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The Creeping Homegrown Threat
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The arrest of seven North Carolinians on conspiracy charges shows, says Steve Emerson, how the U.S. is becoming like Europe, where homegrown terror plots get stopped—or not—seemingly every week.
This week’s arrest of seven North Carolina residents, including Daniel Boyd and his two sons, on charges of supporting terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder abroad, showed how the problem of homegrown Islamic terrorism is far more rampant than the media or the public is aware of. Just look at the major cases in the past year alone:
- The convert from Long Island who joined al Qaeda (disclosed this past week) and gave the group information about Long Island trains and New York City’s subways.
- The plot to blow up two synagogues and a National Guard plane in upstate New York by prison converts (scheduled to go to trial).
- The plot to kill hundreds of soldiers at Fort Dix by assimilated American Muslims living here 25 years (all convicted).
- The plot to operate a terrorist training camp in Oregon (pleaded guilty).
- The plot to blow up buildings by the Liberty City 7 (all convicted).
- The sweeping conviction of Hamas officials for conspiring to support terrorism overseas.
- The cases of young Somali teenagers raised in the U.S. going overseas to become suicide bombers.
The Boyd case in North Carolina proves that radical Islamic ideology transcends economic class problems as has been claimed by pointy-headed sociologists. The Boyd family was white, had a middle-class existence, and had the economic opportunities afforded all Americans—just like most of the terrorists cited above—and yet chose to engage in jihad to the point that Daniel Boyd was willing to send his two kids on suicide missions to Israel.
Many young Muslims hate the West. And of that number, a certain smaller percentage are willing to take matters into their own hands.
That the FBI stopped all these plots is amazing, but they will never continue to bat a thousand. One of these days, the jihadists will succeed.
In the end, the mainstream media refuses to recognize that the "mainstream" Islamic groups are actually radical organizations that teach and imbue their followers with a hatred of the United States and Israel. These groups front as civil-rights groups, but in fact are radical Islamic groups whose constant message disseminated to the millions of Muslim followers is that the U.S. is an evil country engaged in a war against Islam. Once that message takes hold—and after all, these groups control the mosques, the Islamic newspapers, the Islamic schools, and the Islamic leadership from which American Muslims and converts get their ideas about the world—it is not a huge leap for some of them to become committed to violent jihad.
We are talking about a situation that is far more rampant than government leaders want to admit because the Islamic groups routinely throw the term "racist" at anyone who claims there is radicalism in the Muslim community. Two years ago, a poll was taken of American Muslims: 29 percent of young Muslims approved of suicide bombings. And those 29 percent are the ones that admitted their views. How many more would not tell the pollsters what they really thought?
The U.S. is becoming more like Europe, where homegrown Islamic terrorist plots get stopped (or sometimes succeed) nearly every week. It’s because of the message that today’s Islamic religious leadership hammers home: that the West is the enemy of Islam, that Christians and Jews are involved in a conspiracy to subjugate Islam. And so what is the logical result of these teachings? Many young Muslims hate the West. And of that number who hate the West, a certain smaller percentage—like the Boyds—are willing to take matters into their own hands and carry out jihad.
We have a major problem on our hands that no one is addressing, especially the Obama administration. After all, the Obama administration won't even use the term "radical Islam." If we cannot name our enemy, how in God's name are we supposed to defeat the enemy? This past week, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano gave widely heralded speeches using the term "homegrown terrorism" for the first time. But which homegrown terrorism were they referring to? White racists? The Aryan Nation? The KKK? Eco-terrorists? A close look at their rhetoric shows that the only time they used the word Islam was in referring to the city of Islamabad. In other words, we have met the enemy and he is us.
The problem is not all Muslims. Far from it. It is radical Islam, just like German Nazism and Italian fascism were pinpointed as the devils in World War II. And in Christianity and Judaism, there are Christian and Jewish terrorists, terms no one is afraid of using.
Documents obtained last year by the Investigative Project on Terrorism through a Freedom of Information Act request show that it was the Bush administration, lead by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, that initiated the policy of prohibiting the use of the terms "Islamic terrorism," "Islamic militants," or "Islamic radicals"—or even the use of the word "jihad." These censorious vernacular prohibitions were the product of advice given by several Islamic advisers hired by Homeland Security, including Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, and Daily Beast contributor Reza Aslan. The administration’s reasoning here was the embodiment of appeasement; the goal: to protect Islam from any negative connotations. Islam today suffers from negative connotations not because of biased and selective media, as Aslan and others contend, but because so many acts of terrorism are committed by Islamists and so many of today’s Islamic leaders rationalize these acts.
