In early
February, 2016, President Obama visited an Islamic mosque in the city of
Baltimore, Maryland. The purpose of his
visit, and discussion with the mosques membership plus a subsequent address,
was to assure America’s Muslim residents and citizens there and across the
nation, that he, as President stood by them as fully entitled citizens. More
specifically, his message was to reject the hostility and acts of vandalism that
American Muslims have had to endure in the face of international and domestic
acts of terror by other Muslims.
No one
should argue that such a message, in itself, was not a proper thing to do. Indeed, included in the religious attire worn
by most of the participants were also the uniforms of the Boy Scouts of
America, the next generation of American Muslims whose loyalty and adaptation
to America’s culture and values is critical if the current gulf of
understanding between Islam’s American adherents and the larger society is to
be overcome.
So while Obama’s purpose was positive, he
cast his speech within narrow boundaries. He seemed to be defining the domestic
tension as simply unjustified intolerance of “good” American Muslims and that
the nation must do better.
“We’re
one American family. And when any part of our family starts to feel
separate or second-class or targeted, it tears at the very fabric of our
nation.”
“This is a moment when, as Americans, we have
to truly listen to each other and learn from each other. And I believe it
has to begin with a common understanding of some basic facts. And I express these facts, although they’d be
obvious to many of the people in this place, because, unfortunately, it’s not
facts that are communicated on a regular basis through our media.
In fairness, he did briefly mention the
inescapable conclusion that “peace loving” Muslims have a role in challenging
the jihadist interpretation of Islam’s holy texts and its radical religious
figures.
“Muslims
around the world have a responsibility to reject extremist ideologies that are
trying to penetrate within Muslim communities.”
But the President could have used this
opportunity to clearly outline the magnitude of the Islamic jihadist threat in
order to further contrast that movement with the hoped for willingness of
American and other Muslims living in Western, secular nations to accept the
values of their adoptive homes.
Instead he reiterated the flawed argument
that the “extremists” were only a “small fraction” of the world’s Muslims. A
significant threat need not be represented by a majority or even a large
minority. The basis of this argument is
the fact that the total number of the world’s Muslims is 1.6 billion thus a
“fraction” or a “percentage” can be characterized as “small” while in reality
comprising a formidable number, and horrendous terrorist acts are typically
perpetrated by individuals or very small groups.
On the other hand the Islamic State (IS; ISIS, ISIL)
itself is estimated to have up to forty thousand fighters, while recruitment
from Middle Eastern and Southeastern European countries continues unchecked. Other
jihadist groups are located across the world: Boka Haram in West Africa, Al-Shabab in Somalia,
ISIS affiliates in Turkey, Libya, in Islam’s most populace nation Indonesia and
in the Philippines.
Al Qaeda terrorists
operate throughout the Middle East.
As a counter
point to Obama’s diminution of the Islamist threat, while Obama was giving his
speech in Baltimore, the U.S. Attorney in Kansas and Assistant Attorney General
for National Security, announced that
terrorist suspect John Booker had pleaded guilty to attempting to detonate a
car bomb at the Fort Riley Army base. Booker filmed a video he intended to be seen after
his deadly attack.
“You sit in your homes and think
this war is just over in Iraq,” he reportedly said
in the video. “Today we will bring the Islamic State straight to your doorstep.”
Still, the
debate goes on. Are those in the media, the blogosphere and political realm,
especially in this election year, exaggerating the terrorist threat of Muslims
living in America? It would seem so if
the standard by which that threat to any individual American is numerical
probability, or the numerical probability of any specific Muslim American or
resident being a perpetrator of a terrorist act which is correspondingly small.
But how many
individual domestic Islamic terrorists, what level of deaths and injuries
are acceptable ?
