Terrorism: The Root Causes

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Terrorism: The Root Causes By: David Meir-Levi
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, November 09, 2005


Many of our contemporary intellectual and political leaders are continually in anguish trying to figure out what the U.S. has done to make so much of the Arab/Moslem world hate us. They desperately search for the ways they believe the U.S. is responsible for triggering terrorism against itself. The terrorists and their supporters, meanwhile, knowing that the West perpetually looks for reasons to blame itself, provide the world with many compelling – but false – reasonns why the West should be blamed in the terror war. If we accept these faux explanations uncritically, we shift our focus in the war against global terrorism and the terrorists will have a much easier time defeating us.

In order for us to be able to fight – and win – this terror war effectively, we must discredit the false explanations of why Islamists wage war on our free societies. It is a priority, therefore, that we highlight how the enemies of Western freedom are not telling the truth. And we can do that by dealing with the following issues concretely:


Who is the enemy?



The State Department defines the enemy for us. Its website lists those defined as terrorist groups and terrorist leaders worldwide. Almost all of them are Moslem. Almost all of these ******* are Arabs. Many non-Arab Moslem groups have carried out terror attacks in conjunction with Arab Moslem groups, or with Arab Moslem leaders. The recent Beslan carnage is an example of a non-Arab Moslem group with Arab (Saudi, to be more specific) leaders.



In his ground-breaking book The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington lists scores of conflicts caused by *******: Bosnia, Kosovo, Turks vs. Greeks, Turks vs. Armenians, Chechens vs. Russia, Ingush vs. Ossetians, Bangladeshi ******* vs. Buddhists, Myanmar ******* vs. Buddhists, Indonesian and Malaysian ******* vs. ethnic Chinese, Thai ******* vs. their Buddhist government, Moslem East Timor government represses Catholic Indonesians, Chad and Kenya, and Tanzanian ******* attack Christian groups in Nigeria.



In addition, many current conflicts have been initiated and maintained by Moslem forces: Afghanistani Taliban and al-Qaeda, Mauritanian slavery, Sudanese slavery, Sudan's 19-year civil war, Ivory Coast's recent revolt, Nigeria's 10-year war, Algeria's 10-year war, Ethiopia vs. Eritrea, Iraqis vs. Kurds, 8 years of the Iran-Iraq War, then Kuwait, Lebanon’s 27-year occupation by Syria, Lebanon’s 12-year occupation by the PLO, The PLO's war against Jordan (1967-70), Pakistan vs. India in Kashmir, Indonesia (with Bali the latest manifestation), Arabs vs. Jews in Israel, jihad in Philippines, Islamists in Daghestan, Uighur in China, Islamic extremists in Uzbekistan, Ditto in Pakistan, Thailand's Moslem insurrection, Chechnya and Arab/Moslem involvement in Beslan, Syrian training grounds for terrorists of all creeds, colors, Iraq "insurgency" (Syrian, Iranian and Saudi terrorists), and al-Qaeda in Somalia.



According to Huntington, ******* participated in 26 of 50 ethno-political conflicts in 1993 alone. In that year, the New York Times identified 48 locations in which a total of 59 ethnic conflicts occurred. Half of these were ******* fighting *******, and most of the rest were ******* fighting non-******* (NY Times, 2/7/93, pp. 1 & 14, per Huntington). Similar independent analysis quoted by Huntington for that same year shows that between two-thirds and three-quarters of all the conflicts in the world were ******* against *******, or ******* against non-*******.



Compilations of data for ensuing years also revealed that during the early 1990s, ******* were engaged in more inter-group violence than any other group.



From 1928 to 1979, statistics indicate that Moslem states resorted to violence to handle problems and crises more than 53 percent of the time. During the same time period, the UK used force 11.5 percent, the USA 17.9 percent, and the USSR 28.5 percent. Only China exceeded the Moslem propensity for violence, using force to solve problems 76.9 percent of the time.



It is important to recall that ******* make up only about 20 percent of the world’s population. Yet we see that Moslem countries contribute to the majority of the violence in the world today. Moreover, Arabs make up only about 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we witness the phenomenon of Arabs in leadership roles in many, if not most, of the Moslem conflicts, including conflicts emanating from those Moslem countries that are not Arab. We also witness Arab countries that host, train, fund, shelter, supply, and deploy Moslem terrorists.



