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September 25, 2006

US: Iraq Has Helped Islamic Extremism States Report

News from the Telegraph, News.com.au, the New Zealand Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, International Herald Tribune, Bloomberg, the Scotsman, Independent, and Reuters states that a report from the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has claimed that the Iraq war has given rise to a new generation of Islamic terrorists.

The classified NIE report was completed in April and said Islamic terrorism had mushroomed worldwide and blamed the Iraq war for this. The report, called "Trends in Global Terrrorism: Implications for the United States" says in its first section, Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement that the Iraq war has made terrorism worse.

The report was commissioned in 2004, and compiled under the sueprvision of David Low at the National Intelligence Council.

The report also claims hat the internet has helped to spread jihadist ideas and incitement.

The problem with the report is that it is still classified, and the media has pounced on a claim made in its first chapter, at the expense of the rest of the document. It is perhaps worth noting that the New York Times, not known for its support of the Iraq war, was the only media outlet to gain access to the document.

The suggestion that the Iraq situation is fueling terrorism has been made by others. It is the current mantra of leftists and Muslims in Britain. General Michael Hayden, who is now director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said in April: "New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge. If this trend continues, threats to the US at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide."

Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican and the Senate Majority leader who, like most people who write articles about the report, said the fight against terrorists in Iraq must continue. On ABC's This Week he said: "Either we are going to be fighting this battle, this war overseas, or it's going to be right here in this country."

Other Republicans have supported this concept. John McCain, Arizona senator, said on CBS that if America fails in Iraq "then our problems will be much more complicated". He said the war on terror is an "ideological war" which is not contained within one country or region.

White House spokesman Peter Watkins stressed that the NYT account was not representative of the whole document. He said the Bush administration would not comment on "classified documents".

The impression given on BBC News24 is that the statement in the opening section of the report is a "pars pro toto", representative of the whole. This does not seem to be the case.

The events in Iraq may have provided a rallying point and a focus for the Islamists' anger, and indeed the anger of so-called "moderate" Muslims in places such as Britain.

But it does not mean that if the Iraq war had never happened that there would be no terrorism in the world, which is the line peddled by Muslims, and also, by implication, organs such as the BBC.

Islamic terrorism is an essential part of Islam, an extension of Mohammed's own wars to establish Islam as a dominant ideology. In October 2002, when the Al Qaeda connected Jemaah Islamiyah sent suicide bombers to tourist area of Bali, where they killed 202 people, including 88 Australians and 25 British nationals, this was before the Iraq invasion of March 19, 2003.

The events of 2001 were of themselves an encouragement to the Islamist elements in Islam that their perennial foe - America - could be wounded. And scenting blood, terrorists have acted to imitate 9/11. There is no justification for terrorism against civilians based on religions. Iraq may have made Islamists' bloodlust keener, but the bloodlust was already there.

The issue of Israel has always been a "justification" given by Muslims to rationalise attacks upon the US, Israel's ally. In this, the left has conspired in maintaining this dogma. When in 1979 the "theocracy" of Iran kidnapped US embassy staff, there was no war in Iraq.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and others have been active in acts of terrorism long before the 1967 Israel war, when Arab nations made an unprovoked war on Israel and were defeated miserably, with assailants' territory annexed for purposes of Israel's national security.

One could just as easily blame the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 as a "cause" of global Islamic terrorism.

The real cause of Islamic terrorism, stripped of the constant scapegoats such as Nasser, Israel, Iraq, Western capitalism etc, is Islam, and the warmongering ideology of Mohammed himself. One could throw in a dollop of Arab nationalism into the mix, following on from Mohammed's tradition, but the ideology of armed jihad and "Holy War" can be found in the Koran and the Hadiths.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at September 25, 2006 7:43 AM

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