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Return to Article: Analyst warns of third Islamic terrorist wave, enabled by Internet

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  USAFMajor's comment is on target. There seems to be an overabundance of commentators these days who are identified as a "leading terrorist expert" or "leading national authority on Counter-/Anti- terrorism". The opinion expressed in subj. article appears to be another version of the theory - its the economy and/or the culture stupid - that the "new" terrorists are simply disenfranchised discontents who are economically deprived, "shut out of the labor market", "victims" of racial/ethnic prejudice and the "bored", who's unsatisfying lives leave them radicalized with no better option than to join/form a terrorist cell. Interestingly, such an "assessment" is, perhaps inadvertently, "in sync" with those who identify the U.S. as a root cause and posit that we simply need to understand that these unfortunate misguided extremists are simply reacting to U.S. policy, our "jingoism", "imperialism", repressive past, and greed/over-indulgence. Their solution, justified by a "PC" philosophy of moral relativism, multi-culturalism and the non-existence of objective truth, is to accept terrorist violence as legitimate acts of "moral outrage", and to attempt to buy off the committed and potential terrorists/extremists by pandering to their every claim of discrimination and "special wants", while trashing any intrinsic value in national identity, patriotism, a common language, and societal assimilation.

  Suggested reading: "War, Terror & Peace in the Qur'an and in Islam (Army War College Foundation Press), by T.P. Schwartz-Barcott, and "Just War Against Terror" (Basic Books), by Jean Bethke Elshtain.

  Whois Posted February 28, 2008 2:47 PM
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  How would we feel if we went to church and found a Saudi tank parked on the altar? That is how our military presence looks to folks in the middle east. Unlike us, their politics do not separate church and state. So our military presence is very offensive.

  This article about security does not address the numerous hacks into financial and defense networks, including the Air Force personnel system. That breach gave the hackers the names and addresses of the families of our fighter pilots. The U.S. experts do not address the fact that Bin Laden and his followers have been noted as cyber geniuses by the international media.

  I expected this article to address one of the possible "next 9/11" scenarios, the destruction of the west's financial systems. This would be a cyber attack to wipe out all bank and investment data and software. What it does is leave everyone with only the cash in their pockets. Add the effects of the current recession, and there will be chaos. The National Guard is not be available to control the rioting and looting.

  Anthony Weishar Posted February 28, 2008 10:02 AM
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  The article states that Sageman "found no single characteristic that explains why somebody becomes a terrorist." That comes as a surprise to the rest of us who readily recognize the one glaringly obvious characteristic shared by the terrorists: Islam. Of course, not all Muslims are terrorists, but justification for violence against non-Muslims is readily available in Islamic doctrine, particularly the Hadith, and the clerical interpretations of which are consistently and historically used to justify violence and terrorism against non-believers. Sageman and other "analysts" furthermore need to abandon their efforts to discover a socio-economic cause of Muslim extremism since one doesn't exist. Psuedo-Marxist theories of class warfare, disenfranchisement and poverty fail to properly recognize the religious causation behind Islamic terror.

  USAFMajor Posted February 28, 2008 7:16 AM
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  The problem with the nature of the article like this is that you don't differentiate Osama and the rest of Islam and Muslims. So, what your article impunes is that Muslims all over the world are ready to use the internet to conduct cyber attacks against the U.S. Just another example of the growing Islamophobic nature of our government and media.

  Ken Hjerpe Posted February 27, 2008 9:03 AM
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  I concur with this requirement to immigrate to the US: "In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." Teddy Roosevelt

  Panman Posted February 27, 2008 3:15 AM