In sum, “Muslim bellicosity and violence are late 20th century facts which neither Muslims nor non-Muslims can deny,” as Huntington aptly argues. And the situation has only gotten worse in the early 21st century. Even Saudi and Pakistani commentators have pointed out that while not all ******* are terrorists, almost all terrorists are Moslems…and most of these are Arabs.

These Arabs lead the charge against Israel, the Jews, the USA, Western civilization, Christians, other non-*******, and even against fellow ******* who are deemed not “Moslem enough.” This global terrorist movement has been termed “Islamist” or “Jihadist,” as distinct from the vast majority of ******* who are peaceful people and do not seek to subjugate the world to Islam. Some have come up with the term “Islamofascist” to demonstrate the similarities between the Islamist movement and that of the Nazis (inter alia, commitment to genocide of Jews, world domination, belief in superiority of their own religion/culture, belief in their right to rule). In short, the Islamofascist replaces “Deutschland uber alles” with “Islam uber alles.”



The “roots causes” of terrorism:



1) Poverty?



The most frequently mentioned “root cause” of Arab hatred and pursuant terrorist assaults is poverty. This Marxist explanation is very seductive. Waging a war against poverty is far more appealing than waging a war against extremist *******. But we need to keep the following in mind:



A) The most poverty-stricken areas of the world (south American indigenous, sub-Saharan Africa, parts of east Asia and India) have produced no terrorism – or almost no terrorists.



B) Almost all terror leaders and many terror perpetrators are or were rich, or at least middle class. Osama bin Laden is a multi-millionaire, Zawahiri is a doctor, and Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 terrorists, was a dentist.



C) The most poverty-stricken populations in the Arab world are in the countries where the rulers live in luxury and keep 90 percent of the country's income for their egregiously luxurious life-style, or for the enhancement of their WMD's and conventional arsenals, while their people starve (Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Saddam’s Iraq). So if poverty is the cause of hatred and terrorism is spawned by that hatred, then why are not the poor of these countries flying airplanes into the palaces of their evil rulers?



The fact is that although poverty may assist in the recruitment of terrorists, it is not a “root cause” of terrorism.



2) Hopelessness, desperation and lack of opportunity?



Liberal, humanitarian Americans can really get behind a war against hopelessness.



But terror groups draw their leadership and rank-and-file from all classes of society. The middle and upper classes in 2nd- and 3rd- world countries are far from hopeless or desperate. Even the lower classes in at least some these countries have opportunities to migrate to countries offering better opportunity (hence the tens of millions that knock on our doors, or slip illegally through our southern and northern borders, or relocate to Europe, every year).



As noted above, many of the Palestinian suicide bombers have been well-to-do or even rich men; many of them are high school or college educated professionals with careers – far from hopeless or desperate.



Even in the case of recruits from refugee camps where hopelessness may be a serious factor in defining the lives and futures of young people there, let’s recall that they have been forced to stay in those camps by their host governments (not by Israel and not by the USA), while much of the aid given to these populations by UNRWA is funded by the USA. So why is it that the hopeless and impoverished in these camps, out of the desperation of their hopelessness and lack of opportunity imposed upon them by their own corrupt and inhumane rulers, are not flying airplanes into the government buildings of the dictators who have oppressed them for 50 years?



Consider as well one of several countervailing examples: hundreds of thousands of Burmese have been in refugee camps in Thailand, hopeless, poverty-stricken, desperate, for more than 20 years – terrorism doesn’t not hold sway there.



Like “poverty,” “hopelessness/desperation” cannot be a root cause. But it is a great distraction from the real nature of terrorism.


3) Fury at the West’s "mistreatment" of *******?



This is perhaps the most frequent and vociferous of false causes. It sounds reasonable until one takes even the briefest look at the reality of the Moslem world:



a) ******* kill ******* by the millions and no one in the Arab world cares.



Saddam killed far more ******* than any other leader in the world at any time in history (1,200,000 during his 32 year reign = 3,125 per month, on average), but he is a hero to many in the Arab world. Saddam killed thousands of children, letting them starve to death in the streets of his cities, while he used the Oil-for-Food money to rebuild his army and replenish his WMD arsenal. Yet Osama justifies his terror attacks by blaming the West, and especially the USA, for the deaths of those children.



