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Responding to Islamist Terrorism: Are We Too Late?
Dearborn, MI Ordinance Officer Amal Chammout.
As I assess the US attitude toward Islamism and terror, I’m concerned that we are deluding ourselves about the dangers of terror in this country, and how soon we may find ourselves in deep trouble. John Kluge wrote an excellent post on how the US assesses Islamism. I believe this post takes his ideas even further, providing evidence that the danger is even more immediate than we realize. My biggest issue, however, is that I’ve had to rely on the mainstream media, whose overall credibility has been challenged to some degree, to counter-balance the information I’ve discovered. For that reason, in two out of three of my major points of evidence, I leave it to you, the reader, to decide where the truth lies.
First, in assessing our terrorism risk, many people claim that once we defeat ISIS, we will be much safer. I’d like to suggest that defeating ISIS is probably a pipe dream. ISIS may eventually be defeated in Syria, but the organization is already preparing to expand its territory. Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported that as they lose territory, ISIS will return to Europe and their home countries, while other ISIS operatives are sent to join Syrian populations in Germany where they will blend in. Another European counter-terrorism expert is investigating whether they will be able to re-locate to countries where they currently have no presence. ISIS also is adept at using the internet for recruitment, and although authorities continually take down their websites, new sites continue to crop up.
Aside from ISIS, there is also Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. According to a counterterrorism report,
AQAP operates throughout Yemen, primarily in the country’s southern and central regions. In many of these provinces, AQAP governs small pockets of territory with sharia (Islamic law) courts and a heavily armed militia. AQAP attempts to appeal to the Yemeni people by meeting their basic needs and integrating into the local population, including by conforming to the local governance structures. In addition to controlling territory in Yemen, AQAP is believed to pose a major terrorist threat to the United States. (Italics mine.)
There is a likelihood that these organizations will continue to adjust to counter-terrorist activities and find new ways to spread terrorism internationally. I suspect they’re already here.
Second, some people take comfort from the knowledge that we are not in danger of becoming another Europe. Unlike the European countries, we have a history of being successful at integrating our immigrants. That may have been true in the past, but present circumstances, particularly in Michigan, contradict that tradition. I emphasize that not that all Muslims are radicalized or even potential terrorists. But in an effort to provide a well-rounded picture, let me explain a few things.
In the town of Hamtramck, four of the City Council’s six seats are held by Muslims. Politico reports that residents are more afraid of Donald Trump and Republicans than fearing their city will become a breeding ground for radical Islamism. But Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a widely recognized Somali immigrant, is concerned that the City Council will incorporate Sharia into the city’s laws.
Another town dominated by Muslims is Dearborn. In a video produced by Robert Spencer at JihadWatch, a Dearborn resident drove around the city and Spencer recorded video and audio. Again, it’s important to state that not all Muslims are terrorist threats, but a small percentage of that community might be.
Third, there is the issue of homegrown terrorism. Pew Research provides an overview of the Muslim population in the US:
In 2015, according to our best estimate, there were 3.3 million Muslims of all ages in the U.S., or about 1% of the U.S. population. Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study (conducted in English and Spanish) found that 0.9% of U.S. adults identify as Muslims. A 2011 survey of Muslim Americans, which was conducted in English as well as Arabic, Farsi and Urdu, estimated that there were 1.8 million Muslim adults (and 2.75 million Muslims of all ages) in the country. That survey also found that a majority of U.S. Muslims (63%) are immigrants.
When we think of terrorists in our country, we prefer to believe radical Muslims are immigrants, misfits, unemployed and alone; Foreign Policy reported on a study that doesn’t confirm those perceptions. The report studied of 112 individuals “who the U.S. Department of Justice indicted for Islamic-related crimes between March 2014 and August 2016.” The report stated:
The average age of the 112 individuals is 27, with almost a third over 30. Over 40 percent were in a relationship, with a third being married. Nearly two-thirds went to college. Three quarters had jobs or were in school. All of this is quite similar to the United States population as a whole.
