How jihadis Target Western Youth.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

MIDDLE EAST AND TERRORISM

By Steven Emerson

Enablers of our own destruction?

As the new year begins, al-Shabaab, a terror group fighting to overthrow the government of Somalia, has served notice that it intends to play an increasingly prominent role in international jihad. Al-Shabaab fighters declared their support for Al Qaeda in Yemen following the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253, allegedly by a terrorist linked to that group. And police in Denmark said a man charged with the attempted New Year's Day murder of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard (who drew a controversial 2005 cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad) was a member of al-Shabaab with "close links" to leaders of Al Qaeda in East Africa. Al Qaeda and al-Shabaab made official their alliance in September.

"It was a brave step taken by a brave Somali man; he attacked a devil who insulted our honored Prophet Mohammed," an al-Shabaab spokesman told the London Daily Telegraph. "Surely an honored Muslim brother or sister will kill that devil on the next attack."

On Monday, an al-Shabaab terrorist killed seven people and wounded 11 others during a suicide bombing at a clinic near the Mogadishu airport.

It appears that the group intends to carry on that fight with recruits from the United States. Between September 2007 and October 2009, 20 young men (all but one of Somali descent), left the Minneapolis area for Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab.

Thus far, Congress and the intelligence community have been reluctant to conclude that Americans who train with al-Shabaab could return and stage terrorist attacks in the United States or threaten American interests outside the Horn of Africa.

Perhaps the most detailed discussion of al-Shabaab recruiting efforts in the United States was a March 11, 2009 Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing where Andrew Liepman of the NCTC and Philip Mudd of the FBI expressed doubt that al-Shabaab could evolve into a major threat to U.S. interests.

But Mudd, associate executive assistant director of the FBI's National Security Branch, provided one significant caveat when asked how serious a problem the group is.

"I would talk in terms of tens of people, which sounds small but it's significant, because every terrorist is somebody who can potentially throw a grenade into a shopping mall," he said. Mudd added that information about the number of American recruits for al-Shabaab is "fuzzy" because "[t]here are thousands of people - thousands - going to the Horn of Africa every month. You can go to Kenya to look at game parks, and it's hard for me to tell you if somebody's going to a game park or going to Shabaab. So I am sure that there are people out there that we're missing."

At least six Americans have been killed after going to Somalia to join al-Shabaab. One of those was Shirwa Ahmed, who left Minnesota in December 2007. Ten months later Ahmed blew himself up, apparently becoming the first American citizen to carry out a suicide bombing. Another is Jamal Bana, 20, who in July was reported killed in Somalia. He was studying engineering at two Minneapolis schools when he disappeared in November 2008. Bana's family said it learned of his fate when a photograph of his body appeared on a website. Burhan Hassan, 17, also disappeared from his Minneapolis home in the fall of 2008 and flew to Somalia to join al-Shabaab. He, too, was shot to death in June.


CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
At least 14 people have been charged in federal cases related to al-Shabaab recruitment in America, including attending terror training camps, fighting for - and providing support to - the group, designated a terrorist organization. The Justice Department announced the indictment of eight men alone on November 23.

Four defendants have pled guilty and await sentencing. One, Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, admitted in April to training with al-Shabaab, building a terrorist training camp and learning to fire weapons. In July, Salah Osman Ahmed pled guilty to traveling to Somalia in December 2007 to fight Ethiopians. During his time fighting alongside al-Shabaab, Ahmed built a training camp and learned how to fire an AK-47.

Court documents unsealed by federal prosecutors in Minneapolis on November 23, 2009 provide a detailed look at how al-Shabaab recruits and raises money in the United States. The documents examine the case of Burhan Ahmed, who was part of a group of four men who left the Minneapolis area in December 2007 to fight against Ethiopian forces that had invaded Somalia. He first went to Saudi Arabia to participate in the pilgrimage to Mecca, then joined the other three at an al-Shabaab safe house in Somalia.

Between December 2007 and February 2008 the men moved "from northern Somalia to an al-Shabaab training camp in southern Somalia, staying at multiple al-Shabaab houses along the way," according to a criminal complaint by FBI Special Agent Michael Cannizzaro. "The trainees were trained by, among others, Somali, Arab, and Western instructors in, among other things, small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and military-style tactics. The trainees were also indoctrinated with anti-Ethiopian, anti-American, anti-Israeli, and anti-Western beliefs."

Several of the Minnesota men dropped out of the program after a week or two, but Ahmed completed the entire training course. He subsequently took part in an armed ambush of Ethiopian troops. On October 29, 2008, he died in one of a series of coordinated suicide bombings that day targeting Ethiopian, Somali government and United Nations facilities in Somalia. More than 20 people were killed. Ahmed, who drove a truck into an office of the Puntland Intelligence Service, was identified by a fingerprint on a severed finger recovered at the scene.

The criminal complaint alleges that Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax and Abdiweli Yassin Isse played key roles in recruiting for al-Shabaab. In explaining the case against Faarax and Isse, it quotes extensively from interviews with three "confidential witnesses" - individuals who have already pled guilty to conspiracy to commit murder outside the United States in connection with supporting al-Shabaab.