Mauritania and Sudan legally enslave *******, but no one in the Arab and Muslim world seems to care (except the enslaved).



Syria's occupation of Lebanon (1975-2005) has wrecked the country, destroyed the economy, killed literally tens of thousands, rendered close to a million homeless, but both Hafez and young Bashir are doyens of Arab leadership.



Arafat killed, imprisoned, or tortured far more Palestinians than Israel, yet he was adulated as a modern Saladin.



The Algerian government has maintained a 10-year war against Islamist Moslem Brotherhood groups that seek to replace the secular Algerian government with Shari'a law and Islamofascist rule. This war has resulted in the deaths of 200,000 and left a million homeless (due to government retaliation when there is an attack on government forces: level the entire village from which the attack came, kill thousands and render the survivors homeless). Yet no one in the Arab world cries out at the terrible slaughter of Moslem Arabs by the Algerian army.



Sudanese Arabs have killed almost 2,000,000 Christian Arabs, black African *******, and Animists in their 21-year war, erroneously or misleadingly described by the western media as a civil war. In actuality, it is a genocide by the Moslem Arab north against the Christian, Moslem and animist black African south. This is part of a vast land-grab strategy now spearheaded by the mounted Janjaweed militias that are indiscriminately killing tens of thousands of black African ******* in the western province of Darfur. They terrify and murder these people, so that the survivors will flee and the Arab Moslem gentry will take their lands. Two million dead and millions more homeless refugees…and until just recently, no one seemed to care.



The Wahhabi Saudi royal family's security forces have killed hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite Arabs over the past few decades. No one in the Arab world is threatening to fly planes into their buildings. [1]



b) The USA defends ******* and the Arab world does not notice.



When Christians attacked ******* in Bosnia, the Arab world was silent. Serbs massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica 10 years ago, but not a ripple disturbed the serene calm of Muslim opinion. Western Europe would not take up arms against the Christian Serbs to save *******, so the USA did instead. We will never know how many thousands or tens of thousands of lives were saved by U.S. intervention in Bosnia – but it hardly seems to matter. The Arab world still demonizes us.



The U.S. invasion of Iraq in Gulf War 1 was an operation that saved two religious Islamic countries (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) from conquest by a totalitarian Iraq.



c) Moslem countries support Russia, which oppresses *******.



Chechnya has been ravaged by Russian occupation for decades, yet last October, the Muslim summit in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) gave a hero's welcome to Vladimir Putin, the man who has presided over the massacre of more Chechen ******* than anyone in any other period in Russian history.



d) U.S. and Western money has supported the Arab and Moslem world for decades.



The USA, EU, UK and UN (with predominantly western money) have supported *******, Moslem states, and Moslem causes for 50 years. Far from having neglected or marginalized these countries, U.S. aid to Moslem countries throughout the world has been in the billions per year for decades (despite the fact that some of these same countries oppose us in the UN, vilify us in their media and sermons, and provide support and haven for the same terrorists that want to destroy us). Egypt alone receives almost $3 billion per year from the USA.



A large part of Egypt's population is alive today because of the millions of tons of free wheat that Eisenhower gave them in the 50's when Nasser’s coup left their economy in a shambles.



The EU has given 50 percent of its foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority for the past ten years, even while knowing that most of those billions were being used to fund terror.



Of the billions and billions of dollars coming through the UN to UNRWA for Palestinian refugees, approximately 30 percent comes from the USA alone, while only about 3 percent comes from the Arab world. But none of the terrorist spokespersons faults the Saudis for not being generous enough, or thanks us for our assistance.



In sum, even the most superficial glance as the last 50 years of USA-Moslem interaction demonstrates that far from attacking Islam or ignoring the plight of *******, the USA has been a strong supporter and defender of the weak, poor, hopeless, and helpless in the Arab world….and what good does that do us when the Islamofascists shriek about America’s war against Islam? Right now there are 22 active conflicts across the globe in which Arabs are at cause, but Islamofascist propaganda publicizes only those conflicts that can be twisted and spun to provide excuses for fomenting hatred against the United States.



An excellent example is the recent spate of vitriolic anti-American demonstrations (in which scores died) throughout the Moslem world as expression of rage about the as yet uncorroborated report that some American official in Guantanamo may have flushed a Quran down a toilet. Surely disrespecting sacred text is wrong but the Saudi government authorizes the burning of Christian Bibles to the tune of 30,000 per year, confiscated from Christians in Arabia.