The other common perception of terrorists is that they come to the United States from abroad. This idea is simply out of date. One of the key findings of the study is that the vast majority of the 112 individuals are U.S. citizens. Nearly two-thirds were born in the United States, and nearly 20 percent were naturalized citizens. This is in sharp contrast to individuals who had been indicted for al Qaeda-related offenses between 1997 and 2011; only 55 percent of those were U.S. citizens. Only three were refugees — two from Bosnia and one from Iraq. The latter came to the United States as a refugee in 2009 and was radicalized sometime thereafter.
Foreign Policy was making the point that focusing on immigration from Muslim-majority countries might not serve our security needs as well as we think it will.
Finally, the last point, and perhaps the most contested, is whether we already have terrorist training camps in this country. PJ Media reported on a project that identified several camps in the US.
The Clarion Project has unearthed Federal Bureau of Investigations documents detailing a 22-site network of terrorist training villages sprawled across the United States. According to the documents, the FBI has been concerned about these facilities for about 12 years, but cannot act against them because the U.S. State Department has not yet declared that their umbrella group, MOA/Jamaat ul-Fuqra, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
An article in the Washington Post labels this information as conspiracy theory. I will leave the decision about the credibility of these camps to you.
We needed to begin more aggressively planning for the threat of Islamist terror years ago. We’ve taken some steps, but many of them appear to be minor. Let’s hope it’s not too late to begin taking effective action now.
Published in Islamist Terrorism
Fanny Kemble, a British actress who spent much time in America, wrote (circa 1882) about the earlier distance-based feeling of isolation and the psychological difference made by electrical communications and the fast steamship:
To those who know the rate of intercourse between Europe and America now, these expressions of the painful sense of distance from my country and friends, under which I suffered, must seem almost incomprehensible,—now, when to go to Europe seems to most Americans the easiest of summer trips, involving hardly more than a week’s sea voyage; when letters arrive almost every other day by some of the innumerable steamers flying incessantly to and fro, and weaving, like living shuttles, the woof and warp of human communication between the continents; and the submarine telegraph shoots daily tidings from shore to shore of that terrible Atlantic, with swift security below its storms. But when I wrote this to my friend, no words were carried with miraculous celerity under the dividing waves; letters could only be received once a month, and from thirty to thirty-seven days was the average voyage of the sailing packets which traversed the Atlantic…The distance between the two worlds, which are now so near to each other, was then immense.
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/34778.html
It used to be that people showed up and you were confident enough about the superiority of your ways that you assumed that with exposure to them the immigrant would take them to his or her heart. And it was even so. Immigrants did.
Now you seem to suggest some need for a ‘you don’t think Sharia is superior to US law, do you?’ question – which shows the exact lack of the self confidence that you mourn. And it’s a lack that makes you less strong and less attractive. And so unnecessarily. It is not a given, it’s your choice.
It’s interesting that you “blame” us for asking those questions. In the past, immigrants came here to be part of the American dream. They didn’t come here to impose their way of life on us; they came here to embrace ours. They didn’t come here thinking their laws were superior to ours, and therefore needed to be imposed upon us; they assumed that it was their responsibility to adapt to ours. They didn’t cling to a way of life even after coming here; they chose to join us. I’m not saying that all Muslims are jihadists, but certainly jihadists think their way of life, their laws, their culture, their religion is superior to anything they will find in the US. And their goal is to force those norms upon us. My question is: do you think we should admit potential jihadists without any screening at all and take our chances?
I don’t think your past immigrants were in love with America before they got there. They just wanted a better life.
That’s not what I’ve heard; I don’t know how you’d separate out loving a place that allows you a better life, not just financially but in terms of freedom. You could ask Jews from Europe and Russia about that.
I also thought of one other thing. Since Jihadists hold to taqqiya, which allows them to lie, they could lie about their beliefs in order to be allowed in. That kind of negates the purpose of screening.
I guess that’s my point. incentives matter and we must always look for ways to impose costs, raise risks, and reward those who can help. and can never relax.