For Islam to restore its image as a tolerant religion will require Islamic leaders to admit that Islam has a problem, that the anti-women Sharia, the code of Islamic law, is racist, that Islamic radicalism does in fact exist and is not the crude or Islamophobic imagination of writers like myself. The courageous Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim leader from Phoenix, already admits this and more. We need more of him—not the apologists like Aslan who try to cover up for Islamic radicalism. Aslan’s recent comments at a panel about the film The Stoning of Soraya M.—the story of an Islamic woman stoned to death by virtue of her husband conspiring to use the Sharia as an excuse to falsely accuse her of infidelity when in fact it was he who was guilty of infidelity—were simply “outrageous” according to those who heard him speak. After saying, “I guess it’s up to me to put this into some sort of historical context,” Aslan obfuscated by asserting (incorrectly) that “many cultures” struggled with the issue of stoning.
In the end, homegrown Islamic terrorism is not going to stop; it is manifestly going to be abetted by a demonstrably counterproductive campaign of prohibiting the term “Islamic terrorism” from being uttered. If we cannot describe who our enemy is in the hopes of discrediting them, how are we ever going to defeat them?
Steve Emerson is executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and author of five books and countless articles on terrorism. His most recent book is Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.
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Charles Fried was Solicitor General of the United States. His book with Gregory Fried, Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror, will be published by W. W. Norton in September.
Gregory Fried is Chair of the Philosophy Department at Suffolk University. His book with Charles Fried, Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror, will be published by W. W. Norton in September.
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Steve Emerson is Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and author of 5 books and countless articles on terrorism. His most recent book is Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.
Soraya's Warning to the Mullahs
Steve Emerson is Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and author of 5 books and countless articles on terrorism. His most recent book is Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.
America’s Homegrown Terrorists
Steve Emerson is Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and author of 5 books and countless articles on terrorism. His most recent book is Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.
taranto
interesting Emerson, except for the egregious claim that islamic organizations are masquerading as radical support groups. i understand that you SAY that (because you keep saying it), but where's your proof aside from your struggling linkage from A to B to C?
then you cover your ass by saying: ok, back up, it's not all muslims, but it might as well be.... you sound like a radical yourself.
jus1drun
as a total outsider to religion, being an equivocal agnostic (read; fart on a hot skillet,) and therefor i have no dog in this hunt. still it's not possible to avoid noticing that where terrorism is, so is islam.
nortonclybourn
Tell it to the North Koreans.
nickatdabeach
Here is Obama's Kenyan birth certificate. read it & weep.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=105764
Willer
I would love to know the IQ of idiots like this. Can't be too high. What a loser.
billyshake
Thank you, taranto -- I was all ready to say the same thing (with, perhaps, a little more rage) but you've said it better than I would've. Seems to me this Emerson fella has some serious personal grievances against Muslims and the "pointy-head" sociologists who discuss them -- as if a few horribly misguided Johnny Walker Lindh's prove frigging anything!
Emerson's talk is certainly all too common, though; just another incredibly hater hiding behind a journalist's mask. Sickening.
shortcourse
Anyone up for dumping the Patriot Act and the monitoring of these a holes....thank you GW and Dick Cheney...your foresight is still keeping us safe.
nortonclybourn
The "liberty city 7" (all convicted) (after a couple of mistrials) couldnt have succeeded in shoplifting more that a dollar's worth of merchandise if the agents provacateur of the FBI hadnt been holding their hands manufacturing scary evidence for a conviction. Same with the Ft Dix and Lackawanna idiots. They are all as threatening as that fool with the fake bomb at LaGuardia.
Does law enforcement really have nothing better to do than glorify wannabes to justify big budgets for Fatherland Security?
rtfxgaol
You don't think the terror that the US and Israel spread in the MiddleEast could be at the foundation of this counter terrorist movement. Think about it. How many Jahidist are operating in the US and how many Americans are operating in Iraq. Who is terrorizing who? I'm not afraid of an Iraqi attacking me. How many Iraqis fear being attacked by an American?
jus1drun
weak
billyboy949
Jus1....Failing to recognize that terrorist tactics are generally a last resort for groups who've been disenfranchised or who aren't getting what they want socially or politically and believe themselves to be above the law and subsequently confirming the coupling of terror and Islam, leads me to believe that you found a way around the parental controls on the family PC. Wouldn't you rather be solving the new Sponge Bob puzzle on the Nick website, than trying to talk to the grown-ups?
jus1drun
bboy
disenfranchised makes it sound like their position is defensible. even sponge bob knows that's a crock.
southernman745
but a strong foundation in truth
rahrah
But Emmo, they're not jihadists. You clearly have a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning. It's like, if I call myself God's Holy Warrior, well, it doesn't make me so...and especially if I'm blowing people up, I would assume that most would probably not believe I was God's Holy Warrior (depending of course on who I was exploding).
