How terrorism finds root in the West

Yahoo.com / CSM ^ | 5/23/07 | John K. Cooley

[Valin]

ATHENS - It's conventional wisdom that Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian terrorists attack Western societies partly as reactions to conflicts in their own regions, such as the Palestinian-Israeli strife. But there's plenty of evidence that extremist ideologies, even if born abroad, are often nurtured in the West.

New French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisers and supporters in the academic world realize this. It's why they recommend that France, Britain, and their European neighbors strengthen integration of their Muslim and other immigrant populations – in the way, for example, that millions of Arab-Americans, Iranian-Americans, and Hispanics have been helped to be successful members of US society.

Leading French Islamic expert Olivier Roy has pointed out what this journalist has experienced over decades of reporting: Domestic extremism in North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia isn't just domestic. Sometimes it even originates or is nourished in the West.

Examples: Movements against French colonialism in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia were encouraged by leftist French thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre. Henri Alleg, who supported Algeria's eight-year struggle for independence, was a French Communist. He also wrote about the French Army's use of torture against terrorists and militants of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN). The FLN won a bloody and costly war for Algeria's freedom in 1962. It's still Algeria's ruling party, as confirmed in May 17 elections, which featured record-low turnout of about 35 percent. This was partly because extremist Islamist parties were banned from the polls, following outbreaks of lethal terrorism claimed by an umbrella Islamist group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Algerians, including millions now living in France, abhor terrorism. They have bitter memories of the 1990s civil war that Islamists fomented after the Army-backed FLN government banned them from a national election in 1992 that they were certain to win.

Early leaders of Morocco and Tunisia, where Paris's rule ended in 1956, were steeped in French and other European democratic and secular ideologies. Tunisia's Habib Burguiba, president from 1957 to 1987, empowered Tunisian women and otherwise modernized his country.

Morocco and Tunisia, like Algeria, sternly fight to neutralize Islamist terrorists. Some of the terrorists moved to Europe: Moroccans now on trial for the Madrid train bombings of 2004 and several Tunisians held or tried in Italy are examples.

However, many high-profile terrorists on the Western scene were born in the West – Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted for the 9/11 atrocities in the US, for one. Others, such as lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, came as students. Radical political ideas picked up in Europe are often equal in weight to religion in such cases.

British-born Muslims, involved in the July 7, 2005, London terrorist bombings, often train in Afghanistan or Pakistan but don't usually return to their parents' homelands for jihad there.

European-born Muslims and Muslim converts and Middle Eastern and North African Arabs often fight for Muslim causes in other lands: Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, or – since the US invasion of 2003 – Iraq. Thus far, the Islamist Hamas movement in the Israeli-Palesinian conflict has shown little interest in the internationalist ideology of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, which preaches establishment of a global Islamist state. Since terrorist attacks by Palestinians in Europe a generation ago, very few, if any, Palestinians, Afghans, or Iraqis have turned up in violent groups operating in Western Europe. North Africans involved in terrorism in Spain and Italy and those of Pakistani origin or ancestry in Britain are often young people belonging to the second generation of immigrants.

Turks in Germany and France, and the ethnic Turkish minority in northern Greece (whom the Athens government prefers to call Greek Muslims) are exceptions. They have fewer identity problems. They speak Turkish as well as the language of their host country; they're de facto Europeans without divided loyalties.

Islamist radicalism and its stepchild, terrorism, are problems associated with a younger generation of immigrants. Youth was also a feature of European leftist terrorists of the 1970s, who bombed trains and kidnapped bankers and politicians in Germany, Italy, and France.

America's success in integrating the vast majority of Muslim immigrants into its society could serve as an example in Europe. France's President Sarkozy, in partnership with like-minded German Chancellor Angela Merkel, realizes this. More forceful action against poverty and encouraging education and upward social mobility should be main weapons in the so-called war on terror.

• Former Monitor correspondent John K. Cooley covered countries between Morocco and Pakistan for nearly a half-century. One of his books is "Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism."

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

“America’s success in integrating the vast majority of Muslim immigrants into its society could serve as an example in Europe.”

False.

Taqiyya propaganda.

