Islam, terror and political correctness
– Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. –
The Islamic terrorists of the Bush era are gone. They have been replaced by violent extremists in a purge of the American government’s political lexicon. Smart move in the propaganda war between al Qaeda and the West? Or evidence of political correctness taken to extremes?
Those questions are worth revisiting after the publication in February of two key documents issued by the administration of President Barack Obama, the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. Both deal with what used to be called the Global War on Terror. Neither uses the words “Muslim” or “Islam.”
The QDR says the United States is at war with al Qaeda and the Taliban, and speaks of the threat from “non-state actors” and terrorist networks. The Homeland Security Review identifies “al Qaeda and global violent extremism” as one of the main threats to the United States. No word on religion or al Qaeda’s use of a twisted version of Islam to justify mass murder.
To some, this omission amounts to a dangerous failure to deal with the root of the problem, evidence of a mind-set determined to avoid the appearance of anti-Muslim bias even if that endangers national security. Such charges flew thick and fast after a Muslim army officer, Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly killed 12 fellow soldiers and an army civilian in a shooting spree last November at the Fort Hood military base, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greater) as he opened fire.
There was no mention of Islam, or Hasan’s interpretation of his faith and his publicly proclaimed anger over America’s wars in Muslim countries, in the 86-page Army report on the shooting. In the words of John Lehman, a member of the commission set up to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the report released in January showed “how deeply entrenched the values of political correctness have become.”
President Obama’s initial description of the young Nigerian Muslim who attempted to bring down an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day (“an isolated extremist”) also prompted charges from conservatives that his administration fails to recognize the link between Islamic radicalism and terrorism.
American nightmare: Al Qaeda at home
- Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own -
It has been a recurring nightmare of American counter-terrorist officials for years — growing numbers of home-grown al Qaeda recruits drawn from the Muslim-American community, plus blue-eyed, blond-haired would-be suicide bombers travelling on American passports.
That notion clashes with the widely-held belief that Muslims in the United States are not nearly as prone to being seduced by Al Qaeda propaganda as their co-religionists in Europe. But a series of recent terrorism cases involving American citizens have challenged old assumptions and thrown question marks over a host of surveys meant to show the American Muslim communities’ resistance to radicalization.
Incidents spiked in 2009 and included the arrest of five U.S. citizens in Pakistan, where they allegedly tried to link up with extremists, and the arrest of Daniel Boyd, a white convert to Islam who was accused of plotting to attack soldiers at the U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. Early in the year, Bryant Vinas, a Hispanic American convert, pleaded guilty to having trained with al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Now, the lure of al Qaeda’s murderous ideas is seen as a real threat. “The group seeks to recruit American citizens to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States,” according to John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “These Americans are not necessarily of Arab and South Asian descent,” he wrote in the preface of a Jan. 20 report from his committee on al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia. “They include individuals who converted to Islam in (an American) prison or elsewhere and were radicalized.”
“The prospect that U.S. citizens are being trained at al Qaeda camps in both countries deepens our concern…” not least, apparently, because an American official in Yemen told committee investigators that American converts living in Yemen included “blond-haired blue-eyed types.” That echoes then CIA chief Michael Hayden’s 2008 warning that al Qaeda was training “operatives that wouldn’t attract attention if they were going through the customs line at (Washington) Dulles airport.”
How many have done so is anyone’s guess. A January study by researchers from Duke University found that in the eight years following the September attacks, 139 Muslim-Americans had committed acts of terrorism-related violence or were prosecuted for terrorism-related offenses involving violence.
Political correctness has nothing to do with why the US is losing “the propaganda war.” They are able to recruit people as is without “take ‘em dead or alive” rhetoric fuming from the executive…they had for years before hand. It’s not a question of morality / the strength of ideas for those who find this message appealing, but as an answer to the concept of globalization. Rather than have a sanitized version of growth with consumerist overtones, a retreat to an idealized past is much more comforting.
I do enjoy that Bernd had an article a few weeks ago about the over-exaggeration of the terrorist “threat”, only to come full circle by joining the cocophony. Attempting to win the hearts and minds isn’t that horrible of a goal, but it has to be kept tempered by logic and the realization that there limits to any message. Additionally, keeping the military out of said message is important, for these are the same geniuses who burned a village to save a village many a time in the past.
America, terrorists and Nelson Mandela
- Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own -
Woe betide the organization or individual who lands on America’s terrorist list. The consequences are dire and it’s easier to get on the list than off it even if you turn to peaceful politics. Just ask Nelson Mandela.
One of the great statesmen of our time, Mandela stayed on the American terrorist blacklist for 15 years after winning the Nobel Prize prior to becoming South Africa’s first post-Apartheid president. He was removed from the list after then president George W. Bush signed into law a bill that took the label “terrorist” off members of the African National Congress (ANC), the group that used sabotage, bombings and armed attacks against the white minority regime.
The ANC became South Africa’s governing party after the fall of apartheid but the U.S. restrictions imposed on ANC militants stayed in place. Why? Bureaucratic inertia is as good an explanation as any and a look at the current list of what is officially labelled Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) suggests that once a group earns the designation, it is difficult to shake.
The consequences of a U.S. terrorist designation include freezing an organisation’s funds, banning its members from travelling to the U.S. and imposing harsh penalties (up to 15 years in prison) on people who provide “material support or resources” to an FTO.
At present, there are 44 groups on the list, ranged in alphabetical order from the Palestinian Abu Nidal Organisation to the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia. The Abu Nidal group, according to the government’s own country reports on terrorism, “is largely considered inactive.” The Congressional Research Service, a bipartisan agency which provides research and analysis for Congress, has wondered why it is still on the list.
One can ask the same about the Colombian group, added to the list in 2001. The bulk of the paramilitary organisation demobilized years ago and the latest U.S. government report says its “organizational structure no longer exists.”
during the court proceeding,some of the information about MEKm`s activities declassified by state department.
according to these information the group has not ended its military operation,still intenends to use violence to achieve its political goals and trained females to be suicide bombers.in also said that much of the information the group has provided on iran`s nuclear program has been wrong.
(www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a rticle/2010/07/16/AR2010071605881_pf.htm l)
therefor MEK exatly is a terrorist group.
Has someone thought why there is so many different ideas on how to translate the Koran, the Bible etc. corect ?
Could it be that no one understands anything at all ?
Suppose “The father, The Son and The holy Ghost” from the Bible were Metaphors that says:
The father; Responsibility.
The son; Your task.
The holy ghost; Your will.
Suppose when the Koran has the man superior to the woman,
it says the same thing, hit your balls and bring on the show.