Recruitment was accomplished through personal meetings held in the Minneapolis area, emphasizing the need for participation, and the resulting camaraderie. At one, held in an unidentified Minneapolis mosque, according to the complaint, the men called a co-conspirator in Somalia who "explained the need for CW #1 [confidential witness # 1] and his Minnesota-based co-conspirators to travel to Somalia and fight against the Ethiopians."

Speaking about his own work for jihad, Faarax allegedly told another witness that he "did his part for Islam" while fighting in Somalia. But during three interviews with the FBI, he denied fighting or knowing anyone who fought in Somalia. The complaint contradicts this, alleging that during a meeting in the fall of 2007, Faarax "told his co-conspirators that he experienced true brotherhood while fighting in Somalia and that travel for jihad was the best thing that they could do." Faarax also told the co-conspirators that traveling to Somalia to fight jihad would be fun and not to be afraid. Faarax also explained to his co-conspirators that they would get to shoot guns in Somalia."

Some travel to Somalia was financed by deceptively seeking funds from the community for trips to Saudi Arabia. Witnesses said they saw Isse make the claim while soliciting members of the Somali community, telling them the travel was to study the Koran in Saudi Arabia to study the Koran and not mentioning the Somali jihad.

Isse and Faarax were last seen at the U.S.-Mexico border on the morning of October 8, 2009. The pair, who were dropped off by a taxicab at the San Ysidro border crossing near San Diego, carried tickets for a flight from Tijuana to Mexico City. They crossed into Mexico and their whereabouts are unknown.

In a related case, the Justice Department announced in November that charging documents were unsealed against Mahamud Said Omar, who is accused of conspiring to provide financial support and personnel for al-Shabaab. Omar, who has been in custody in the Netherlands, allegedly gave money for young men to travel from Minneapolis to Somalia to fight with and train for al-Shabaab. He is believed to have "visited an Al-Shabaab safe- house and provided hundreds of dollars to fund the purchase of AK-47 rifles for men from Minneapolis."

The Omar indictment alleges that he "committed and caused" nine men to leave Minnesota for Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab. Of that group, "two are believed to have died in Somalia, three have returned and pled guilty to terror charges, and four are still believed to be in Somalia," Minnesota Public Radio reported.

The role of local mosques in al-Shabaab recruitment is shrouded in mystery. Some relatives of the missing men - among them Osman Ahmed of Minneapolis, whose nephew Burhan Hassan was killed in Somalia in early June - contend that the youths were radicalized at the Abubakar as-Saddique mosque in Minneapolis. They point to the fact that many of the young men who went to fight for al-Shabaab attended the mosque, among them his nephew and Shirwa Ahmed. As noted above, the criminal complaint against Isse and Faarax alleges that a jihadist recruiter called a co-conspirator in Somalia from a Minneapolis mosque, but does not name the mosque. Officials at the Abubakar mosque deny any involvement and say they oppose anyone going to Somalia to fight.

Authorities believe one al-Shabaab recruiter was Zakaria Maruf, a charismatic former Minneapolis resident who is thought to have gone to Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab and has worked as a recruiter. Maruf was indicted in August for supporting the group.


INVESTIGATING JIHADIST RECRUITMENT ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER
Al-Shabaab recruitment appears to be growing in Canada, too. Five Somali men in their mid-20s disappeared from the Toronto area between September and November, spurring anxiety among Somali Canadians and triggering investigations by authorities. The first to leave the country was 22-year-old Ahmed Elmi, who vanished in early September. He called his parents a month later to say he was in Kismayo - a Somali city controlled by al-Shabaab. Canadian officials have expressed concern that 20 or more people may have left the country to join al-Shabaab.

"This is a potential menace," said David Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Harris told the Investigative Project on Terrorism that departures to Somalia could turn into "a developing and metastasizing threat" that could prove dangerous on both sides of the border.

"No one should take comfort from the fact that it is five or six or 20" who have gone to Somalia, he said. "It could easily be 200 or more in the near future" and "it is just a matter of time" before someone who went abroad comes back to North America in an effort to carry out an attack.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Commissioner William Elliott apparently agrees. In a speech last October, he said his agency is concerned about Canadians who travel to Somalia "to fight and then return, imbued with both extremist ideology and the skills necessary to translate that into direct action."

In a January 6 interview with Ottawa radio station CFRA, Harris noted there are "clear indications" that "there are transportation networks in America that would take kids to Somalia where they are impressed into service by al-Shabaab. There is no reason to imagine that the Ottawa community would be immune from this, and it would seem to me very much in the interest of Somali-Canadians of good faith to cooperate with the authorities."

Though there have been complaints among some Somali Canadians that the CSIS has been unfairly targeting them, Harris says investigations have been far from excessively intrusive. Canadian security services "are effectively handcuffed in doing their job" when it comes to investigating jihadist activities. Canadian intelligence has been weakened by a series of investigations into alleged human rights abuses that have had "an unbelievably chilling effect on the intelligence services." Canadian intelligence officials now have to ask themselves whether aggressively investigating potential threats is worth "spending the next five to 20 years in court" dealing with government inquiries. This situation means "the enemy has achieved a massive victory."

