, the primary problem is a barbarian culture that thinks it needs to destroy all other cultures.
However, there is a certain wisdom in not kicking hornets' nests. US foreign policy in the Middle East is to blame for that lack of wisdom. There never was any need to destroy the governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and (attempted) Syria. There never was a need to ship weapons to Al Queda in one country, while fighting them in another.
The Shrub and the Obamanoid - both of their administrations are up to their gills in this.
a_random_guy at March 28, 2016 2:52 AM
@random:
What would you have proposed for Afghanistan? Pre-9/11 the Taliban said that they wanted Western governments to leave them alone. So we did. Would you have ignored the attacks and let them have another shot, and maybe kill a lot of people, since I guess about 3,000 dead wasn't enough for you to conclude that an act of war had been committed?
Regime change in Iraq became the official US policy under President Clinton. He also proposed trying diplomatic means to convince Saddam to give up his WMD programs before resorting to force, and UN Sec Counsel Resolutions were passed authorizing this strategy. Saddam's nuclear program was dismantled after his sons in law defected with the documents. His Super-Canon project was thwarted when the Canadian engineer in charge was assassinated and the canon unexpectedly blew up (Israel has publicly denied knowledge of these events). The problem GWB had was that he followed the Clinton policy and faulty intelligence. But, because of the dismantling of the US's Humint programs, begun by Carter, continued by Dem party leaders in Congress, and made worse by Clinton's Exec-Order forbidding even bribing foreign officials for intelligence, we had no idea what the facts were in Iraq. But, neither did any of our allies, nor hdid Russia. So, in Iraq, GWB's mistake was believing that Clinton had told the truth and enforcing all the UN Sec Counsel Resolutions authorizing the use of force. Still, by 2007 both Iraq and Afghanistan had been stabilized and the Islamic radicals in both largely defeated.
Since Jan 2009, the US ME policies appear to reflect the Arrogance of Ignorance. But, don't worry, when Iran has nukes and ICBMs, things there will get much worse.
Wfjag at March 28, 2016 3:50 AM
Examine these three premises:
- "It is your foreign policy," [people] say.
- Other apologists answer that terrorists are moved to blow up trains and gun down people in cafes because they feel disenfranchised and ostracised, with few employment opportunities.
- If only we could only find them somewhere nice to live, they would find it easier to integrate.
What's alike about them, and the others that Murray describes? They're things that we (meaning the West) could potentially change unilaterally. Clinging to those ideas allows people to think that we're in control, if only we'd be a little nicer.
The idea that Islamic terrorists might have their own reasons, their own tactics, and their own end game that have nothing to do with the West is much more uncomfortable to consider.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at March 28, 2016 4:31 AM
"The idea that Islamic terrorists might have their own reasons, their own tactics, and their own end game that have nothing to do with the West is much more uncomfortable to consider."
It is also why Trump among other are succeeding. Those excuses are obviously false. This refusal to deal with reality is hitting a limit.
Ben at March 28, 2016 6:37 AM
I remember the distress caused by Carter's war on humint, but blaming Clinton, Bush I & II, and Obama for doing something about "problems" is not useful.
Jefferson had to "do something" about the Islamic practices of the day and that something started off w/appeasement and moved to a 15 month(?) war when the appeasement price was deemed insufficient.
Admit that we have problem as old as our country, the world has a problem as old as Islam and recognize that nothing we do will "work" towards getting them to leave us the hell alone.
State this FACT while saying that obviously the great majority of Islamic Muslims do not bomb people and we really don't care what these people do as long as they follow our laws like everyone else.
BUT ALSO STATE we will track down the bomb makers, the bankers, the suppliers of funds/arms/whatever (Germany, Italian mob, etc.), as well as the country-state-local leaders that send bombers out to target Americans here and abroad.
We will be doing this continuously as a military objective/training exercises and will be trying to minimize civilian casualties BUT the bad guys use civilians as shields so THERE WILL BE SOME CIVILIAN CASUALTIES (especially among the leaders).