There is no question, Susan, that merely defeating ISIS on its currently established turf will not bring an end to Islamic extremism/Islamism. But it sure as heck can’t hurt, either (the goal of eradicating). With regard to ISIS, they take in huge revenues by controlling territory, without which they would be remarkably weaker. So will defeating them militarily in Syria and Iraq be the end? Probably not. But as losers, they will be less able to recruit other foolish ideologues. Each Islamist group presents its own set of problems. Right now Isis is the biggest challenge and crushing them militarily is the quickest way to subdue them.
As far as the EO travel ban is concerned, it also is not the end/be all solution. But it seems quite apparent to me that the countries with the fewest Muslims or no Muslims have the least amount of terror associated with Muslims. Although even the Old Testament has areas that modern Jews and Christians would find highly uncomfortable…any atheist would be thrilled to point them out…Islam has seemingly never left the age of its beginning. I am sure there are hundreds of millions of Muslims that have used the tenets of Islam to live a righteous, loving, and peaceful life. But there is an aspect of Islam that is not religious at all. Sharia is political. It is the part of Islam that wishes to take over any government and rule by its law only. We have every right to deny access to our country to those who wish to destroy it. The vast majority of Muslims believe that Sharia is the revealed word of God. It is antithetical to our Constitution and to Western values. So even though the travel band would not end the Muslim problem, it would help/ every little bit helps.
The combination is well-captured in some lines from this song about two brothers who came from Ireland to America:
We found a better life somehow
In the land where no man has to bow
Isn’t that the core of it?….the land where no man has to bow? Not to the squire, not to the District Commissioner of the Empire, not to an assigned role in life, not to a religion or an ideology not of his own choosing.
I have relate thoughts here: Two views of immigration
The only way to assimilate immigrants from anywhere is to limit immigration. Once people from, say Saudi Arabia, are not surrounded by people who only speak Arabic and only worship Allah, they begin to commiserate and marry outside their race/faith/native language group. Then they become Americans. Allowing them to be immersed in a foreign culture, right here in America, makes assimilation impossible. I’ve heard so many Chinese people in the American Chinese diaspora refer to Americans as “foreigners”. This is a mindset made possible by cultural insularity. I waste no time in reminding them who the foreigner is.
Islamism is the problem. It needs to be defeated as surely as Facsim was in WWII. That means utter destruction of its centers of power. At some point, Islamism will do some so horrible, that it will end in that fire.
Or, we will sit back and do nothing, until Islam rules the world.
This why we have to freeze immigration now.
I agree with almost everything you say, cdor. (You knew there had to be some area with which I’d disagree! ;-) Actually there are a couple. Re the Old Testament, a surface reading doesn’t tell you much about the belief of the Israelites or the Jews. More than that, except for going to Canaan, the goal was not to conquer new territories. Second, although the majority of Muslims believe Sharia is the revealed word of G-d, not all of them believe in conquering others to impose Sharia. Otherwise, we agree!
Your essay says it beautifully. Thanks, David.
I accept your exceptions.
Excellent point, BTN! I’m learning so much from everyone!
Are you saying a permanent freeze or a temporary one, DFP?
You don’t understand it because you don’t recognize the threat.
Its our fault Muslims want to blow us up. Got it.
Spoken like a true Libertarian.
However much the Left insists that jihadiis are irrational, there is no evidence that they are correct. Jihadism is a straightforward discipline that falls within the mainstream of Islam.
I don’t think you and @iwalton disagree, MJ, although your point is correct. Jihadis are quite rational and know just what they’re doing. Their behavior is rational and immoral (when they think it’s okay to kill people). Agree.
Excellent post Susan. Forgive me as I’m typing this on my phone with my fat thumbs, however I believe that multiculturalism as a academic exercise has all but failed. In Southern California. Florida, New York or any other place where you have significant minorities, you find that most of those minorities stick to themselves. This is not inherently a bad thing. People want to be with their own, experiencing their own culture as they have been raised, and living their life according to their own tenets. The liberal push for busing children to different parts of the city in an effort to integrate them with other cultures is an example of how idealogical leftists indoctrinate children to think of multiculturalism as a kumbaya circle that will only make the world a much better place. However most children realize fairly quickly that this doesn’t work nor is it desired. You end up with 10 year olds balkanized into demographic groups that mirrors society and prison yards.