Terrorism experts on both sides of the border point to Abu Mansour al-Amriki, an American al-Shabaab operative who has lived in the U.S. and Canada. Amriki, a 25-year-old native of Mobile, Alabama, was born Omar Hammami. He grew up as a Baptist before converting to Islam and becoming president of the Muslim Students Association at the University of South Alabama at the time of the September 11 attacks. "Everyone was really shocked," he told an interviewer at the time. "Even now it's difficult to believe a Muslim could have done this." Hammami warned about the possibility of misguided retribution against Muslims.

Hammami dropped out of school in 2002 and went to Toronto two years later. He stayed for a little over a year and made it to Somalia in 2005. He has since become one of al-Shabaab's top commanders and a fixture on recruiting videos like this, in which he denounces human rights and democracy for being at war with Muslim traditions such as stoning and cutting off hands.

Militant Islamists regard the West as "Al-Harb, the land of war," Harris says. "There's…a lack of respect, a profound view that we are a happy, effete civilization. And we are proving it - by allowing them to recruit, we reinforce this stereotype. We reinforce the growing impression among Somalis that the Shabaab writ runs in our backyard, not the democratic governments of the United States and Canada."

Steven Emerson is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism and national security and considered one of the leading world authorities on Islamic extremist networks, financing and operations. He now serves as the Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, one of the world's largest archival data and intelligence institutes on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Posted by Harry at 4:41 AM

Militant “Muslims” Burn Churches: What Would They Do to JESUS?

The world’s REAL Christ Killers at work; time to repay militant “Islam” for its blood libel of Jews
by Bill Levinson

Indonesia: 1000 Muslims Burn Down Two Churches at Loganswarning reports,

Jakarta (AsiaNews) – A crowd of at least 1000 people burned down two Protestant churches last night in Sibuhuan (district of Padang Lawas, North Sumatra). The blaze was the culmination of tension between the faithful and the local Islamic community, tired of seeing ” too many faithful and too many prayers ” in a place not registered as a church.

Among Israel’s chief public relations problems is its almost total failure to use effective propaganda to foment worldwide loathing, hatred, and contempt for its barbaric enemies. As an example, militant “Muslims” published a blood libel cartoon of an Israeli soldier about to bayonet Jesus in his mother’s arms under the caption, “Do not kill him AGAIN.” Were it up to us, Israel would use the methods the Allies used during the Second World War to depict Japanese and Germans as inhuman monsters worthy of nothing but extermination. Let’s start with the vicious phrase “Christ Killers,” which fits the militant “Muslims” perfectly.

It is clear that those who burn places where Christians worship Jesus and, as happened in Nigeria, murder Jesus’ followers, would gladly nail up Jesus if they could get their hands on him–and militant Islamic Sudanese actually crucify Christians. Noting that militant “Muslims” perpetuate ancient blood libels against Jews, it is past time to denounce these enemies of Civilization as the GENUINE Christ Killers of the 21st century.

The terrorists are winning

It is easy to conclude that the Islamic fundamentalists had a hell of a good year
By Arthur Weinreb

Shortly after the attacks on September 11, 2001; back when such attacks were almost universally considered to be acts of war and not just crimes committed by “alleged suspects”, there was a lot of talk of the terrorists winning or losing. It was often said that if people in the West did this or did that, the terrorists would win. Those days are long gone. Although there have been a few such comments since the Christmas Day attempt to bring down Flight 253, they have been few and far between. Perhaps this is recognition of the fact that the current administration and congress in Washington do not treat terrorists as enemies with whom a war is ongoing. It could also be that this “war” is easy to forget; although the militaries of the United States and its allies are engaged in fighting, it is easy for everyone else to simply ignore what is taking place.

In the above context it was somewhat surprising to see David McCaig, the head of the Association of Canadian Travel Agents, being quoted in the media as saying last week that the terrorists were winning. McCaig was particularly referring to the use of full body scanners and searches where passengers are patted down all over their bodies except in the crotch area where Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab kept his explosives. It will be years until this war ends, if in fact it ever ends, but looking at its progress during the last 12 months in terms of winning and losing battles, it is easy to conclude that the Islamic fundamentalists had a hell of a good year.

The terrorists won when Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. While John McCain seemed more concerned with reaching across the aisle to Democrats than enacting policies that would appeal to more conservative voters there is no doubt that he would have prosecuted the war more seriously than the Obama administration is doing. Obama ran on a platform of hope and change. Once elected, he “hoped” that the Islamic fundamentalists would “change” and not attack a country who was led by a nice guy like him. Obama was of course wrong.

The terrorists won when Obama’s first announcement as president was that he was going to close Guantanamo Bay within a year. The terrorists, as everyone else did, realized that he made the decision without deciding what to do with the detainees that were being housed in Cuba.

The terrorists won when the administration stopped using the term “war on terror” and began to refer to it with cutesy phrases such as “man made disasters”.

The terrorists won when Janet Napolitano, who had no expertise in security, was made Secretary of Homeland Security.

The terrorists won when Eric Holder was appointed as Attorney General. Holder had practiced law with a firm that defended some of the Guantanamo detainees.

The terrorists won when Obama travelled around the world and apologized for all the problems that were caused by the United States. This was especially true of his Cairo speech where he made it clear that Muslims, who are not a threat to the West, were much more worthy of priority than the jihadists who seek destruction.

The terrorists won when Barack Obama dithered and dawdled and seemed not to care about how many, if any, more troops should be sent to Afghanistan.