Every time someone uses the term 'jihadists' to describe terrorists, I imagine somewhere there's a reasonable Muslim out there who gets just a hair less reasonable.
billyboy949
I'm somewhat stunned that this piece made it onto the Beast. It would have been far more newsworthy and far less polarizing if it had discussed the even larger threat to America that the Mormons and Evangelicals currently pose. Creationism, God before country and Jesus Camp all pose far greater threats to our civil liberties than pockets of radical Islamists. Politicians and CEO's that believe they are above the law, hatemongers like Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan and Fox News scare me far more than anything mentioned in this puff piece.
We've got a festering subculture that "No Child Left Behind" has succeeded in dumbing down, failed economic policies have aggravated and hate baiters like Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Terry Randall and the Evangelical right are whipping into a frenzy. Where was Mr. Emerson in April when "Radical Right Wingers" were exposed as posing a credible and significant threat to the US...probably bellowing "foul" with the rest of the Republican party. We were told that we'd take the terror fight to the terrorists and invaded Iraq. How about we redeploy those troops to battle the terror at home...something tells me if we spent less time trying to tell middle eastern countries how to find the moral high road and worked to clean up our own house first, the threat from radical Islam would all but disappear.
I look forward to your piece on the terror from the Radical Right...I won't allow fear mongers like Mr. Emerson to do any more chipping away of my constitutional rights.
democracyforall
yeah right, every Sunday when the Evangelicals are peacefully worshipping they are a huge threat....and I guess all the charities they support are just figmentations...
a frenzy? get a grip......you sound simply afraid of religion, which by the way I have a constitutional right to pursue. Freedom means that no religion, not Muslim nor Christianity is forced on you, but don't criticize those who do worship, pray and praise God. I haven't seen anyone beheaded for not professing faith here, quite the opposite.
southernman745
As long as you keep your religion in church and out of politics or try to tell everyone to lead the kind of life you say we should lead but that you people don't then we will have no problem. I too want to walk the path of King David ... and screw an Argentinian woman like Sanford or hire a prostitute like Vitter or have an affair like Ensign and all the while preach family values... what church do they belong to .. I want to join .. I would make just as good a hypocrite as any of them I just can't be a right wing hypocrite.
Muslim radicals , fun-de-mental radicals , Catholic radicals or jewish radicals they are all the same
democracyforall
you made your point, cynical as it is.....every human is just that, human, but aspiring to something better is worthwhile.....if kids stayed home from school just because they didn't like a teacher with whom they disagreed, they would never graduate. People who make mistakes, admit their mistakes and then make real efforts to improve themselves are not hypocrits but are indeed making an honest effort to put their lives on a better path. How about you?
southernman745
Amen brother... Timothy Mcveigh was never in a Mosque in his life
Saphes
billyboy949 perhaps you would be much happier living in a country where you do not have the right to choose your religon, or have the right to use the web, or let everyone know just how myopic you really are. They have laws for people who complain about the government and the faith on the nation, and very specila holes in the ground where they put them...they certainly do not bury them with the care they give to the ones in control...they're lucky to make it to the grave in one piece. Not sorry to see you go !
Johnnorth
Billyboy is "stunned" that Beast published Emerson's factually-based piece. I'm more stunned that he , representing the humane Left I gather, has nothing to say about Emerson's indisputably accurate description of Islam's attitude to women...yes, the US may have a fair quantity of the deficiences Billyboy lists, but compare that to the stoning of women, the beheading of Muslims who actually favor educatin girls. Terror at home to compare to that? Give me a break.
co-intheknow
While I cannot stand what happens to women in the Muslim culture and I'm disgusted by the atrocities Saddam visited on his people, that's half a world away and not something I worry about every day.
Like Billyboy, I worry more about the "Christian Taliban" here in the US. With religious right, led by groups like Focus on the Family, having such an inroad in our government, I'm damn scared that a lot of these crazies want to control more & more of our lives via their 'vision' of a Godly life. No thank you - I practice my own religion, don't care to share or force it on anyone anymore than I care about some born again evangelical trying to convert or save me.
Are you okay, John, with the intrusion of "christianity" into your everyday life? Would you feel the same way if it was someone forcing Islam on you? Most of the born agains cringe when presented with that scenario.
Martyz42
This Country long ago stopped allowing it's people to scream fire in a full room.. It is now time for this Country to not allow Islam to preach death & destruction as a religion... Religion has shown for thousands of years that it is without question the basis for more killings & wars then anything else man has ever dreamed up....
