by Judith A. Klinghoffer
Political Mavens
1/10/2010
Obama’s elections and the promise of an American retreat from Iraq and Afghanistan is in part responsible for the marked rise in Al Qaeda efforts to attack the American homeland. Why? Because it removed the single negative consequence of 9/11 as far as Jihadists are concerned, the insertion of infidel armies into two additional Muslim territories. The rest of the consequences of 9/11 are considered positive. America and the West incurred significant economic losses while the visibility and marked deference to Islam has increased geometrically.
After each Muslim terrorist incident, Tom Friedman writes another column bemoaning the failure of moderate Muslims to create an inhospitable atmosphere for Jihadists:
I keep saying: It takes a village. The father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, saw himself as part of a global community, based on shared values, and that is why he rang the alarm bell. Bless him for that. Unless more Muslim parents, spiritual leaders, political leaders — the village — are ready to publicly denounce suicide bombing against innocent civilians — theirs and ours — this behavior will not stop.Just last Friday, for example, a suicide bomber set off an explosives-laden vehicle in the midst of a volleyball tournament in the Pakistani village of Shah Hassan Khel, killing more than 100 people. Most were youngsters. No surprise. When suicide bombing becomes legitimate to use against non-Muslim “infidels” abroad it becomes legitimate to use against Muslim opponents at home. And what becomes “legitimate” and “illegitimate” in a community is so much more important than any government regulation.
All too often, though, Arab and Muslim governments arrest their jihadis at home, denounce them privately to us, but say nothing in public. The global leadership of Islam — like the king of Saudi Arabia or the Organization of the Islamic Conference — rarely take on jihadist actions and ideology openly with the kind of passion, consistency and mass protests that we have seen them do, for example, against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Friedman and his fellow liberal intellectuals fail to ask themselves the real pertinent question: What has the West done to incentivize Muslim moderates to act? How has it made the life of moderate Muslims more difficult? How has it shamed moderate Muslims into action? In other words, how did it create an international atmosphere which made Islamism illegitimate?
The simple answer is that not only has the rise of Jihadism not made Islam illegitimate but it made it more legitimate. There was no celebrations of Muslim religious holidays at the White House before 9/11, there are such celebrations after 9/11. From the very beginning the West led by the Bush administration has done its utmost to shelter moderate Muslims from the consequences of Jihadist actions. That was appeasement 101. The rantings of Jihadists were carefully studied and active efforts were made to address their supposed grievances, or as sophisticated Obama calls them, “recruitment tools.”
The result is that any attempt by moderates to blame Jihadists for giving Islam a bad name is easy for Jihadists to dismiss. Just think of the consequences of the anti-Danish cartoon riots. Yale University press is afraid to print them in a book about the cartoons. America even elected Barack Obama president in the hope of appeasing Muslims.
The article continues at Political Mavens.