The terrorists won after Adulmatallab’s attempt to blow up Flight 253 when Barack Obama decided to stay on vacation in Hawaii. Even though the president could do everything from Hawaii that he could have done from Washington, it gave the perception that Obama is a weak leader who didn’t take terrorist attacks seriously.

The terrorists won when Obama’s first comment from his sunny vacation paradise was that the carefully planned attack was “an isolated incident”.

The terrorists won when Secretary Napolitano went on television the following Sunday and stated that “the system works”.

The terrorists won when the TSA came up with comical solutions to protect airline passengers. They could not be told or shown where the plane was during their trip and for the last hour would have to remain in their seats during the last hour with nothing on their laps, save their neatly folded hands.

The terrorists won when the American media heaped praise upon the president for being so brave as to actually use the word “war” in public.

One thing was clear; when Barack Obama returned from his Hawaiian vacation, he was scared. Unlike some U.S. senators he can’t bribe the Islamic fundamentalists with stimulus slush funds. Nor can he bully the attackers like he tries to do with Israel; nor can he simply ignore the terrorists as he does with the student uprisings in Iran. Obama may have finally realized that the fundamentalists are a threat not just to the United States but to his legacy. All he could do was blame everyone else while throwing out the line that “the buck stops here”, knowing that the sycophantic media would praise his leadership skills.

Like it or not, the terrorists are winning. And they probably had a few good laughs along the way.

Arthur Weinreb Most recent columns

Copyright © Canada Free Press
Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Men’s News Daily, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck.

Arthur can be reached at: aweinreb@rogers.com

The Last Nail in Europe's Coffin

AmericanThinker.com

Because of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership between the European Union and Islamic states in the Middle East, by the year 2050, the Islamic population of Europe will be 25% to 30% of the total population. There will be perhaps over 100 million Muslims in Europe.

Partnership? More like a suicide pact. Fifty million laborers with families. The effects on European civilization, and on Europe's relationship with the United States, are all too easy to imagine. And the U.S.-Muslim engagement document, the blueprint for the Obama administration's relationship with Muslim countries, parallels these plans. It contains the same "cross-culturalization" plans that are discussed and recommended in the Euro-Med partnership. In other words, it's a charter for our dhimmitude, our subservience to Islamic law.

It's all parsed out in a series of "Association Agreements," which delineate the concrete terms of the new relationships between the E.U. and the Islamic countries involved in the Euro-Med Partnership. One Euro-Med webpage explains that there are "certain common aspects" to all these agreements, including "political dialogue, respect for human rights and democracy, establishment of WTO-compatible free trade over a transitional period of up to 12 years, provisions relating to intellectual property, services, public procurement, competition rules, state aids and monopolies, economic cooperation," and most significantly, "cooperation relating to social affairs and migration and cultural cooperation."

Take a look, for example, at the Association Agreement with Egypt. The links in the online version significantly have all been suspended, and they are routed to a new site for the European Union that offers no information. They are hiding everything having to do with this. But surprisingly, one Euro-Med page is still up, and it explains that the agreement with Egypt will involve the "training of persons working in the cultural field" and the promotion of "cultural cooperation of a commercial nature, production, investment and marketing, training and exchange of information."

"Cultural cooperation": That's where the rubber meets the road on immigration and related issues. It means Europe will conform to Islamic norms and not attempt to challenge them. And one main arena of this cultural cooperation was formally launched on June 9, 2008 in Slovenia: a new Euro-Med University. Based in Piran on the Adriatic coast, the university invites established European universities to become partner institutions -- in Britain, the Universities of Westminister, Cambridge, and Bristol have shown interest in such a partnership.

This cross-culturization among universities and colleges will lead to education and history being filtered through an Islamic prism, which in turn will lead to institutional fascism and historical revisionism. If you go to the EMUNI (Euro-Med University) site, it gives you a clear indication of what they are up to. Front and center is the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)'s Alliance of Civilizations.

The great historian Bat Ye'or said the following of the Alliance of Civilizations in a speech given at the Counter Jihad conference in Brussels in 2007: "The Alliance of Civilizations, created to oppose the clash of civilizations, that is jihad, has also added pressure. On 13 November 2006, the High-Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations presented its report, which sums up the request of the OIC at its Mecca Summit in 2005, after the Cartoons affair. First, it adopts the Islamic view of history and politics by claiming that everything was fine between the three monotheistic religions until the 19th century, when the evil of European colonialism and Zionism destroyed this harmony."

Ye'or adds that the Alliance "affirms that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main source of Christian-Muslim antagonism, not the jihadist war and ideology that deny for others the right to exist. It proclaims that this conflict 'remains one of the gravest threats to international stability' and formulates recommendations that again echo the OIC requests. Such views mirror Hitler accusing the Jews of fomenting World War II, or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, praised in the Hamas charter, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which denies Israel's right to exist."

Why would Europe get involved again with such evil and simultaneously take in such a diabolical and disastrous immigration bomb? And that's what this is. Geert Wilders said it in a speech at Columbia University in October 2009: "Make no mistake: Islam has always attempted to conquer Europe. Spain fell in the 8th century. Constantinople fell in the 15th century. Vienna and Poland were threatened, and now, in the 21st century, Islam is trying again. This time not with military armies, but through migration and demography."

