Ralph Peters, ex-Army Colonel and outspoken advocate of the U.S. Military and counter-terrorism efforts, writes about how political correctness is encouraging Americans to lie to themselves about the connections between Islam and terrorism. Peters writes in his traditional polemical style, so his piece is sure to get some people heated. Nevertheless, I think he hits the nail on the head a few times. He first points out how our enemies do not share the same sensitivity we do through political correctness – a simple observation, but too often people forget this.
Contrast our political correctness with Abdulmutallab’s choice of Christmas for his intended massacre. Our troops stand down on Muslim holidays. A captive terrorist merely has to claim that a soldier dog-eared a Koran, and it’s courts-martial all around.
But more importantly, Peters addresses the most crucial aspect of the terrorism scenario: Americans’ fear of labeling Islam as a religion that produces violence. I have written on this subject before, and still embrace my original conclusion that the public’s conception of Islam can only be determined by the actions of its followers: this image will not change until the zealots are silenced by the religion’s real practitioners. Peters writes:
We proclaim that the terrorists “don’t represent Islam.” OK, whom do they represent? The Franciscans? We don’t get to decide what’s Islam and what isn’t. Muslims do. And far too many of them approve of violent jihad.
He also brings up something that has been bothering me since the attempted attack. If you were to turn on the TV over the course of the week following the incident, you would see commentators and terrorism analysts trying to determine whether or not Abdulmuttalab was really acting on behalf of Al Qaeda as he claimed. As Peters points out, “al Qaeda’s far more than a formal organization; it’s an idea, a cause. If a terrorist says he’s al Qaeda, he is, even if he doesn’t have a union card from Jihadi Local 632.” Peters also discusses the reality of the socio-economic role in breeding terrorists. I highly recommend the article, as well as Peters’ analysis of the Fort Hood attack, where he says that “there’s no such thing as ‘Islamist terrorism’ in ObamaWorld.”
