Islamic terror and the American story

By Yoram Ettinger, ISRAEL HAYOM

Islamic terrorism has been part of the American story, since the first(1801-1805) and the second (1815) U.S. wars against Libya, Tunisia and Algeria-based Muslim pirates. Anti-U.S. Islamic terrorism has been fueled by Islam’s imperialistic vision, inflamed by core American values — irrespective of American national security policy — systematically and deliberately targeting innocent Americans in the U.S. and abroad.

Premeditated Islamic terrorism, accompanied by chants of “We are all bin Laden,” marked the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11 in Libya and Egypt. It erupted irrespective of the crucial role played by the U.S. in the toppling of Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the rough U.S. pressure on Israel and the financial and political U.S. support of the Palestinian Authority. The U.S. ambassador to Libya and his three staff members were murdered and rocket-propelled grenades destroyed the consulate in Benghazi. The U.S. Embassies in Cairo and Sanaa were stormed, and U.S. flags were burned in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, the Gaza Strip, etc. Libyan, Egyptian and Yemenite security forces were alerted, but did not prevent the assault.

So much for the delusions of the “Arab Spring,” “the New Middle East,” “the March of Democracy,” and “painful Israeli concessions for peace …”

Islamic terrorism has targeted the U.S. despite President Jimmy Carter’s support of Ruhollah Khomeini’s rise to power; despite President Ronald Reagan’s critical military and financial support of the mujahedeen, which terminated the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; notwithstanding President Bill Clinton’s bombing of Serbia, which led to the establishment of Muslim-dominated Bosnia and Kosovo; and regardless of President Barack Obama’s policy of engaging — rather than confronting — rogue Muslim entities.

Islamic terrorism has focused on the U.S. in defiance of Obama’s instruction to delete any reference to Islam from training literature employed by the FBI, CIA, military and other counterterrorism agencies.

Islamic terrorism has focused on the U.S. although the Obama administration denies the existence of global Islamic jihadist terrorism, referring to terrorism as “man-caused disasters,” “workplace violence,” and “isolated extremism.”

Terrorists bite the hands that feed them.

For example, the murder of nearly 3,000 people on 9/11 was planned while Clinton extended his hand to the Muslim world in general and to the Palestinians in particular. The Oct. 12, 2000 murder of 17 USS Cole sailors occurred when Clinton brokered unprecedented Israeli concessions to the Palestinian. The Aug. 27, 1998 murder of 257 persons at the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania took place while Clinton brutally pressured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The murder of 19 U.S. soldiers in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia was carried out while Clinton courted Yasser Arafat. The Dec. 21,1988 murder of 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland took place a few months following the groundbreaking recognition of the PLO by Reagan. The 1983 murders of 368 people at the U.S. Embassy and U.S. and French military barracks in Beirut occurred while Reagan interfered with Israel’s hot pursuit of the PLO, blasting Israel for its war on PLO terrorism.

The last two years of the stormy “Arab Winter” have highlighted the 1,400-year-old inherent intra-Muslim violence, hatred, treachery and terrorism, which have also afflicted non-Muslims in general and the U.S. in particular. It has been 1,400 years of no intra-Muslim comprehensive peace and no intra-Muslim compliance with most intra-Muslim agreements.

Rogue Muslim regimes consider the exceptional U.S. military, economic and diplomatic capabilities their chief adversary.

The U.S. and its core values have been targeted by Quran- and Shariah-driven dictatorial Muslim regimes and elites. They consider U.S. values to be the most lethal, clear and present danger. They dread U.S. civil liberties, such as freedom of religion, association, expression, movement, economy, equality for women, and the Internet.

The root cause of Islamic terrorism has been the nature of Islam. In contrast to Western democracy, Islam is supremacist, aiming to bring “believers” and “infidels” to total spiritual and physical submission. Henceforth, the centrality of hate-education (toward “the other”) is forging the national state of mind; hence, the intolerant, violent, anti-doubt, anti-choice, anti-criticism and anti-individualistic nature of Islam. Therefore, Islam’s call for jihad(holy war), execution of apostates, “honor killing” of women by their own relatives, genital mutilation of young women,shuhada(suicide bombing), etc.

Anti-Western Islamic authoritarian-imperialism represents the predominant worldview of Muslim societies, which have been indoctrinated by their religious, political, ideological, educational and military elites since the 7th century. According to the tenets of mainstream Islam, any criticism of Islam in general and, especially its prophet, Muhammad, warrants severe retribution, including death.

Oversimplification and wishful thinking in the battle against global Islamic terrorism, and in the pursuit of peace, have been crashed against the rocks of reality. The delusion of the Arab Spring has been brutally exposed by the tectonic and stormy Arab Winter that is gaining momentum. Ideological and operational ambiguity (“man-caused disasters”) must yield to ideological and operational clarity, identifying the clear and present danger to peace and to the survival of Western democracies — global Islamic terrorism.