Why cause that social strain? Why expose the European Union to the inevitable violence? The Euro-Med Partnership could be the final nail in the lid of Europe's coffin.

By Pamela Geller Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website and is former associate publisher of the New York Observer. She is the author (with Robert Spencer) of the forthcoming book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America (Simon & Schuster).

Connecting the terror dots (Houston-Terrorism)

By Doug Hagmann Sunday, January 3, 2010

Nabilaye I. YANSANE, Al Maghrib Institute, Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab

As detailed by Dave Macy and published on Canada Free Press Friday, police in Houston responding to a domestic disturbance found something they did not expect: an AT-4 shoulder-mounted rocket launcher that can shoot a missile nearly 1,000 feet through buildings and tanks.

Channel 2 in Houston also reported that police found Islamic terrorist literature at the same location. According to news reports, the items belong to Nabilaye I. YANSANE, who was charged with criminal trespassing related only to the domestic incident. No charges were filed for possession of the launcher or the literature. (A video provided by KPRC Channel 2 in Houston can be viewed at this link).

The reasoning for lack of criminal charges, of course is that the “once used” AT-4 rocket launcher, in its present state, is essentially nothing more than an elaborate paper weight due to its single use application. It can be legally purchased on the open market, from gun shows to army surplus stores. With regard to the Islamic terrorist literature found at the same location, our own Bill of Rights allows us the ability to possess certain writings within the scope of the law, despite the increasingly unpopular fact under the Obama administration and the reign of Napolitano that we are fighting Islamic terrorists on our own soil.

Except for inquiring minds, this story could almost end here. But as the saying goes, “Houston, we have a problem.” Picking up where the media left off, this investigator looked deeper into this incident and the background of the suspect, finding some facts that should raise some important questions about events that have been taking place inside the U.S., and perhaps connect some dots in the asymmetrical war being waged against us by Islamic terrorists from within.

First, a cursory background investigation into Nabilaye I. YANSANE, 39, (DOB October 7, 1970), a resident of the Bellaire Wood Apartments, 5414 Elm Street, Houston, Texas, found recent unrelated brushes with the law, including a misdemeanor charge of possession of a prohibited weapon accompanied by a drug possession charge-both filed on October 5, 2009. The drug possession charge was dismissed, while the weapons charge was adjudicated.

The misdemeanor charges notwithstanding, further investigation conducted over the last several days with area residents familiar with YANSANE indicates a possible “connection” with the Al-Maghrib Institute in Houston, an Islamic center located less than 6 ¬Ω miles from his home. According to two area residents, YANSANE might have some level of involvement with the Institute, participating in classes or events at that location within the past year.

If the al Maghrib Institute sounds familiar, it should. As we previously reported, the Al Maghrib Institute is the Islamic center that terrorist Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab, the Muslim terrorist who attempted to bomb Delta-Northwest flight 253 out of the sky on Christmas Day, attended in 2008.

Doug Hagmann Most recent columns

Copyright © Douglas Hagmann
Douglas Hagmann, founder & director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, and a multi-state licensed private investigative agency. Doug began using his investigative skills and training to fight terrorism and increase public awareness through his website.

Doug can be reached at: director@homelandsecurityus.com

Behind the Culture of Terrorism Denial

The same political correctness that necessitated ignoring Hasan's hatefilled ravings toward the United States as another uncomfortable incident, would have snapped its jaws shut in an instant on any straight talk about terrorism

By Daniel Greenfield Sunday, January 3, 2010

The most common form of denial in the free world today is terrorism denial. Terrorism denial can range from its most extreme manifestations which claim that America, Israel, etc are the “real terrorists” or 9/11 Trutherism, which is a more conspiracy minded variation on the same theme, to more moderate forms of terrorism denial, that believe Islam is a religion of peace, think terrorism only means a few extremists hiding in a cave somewhere, and lone terrorist attacks are the product of mental illness.

While the range of people who hold such ideas differ widely, they comprise a loose minority of the general public and a solid majority of the political leadership in the free world. The former is no surprise and neither is the latter.

The general public in nearly every First World country is bombarded by a steady stream of cultural propaganda indoctrinating them to believe that Islam is a peaceful religion with only a few ne’erdowells spoiling the soup with the occasional suicide bombing and that holding any opinion to the contrary is no better than burning crosses on a lawn while wearing white sheets. Specific terrorist incidents are watered down in news coverage, which attributes group terrorist attacks to the repressive policies of First World nations, and lone attacks to mental illness, as much as possible.

Despite this constant bombardment of brainwashing, common sense generally guides the majority toward the truth, even if they are unlikely to speak it in public or be heard if they do. In some parts of the world such as Europe and Israel saying it is illegal. In the United States it is not yet illegal, but risky, particularly in some contexts. While Nidal Malik Hasan, while working for the US military felt free to express his sympathy for the terrorists, had any of his American colleagues stated that Islam itself is a terrorist ideology, they would have been shown the door, no matter how desperate for medical staff the army might be. The same political correctness that necessitated ignoring Hasan’s hatefilled ravings toward the United States as another uncomfortable incident, would have snapped its jaws shut in an instant on any straight talk about terrorism.

