Untitled Document

December 6, 2002

THE INVISIBLE JIHAD
By David Kupelian

After praising the Sept. 11 skyjackers and threatening to commit major terrorist acts himself within the U.S., alleged sniper John Muhammad, along with 17-year-old Lee Boyd "John" Malvo, paralyzed the Washington metropolitan area for three bloody weeks in October. Yet since his capture, most in the media have been loathe to focus seriously on jihad as a motive.

In fact, the standard analysis of what makes Muhammad tick seems to include anything and everything except jihad – the personal spiritual mandate to engage in "holy war" against the "enemies of Islam," that is, non-Muslims, especially Americans, Jews and Christians.

Such violent directives, long central to militant Islamism, have grown exponentially in recent years, emanating not only from known terror leaders like Osama bin Laden, but from militant Islamic clerics worldwide, including some in the U.S. (Last month, Sheik Abu Hamza, affiliated with London's Finsbury Park mosque, was caught on film urging his followers to kill non-Muslims – particularly Americans – and to commit other acts of terrorism.) Despite these eerie, medieval calls for the murderous purging of "unbelievers," jihad doesn't easily show up on the radar of the media elite, in spite of America's unwelcome crash course in radical Islam in the aftermath of 9-11.

As if 9-11 never happened

From the Washington, D.C., sniper shootings (in which police wrongly profiled white males despite eyewitnesses who said they saw dark skin), to the anthrax murders (after more than a year, the FBI is still guided by its profile of a "homegrown" terrorist, an angry loner with science expertise), to the Oklahoma City bombing (with which famed prosecutor David Schippers claims there is a "dead-bang Middle Eastern connection") to the downing of TWA Flight 800 (in which multiple eyewitnesses who claim they saw a missile hit the plane contradict the government's official conclusion of mechanical failure) – it is as if 9-11 never happened.

There is a strange aversion in both the administration and most of the press to investigate seriously the "jihad factor" in attack after attack that Americans are enduring. Yet, the truth is that virtually all terrorist acts against the U.S. or its interests in recent years have been perpetrated by militant Islamists. Indeed, a glance at the headlines shows we are in the midst of what can only be described as a global Islamic jihad against America and Israel.

Thus, the official face of U.S. policy - that Islam is a religion of peace, that most Islamic nations are America's allies in the war on terror, and that terrorist groups like al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah aren't truly Muslim at all and, in any event, are supported by only a tiny fraction of the Muslim world - is increasingly at odds with reality.

Even after the resurgence of al-Qaida and the official confirmation that bin Laden is still leading the far-flung terror empire, as well as the recent mass atrocities in Bali, Moscow and elsewhere –all with direct ties to al-Qaida –the U.S. seems incapable of accurately defining its enemy.

The Islamic connection is always downplayed. Always.

A time for truth

While the government and "mainstream" media avoid mentioning the Islamist elephant in the national living room, the nation is ripe for further recruitment.

Dr. Saul B. Wilen, president of International Horizons Unlimited, a terrorism prevention and strategies think-tank in San Antonio, Texas, writes:

According to the American Correctional Association in 2001, the number of Islamic inmates in the federal prison system tripled over the previous nine years, and in some states, such as Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania, make up approximately 20 percent of the incarcerated population. This includes the 30 percent of all African-Americans who have embraced Islam in prison. Prison experts and experienced correctional facility administrators recognize that prisons offer radical fundamentalists such as al-Qaida a pool of potential recruits who can be prime targets for a religion advocating the overcoming of oppression with violence.

Explaining that the opportunities for militant Islamist recruitment are great, not only in prison, but in gang cultures and other negative environments with angry and confused young people, Wilen adds, ominously:

Ongoing recruitment efforts are much greater and even more complex than previously anticipated. The Justice Department and FBI have confirmed that in its major jurisdictions hundreds of suspects are being monitored 24 hours a day. This is only the beginning of the need for expanding investigation resources. The terrorist population drawn from America's youth complicates intelligence and surveillance efforts by adding large numbers of potential terrorists who can strike widely and simultaneously against distant and multiple targets. Our preparedness and resources to respond, react and recover from such terrorist attacks would be overwhelmed.

The existence and growth of American al-Qaida cells significantly frustrates our present strategies for fighting terrorism and urgently raises the need for developing a new focus for terrorism prevention.

Islamic radicals come to America, not because they love freedom, but because they know they can exploit America's unparalleled liberty, which they consider weakness, to either destroy America or to Islamize it which of course would destroy it.

How do we dare deal with the fact that some Islamic mosques in America - although thousands of decent, law-abiding Muslims worship there - have also been and no doubt still are being used as cover for terrorists? How do we deal with the virulent, metastasizing hatred of Islamic militancy both around the world and on our own soil?

And most importantly, how do we deal with this vexing and deadly problem while still respecting law-abiding Muslims' rights to fundamental freedoms, including freedom of worship, in America?

The solution will be difficult, but not impossible. And it must start – as solving all seemingly intractable problems must start – with telling the truth.