Religion, all of them has been the basis for the murder & death of billions of people since it was dreamed up by power hungry men as a way to control the stupid mass's who looked at death with fear & who were so ignorant they would believe in any fairy tale as long as it protected them from death & nothingness... The rich & powerful of thousands of years ago are the same today, trying to keep the poor & ignorant believing the nonsense & gobbledy goop of religion... This garbage of what god said or now tells the boss's of religion is so ridiculous that it can boggle the mind of anyone with the ability to think... A group of men or a single man (Always, always MEN!!!) decide what their god wants & what their god thinks & what their god wants YOU to do & there you are, do as this group of men want or go to the hot funny place called hell.... Religion at it's base is so insanely stupid that it takes a weak & stupid & unthinking brain to truly believe in it's laughable preachings....
This world will never see 10% of the time the dinosaurs saw on earth because of religion... Religion will doom this planet's human population without doubt, without question... The only thing still left is to see when the powerful men that control the various religions finally go over the edge & destroy the earth itself for mankind.... (That is when, not if)
democracyforall
or when comet Apophis hits the planet...when that happens I'd rather be praying than not...
crngndmhm
Burying your head in the sand won't change the outcome.
finderj
It has been said that one man's religion is another man's belly laugh. Freedom does not require that one respect another's actual beliefs; rather, it requires that one respect another's right to believe as he wishes.
These religious terrorists, of whatever ilk, have no respect for that simple dictum. They want to be free to believe as they wish, they absolutely use the provisions in free countries to hold their own beliefs, but they do not want that freedom for others. They want to force people to believe as they do, with violence for preference.
Unfortunately, a free country is either free for every single person, or it is not free at all. Freedom of religion, of belief, of assembly, of press is only free if every other person is also free. The price we pay for freedom is that homocidal/suicidal nutjobs are also free.
Too bad they don't seem to believe that God calls them to simply publically kill themselves, and themselves alone.
butterflymcqueen
I ain't scared of Al Quaeda...I'm scared of Al Cracker---Chris Rock....
How many white supremacists are there in comparison to these numbers? How many people have died because of them in comparison to the "threats" these people have caused?
ccrider27
Has the irony of this story juxtaposed against that of the kangaroo court in Iran escaped everyone but me?
nortonclybourn
At least the "Liberty City 7" got a couple of mistrials before the government put together a successful Show Trial. Thank God Jack Bauer saved the Sears Tower.
dahniuru
I lived in Kuwait for a year in 1993-94, helping to rebuild the schools. I spent many late nights drinking tea and smoking hookas and talking with local muslims; store clerks, automobile mechanics and cafe workers mostly. Their position was very simple: they appreciated the help of America in removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait; they appreciated the help in rebuilding Kuwait; they loved talking with me and learning more about America; if their imams enacted a jihad against Americans they would have to kill Americans, and would do so because their religion was their ultimate authority source.
These people are not wild fanatical radical muslimes, but the kind of people one would meet at a community cafe here in the US. But they believe that the Qur'an says that in the event of a jihad, they must try to kill whomever is targeted by their imam if they want to go to paradise.
Irrespective of the history of Christianity and Judaism, I know of no other current religion that advocates killing infidels or of ruling the earth as a devine right.
What are all the local imams teaching in the mosques in the US? How can you find out? Why don't you find out?
nortonclybourn
If your preacher preached hate, would you go burning crosses on people's lawns, or would you get another preacher? Muslims have the same options.
dahniuru
Religious ostracism is a very effective force in a religion dominated society. What cause severe 'chills' along my spine was that the Kuwaiti folks with whom I drank tea and socialized in a friendly environment saw no dichotomy in their beliefs and their actions.
Your ? about my reaction to a hate-mongering preacher is good. My parents were 'Church of Christ' members and they emphasized right and wrong according to that Church. They also emphasized to me that I needed to learn to make my own decisions, and to live with the consequences of those decisions. My father was a carpenter and my mother was a waitress.
How many people have attended Rev. Wright's church for how long? IMO anyone maintaining membership with that church must be either a believer or in fear of religious/social ostracism.
democracyforall
good post
eat5vegetables
Clearly Emerson has an agenda. That's a given. You can imagine who he lunches with just based on his style. But all of this "either/or" rhetoric being hurled back and forth misses the point. The real answer or truth is "both/and" in nature. The problem is fundamentalism plain and simple. Whatever the culture it evolves within, fundamentalism seeks to control through making certain ideas illegal / evil / blasphemy /etc. Eventually this leads to violence, oppression, scientific regression, mass denial of truth and even mass psychosis and delusion.