And that political and cultural correctness comes to us courtesy of the political and cultural establishments, which to various degrees all traffic in terrorism denial, and whose influence shifts down to silence any dissent and enforce what they consider to be normative opinions about Islam. There is no mystery as to why the cultural establishment aggressively promotes and distributes terrorism denial memes through every organ of its influence from the movie theater to the novel, from the evening news broadcast to the standup comedy routine, from the university classroom to the music video.

The cultural establishments throughout the First World tend to lean to the left, a development that is hardly new considering that academia and the theater proved to be refuges for radicals going back centuries before the establishment of the United States, let alone the existence of Hollywood or the east coast’s ivy league institutions. The difference is that the university and the theater have never wielded as much influence as they do now, there is no measuring the gap in power between the 17th century playhouse and the 21st century movie theater and television set combo. So too there is no comparison between the influence of a 17th century university and a 21st century college. While the blooms of the present were sown with the seeds of the past, in the present they have become the gardeners, pruning and snipping the public consciousness by virtue of their universality, sooner or later just about everybody passes through one of their classrooms or sits down before their screens.

So while it is no surprise that the cultural establishments swing to the left, it is the accompanying political culture which traffics in terrorism denial, constantly reassuring the public that everything is alright, tightening and loosening security measures according to the whims of their political fortunes, but without ever actually addressing or acknowledging the real problem. Islam.


But from another standpoint it is also perfectly inevitable. The ideological left view Islamic terrorism as a misguided protest movement against global poverty and imperialism that they can accompany as fellow travelers on the red brick road to a socialist utopia. Accordingly the ideological left is one of the most fervent traffickers in terrorism denial, insisting that the real fault lies with the imperialist countries that the terrorists have targeted. This sort of reasoning is not particularly new to the left, which in the early days of WW2 supported both Hitler and Tojo on the grounds that they were victims of Allied Imperialism. When German tanks invaded the USSR, the left suddenly switched sides, and the anti-war protests became pro-war protests, but the stench left behind of the willingness of the red and yellow to collaborate with the red and black, should be adequate reminder that the left will ally even with the most unlikely of bedfellows in the hopes of fulfilling their revolutionary fantasies of a Marxist world order.

The modern day left sees Islam as a wedge to upend the Free World through immigration at home and insurrection abroad. The end result is supposed to shatter free countries and allow the left to remake them in their image, as they did to Russia and nearly did to Germany, and so many others. Their common mistake though is that the very forces they rely on to do the shattering, Nazism and Islamism, are quite difficult to put back in the box. Nazism might have had socialism in its name, and Islamist groups may run social services centers, but their only real common ground with the left is that they want absolute power on their terms. And so the lefty politicians who rely on Mohammed to take care of Pierre, Bob and Avishai, so the men with the red flags can safely nationalize everything and rule over a nation of unprotesting serfs have a surprise coming.

While terrorism denial is not nearly as prevalent on the right, it is not only the left that deludes itself into believing that it can make common cause with Islamic terrorism, because they imagine that “Abdul the Throat Ripper” and “Ahmed the Head Chopper” share their concerns over global warming and factory farming. Some anti-federalists on the loony fringes, such as Ron Paul or Le Pen have embraced terrorism denial wholesale, imagining that the terrorists share their resentment of their federalist systems. Often isolationists, such politicians imagine that “If we leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone”, foolishly refusing to realize that they don’t want to “leave us alone”.

But such “enemy of my enemy is my friend” attitudes on the left and even the right in regards to terrorism are not unusual by politicians who assume that if their country’s government is the enemy, than the terrorists must be the enemy of their enemy, and therefore their friends. This viewpoint has widely insinuated itself in the left, which has always been opportunistic enough to champion rebels of any kind, believing that any revolution against the established order can only clear the way for their own ascension. And with the aid of a cultural establishment that adores “rebels” because its members fancy themselves as rebels too, despite their generally privileged lives, terrorism denial has become painfully ubiquitous.


Most politicians in the free world, even if they don’t share the full breadth of this extreme agenda, have still been indoctrinated with some degree of terrorism denial, and due to the rising Muslim domestic population begin to consider the potential for some hope, change and taquia at the ballot box. Additionally the influence of gulf oil money and trade with the Muslim world, particularly at the upper levels of national government helps insure that political leaders embrace a tame position toward Islam.

For the average politician, raised not on leadership, but on delivering pork and staying on the safe side of the polls, the prospect of fighting a billion people is a scary one. It is very tempting to simplify the problem and to minimize it. To treat lone wolf attackers as mentally ill and large scale operations as the product of a few bad Muslim boys living in a cave somewhere like renegade suicide bombing peter pans who refuse to grow up, become globalized and participate in UN sessions on the plight in indigenous peoples.

Western politicians have long ago embraced the notion that evil is banal, the result of bad orders from a broken political system. And that conversely most disputes can be worked out across a negotiating table, thus paradoxically deriving the exact moral from WW2 that helped cause WW2 in the first place. Of course anyone can negotiate. It takes a great leader or a great fool to stop negotiating and take action, and most politicians suspect rightly that they are in the latter category, not the former. And so it becomes all too easy to try and find a middle ground, to embrace conservative solutions, to hug your CAIR approved Imam and praise his Koran, while directing drones to bomb the “extremists”, without comprehending that the two are one and the same.

