Thoughts on Islam and Terrorism

For John, BLUF:  I don't think we are helping American Muslims by pretending there is no nexus between Islam and Terrorism.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From the Hillsdale College Imprimis we have an adaptation of a speech by Mr Andrew C McCarthy, Islam—Facts or Dreams?.

Mr McCarthy's bona fides for making this discussion about terrorism connected with some version of Islam include his experience in 1993-95 leading the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks.

Mr McCarthy makes the point that the Administration has bent over backward to exculpate Islam and Muslims with regard to terrorism and terrorists, including those related to Daesh and al Qaeda.

At one level the Obama Administration is absolutely correct.  There are some 1.6 Billion Muslims in the world.♠  Those connected with various terrorist organizations are, at best, less than 1% of those Muslims and probably closer to 0.04% (around 600,000).

However, ignoring the impact of Islam on these terrorists is to not fully understanding what is going on here.

For example, the connection of the Wahhabist version of Islam is something that should not be ignored, but to raise it is to put us cross-ways with our long term friend in Middle East, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This leads us to the fact that fixing the problem of Daesh means fixing the Saudi Arabian relationship with the Wahhabist Imams.  But, Saudi Arabia operates with an agreement with the Wahhabist Imams (the Al ash Sheikh).♥

No easy answers, but a little more transparency and openness would be helpful to the American Citizenship.

Ignoring connections will not make us safer.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The majority of whom are not Arabs.
♥  This willingness to compromise can turn bad, as in Belgium, where the live and let live approach has turned out to be ineffective in keeping the terror threat at bay.