16 Feb 2012 By Juan Cole The New York Times recently published an article
about how exaggerated the threat of Islamic terrorism
is. I pointed out in my own article that in fact the
NYT article understated how truly overstated that
threat is: in the last half decade, Muslim terrorists
have killed a whopping zero civilians in the United
States and Europe. The FBI is obviously quite pleased with itself
over its arrest of a 19-year-old Somali-American,
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who — with months of
encouragement, support and money from the FBI's own
undercover agents — allegedly attempted to detonate
a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland,
Oregon. Media accounts are almost uniformly
trumpeting this event exactly as the FBI describes
it. Loyalists of both parties are doing the same,
with Democratic Party commentators proclaiming that
this proves how great and effective Democrats are at
stopping The Evil Terrorists, while right-wing
polemicists point to this arrest as yet more proof
that those menacing Muslims sure are violent and
dangerous.… [T]he FBI — as they've done many times in the
past — found some very young, impressionable,
disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created
a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him
to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist;
and then patted itself on the back once it arrested
him for having thwarted a "Terrorist plot" which,
from start to finish, was entirely the FBI's own
concoction. Having stopped a plot which it itself
manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts — and an
uncritical media amplifies — its "success" to the
world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism
from Muslims is a serious threat and the
Government's vast surveillance powers — current and
future new ones — are necessary. Such terrorist plots also "prove" the need to bomb,
invade, and occupy the Moozlums Over There–we are told
that it's the only way to Keep Us Safe™
from Islamic terrorism. The familiar pattern repeats itself today, as The
Washington Post reports: Federal authorities on Friday arrested a
29-year-old Moroccan man in an alleged plot to carry
out a suicide bombing at the U.S. Capitol, the
latest in a series of terrorism-related arrests
resulting from undercover sting operations. For more than a year, Amine El Khalifi, of
Alexandria, considered attacking targets including a
synagogue, an Alexandria building with military
offices and a Washington restaurant frequented by
military officials, authorities said. When arrested
a few blocks from the Capitol around lunchtime on
Friday, he was carrying what he believed to be a
loaded automatic weapon and a suicide vest ready for
detonation. The gun and vest were provided not by al-Qaeda,
as Khalifi had been told, but by undercover FBI
agents who rendered them inoperable, authorities
said. ABC 7 notes in passing: The public nor any members of Congress
were ever in danger, police say. Capitol
Police say they worked closely with the FBI
throughout the entire operation, during which the
suspect was closely monitored. Even though "[t]he public nor any members of
Congress were ever in danger", this same terrorist
plot will be used as another proof that Islamic
terrorism is a grave danger to Americans. Indeed,
Assistant Attorney General Monaco concluded: "Today's
case underscores the continuing threat we face from
homegrown violent extremists." Greenwald had written of the 19-year old Somali
terrorist arrested in 2010:
Finally, there is, as usual, no
discussion whatsoever in media accounts of motive.
There are several statements attributed to Mohamud
by the Affidavit that should be repellent to any
decent person, including complete apathy — even
delight — at the prospect that this bomb would kill
innocent people, including children. What would
drive a 19-year-old American citizen — living in the
U.S. since the age of 3 — to that level of
sociopathic indifference? He explained it himself
in several passages quoted by the FBI, and — if it
weren't for the virtual media blackout of this issue
— this line of reasoning would be extremely familiar
to Americans by now (para. 45): Undercover FBI Agent: You
know there's gonna be a lot of children there? Mohamud: Yeah, I know, that's
what I'm looking for. Undercover FBI Agent: For kids? Mohamud: No, just for, in
general a huge mass that will, like for them you
know to be attacked in their own element with their
families celebrating the holidays. And then for
later to be saying, this was them for you to
refrain from killing our children, women .