And so the cultural of terrorism denial, like a bacillus given free reign in a household of sloppy housekeepers, thrive and grows. Its moisture is the wet and weak vacillations of a political class more used to divvying up stolen tax revenues than to riding a charger into battle outside the walls of a burning city. The blessings of democracy are also its curses, having allowed the public to marinate in its own cultural indulgences while giving over the management of their affairs to a class of lawyers and hucksters who promised them endless social safety nets, and delivered endless bureaucracy, mismanagement and debt. In that sordid sweating mess, terrorism denial, a fever dream of a world without anxiety, with easy solutions and no evil, glows whitely like the plague symptom that it is. And either we will be cured of terrorism denial, or it will no longer be possible to deny it because it will be too late.

Daniel Greenfield Most recent columns

Daniel Greenfield is a New York City based writer and freelance commentator. “Daniel comments on political affairs with a special focus on the War on Terror and the rising threat to Western Civilization. He maintains a blog at Sultanknish.blogspot.com.

Daniel can be reached at: sultanknish@yahoo.com

Report: Hasan asked about killing troops in ’08

NBC News
updated 7:24 p.m. ET, Wed., Dec . 23, 2009

A radical Muslim cleric claims Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan asked him about killing American soldiers nearly a year before Hasan allegedly shot to death 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.

In an interview Wednesday with the Arabic-language news network Al-Jazeera, Anwar al-Awlaki, considered a key recruiter for al-Qaida, said Hasan asked him in a December 2008 e-mail "whether killing American soldiers and officers is lawful or not" under Islamic law.

In the interview, Al-Awlaki then appears to taunt U.S. intelligence and security, saying, "I wonder where were the American security forces that one day claimed they can read the numbers of any license plate, anywhere in the world, from space."

He also said he first met Hasan about nine years ago when he was imam at an Islamic center in Washington, D.C.

An English translation of the interview was provided by Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism analyst for NBC News.

Al-Awlaki is a New Mexico native who graduated from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo., in 1994 with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. In 2002, he moved to Yemen, where he is at large.

Intelligence officials believe al-Awlaki is living in an al-Qaida camp between the Yemeni cities of Shabwa and Mareb.

Al-Awlaki's claim would contradict statements by the FBI, which determined that discussions in intercepted e-mails between Hasan and al-Awlaki were mostly about research being conducted by Hasan and philosophical. Based on that, the FBI said, a Joint Terrorism Task Force determined Hasan "was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning" and chose not to launch an investigation of Hasan.

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Read English translation of interview with al-Awlaki

In the Al-Jazeera interview, Awlaki denies any claims that he recruited or worked with Hasan for the Fort Hood attack. "I did not recruit Nidal Hasan, but America did with its crimes and injustice, and this is what America does not want to admit.

Hasan, a Muslim Army psychiatrist, faces 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in connection with the Nov. 5 shooting attack at the Texas military facility. He remains under guard at a San Antonio military hospital, where he is paralyzed from the waist down due to injuries suffered in the attack.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Point of View (West Bank i.e. Yehuda and Shomron)

by Marc Prowisor

Many have asked that I give an update and my view of the Security situation in Yehuda and Shomron today. Not an easy task, due to the many mitigating factors that change every time a Government official - either here in Israel, an Arab or American - sneezes.

The simplest way to put it is that we are here in our communities in our heartland and there are many Arabs that want us out, (not all of the Arabs wish to see the Jews leave this area). It is important to remember, that they want and desire to be "Jew Free", doesn't apply just to Yehuda and Shomron, but all of Israel, this view is not held by all Arabs, but certainly most.

It is impossible to discuss the Security situation in Yehuda and Shomron without first reminding everybody that this conflict did not start yesterday. Whereas this is not the place to get into a history lesson, it is the place to remind everybody that ignorance regarding the conflict is the wrong foot to stand on. To quote a friend, "the Jewish –Arab conflict started when Jews decided to fight back".

I will discuss the situation today. Since Oslo, we have witnessed the birth of a new Arab army in the Middle East, that of the "Palestinian Authority", however this is not the only Arab Military body in this region. There are many branches to this tree, with each branch spreading out to even more factions. Fatah itself is divided into many factions based on regions and philosophies, i.e. Nablus, Ramallah and so on. The same principal applies to Hamas, of course from there we can add on the Jihad Islami, PFLP, Al Qaeda, the list goes on. Each of these "Units" claims their own agenda and "work load", but they do work also in accordance to the strategical and political whims of the two (Fatah and Hamas) leaderships.

The Operational and Tactical strength of all of these units has greatly increased and over the recent months and years and continues to rise to the point where they can be and are considered a "tangible" threat today - not just to our communities, but to the IDF as well. This due to the enormous funding, instruction and training they have and continue to receive from the rest of the Western world. It is no secret how the US, England and Canada have been involved with the upgrading of this new Arab army to it's current status. Lt General Keith Dayton, (The US man in charge of this venture) indeed has what to be proud of.

