This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4240
January 26, 2010
The Wake Up Call That Never Comes - Why The Latest Bin Laden Message Should Be Of Special Concern To Obama
By WILLIAM MAYER
January 25, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - With the arrival, via the reliable al-Qaeda courier service al-Jazeera, of another warning from Osama bin-Laden occurring just a few days before Mr. Obama's first State of the Union Address, it's an opportune time consider just what al-Qaeda has been demanding from the United States as a condition for bin-Laden to call off the dogs of holy war.
Likewise an assessment of how successful this administration has been in understanding and dealing with the terrorist threat is in order.
Generally it has been the position of the left, subscribed to by Mr. Obama, that the current iteration of terrorism, rather than finding its genesis in an interpretation of Islamic theology, is in large part fueled by righteous enmity against the United States and the West caused by the way these comingled entities have historically dealt with the Muslim world.
It follows from this proposition that if the United States takes a more conciliatory approach, while at the same time helping to address the relative impoverishment that the overwhelming majority of Muslims must endure, that the defusing of these supposed root causes of radicalization will largely end that which motivates the jihadists.
Thus the origin of Mr. Obama's Muslim outreach, most forcefully detailed in his June 6, 2009 Cairo speech [see, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09/], with the below statement, emblematic of this approach.
"More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam. Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims."
It must be remembered that the Cairo speech was only part of a grander apologia - offered in a particularly supplicating manner - to atone for [what the president perceives to be] America's past history of oppressive actions.
Judging by the recent domestic al-Qaeda inspired attacks - Sgt. Hasan at Ft. Hood and Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab on Christmas day as well as the rapidly escalating violence in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama's efforts appear to have not only gained him nothing of a tangible nature but seem to have precipitated an increase in the type of activity the effort was supposed to ameliorate.
Osama Bin-Laden, through his terrorist organization al-Qaeda has a near 15 year history of delivering major threats to the United States. His first fatwa [an official judgment based upon Islamic law] was issued in 1996 [see, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html].
In this document, a declaration of war, his justifications were as specific as they were catholic.
By orders from the USA they also arrested a large number of scholars, Da'ees and young people - in the land of the two Holy Places- among them the prominent Sheikh Salman Al-Oud'a and Sheikh Safar Al-Hawali and their brothers...""... It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajakestan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Erithria, Chechnia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience. All of this and the world watch and hear, and not only didn't respond to these atrocities, but also with a clear conspiracy between the USA and its' allies and under the cover of the iniquitous United Nations, the dispossessed people were even prevented from obtaining arms to defend themselves.
A similar document followed in short order, two years later in 1998 [see, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1998.html] prominently mentioning.
"First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples." and second the supposed predations created by the "crusader-Zionist alliance."
Four years later, in 2002 another threatening document arrived, with a substantially broadened indictment [see, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver]
(a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all.
It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions
(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.
(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.
We call you to all of this that you may be freed from that which you have become caught up in; that you may be freed from the deceptive lies that you are a great nation, that your leaders spread amongst you to conceal from you the despicable state to which you have reached.
(b) It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind: v(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire..."(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
And now the latest in these seemingly never ending and expanding justifications for jihad has arrived, in which contrary to the best judgment of many terror researchers [who point to al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb or possibly al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula as being the most likely perpetrators] we find Osama bin-Laden taking credit for the Christmas airline bombing, while stating his continuing enmity towards Israel, which from previous al-Qaeda literature they assess as being nothing but a U.S. puppet state.
"In the name of god the most passionate, the most merciful.
From Osama to Obama.
May peace be on those who follow the light of guidance. If our messages to you could have been carried by words we wouldn't have done that by planes
The message I want to convey to you through the plane of the hero Umar Al Farouk reaffirms a previous message that the heroes of 9/11 conveyed to you and it was repeated frequently.
The message is that America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in Palestine. it is unfair that you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly therefore with god's will our attacks on you will continue if you support Israel.
Peace be upon those who follow the light of guidance."
Now, with the hindsight of a decade and-a-half and dozens of communiqués, the demands which the terrorist leader makes to the United States [and by extrapolation to the Western World, bound by deep cultural similarities and bonds] are supported by a critique that is total, a civilizational indictment impossible to comply with, even if that were his desire.
His perspective is black and white, with no room for equivocation, dividing the world into two parts, dar al-harb, Arabic for the land [or abode] of war and dar al-Islam, the land of Islam or alternatively, dar al-Salaam, the land of peace.
These concepts have a long and established place in Islamic jurisprudence [see for example, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503544498] which sees these two lands as engaging in continual warfare until the dar al-harb ultimately accepts Islam, becoming part of the Muslim Ummah [the entire body of Islamic peoples].
Though motivated by well-established and long-standing religious principles, since Islam's founding, the ferocity with which this warfare has been waged has waxed and waned depending on the relative strength or weakness of the Ummah at any one time.
In modern times, the final defeat of the Ottoman empire at the end of World War I outwardly signaled a time for pulling back and quiescence, however during this same historical period, the hoped for, future course and direction of Islam was being planned in Egypt, at the hands of the newly created organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Founded by Hasan al-Banna, but inspired by the intellectual prowess of Sayyid Qutb [who had studied briefly in the United States, declaring it decadent], new life was breathed into the combative elements contained in traditional Islamic theology, adopting the position that it was time for a purified Islamic resurgence with which to confront the Western non-Muslim world and especially the "secular" Middle Eastern states [whose leaders had been declared apostates].
Qutb's interpretations were bolstered also by the writings of the Indian theorist Abul Ala Maududi [especially in Jihad fil Islam, an exploration of holy war] who saw Islam as nothing less than a revolutionary ideology, akin to communism in its breadth.
It is these writings providing Quranic justifications for jihad that not only underpin bin-Laden's organization, but serve as the basis for much of modern jihadism.
Seen in this light, the bin-Laden's of the world are the personification of what are colloqially referred to as fundamentalist religious fanatics and their challenge is really a simple one - become Muslim, submit to a second class life of dhimmitude [also a long standing principle of the Shari'a], or be subjugated.
This is an opponent with which compromise has no meaning, leaving capitulation the only option viable to the commencement of outright hostilities.
For its part the Obama administration has pointedly and at times comically [DHS Chief Napolitano characterizing terrorism as "man-made disasters"] avoided any reference linking terrorism with Islam, presumably to avoid in their minds anything which might further infuriate the already restive Ummah.
Now of course Mr. Obama's administration is not alone in its abstemiousness when broaching this subject, just the most transparently contrived and ham-fisted. The previous administration also engaged in an on-again-off-again effort to cleanse official DC language of whatever descriptors that might prove useful in coming to terms with the terrorist phenomenon.
However GW Bush, while claiming that Islam was a religion of peace, actively engaged Islam's radical exponents, domestically and internationally in a myriad of prescriptive actions, not to mention two hot wars. To whatever degree the current administration attempts to actively thwart Islamic terrorism [regardless of what they publicly call it] the entire substance of their template for active engagement [mostly Predator missile attacks at this point] was provided courtesy of Mr. Bush.
As Wednesday evening's address approaches this administration's national security/intelligence policies have been in very large part found wanting a defining statement of purpose as well as [not surprisingly] a reasonable game plan for action.
As the latest bin-Laden video reverberates around the 'Net, the civilizational challenge this theologically based ideology represents demands a complete rethink on the part of Mr. Obama's administration. To continue down this path means at best additional delay in engaging a supremely serious antagonist, at worst leaving the United States ever more vulnerable to increasingly deadly consequences. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=binny01.25.10%2Ehtm
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4240