l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 By Lee Edwards | May 22, 2015 | 4:07 PM EDT
For more than three decades, they have sought out and killed Americans. In
1983, in one of the first major anti-American attacks, they bombed the
Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American servicemen. In 1992, they
used bombs to kill two people in Aden, Yemen, in hopes of killing American
troops that might be passing through. In February 1993, they used a truck-
based explosive to try and topple the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.
They failed, but their attack killed six New Yorkers and injured a thousand
others.
What would you call the perpetrators of such acts—militants? Would you copy
President Obama and call them violent extremists or simply terrorists? What
is missing in such formulations? Even as he identified al-Qaeda as a threat
to America, Obama refused to describe the enemy as it describes itself: “
Islamic.”
Islamic Terrorists Have a Religious Goal
Emboldened by their success in Beirut and their almost-success in New York
City in 1993, terrorists used bombs in 1995 to kill five U.S. servicemen in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The following year, al-Qadea struck again at American
troops in Saudi Arabia in the Khobar Tower bombings, killing 19 Americans
and wounding 372.
Why did the terrorists persist in their plots to kill Americans? What was it
about America that so enraged them? In February 1998, Osama Bin Laden
provided an answer when he declared a “fatwa” (a religious decree)
declaring war against America in the name of the World Islamic Front,
calling for the killing of civilians as well as soldiers:
“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military
—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country [
emphasis added] in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the
al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for
their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to
threaten any Muslim.”
By their own words, Bin Laden and his fellow travelers declared themselves
to be not just terrorists but Islamist terrorists with a religious goal—to
re-establish true Islamic society in the Middle East by removing any “stain
” of American influence by force. Bin Laden believed the whole world was
meant to accept his universal message.
While the majority of Muslims prefer peaceful, non-violent, socio-political
approaches that lead in time to a peaceful transition to Islamic society, a
minority, led by revolutionary groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, favor a jihad
or holy war dependent upon violence and military action. This brand of
Salafist Islam does not distinguish between combatants and civilians as the
West does but sees the West as an imperialist enemy with America as its
leader.
It is self-evident that the terrorists who have sought to kill us all these
years are Islamist. Al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists consider themselves to be
holy warriors who believe in a specific ideology (Islamist extremism) that
is tied to a specific religion: Islam.
From Al-Qaeda to ISIS
Following Bin Laden’s fatwa, the killing continued. In January 2000, al-
Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in the port of Aden, killing 17 and injuring 39
Americans. In the world today, Bin Laden said, “the worst terrorists are
the Americans,” and he predicted “a black future for America.” We did not
understand how black they would try to make it.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, two hijacked passenger jets smashed into
New York City’s World Trade Center, destroying the two towers and killing 2
,753 people. A third hijacked jet slammed into the side of the Pentagon in
Washington, D.C., killing 184 civilians and military personnel. A fourth
plane, whose target was probably the U.S. Capitol, was diverted by
courageous passengers and crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside, killing
33 passengers, seven crew, and four hijackers.
In response, President George W. Bush approved and later President Barack
Obama supported a global manhunt for Bin Laden, which ended on May 1, 2011,
in Abbottabad, Pakistan, with his death in a raid by American Navy SEALs.
Commented President Obama: “For over two decades, bin Laden has been al-
Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our
country and our friends and allies. The death of Bin Laden marks the most
significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al-Qaeda.”
While President Obama acknowledged that the fight against al-Qaeda was not
over, neither he nor any other Western leader foresaw the change that
Islamist terrorism would undergo.
As the central branch of al-Qaeda withered under American assault, a
regional affiliate, known as al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI, grew and spread. In
2013, this group rebranded itself as ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria. ISIS’s mission was to do more than harass American troops with
improvised explosive devices or commit acts of terror. Rather, it aspired to
territorial government and expansion across the Muslim world in the name of
Sunni Islam. ISIS has proclaimed itself to be a re-establishment of the
caliphate, or transnational Islamist state that ruled the Middle East and
much of Europe a thousand years ago.
Beheadings and Massacres: Yes, They’re Serious
It shocked the world by beheading on camera James Foley, a freelance
reporter with the GlobalPost; former Army Ranger Peter Kassig; and freelance
journalist Steven Sotloff. In addition, ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller, an
American volunteer worker in Syria, was accidentally killed by a coalition
airstrike.
While the West condemned the callousness of the beheadings, ISIS’s reach
grew. “We announce our allegiance to the Caliph … and will hear and obey
in times of difficulty and prosperity,” announced Abubakar Shekau, leader
of Boko Haram, a Nigerian terrorist group dedicated to the goals of an
Islamist society that ISIS represents.
Boko Haram is merciless. In the past year, it has killed more than 10,000
people. This includes a brutal massacre of some 2,000 women, children, and
elderly in the town of Baga, Nigeria. Nor is its reach limited to Nigeria.
Boko Haram continues to spread havoc across parts of Niger, Cameroon, and
Chad. Its declared allegiance to ISIS further demonstrates the accelerating
appeal of Islamist terrorism not just in the Middle East and in Africa but
around the world.
In Islamist terrorism, the United States and the West face a foe of the same
ideological mold as the Soviet Union. Both communism and Islamist terrorism
are threats grounded in principles deeper than geo-political or social
considerations. In the 14 years since 9/11 there have been 65 separate
Islamist terrorist plots or attacks on U.S. soil. Thanks to the diligence of
American intelligence and security operations, few of these plots have come
to fruition. However, Islamist terrorism will only be defeated when we see
it is as far more than mindless violence and “extremism.”
President Obama recognizes that Islamist terrorism is a problem, sort of.
Last September he declared that America would use a broad coalition to
ultimately “degrade” and “destroy” ISIS. Destroy? Yes. Degrade? No. ISIS
is a terrorist group, not a street gang.
President Obama’s preferred use of the euphemistic “violent extremism” to
describe our enemies is problematic. The President’s desire not to offend
Muslims who are not engaged in terrorism may win some points in the Muslim
world but it will weaken efforts to build a broad coalition against ISIS.
Furthermore, it will confuse the American public. Without clarity in
language there can be no clarity in strategy.
Don’t Impose Western Values on Islamic Terrorists
Obama’s socio-economic analysis of 9/11, at the time of the tragedy,
reveals an inability to see clearly on a matter of national security:
The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental
absence of empathy on the part of the attackers … It may find expression in
a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular
demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of
poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.
But the root of the 9/11 terror attacks was not a “lack of empathy” or “
poverty and ignorance.” It was an ideology of religious terrorism that Bin
Laden willingly embraced. His beliefs flowed from forces more potent than
the superficial categories Obama suggested. Islamist terrorism is grounded
in a rigid theocratic political view of the world. As Walter Lohman,
director of Heritage’s Asian Study Center has put it, “the threat cannot
be honestly separated from its religious context … Calling the threat ‘
Islamist’ allows us to distinguish friend from foe.”
There is no need for America to declare its own “fatwa” against all
Muslims. Rather, we must recognize that ISIS and al-Qaeda represent a clear
and present transnational danger that calls for precise definition and
decisive action. We must be willing to understand our enemy as he is, not as
we might wish him to be.
Lee Edwards is the distinguished fellow in conservative thought at The
Heritage Foundation's B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics. A
leading historian of American conservatism, Edwards is the author or editor
of 20 books, including biographies of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater and
Edwin Meese III as well as histories of The Heritage Foundation and the
movement as a whole.
Josiah Lippincott is a member of the Young Leaders program at The Heritage
Foundation. |
|
