Islamic terrorism is all because of Iraq, right? So, the problem is simple, the Islamists are only carrying out a troops-out movement, they're only demanding nothing more than a withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq and justice for the Palestinians?

If you buy this line, you must have never asked yourself "if Al Qaeda cares so much about Iraqi civilians then why is it killing so many of them, including children, through suicide bombings?" Or "why did the Madrid cell that staged last MarchÂ’s train bombings continue to plan attacks, even after SpainÂ’s new government had begun withdrawing from Iraq?" Why the bombing of a nightclub in Bali?

We conservatives should avoid hiding our heads in the sand and thinking that Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism, because it does. As Jonathan Freedland suggests in his article appearing in the Bahrain Tribune Daily, "Iraq’s connection to the London bombers is the obvious one: it has served to anger and radicalise a generation of young Muslims across the globe." However, Freedland reminds those that think it's all about Iraq, that "those who monitor Islamism in Britain say that the big surge in growth of extremist groups came not after 9/11 or Iraq but in the mid-1990s – with Bosnia serving as the recruiting sergeant. In the same period Chechnya, Kosovo and Israel-Palestine all came into play – again predating Iraq."

Iraq has been used as a rallying point for a plan that al-Qaeda was following with or without Iraq, and the terrorism was already occurring long before Iraq. All of us on both sides of the political spectrum need to recognize the role of Iraq in terrorism, but by no means is it all about Iraq. And damn it, there is never an excuse for terrorism in the mind of a rational human being. But, of course, we're not talking about rational human beings, we're talking about Islamofascists - Muslim extremists seeking to force all non-believers into submission under Islamic domination and rule, and under Islamic law.

From Freedland we are offered a credible explanation of what the Islamofascists are after, one that even the anti-war/anti-American mentor, Juan Cole, agrees with. Freedland suggests that "central to al-Qaeda's ideology is the "reint in Spain, Morocco, north Africa, Albania, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, as well as Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines." Al Qaeda' agenda predates and goes beyond Iraq. It seeks to end all western presence in those lands it deems Islamic, and place those lands "under Islamist rule as part of the yearned-for caliphate." It seeks to have all of these lands (perhaps only part of Spain), under the rule of Islamic law and the caliphate.

Rule all these lands under Islamic law and a long yearned-for caliphate? As Freedland concludes, "What it adds up to is a more mixed picture than either Blair (or the Bush administration) or the anti-war movement has allowed. Iraq has played a key part – of course it has – in angering large numbers of young Muslims, pulling them towards an extremist message once confined to the lunatic fringe. But that message is not only about Iraq, Afghanistan or even the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza – and we delude ourselves if we think it is."

But you say that Freedland is wrong, and the anti-war left is right, it's all about Iraq. So let's hear what Juan Cole, an anti-war mentor, a liberal Islamist-loving, anti-American, U of Michigan professor, has to say about the matter in the following excerpts from his piece, "Bin Laden's Vision Becoming Reality:"

(...) In order to evaluate the aftermath of Sept. 11, we first must understand that event. What did al-Qaeda intend to achieve? Only if we understand that can we gauge their success or failure.

(...) From the point of view of al-Qaeda, the Muslim world can and should be united into a single country.

(...) From al-Qaeda's point of view, the political unity of the Muslim world was deliberately destroyed by a one-two punch. First, Western colonial powers invaded Muslim lands and detached them from the Ottoman Empire or other Muslim states. They ruled them brutally as colonies, reducing the people to little more than slaves serving the economic and political interests of the British, French, Russians, etc. France invaded Algeria in 1830. Great Britain took Egypt in 1882 and Iraq in 1917. Russia took the Emirate of Bukhara and other Central Asian territories in the 1860s and forward. Second, they formed these colonies into Western-style nation-states, often small and weak ones, so that the divisive effects of the colonial conquests have lasted.

(...) Bin Laden sees the Muslim world as continually invaded, divided and weakened by outside forces. Among these are the Americans in Saudi Arabia and the Israelis in geographical Palestine. He repeatedly complained about the occupation of the three holy cities, i.e., Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.

(...) For al-Qaeda to succeed, it must overthrow the individual nation-states in the Middle East, most of them colonial creations, and unite them into a single, pan-Islamic state.

(...) But Ayman al-Zawahiri's organization, al-Jihad al-Islami, had tried very hard to overthrow the Egyptian state, and was always checked. Al-Zawahiri thought it was because of U.S. backing for Egypt. They believed that the U.S. also keeps Israel dominant in the Levant and backs Saudi Arabia's royal family.

Sound familiar? On the idea of the real objective of al-Qaeda being the establishment of a caliphate and the domination of Spain, Morocco, north Africa, Albania, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, as well as Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines - Freedland and Cole could be a tag team. (For a more visual approach to understanding how very real this is, take a look at Cole's map illustrations of the Islamists' objectives.) So unless Cole, mentor of the anti-war left, and Freedland, who speaks against the anti-war liberal view that it's all about Iraq, are BOTH wrong, perhaps both sides of the argument better forget about arguing HOW we arrived at where we are, and recognize that 'we're in the thick of a world war now, and that war is one of civilization against Islamofascism.

And compared to Hitler, he was just a mere warm-up compared to what we have before us. As Austin Bay put it in Part 2 ofhis piece entitled, "The Millennium War," "A RELIGIOUS END STATE guides al Qaeda: an Islamist end, or eschatology, that marks the final completion of earthly history. These religious imperialists envision an empire of the faithful, the Caliphate restored, then expanded to planetary dimensions. Call it Islamofascist globalization: al Qaeda's definition of victory."

So it's time to take the Islamists straight on, and drive them into a sea of obscurity. And the only way we're going to be able to do it is by speaking and acting with one voice and one goal - to end the Islamists' dream of a caliphate and stop Islamic extremism. The one fly in the ointment though, is to know which Muslims are Islamists, and which Muslims are true moderates with no vision of Islamic rule. That's the hardest piece of the puzzle to place a finger on.

Sources and Readings:
Bahrain Tribune Daily
Juan Cole - Bin-Laden's Vision Becoming Reality
Front Page Magazine - Old Juan Cole: A Very Sad Soul
The Command Post - Judenhass, Malaysian Style
Austin Bay - Part 2 of The Millinium War

Cross posted by Hyscience

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