Done. Problem stated. Initial solution proposed. Keep the public informed on what is working and what is not. Rinsed and repeat.
Life goes on. "Peaceful" Muslims will either get over it (why should they be opposed to stopping bombers bomb?) or at least be made known as "bombing Americans is okay because ...". First amendment rights maintained for them HERE. Over there they represent fresh humint opportunities which is a good thing.
Not sure what all the fuss is about.
Bob in Texas at March 28, 2016 7:55 AM
There used to be a terrorist organization in the USA at the turn of the century. It's members were a small percentage of the population but they had broader support in the USA that allowed them to get away with attacking Blacks, Jews, and Catholics. Eventually this country had enough of these terrorists. They became hunted by law enforcement and they became ridiculed in popular culture. They still exist today, a shadow of its former self, but are considered a joke. I am talking about the KKK.
We can take out a lot of terrorist but until radical Islam loses it broad support in the Muslim world, we are spinning our wheels. It does not help that the west goes out of its way to not help any moderate Muslims and leaves them to be slaughtered by terrorists. We cannot even name the problem so good luck fixing it.
Shtetl G at March 28, 2016 8:11 AM
"Jefferson had to 'do something' about the Islamic practices of the day and that something started off w/appeasement and moved to a 15 month(?) war when the appeasement price was deemed insufficient."
Right. It's a cycle that goes back to our founding: we take a non-interventionist stance in the Middle East, and the result is that the problem grows and festers until it becomes a direct threat, and then we are forced to intervene under unfavorable circumstances. Appeasement has never once worked in the history of civilization. This is why we had the policy that we (and the Soviet Union) had in the 1950s and '60s, of essentially installing puppet rulers in the region and/or supporting rulers that were willing to cooperate with us. The aim was to prevent the problems from starting again, so that we didn't have to engage in another war in the region. For the most part, it worked. There were the skirmishes with Israel, but the good guys won those in short order, and the conflicts didn't spread. It was when we decided to start giving the region autonomy that contemporary Islamism got its foothold.
The real problem we've had with the Middle East since 1979? There are only two ways you ever win a war: when the other side either (1) surrenders unconditionally, or (2) is wiped out. We have not had a commitment to winning in the Middle East, because winning a war is an ugly process that no one wants to go through. But if you don't win, you lose. In war, there are no ties; if a war appears to end in a draw, it's a war that isn't finished. Sending in troops without a commitment to win is the worst thing you can do, because it gets everyone disgusted and doesn't accomplish anything. And that's what we've been doing since Bush Sr. abruptly terminated the Gulf War when we were on the verge of true victory.
Cousin Dave at March 28, 2016 8:13 AM
A big FU to all of those that say/believe that we in America should:
1) return to the days of only being able to buy only a specified amount of gas on odd/even days because the ME says we can not have more gas, and
2) have safe/bomb rooms in our homes like Israel (similar to tornado shelters in 'tornado alley'.
Our normal should never be like Israel's (have to tolerate constant threat of bombing/missiles) or be dependent upon foreign oil in order to "save the planet".
Our government did not check social media on visas do to more fear of being politically incorrect than to Americans losing lives. COME ON!
France had the terrorist for days and had only questioned him for 2 hours because his wound made him tired! COME ON!
And I'm stupid! politically incorrect! racist! for saying things are screwed up?
Bob in Texas at March 28, 2016 1:05 PM
> The real problem is Islam, which
> commands Muslims to....
So what?
What are you going to do about it?
...If you don't mind my asking.
Crid at March 28, 2016 8:01 PM
If Islam is such a "commanding" force, how come 1.6 billion people ignore it?
That's more people than our largest nation, and they're not doing what (you contend) they're told.
Crid at March 29, 2016 12:26 AM
Oh, really?
Jeff Guinn at March 30, 2016 10:53 AM
Leave a comment