Please know that I've been a liberal/progressive my whole life, and I majored in Religious Studies in college. While I probably wouldn't agree to the ends Emerson would emply to acheive his means, he has a point to make that is possibly important for all of us to consider. But, as is usually the case from this side of the pole, he makes his argument with a rhetorical style that insults the left and completely denies US culpability. This makes left leaners angry and they respond in kind, making right leaners angry . . . and they flame back. This mode is really getting old don't you think? The anger woven through the words twists the message you are trying to convey.
For example, I would assume that the point of "Billyboy" is that we've got another large issue in the US with the rise of Christian Radicalism as well. Yes . . . Granted! These movements threatening the foundations of our Constitution and ideals. But, he creates a polemic arguement instead of creating common ground . . . again, "either/or." I would hope that he is not denying that homegrown Islamic terrorism could become a real threat in the US; this would be denying significant evidence in Europe that this phenomena can become a very real problem. How can I know though? This would simply be an assumption on my part because he seems to deny this through omission in an effort to make is point on the other side of the poll. Ultimately this makes his own important message unbalanced and difficult to embrace as well.
This type of argument gets people and our nation nowhere. It doesn't work in relationships or political movements, as evidenced by the destruction of the Republican party. Progressives need to rise above this mode of discussion. By refusing to concede even the smallest point of your opponent you get same in return.
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southernman745
Why does he automaticly assume there is a difference between radical Islam and white supremists. tell me the difference between Timithy McVeigh and Mouhmmad Atta... They both hate America and what it stands for and they both worship the same God... the Judeo-Christian - Muslim God . They are all right wing demons and there is no difference between them.
dahniuru
It's difficult to negotiate with a group with a core belief that they have the right to kill those that refuse to accept their version of god or of any 'good'. I agree, it doesn't matter whether it is McVeigh or Atta, does it?
Naushad
They dont worship the same God. The christians worship Jesus as the Son of God. The Muslims worship God the Father as God. To the Muslims, Jesus is a prophet of God. Big difference.
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nysecjd
Wow - it would seem that many of the comments evoked by Mr. Emerson's writings constitute emphatic proof of how, the moment the topic of religion enters a discussion, all logic, rationality and objectivity fly out the window and any voice of reason becomes drowned out by a barrage of emotional accusations and crazy-talk.
Mr. Emerson writes about Islam's connections to terrorism in particular because that is his his specific area of expertise - not because he is claiming there is no connection between leaders of other religions and terrorism. And he has not suggested that there is any difference in the criminal nature of the violent acts committed by radical Islamist terrorists and those committed by white supremecists, only that we have no trouble referring to the latter as terrorists, devils, etc. whereas two Presidential administrations have adopted an offical policy banning references to 'radical Islamist terrorism (May 21 piece entitled, "Call the Terrorists What They Are"). Personally, I do not entirely agree with him, as I have yet to see anyone refer to "Pro-Life" enthusiasts who bomb abortion clinics and gun down gynecologists in their driveways as "terrorists," but he makes a valid point about the official policy banning the use of the term, "Radical Islamist Terrorism." And his point about the sacrosanct status of religous leaders and officials, some of whom inspire their followers to commit terrorist acts and others of whom effectively harbour terrorists by urging their congregations to obstruct justice, is also quite valid.
And, to all of you bone-heads who would deny that terrorism is a growing problem, not just in this country but world-wide, simply because some of the would-be protagonists failed or some of their plots were foiled by law enforcement, I would like to point out: (1) that an attempt to commit a crime consists of holding the intent to do so and taking affirmative steps towards doing so. The fact that the crime had no chance of succeeding is irrelevant if the perpetrator took steps reasonably designed to bring about or further the criminal act; and (2) the growing number of attempts is and should be alarming, as sooner of later some of those attempts will actually suceed. I find the vehemence with which you seek to defend and perpetuate your head-in-the-sand complacency towards this issue puzzling, to say the least.
It seems to me that if we are to make real headway in combatting (no "war on" implied) terrorism committed "in the name of God," we must stop extending automatic "immunity" to religious leaders (Muslim, Christian, Hindu or otherwise) who incite people to commit such acts and then harbor and/or aid and abet such criminals by protecting them from apprehension by obsructing (and advising their followers to obstruct) justice. If secular community leaders were to engage in such conduct, they would clearly be charged with crimes such as aiding and abetting, obstructing justice, conspiracy and being an accessory; to allow conspirators and protectors of criminals engaging in terrorism to immunize themselves from criminal investigation and prosecution by hiding beind the cloak of religion is not only foolish - it's unjust and immoral.
Thank you.
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