The new strain of Islamic terrorism

This Saturday marks the third anniversary of the horrors of Sept. 11, and as we remember the nearly 3,000 souls lost on that tragic day, it’s also important to take stock of the ways in which our world has changed since. As Americans, we have often enjoyed the luxury of feeling that we did not need to pay too much attention to events that took place outside our own borders, but Sept. 11 changed all that, and for good reason.

In the September issue of Commentary magazine, editor Norman Podheretz observes: “The attack came, both literally and metaphorically, like a bolt out of the blue.” But he goes on to make a very strong case that that is really not what happened at all. To gain the proper perspective on the events of Sept. 11, he argues, we must step back from the 24-hour news cycle and view the gathering storm.

Podhoretz outlines a litany of warning signals leading up to 9/11 that dates back to the Nixon and Ford administrations of the early- to mid-‘70s, when several American diplomats were murdered in the Sudan and Lebanon by factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization. From there, his list includes the following acts of terror perpetrated against the United States by Islamic fundamentalists (Note: this list is not comprehensive, but merely representative):

• the 1979 seizing of 52 American hostages by Iranian students in Tehran

• the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beruit (Hezbollah)

• the 1983 bombing of an American barracks at the Beirut airport that killed 241 U.S. marines and injured 81 (Hezbollah)

• the 1984 kidnapping and subsequent murder of William Buckley, the CIA’s Beirut station chief (Hezbollah)

• the 1984 hijacking of a Kuwaiti airliner in which two Americans employed by the U.S. Agency for International Development were murdered (Hezbollah)

• the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847 in which a U.S. naval officer was shot and thrown onto the tarmac (Hezbollah)

• the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, and murder of Leon Klinghoffer (an American Jew) by the PLO (It was later discovered that this hijacking had been funded in part by Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya)

• the 1985 bombing of the Rome and Vienna airports in which five Americans were among 20 killed (sponsored by Libya)

• the 1986 bombing of a West Berlin nightclub frequented by American servicemen (sponsored by Libya)

• the 1988 explosion of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 (sponsored by Libya)

• the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six and injuring over 1,000 (Al Qaeda)

• the 1996 truck bombing of the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 American airmen and wounded 240 (Al Qaeda)

• the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that left more than 200 dead (Al Qaeda)

• the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 American sailors and wounded 39 (Al Qaeda)

Empowered with 20/20 hindsight, we may well ask ourselves how we could have missed all the warning signals, and marvel that it took so long for the terrorists to strike us (again) on our soil. But, as the 9/11 Commission recently concluded, we fell victim to a “failure of imagination.”

The tragic events of Sept. 11 awoke us from that slumber and, unfortunately, similarly horrific events in Russia only last week underscore the threat that still faces us. Certainly, it is no more difficult to fathom the mindset of the terrorists who flew commercial airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon than it is to fathom the mindset of those who took innocent children hostage, denied them food and water, scoffed and sneered at them as they passed out from heat exhaustion, watched them drink their own urine at their parents’ behest, and shot them in the backs as they ran from a burning building.

Of course, it is always important for us to strive to understand events in context. Most of the terrorist attacks on Americans and American interests leading up to 9/11 were committed for political reasons and not out of religious zealotry; the Russians and Chechens have been fighting a bloody civil war for many years in which the Chechens have often been the victims of extreme Russian brutality.

But if initial Russian reports of Arab involvement and Al Qaeda funding in the siege of the Beslan school prove accurate, the link to 9/11 cannot be ignored. (Irrespective of that, it is well known that Chechen rebels receive funding from foreign Muslim sympathizers and that Arab commanders occupy key positions within the separatists’ ranks). Islamist radicals support the Chechens not only to aid them in their cause to gain independence from Russia, but also in order to further their stated objective of world Islamic domination.

While that notion may seem preposterously medieval to Americans and to the rest of the western world, it is—nevertheless—spreading like a virus throughout much of the Islamic world. Emboldened by their belief that God aided them in destroying one superpower (they believe the Afghan victory over the Soviet Union caused the breakup of the Soviet Empire), Islamic terrorism has mutated into a much more deadly strain, and the Mujahidin (Soldiers of God) fighters who belong to Al Qaeda or who are allied with them truly believe that God will help them affect our destruction.

This Sept. 11, let us pay respect to all who have died at the hands of these terrorists by fully acknowledging this threat and vowing that—while we may often disagree on how best to combat it—we will never again fall victim to a “failure of imagination.”

September 9, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 37 © 2004 Metro Pulse