Sunni Moslem terrorists have routinely blown up Shi'ite Moslem Mosques with Shi'ite Moslem worshipers in them, destroying Moslem holy places and killing hundreds of ******* throughout Iraq. And the entire Arab and Moslem worlds are silent!



If the "Arab Street" is silent to the destruction of Moslem holy places and the mass murder of Moslem worshipers by other supposedly hyper-orthodox *******, why are there massive riots across the entire Moslem world in response to an uncorroborated journalistic assertion of American mistreatment of the Quran?



It should be obvious that the riots are staged by totalitarian Moslem governments as just another manifestation of the "hate America" strategy of Moslem leaders who support Islamofascism and seek to destroy the West.



The hatred exists independently of the actions of the USA. But the terrorists create fictitious excuses for their terrorism by accusing the USA and the West (and Israel) of horrific crimes of which we are innocent, but which in fact are more akin to what the Moslem world has been doing to itself for hundreds of years.


4) American military threats to the Moslem world?



As noted above, the opposite is the case. Decades before Afghanistan and Iraq 2, we used our military power to support Arab causes: as when Truman forced Israel to return segments of eastern Sinai to Egypt after the 1948 war; or when Eisenhower forced Israel to return the entire Sinai to Egypt in 1956; or when Johnson forced Israel to agree to cease-fires in 1967, and Nixon in 1973, just when Israel’s armies were on the verge of decisive victories; or when we sent our Marines to Lebanon to protect Palestinians and to save Arafat from Sharon in 1982 (only to have 226 of those same Marines blown up by an Arab suicide bomber); or when Clinton pressured Israel to bring Arafat out of exile in Tunisia and set him up as governor of the Palestinian Authority so that the Oslo Accords could be implemented, or when we bombed Christian Serbs to protect ******* in Bosnia.



Our first war with Iraq was to protect the Moslem Arab states of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from a secular Arab state (Iraq). Osama et al are avowed anti-secular *******. So why are they not grateful that we saved avowedly anti-secular Moslem states from a secular Arab state’s invasion?

But despite 50 years of support, protection, money and aid – as well as our own American soldiers dead and wounded to aid and support Moslem countries – Osama, Hezbollah, Hamas et cetera shriek about how the USA is the “black Satan,” which wants to destroy Islam and kill *******.

 

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Address ‘Root Causes’ of Terrorism, Muslim Envoys Urge Obama
Thursday, February 05, 2009
By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor


Muslim students at the biggest Islamic seminary in Karachi, Pakistan, on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009. President Obama reportedly plans to deliver a speech in a key Islamic capital, aimed at improving U.S. ties with the Muslim world. (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – Looking ahead to President Obama’s planned address to the Muslim world, leading Islamic governments say improving relations between Islam and the West will require a review of anti-terror policies and a recognition of the need to address what they say are the “root causes” of terrorism.

Obama indicated last December that during his first 100 days in office, he wanted deliver a major address in a key Islamic capital aimed at improving America’s ties with the Muslim world.

At a meeting this week hosted by Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology, a government advisory body, ambassadors from Muslim countries in anticipation of that speech put forward recommendations which they said would help to improve relations.

The need to identify and address the “root causes” of terrorism was stressed by several speakers, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict high on the list.

Saudi Ambassador Ali Awadh Asseri said discrimination led to discontent, citing the Palestinians. Also alluding to the Palestinians, Syrian envoy Muhammad Raid Ismat called for a distinction between terrorism and what he called a legitimate struggle for a homeland.

Iranian Ambassador Mashaallah Shakeri said attempts to improve relations with Islam were being harmed by Western sanctions, support for dictators, and the assumption that war was a solution to problems.

“President Bush spoke enough to the world,” he said. “Now the U.S. must listen prior to talking.”

Participants said Islam was misunderstood in the West, and they took issue with the linking of terrorism and Islam.

“Bloodshed and suicide attacks have nothing to do with Islam,” said Pakistan’s religious affairs minister, Hamid Saeed Kazmi. Such activities were being carried out by elements wanting to defame Muslims, he told the meeting.

