You would have had to be living under a rock over the Christmas Holiday if you haven’t heard by now that there was an attempted hijack of a Northwest Airlines plane by a Nigerian Islamists by the name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The suspect, western educated and according to media reports, living the good life, boarded the flight going to Detroit, which by the way has the largest Muslim population of any American city, in an attempt to detonate an explosive device and take down the plan along with its 300 passengers.
Luckily, the plot was foiled, not by the Obama Administration, but by a courageous passenger on board. This incident, along with the terrorists acts of Fort Hood, leave me to believe that in this “age of terrorism”, we are more vulnerable, not safer, under the watchful eye of the Obama White House. Say what you will, but after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush and his national security team put measures in place to protect America, both domestic and our international interests. President Bush understood the nature of the threat we faced and he was determined that it would not happen again on his watch, and it didn’t. There were no more domestic terrorist’s attacks that occurred on Bush’s watch because of the robust, and often controversial, remedies he put in place. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Terror surveillance programs, enhance terrorists interrogations, the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the detention of terrorist in Guantanamo Bay are all measure put in place to keep American safe; all of which have been undermined by the current administration.
Since President Obama took office in January of this year, the nation has had to deal with the tragedy of Ft Hood, the first executed Terror attack on this country since 9/11, and a kind of complacency from the President in the war against Terror. President Obama and his team would benefit from studying the history of the Fundamentalists Islamic Movement and the ideals that guide them.
At times I find it hard to believe that this movement is fueled by only a small sect of Islam, and that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are peace loving disciples of the Prophet; the evidence tends to point to the contrary. The Origins of the Contemporary Fundamentalists Islamic movement has it genesis in the 18th century, in what is now modern day Saudi Arabia. In the 1700s, there was a man by the name of Mohammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, who after studying in the Iraqi city of Basra, came to the conclusion that Islam had become too modern and this modernity was not what the Prophet had intended. He preached a puritanical version of Islam which called for a return to Fundamentals and strict interpretation of the Sharia, or Islamic Law. Originally this version of Islam was rejected by the inhabitants of Arabia because most of them were pagans and had no concept of the “one God”; this doctrine was foreign to them. Wahhab’s fortune changed after meeting Muhammad Ibn Saud; the two formed an alliance in which they would retake Arabia by both the Sword and Quran. Saud would become the head of state and Wahhab the architect of social society; that state would become known as The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, a stated US ally, is also one of the leading state sponsors of terror around the world; after all 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s oil revenue routinely goes to fund racial madrasahs, or religious schools, where anti Americanism is preached and hatred against Israel and Non-Wahhabi Muslims is nurtured. Many of the Saudi princes and oil Sheiks regularly invest in the proselytizing of non-Fundamentalists and non-Muslims throughout the Muslim world and Europe.
However, the man credited with the modern rise of radical Islam is an Egyptian by the name of Sayyid Qutb. Qutb, an Egyptian born writer and later political prisoner, who after spending time in America and learning of American democracy and civil society, decided that it was because of Classical Liberalism that the world was in decay and that a return to fundamentalists Islam was necessary.
In what some consider to be his master work, Milestone, Qutb articulated the need for a reemergence of Jihad, or Holy War; no longer would it mean the inner struggle against personal demons, Jihad became the war cry of Extremists throughout the Muslim world. Libya, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and now Yemen are some of the biggest sponsors of terrorism on the planet and Anti Americanism isn’t receding in some of these countries, it’s increasing.
The history of contemporary Islamic terrorism is something that every free man should be cognitive of, after all, those who forget the lessons of History are due to repeat its failures. The US government must realize that these are not people that can be persuaded or negotiated with. Islamists see their only mission and purpose in life is Jihad; and no amount of incentives will convince them to change their minds. The Islamists sees their mission as divinely order and orchestrated; and believe it or not, they fear the eternal retribution of Allah more than the AK-47’s carried by Western forces. Just a few of the attacks are as follows:
November 1979 - Hostages taken at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran
April 1983 - Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut
October 1983 - Bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut
December 1983 - Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait
June 1985 - Hijacking of TWA Flight 847
December 1988 - Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
February 1993 – World Trade Center Bombing
August 1998 – African Embassy Bombings
December 2000 – USS Cole Bombing
September 2001 – 9/11 Attacks
This list is a very short version of the thousands, over 9000 since 9/11, terror attacks throughout the world. Everyday Radicals are planning the demise of America and our way of life. To defeat this enemy we must remain of the offensive; we must seek out and destroyed terror cells worldwide targeting them both financially and militarily. Under President Bush, the Treasury began to track, freeze, and seize assets under American jurisdiction that was found to be aiding terrorism and thankfully President Obama has continued some of these policies. However if the President wants to avoid another situation like the attempted Detroit bombing or even worse, another 9/11, he would be wise to embrace more of the Bush/Cheney national security policies implemented after 9/11; after all they worked. Terrorist surveillance programs should be increased, faster location and seizing of Terrorist assets is needed, along with a policy to deal aggressively with nations that support and harbor terrorists. The US must not lose heart in this, the epic battle that will determine the future of Western Civilization as we know it. The US must defeat the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and deny them a safe haven anywhere on the planet. This is not something the US can do alone; we need support: economically, diplomatically, and militarily from our allies, after all their way of life also hangs in the balance. We must remember that Freedom and Liberty are fragile things and are never more than one generation away from extinction.
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