Op Ed: Modern jihad recruitment predates 9/11

The claim on this and other sites by some commenters is that the ‘War on Terror’ actually created an environment for jihadists to be recruited and radicalised.

Of course, this has to have some serious merit. But what is behind this radicalisation, and why do the imams and jihad generals use it as a pretext for recruitment?

Is it simply a matter of revenge for US attacks on Mid East soil, or is it taking advantage of the fact that the US has seen fit to take the war to the enemy, albeit in a disputed manner in regard to where and when the counter offensive should have taken place and why?

Are the opponents of the response to the 9/11 atrocities (for there was more than one on the day the twin towers were brought down) saying that there was no Islamic militance before this momentous series of events? Are they claiming that the US was responsible for subsequent recruitment of jihadists and mujahideen?

Terror before 9/11
The fact is that militants were engaged in an ongoing jihad long before 9/11. This event was really the last straw for the US in a series of terrorist attacks on a variety of targets in a number of different locations. In fact the militants were carrying out jihad and terrorist attacks in so many places it has been almost impossible to document all of the events.

Even if you limit the terror to the time of the creation of the modern State of Israel in 1948, you would need pages and pages of a website to document the number of small and large scale atrocities attributed and claimed by Islamic terror squads.

For some journalists and left wing commentators 9/11 and G W Bush’s response marks the beginning of the counter-intefida as he announced the ‘War on Terror’, which ushered an all out offensive on militant targets, using very controversial pretexts, but which sought to take the offensive from US soil.

War on Terror
Of course, terrorists had already declared war. A warfare, not against men of war, that is, the regular military of any given state, but against those who are generally accepted as not engaged in war, the innocent bystander, the student in the café, the housewife on the bus with her two children, the people in the market place buying their fruit and vegetables, the workers in hotels going about their daily jobs.

The terrorist’s warfare was one of fear for all the population, as they ripped apart trains and tubes, buses, market stalls, shop fronts, anywhere where civilians gathered and with maximum impact, and often a second device primed to explode as survivors panicked and ran towards its deadly inevitability.

This was a the warfare of cowards who, when discovered and pursued, hid in schools and hospitals using the weak and vulnerable as human shields.

But this warfare did not begin with G W Bush. In many ways he is one of the victims of a large scale offensive which has been in motion for decades, and which has claimed the lives of countless non-combatants, Muslim and infidel alike, in almost every continent.

A pawn of jihad
G W Bush is not responsible for the increase of recruitment amongst young men, or the radicalisation. His response to the 9/11 attacks and others that led to that day was anticipated. It was played for.

Had he not responded, the militants would have done something else to press his button, or the buttons of succeeding Presidents, to create the environment they desired for retaliation or affirmative response.

Bush may have made mistakes as he tried to solve a difficult and complex problem in as short a time as possible, but it is evident that, in terms of overall modern conflict since the mid-twentieth century, he was a pawn in the hands of the jihadists.

I could point you to a site which has documented almost all terror events by Islam since 1960. It is too extensive to produce here. The sheer volume of atrocities is shocking. I won’t add it here because it is a useful tool and I don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands and be belittled by people who deny that a real and present threat exists, nor to make myself seem hysterical about it. I am not. I’m sure you could research it and locate it for yourselves, anyway.

But there are some things which are being said by commenters stuck in a time-warp who are not facing the reality of the history of jihad, and who have made the violence of 9/11 a political football, making it the focus and central point of the war, to the extent of rewriting history, playing right into the hands of the jihadists, and failing to see that there is a trail of destruction which predates 9/11 considerably.

Tools of jihad
Jihadists have been recruiting for  decades. Each conflict and terror event yields its own supply of recruits to be radicalised. It is a systematic process of escalation. The actual identity or politics of the leader of the response to each terror attack is immaterial to the cause. He or she is just a tool to use in the game of terror.

But the media, being parochial and one-sided politically, will always see the leader of the response as the burden bearer. This is not wrong, particularly, but if the politics of the leader does not match the politics of the commentator the focus will be on the contrasting politics and not on the required response.

This short-sightedness leads the commentary down rabbit holes which take the real issue of how to stop the radicalisation of youth, and how to locate the perpetrators, including the ringleaders, away from a unified and concerted effort to track down those responsible for the real atrocities.

Yes we hate war. We loath combat. There is nothing fair, or right or just about war. But sometimes we are thrust into it by elements who have no interest in justice or fairness. War is always deadly and destructive. We should use it only as a very desperate last resort, if at all.

However, we must lay aside polarising political differences to solve this problem and make a direct and concentrated effort to put into place a war cabinet which prosecutes war, or a peace cabinet which resists war, one or the other, which should include moderate, conscientious Muslim leaders, with the mandate to track down and diminish or eliminate all threats to the well being of the world’s population.

But we must resist trying to lay the blame at the feet of those, like Bush, who have genuinely attempted to solve it, and, in his case, largely and shamefully without the help of a indecisive or fearful world community. If we do not work together, there will be more recruits, more radicalisation, and more terror, regardless of who leads the nation or the world in a counter-offensive.

We should pray God that our enemies are rooted out.