The “root cause” debate pits those who say that terrorism is the result of national issues – such as poverty and economic injustice, the Palestinian and Kashmiri conflicts, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – against those who argue that it is driven by a jihadist ideology rooted in Islamic teaching.

Supporting the former view, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband last month wrote that the notion of a war on terror had been “misleading and mistaken,” and argued that Islamic terrorist groups’ motivations were disparate.

“The more we lump terrorist groups together and draw the battle lines as a simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil, the more we play into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common,” he said.

Miliband highlighted the dispute over Kashmir, and said its resolution “would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms.”

Miliband came under fire in India, with politicians and media labeled him a “root cause theorist” for linking terrorism against India, including the Mumbai attacks last November, with Kashmir. His comments were also criticized at home, where Daily Telegraph columnist Con Coughlin said they “suggest a worrying misconception about the nature of the conflict Britain and its allies are engaged in fighting.”

Poverty, despair, injustice

Islamic leaders hope Obama will follow a similar approach.

In an open letter to the president coinciding with his inauguration, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) attributed terrorism to “deprivation, poverty, despair and, most importantly, political injustice.”

“The decades-long suffering of the Palestinian people provides only the most recent and potent illustration of the link between oppression, injustice, and violence,” said the OIC, calling for “an urgent and just remedy.”

Abdul Aziz al-Tuwaijri, head of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, a Morocco-based body established by the OIC, wants Obama to take a new approach with regard to what he calls Islam’s “just causes.”

“Will America be a friend to the Arab and Muslim nation, which suffers from many problems as a result of imbalance of international justice scale, and America’s silence towards the crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Palestine and by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?” he asked in a recent article.

In past statements about terrorism, Obama has cited some of the “root cause” arguments.

A month after 9/11, Obama – then a state senator – expressed support for the retaliatory military operation in Afghanistan, but also raised concerns about what he called “some of the root causes of this terrorist activity.”

“For nations like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, or much of the Middle East, young men have no opportunities,” he told the Chicago Defender.

“They see poverty all around them and they are angry by that poverty,” he said. “They may be suffering under oppressive and corrupt regimes and that kind of environment is a breeding ground for fanaticism and hatred.”

Last December, in an interview with The Atlantic, the then president-elect described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a “constant wound” and said its lack of a resolution “provides an excuse” for anti-American terrorists.

The Jewish Institute for National Security Policy in response countered that jihadists warred against the West “for reasons that are unlikely to change either with our new president or with the creation of a small, corrupt state wedged between Jordan and Israel.”

Criticisms of “root cause” arguments include: Islamic terrorism against the West long predated the Iraq war and was the reason for – not a result of – the war in Afghanistan; Arab terrorism against Israel predated its capture of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967; far from being poverty stricken and hopeless, many Islamic terrorists are educated and from relatively wealthy backgrounds.

Which city?

Obama’s speech talk sparked speculation about which city he would choose as a venue – one that would sidestep controversy while meeting the presumed requirement of leadership and influence in the Islamic world.

Cairo has historically been viewed as a leading Islamic center, but many Muslims would regard Riyadh as more fitting, given Saudi Arabia’s status as the birthplace of Islam. Either choice would draw criticism from groups critical of the human rights records of the two Arab governments. Although not a capital, Mecca would be a highly symbolic choice, but the Saudis restrict non-Muslim activity in Islam’s holiest city.

Non-Arab alternatives could include Jakarta, capital of the world’s most populous Muslim country and one where Obama has personal links. On the other hand, Indonesia plays a relatively low-key role in the Islamic world.

Baghdad seems unlikely because of Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war, and instability would probably rule out Islamabad.

A Turkish city has also been mooted. Both Muslim and constitutionally secular, NATO member and European Union aspirant Turkey has long presented itself as a bridge between East and West.

But Turkey’s outspoken condemnation of Israel’s recent offensive against Hamas and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s clash with Israeli President Shimon Peres at Davos – U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell canceled a visit to Turkey shortly afterwards – would make it a controversial choice.

Nonetheless, Turkey made be trying to prod Obama along. The president plans to be in Europe in the first week of April – for a G20 summit on the financial crisis in London and a NATO summit co-hosted by France and Germany. Turkey has invited him to attend an “Alliance of Civilizations” event, due to take place in Istanbul that same week.

Other venues have their champions. An online campaign has been launched aimed at encouraging Obama to make his speech in Morocco.