Besides all of the "regulars", there still exist numerous "independents" in the field, who are ready to attack at any minute they deem necessary and this presents an entirely separate threat level that must be not be ignored. Often downplayed in the mainstream media and International Threat Assessments, these "individual" cells have taken many lives and caused no fewer casualties than their bigger and better organized brothers. Adding to this is the fact that arms continue to flow in from various sources and continue to spread throughout the region due to the opening of the roadblocks (as a sign of good faith to the US). This all leads to an extremely volatile situation in Yehuda and Shomron. The IDF is still operating in order to capture terrorists, but these operations have been slashed due to an increasingly confused political situation on the ground. The uniforms have also changed, so not every terrorist is a "terrorist" anymore, He/She might now be a member of a new army or political wing making arrest more complicated.

Over the past year we have be seeing a significant increase in terrorist activity, although it is measured and restrained, never less it is present and enables us to gauge some of the risk and threat factors that we are and will be up against. The IDF and Israeli Security Services, Thank Gd, have been very successful in thwarting most of these attacks. Many of these incidents are probes, being used to measure our response. Where they may seem "trivial" enough, such as a stoning or Molotov cocktail, they supply the Arabs with much needed information regarding our security apparatus. Probes and attacks into the Communities have increased with a few ending in murderous rampages. Most thankfully are thwarted before any severe harm occurs, whether it is by the IDF or the communities' own First Response Teams.

We are witnessing serious efforts by the Arabs in the gathering of Intelligence about the communities, and their increased efforts and success at sabotaging many industrial and agricultural ventures. While we are enjoying a relative lull in terror compared to the earlier days of the Intifada, most Security Analysts have discussed and stated that this is simply the "quiet before the storm". Indeed the infighting going on between Hamas and Fatah serves us well but is also fueling the future flames that we will inevitably be pointed towards us in the not to distant future. Every day there are incidents, most that go unreported, but they do occur and people do get hurt. The efforts that the Jewish communities of Yehuda and Shomron have been showing beyond doubt has had a very positive affect on keeping terrorism down, not just in Yehuda and Shomron, but all of Israel. Though this is not politically correct to report, it is however a very big part of the picture in Israel.

This being a very short and minimal summary of the Arab build up, we can now move on to the Jewish side of the coin. Bear in mind that there are subjects that I will intentionally leave out due to security sensitivity regarding the IDF and our own Tactical Response, and the simple fact that I live in one of the communities and do not wish to divulge certain weakness that would place anyone in danger.

Much has been learned in the field of Community Security and First Response, simply by experience being our teacher, and we have had countless "professors". It is this experience and excellence that has made Israel and specifically these communities in Yehuda and Shomron the vanguard in the Homeland Security Field. Today in many of the communities there are teams who are well trained and well equipped, however there are still many who are not as fortunate. Equipment must be constantly maintained as it ages and over time must be replaced and/or upgraded. This also applies to members of First Response Teams. The weak link that is common to all of the regions and communities is the financial backbone holding up these teams. The IDF supplied the basic needs - that of weapons and simple bulletproof vests, some basic training, but that is all. It must be stated, these are official Response Teams and not private militias. They work in coordination with the IDF. Whereas it used to be that the IDF was solely responsible to secure our communities, they are now the backup in the event of a terror situation thanks to these brave civilians. The IDF realized that time of response in a terrorist infiltration is paramount. Every extra minute waiting for the army could cost lives. So, the creation of first response teams has significantly decreased the delay in responding to such incidents. These first response teams and Security Chiefs are usually the first to arrive at the scene of a terror attack.

The motivation in the community's remains very high, as it is essentially their own lives and those of their family at stake. Training by the IDF is minimal and most teams will train on their own, being either sponsored by their regional council or private donors. If there is a weakness to these teams, it is due to the continuous budgetary cuts by the Defense Ministry to the overall community defense structure. These cuts are across the board and are increasing the Risk and Threat Levels these communities are facing.

Politics of course is a factor that we all must deal with, however the main difference in Israel, is that any sign of weakness provides motivation to our enemies. This combined with the increasing supply and funding of the various Arab Terror organizations by Western Governments in Yehuda and Shomron, makes for one deadly cocktail.

The IDF is currently removing many soldiers that guard communities and their security is, in turn falling mostly upon their own shoulders. This cut is also affecting the budgets that were supplied to the communities and regions in the Communication, Tactical and Perimeter fields. The lacking that these cuts have created is being filled by the continued support, effort and work of the local population and supportive Jewish Communities and Individuals abroad.

In summation, what is happening is such. The lines are being drawn and redrawn daily for a future conflict once again in the region. The North is seeing a total and increased rearming by Hizbullah, soon to be the recipient of new US arms and drones that will be sent to the Lebanese Army and funneled south, The South is witnessing a rearmed Hamas, whose reign of Terror will reach Tel Aviv, and last but certainly not least, the Heartland of our people, Yehuda and Shomron, will bear the brunt of the latest Arab Army in the Middle East whose arms will reach out in an attempt to strangle the center of the country, it is only a matter of time before the Arabs of the Galil create unrest as well.

I know that we are a strong people and can bear anything they can throw at us, and we can and will defeat any enemy. My main concern is the cost – in lives lost.

I am not using Fear or Guilt tactics here to get a point across. I have tried to supply a simple yet accurate analysis of the current security situation that is based on the region, the peoples, and the history, as well as the ever increasing component of extreme Islam in the Western world and "Homegrown" Islamic Terrorists.

Of course if the entire Arab and Muslim world change their collective mind regarding Israel's existence as a Jewish State, then I readily admit to being wrong.

Marc Prowisor

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.