[Valin]

Riiiiight I guess I missed all those stories about blood running in the streets of Hamatack Mi, alll the car bombs going off.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

ragheads HAVE NO INTENTION of “integrating” or even becoming Americans.....funny you bring up Hamtramk”.....I live 8 miles from it and avout 20 from Dearborn......don’t BOTHER trying to convince me about these MOFO’s.....and if the shoe fits, wear it!

[CarrotAndStick]

Exactly! Taquiyya indeed.

[livius]

Well, considering that Muslims are insisting on imposing Islamic law and practices in their neighborhoods, 25% of them consider suicide bombing to be an acceptable tactic for advancing their “religion,” and we keep uncovering plots by some of their more zealous members to kill Americans and destroy American institutions, I’d say they don’t make a really great example.

The only difference is that there are proportionally fewer of them here, and we have better police and security forces.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

The only difference is that there are proportionally fewer of them here, and we have better police and security forces.

and a mostly patriotic populace with lots of guns, too. Their lefty sympathizers only have lawyers.....

[Valin]

ragheads HAVE NO INTENTION of “integrating” or even becoming Americans

Boy you’re absolutly correct!
Cpl. Mohammed N. Rahman is just lying, and trying to lull us into a false sense of security
Columbus, Ohio, native, Sunni Muslim fights in Global War on Terrorism (as a MARINE!)
Marine Corps News ^ | July 27, 2005 | Cpl. Ken Melton

http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1451921/posts
Posted on 07/27/2005 6:47:32 PM CDT by SandRat

And I’ll never trust Colonel Douglas Burpee! You never know when he’ll go all jihadi on us. The same could be said of Sergeant Youseff Mandour U.S. Army.
Muslims in the Military
By JOHN P. AVLON
http://www.nysun.com/article/31393
April 21, 2006

Now Special Forces Sgt Ayman Taha, he got killed in Iraq before he had a chance to blow up Americans
Serving Was Soldier’s Mission - Sudan Native Killed in Iraq Did ‘Good Deeds’
Washington Post ^ | January 4, 2006 | Martin Weil

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1553478/posts
Posted on 01/06/2006 10:27:37 PM CST by redgirlinabluestate

And as for Zalmay Khalizad...well the less said about him the better.
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1249

Maybe you could point me to the stories about the blood running in the streets, as I seemed to missed them.
(note: that’s not to say there are not jihadist in America)

“don’t BOTHER trying to convince me about these MOFO’s’

“Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.”
Sydney Smith

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

Meet Your “Moderate,” “American” Muslim Neighbors:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1838393/posts

Da’wah and taqiyya....along with subtle “cultural jihad” is falling on its face, Valin! YOU CANNOT FOREVER EXPLOIT THE BASIC DECENCY OF MOST AMERICANS! A green card, passport, or a screen-name DOES NOT MAKE ONE AN “AMERICAN”. Being an American is a matter of the soul......

[Valin]

a screen-name DOES NOT MAKE ONE AN “AMERICAN”. Being an American is a matter of the soul......

Thank you so much for this reply. Rest assured I will give it all the consideration it merits.

[jordan8]

The threat of terrorists setting off a few bombs in the Metro isn't very important. Muslims becoming 20 or 30% (and eventually 55 or 60%) is important. The crackdown, such as it is, on militant Islam is little more than a defense of mass migration and multiculturalism. Radicals bearing their fangs frighten the sheep into thinking about what the future holds for them when they are a dispossessed and hated minority in their own homeland. Might cause a backlash, and that must be prevented at all costs. This is a virtual declaration of these facts:

America's success in integrating the vast majority of Muslim immigrants into its society could serve as an example in Europe. France's President Sarkozy, in partnership with like-minded German Chancellor Angela Merkel, realizes this. More forceful action against poverty and encouraging education and upward social mobility should be main weapons in the so-called war on terror.

[hershey]

American Muslims will side with Jihadists if push comes to shove. Why? Greed, jealousy and fear of Jihadist retribution. Islam is a cult that espouses violence, hatred, etc.. It cannot exist in peace with Western freedom, and it enslaves its followers. They simply don’t have intellectual freedom, so books, freedom of the press, thinking for yourself, free speech, other religions...all dangerous. Bottom line, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[VOA]

bump

[Valin]

Thank you for your reply. I will give it all the consideration it merits.