. . . so when they hear all these families were
killed in such a city, they'll say you know what
your actions, you know they will stop, you know. And
it's not fair that they should do that to people and
not feeling it. And here's what he allegedly said in a video he
made shortly before he thought he would be
detonating the bomb (para. 80): We hear the same exact thing over and over and
over from accused Terrorists — that they are
attempting to carry out plots in retaliation for
past and ongoing American violence against Muslim
civilians and to deter such future acts. Here we
find one of the great mysteries in American
political culture: that the U.S. Government
dispatches its military all over the world —
invading, occupying, and bombing multiple Muslim
countries — torturing them, imprisoning them without
charges, shooting them up at checkpoints, sending
remote-controlled drones to explode their homes,
imposing sanctions that starve hundreds of thousands
of children to death — and Americans are then
baffled when some Muslims — an amazingly small
percentage — harbor anger and vengeance toward them
and want to return the violence. And here we also
find the greatest myth in American political
discourse: that engaging in all of that military
aggression somehow constitutes Staying Safe and
combating Terrorism — rather than doing more than
any single other cause to provoke, sustain and fuel
Terrorism. Once again, our Muslim would-be terrorist's
motivations revolve around his anger over U.S.
military actions in the Muslim world. The ABC report
notes–once again something that is only mentioned in
passing (with In January 2011, he first met with an undercover
agent and stated the "war on terror" was a "war on
Muslims," court records show. Why on earth would Amine El Khalifi or another
Muslim from that part of the world think that the U.S.
is waging a "war on Muslims"? It is so utterly
baffling to me. I mean, why would any Muslim think
that? Is it just because the U.S. is bombing,
invading, and occupying multiple Muslim countries? It
couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact
that the U.S. and its stalwart ally Israel have
bombed Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia,
Libya, Iran, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan,
Egypt, and Tunisia, right? Also of interest is the fact that Amine El Khalifi,
at least initially, didn't want to kill American
civilians. The ABC report says: El Khalifi told undercover agents that he
originally wanted to target a building in Alexandria
that contained U.S. Military personal but
later changed that plan because he found out the
building had non-military civilians. He then discussed killing U.S. generals and would
research where they lived, according to court
documents, that added he introduced the idea of
targeting a restaurant in D.C. that military
officials would frequent. Were the undercover FBI agents responsible for
convincing him to attack civilians instead? In the
end, El Khalifi's target was the U.S. Capitol, federal
employees he believed were responsible for ordering
and orchestrating the "war on Muslims." It is interesting that even a Muslim would-be
terrorist like Amine El Khalifi expressed a dislike
for attacking American civilians, even though
the United States bombs and kills Muslim civilians
with impunity, without a second thought or national
discussion, and on an order of magnitude that El
Khalifi could never even imagine to have done himself.
Indeed, as Foreign Policy Magazine calculated: [T]he United States has killed nearly 30 Muslims
for every American lost. The real ratio is probably
much higher, and a reasonable upper bound for Muslim
fatalities (based mostly on higher estimates of
"excess deaths" in Iraq due to the sanctions regime
and the post-2003 occupation) is well over one million, equivalent
to over 100 Muslim fatalities for every American
lost. It goes without saying that Amine El Khalifi's
actions are morally repugnant. But, to put this
into perspective: whereas El Khalife had said
he "would be happy killing 30 people", the United
States has killed "well over one million"
Muslim civilians. As George Orwell wrote: Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their
own merits, but according to who does them. There is
almost no kind of outrage—torture, imprisonment
without trial, assassination, the bombing of
civilians—which does not change its moral color when
it is committed by ‘our' side. The nationalist not
only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by
his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not
even hearing about them. * * * * * The FBI needs to engineer and then thwart these
terrorist threats because there is not enough real
"Islamic terrorism" in the United States to justify
the War on Terror. Such FBI-generated terror scares
enable not just the stripping away of civil liberties
at home, but more importantly, serve to justify
America's wars abroad. There is a need for Americans
to fear being attacked by Muslims in order for them to
go along with waging wars of aggression against
various Muslim countries. The media has been beating the drums of war against
yet another Muslim country: Iran. Glenn Greenwald has
dubbed CNN's Erin Burnett the "worst of the worst" in
this regard. (Greenwald's article and his earlier
piece on the subject are must reads.) Burnett's
