THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA

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Volume XII, Issue # 63, May 5, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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  World War IV: Islamist Terror War Against the U.S.A. & the West

WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO BLOW UP TIMES SQUARE?
By Dr. Daniel Pipes

WHAT DRIVES ISLAMIC TERRORIST ACTIVITY, INSANITY OR IDEOLOGICAL PASSION? ACCURATE ANALYSIS OF ACTS OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM MUST BEGIN WITH THE PRESUMPTION OF JIHADI INTENT ON THE PART OF THE PERPETRATORS, NOT MENTAL OR EMOTIONAL INCAPACITY AS THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF SUCH BEHAVIOR.  SPREADING ISLAM & APPLYING ISLAMIC LAW ARE THE GOALS OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM.  COURAGE TO NAME THE ENEMY IS ESSENTIAL TO THE WEST'S WINNING THE GLOBAL WAR BEING WAGED AGAINST IT BY THE INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIST MOVEMENT.
FULL STORY:   When news comes of Muslims engaging in violence, the triad of politicians, law enforcement, and media invariably presumes that the perpetrator suffers from some mental or emotional incapacity.

Instead, I argue, they should begin with a presumption of jihadi intent. That is, the default expectation should be ideological passion, not insanity. Spreading Islam and applying Islamic law are the goals. Of course, some crazy Muslims exist and they do engage in violence, but they constitute a microscopic percentage of the 15,247 Muslim terrorist incidents since 9/11, as counted by www.thereligionofpeace.com.

The failed effort to blow up an SUV in New York's Times Square prompted speculation about the would-be bomber's motives even before the identity of Faisal Shahzad, an immigrant from Pakistan, had been made public. The Nation's Robert Dreyfuss discounted the possibility of a jihadi from the Pakistan-based Taliban, "it seems far more likely to me [he] was either a lone nut job or a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government Far Right."

Then, just hours after Shahzad had been arrested, authorities rushed to assure the public his action had nothing to do with Islam. Examples from May 4, 2010:

    The establishment agrees: Islam played no role in Faisal Shahzad's attempted terrorism.

    Mike Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City: the bomb could have been placed by "somebody with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything."

    Mahkdoom Qureshi, Pakistan's Foreign Minister: "This is a blow back [for U.S. military activities in Pakistan]. This is a reaction. This is retaliation. And you could expect that. Let's not be naive. They're not going to sort of sit and welcome you eliminate them. They're going to fight back."

    Nadeem Haider Kiani, spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C.: it's too soon to tell exactly what motivated the bomber but early indications suggest he is "a disturbed individual."

    Cable News Network: "It can be confirmed that his house had been foreclosed in recent years. I mean, one would have to imagine that brought a lot of pressure and a lot of heartache on that family."

    CBS News: "It isn't clear if more suspects are at large OR what the motive could be."

    The Washington Post: Under the title, "The economic crisis meets terrorism," Ezra Klein notes that Shahzad's house was foreclosed and comments: "This guy is like string theory for the media: He brings together the seemingly incompatible stories that drove the past decade. That said, you, of course, don't want to speculate on why someone 'really' did something. The hearts of men are opaque, and motives are complex."

And here's a collection from today's papers

    Law enforcement (as reported by NY1): "Investigators say they still have no motive for Shahzad's actions." (May 5, 2010)

    Kifyat Ali, a relative of Shahzad's: "We are shocked. He had no connection with any political party or jihadi group." (May 5, 2010)

    Associated Press headline: "NY car bomb suspect cooperates, but motive mystery." (May 5, 2010)

    Associated Press story: "Federal officials aren't talking about a motive in the arrest of a naturalized U.S. citizen charged with attempting to set off a bomb in New York's Times Square." (May 5, 2010)

    New York Post "exclusive": Shahzad "said he was driven to evil by the slew of deaths among leaders of the terror group, law-enforcement sources revealed yesterday. Sources said he was an eyewitness to the onslaught throughout the eight months he spent in Pakistan beginning last Summer." (May 5, 2010)

    USA Today headline: "Motive of NYC car bomb suspect remains a mystery." (May 5, 2010)

    The Guardian headline: "Times Square bomb: Pakistanis puzzled by bomber's motives." (May 5, 2010)

COMMENTS:

(1) Some of these interpretations say the motives are mysterious, some of them speculate about one thing or another – but all assiduously avoid the elephant in the room.

(2) You can't win a war, if you don't have the courage to name the enemy.

(3) Naming the enemy means changing some of the more pleasant aspects of Western life, and so is tough to do.

(4) I expect that naming the enemy will occur only after a cataclysm ends our patience with minced words.


© Daniel Pipes 2010
Originally Published in National Review Online, May 5, 2010
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, May 5, 2010
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/8336/why-blow-up-times-square


LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three    Page Two    Page One

Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors

American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East

International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security

   Page Two    Page One

Espionage -- Foreign Intelligence & Enemy Espionage

Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.

Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization

Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies

Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security

U.S. National Security Strategy



Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum, Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.

Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.

Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.




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