Muslims, just like the rest of us, wish to pray together, eat together. educate themselves and continue passing traditions down to the next generation. This is seen in almost every religious and racial group and subgroup. Of course, as your original post so eloquently states, when extremism takes a foothold within those communities and brainwashed individuals ultimately become terrorists, this is where society must take an active and aggressive interventionist approach.
Naive liberal politicians who double down with “hug a Muslim” platitudes instead of promoting reality-based national security policies do Muslims or greater society no favors.
Yes.
I have a very dear friend who lived in Dearborn her whole life. In the late 90’s, she moved because she no longer felt like she belonged and began to feel unsafe in her own neighborhood. The last straw was when she went to the local park for a walk with a friend. She said “hello” to two Muslim women sitting on a bench and one of them replied with her middle finger. That was just the last of many such incidents.
Liberal politicians are not naive. They are simply looking for Muslim votes.
I don’t know if jihadis are normal people, the dumb kids who blow themselves aren’t, the ISIS gangs who rape, murder behead may just be evil and don’t respond to normal incentives or they may just be losers like the dumb kids who are talked into blowing themselves up. I simply don’t know. I don’t know any Islamic radicals, although I have had conversations with perfectly normal looking and sounding Muslims who quickly can get into some way out irrational conspiracy theories. (Not unlike some liberal celebrities.) For instance, with a huge percentage of most people in the world wanting to immigrate to the US I cannot understand why we would worry about efforts to restrict Muslim immigration, (or stopping illegal flows from anywhere either), and in restricting it through extreme vetting we’d be creating incentives for normal muslims both here and abroad to care about terrorists.
Well said, Dave. And I see little hope that these destructive beliefs will change, even in the face of future suffering in our own country. I keep wondering, what will it take for the Left to know they are misguided? If 9/11 didn’t teach them, I suppose nothing will. Thanks.
Have you seen any data, Theodoric, that indicates how moderate Muslims vote? I’m not disagreeing with you . . . just wondering. I’m so very sorry about your friend in Dearborn. Essentially losing her home must have been devastating.
The resident IA.
Great!! I want our country to feel “less attractive” to prople who feel they can come in here and use the so-vocal Leftist self-hatred to destroy us. And that’s what they’re trying to do. Yes, if we’re no longer “confident about the superiority of our ways” whose fault is that?
No, we are no longer successfully assimilating bolus after bolus of aliens. They are indigestible. In Europe, the court of human rights has ruled that they have a “right” to stay together in their own backwards communities.
The Left seems sensitive to what ” the world” thinks of us, but I do not care even a tiny bit for their opinion, and neither should our leaders. Can you name even one country which has done more for the rights of women, of minorities in our midst, than the US? Europe? Do not make me laugh. Less than a century ago they were tearing each other apart. Any country ruled by Sharia? Pleeeeease! Communist nations? You are killing me????!
We have to prohibit immigration of individuals who hate our way of life and want to destroy us. Because if we let in enough of them, there is no us. And no US.
They could even lie about not being Muslims.
How many people lied about never being members of the Commuist Party or Nazis in order to become Americans? I’m guessing a lot.
I don’t know if there were many, but if they did lie, then they’re here under false pretenses and we can get ’em out. Whereas if you don’t even ask ’em….
B. Hasbeen Omega removed the language from the oath of citizenship which required people to swear they would serve in our armed forces or serve the armed forces in a non-combatant capacity.
And, I don’t know, but I suspect an oath may actually mean something to a religious Muslim. Make’em swear. It may not eliminate people who can invoke taquia, as you say, but it could still weed out a lot of the purer believing evil doers. A lot of useful foot soldiers may be less willing to put their immortal souls in peril.