reporting on the issue is nothing short of war
propaganda. In it, she warns of "Iran's threat to the
United States in the United States–right here
at home." Her report asks: "Is Iran planning an
attack in America?" Without any evidence whatsoever, Burnett looms:
"[On a] much more real and frightening scale, Iran
could attack the United States in a much
more fearsome way…Iran's next target could be
here in the nation's largest city." Egypt could
attack the United States; South Africa could
attack the United States; Canada could attack
the United States; does that mean we bomb any of these
countries? Martians could attack the United
States–let's nuke Mars before they get a chance to
do that! American hawks are clearly looking for a smoking
gun–an attack on U.S. soil that could justify
launching a war against Iran. There are so few real
Muslim terrorists, as Prof. Charles Kurzman argues in
his book The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few
Muslim Terrorists, that the FBI needs to
generate Muslim terror plots. There is another related point I'd like to address
here: Erin Burnett had on her show the fervently
anti-Muslim bigot Peter King, who led the
congressional hearings against Muslims. Rep. King
warned of the grave Iranian threat and made the case
for war against Iran. From time to time, a few readers have complained
that our site, which is designed to expose
Islamophobia, has turned "too political"–that we talk
about America's foreign policy too much instead of
simply documenting the Islamophobia of the nation's
leading anti-Muslim loons. I take the full "blame"
for this: the Erin Burnett segment shows how
intrinsically connected Islamophobia and America's
wars are. Peter King, a classic anti-Muslim loon, is
on a "respectable" news channel–CNN–to discuss why we
need to attack another Muslim country. America's war
cheerleaders and Islamophobes work hand-in-hand. There is an undeniable link between Islamophobia
and American foreign policy: indeed, it is the latter
which gave birth to the former, and the former that
feeds the latter. Quite simply, America's wars are
Islamophobic in and of themselves. Documenting
Islampohobia without mentioning the wars would be like
talking about American racism against blacks in the
1800′s without ever mentioning the institution of
slavery. * * * * * Lastly, I'd like to comment on the ever evolving
threat of Islamic terrorism. First, we were told that
Afghanistan was the epicenter of Islamic
terrorism. Then, it was Iraq. Then, Barack
Obama reminded us that it was in fact Afghanistan
after all. Then, the "experts" started saying that "everyone
knows that Pakistan is the center of Islamic
terrorism." For some time, Syria and
Yemen were also considered candidates for this
title. And remember when even many anti-war liberals
would (ignorantly) argue that in reality it is
Saudi Arabia that is the source of Islamic terror
(because most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi)? Now,
it seems Iran is back at the top of the list. The target of American belligerence keeps changing
from one Muslim country to another–it's a Madlibs with
the blank reading "name a Muslim country": so far,
fourteen different Muslim countries have been used to
fill in the blank (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen,
Somalia, Libya, Iran, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon,
Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Tunisia). But why on
earth would Amine El Khalifi or other Muslims come up
with the absolutely crazy idea that America is at "war
with Muslims"!? Each time the threat changes and a new Muslim
country is named the "center of Islamic terrorism" (everyone
knows XYZ country is the real source of Islamic
terrorism!), few stop to think or ask "wait,
wasn't it ABC country, not XYZ, that was the
‘epicenter of Islamic terrorism'?" Most Americans
acknowledge the War on Iraq was a "mistake" (that's
what it's called when Western countries commit war
crimes–these are "mistakes"–like how failing to stop
at a stop sign for a full three seconds is a
"mistake"–everyone makes mistakes!–hundreds
of thousands of Muslim civilians die and this is
called a "mistake"). Even though the exact same
process unfolds against Iran as it did against Iraq
just a few short years ago, Americans continue to
impress the world with their goldfish-like memories,
with a majority of Americans supporting a military
strike on Iran. We will be told that it is all the media's fault,
and yes, the media has the lion's share of the blame.
But, isn't there something to be said of the
jingoist, nativist, and belligerent attitude that is
prevalent among us Americans in general? One can
convince our fellow Americans to bomb just about any
country on earth–certainly a Muslim-sounding country.
And yet, at the same time, we are told how warlike
those Moozlums over there are. One thing is for certain: while we Americans
continue to expand our knowledge of geography by
targeting and bombing various Muslim countries
–Muslims in the Muslim world are unified in their
belief that it is the United States and Israel that
are the greatest threats to their safety and world
peace. It is, I think, difficult to argue otherwise. Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary
Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent
Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011. Comments 💬 التعليقات |