In his
Baltimore speech, Obama said:
“Engagement with Muslim American communities must never be a cover for surveillance. We can’t give in to
profiling entire groups of people. There’s no one single profile of terrorists. We can’t securitize our entire
relationship with Muslim Americans.“
These
admonitions are overly broad and reject reality. Muslim jihadists in the U.S.
have in many, if not most cases, been associated with mosques. Anwar al-Alaki
the U.S. born terrorist whose assassination Obama authorized was interviewed
several times regarding his ties to three of the 2001 Twin Towers attacks. He
had met two of them at a mosque in San Diego in 2000. He later became a preacher at Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in
Falls Church, Va.
After moving to Yemen he became closely associated with the terrorist
group Al-Qaeda
and has been associated with the 2009 Fort Hood, Texas terrorist attack, the so
called “Underwear bomber” plot to blow up a U.S. airliner and the failed 2010
“Times Square” bombing plot.
In 1995, the so called “Blind Sheik”, Omar Abdel Rahman, an
Egyptian jihadist, was convicted in the conspiracy to blow up the World Trade
Center in 1993. Rhaman had entered the
U.S. on a tourist visa, was later granted permanent residency and while using
New York City as a base and preaching at three different mosques there, he
traveled the country preaching hatred an advocating violence. He even issued a “fatwa” declaring it lawful
to rob banks and kill Jews in America.
These two examples are not part of a “tiny fraction” of
Islamic mosques in the U.S. In December, 2011 the Terrorist Research
Initiative released a study entitled “Perspectives on Terrorism”. The study, “The Shariah Adherence Mosque
Survey” was based on a random sample of 100 of the more than 2000 Islamic
mosques in the U.S. and found that:
“80% of U.S.
mosques provide their worshippers with jihad-style literature promoting
the use of violence against non-believers and that the imams in those mosques
expressly promote that literature."
The study also
found that when a mosque imam or its worshipers were “sharia-adherent,” as
measured by certain behaviors in conformity with Islamic law, the mosque was
more likely to provide this violent literature and the imam was more likely to
promote it.”
In another
recent study, North Carolina University professor Charles Kurzman, found that
. . .”attacks
and disrupted plots by Muslim Americans in 2015 more than doubled over 2014.”
He of course
added the academically required politically correct numbers rationale that “. .
.the overall threat they posed to public safety has been exaggerated.”
But had all of
the 81 “violent extremists plots in 2015” which the report identified been successful, the carnage would have been
extreme, even though the threat to any single American across the nation would
have been acceptably low by politically correct standards.
With respect to the President’s claim that “There’s no one single profile of
terrorists.” it is only technically true given that a few of the domestic
terrorist plots and acts have been carried out by non-Middle Eastern
individuals. Still the vast majority of
these activities have involved young men or older radical preachers of Middle
Eastern or South Asian ethnicity. Their common association with mosques or
other Muslim social groups engaged, or potentially engaged with the
proliferation of radical theology, greatly narrows the profile. Ignoring this obvious association would be
irresponsible and “peaceful American Muslims” should be convinced to be part of
the watchful eye of the government for their own benefit.
So President Obama continues to
believe that acknowledging actual and possible future terrorist attacks on
American citizens as a significant part of the world’s and America’s Islamic
belief system is a not a reality and is only a numerically tiny theological and
liturgical aberration.
He is willing to constrain obvious
security measures and accept deaths and destruction as “collateral damage” in
an effort not to offend the larger Muslim American community. Vandalism and verbal abuse against the
innocent members of this community should not be excused as inevitable or
justified but these offensive acts are in fact carried out by a “tiny fraction”
of the non-Muslim American population against a “tiny fraction” of American
mosques.
American Muslims need to do more
to join the fight than issue simple statements of overused and tepid
“condemnation”. Vigorous programs of
instruction about the nature of their “peaceful religion” need to be a
continuous part of their religious programs and a careful screening of their
religious leaders should be exercised.
They should accept the reality of the security situation and cooperate
with authorities in identifying those in their midst who represent potential
threats of violence, which is the root cause of their dilemma.
Once highly visible actions across
the nation along these lines are put in place instead of the steady drum beat
of “Islamophobia” and “victimization” the American public will be able to draw
the distinction between the extremists and the American version of Islam.
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