Terrorism’s root causes

Cal Thomas

PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland -British politicians and much of the U.K.

media are engaged in a familiar Western practice following a terrorist

attack. They think they can explain it using Western standards.

Many Americans blamed the race riots of the 1960s on racism and

unemployment, which contributed to hopelessness they said only equality 

and prosperity could solve. That most unemployed blacks did not riot 

escaped the mainly white sociologists and commentators who desired a 

“nonjudgmental” explanation for lawless behavior. Having abandoned a 

sense of personal responsibility for one’s actions, the explainers and 

excusers of evil and illegal acts in America 40 years ago have been 

reincarnated in Britain.

Now it is unemployment and hopelessness among Muslims that are the root

cause of terrorism. Finding jobs for them so they can drive nice cars, 

live in upscale flats and attend West End theaters supposedly will 

convert them to the British way of life.

Or maybe it is evil America that caused the terrorist attacks. If only 

The Americans had not invaded Iraq and dragged Britain along, perhaps 

Britain might have been spared the bus and tube bombings.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to bring people to their senses. Former

Israeli Prime Minister (and current Cabinet minister) Benjamin Netanyahu 

told BBC’s “Breakfast” program Sunday that Iraq and other actions by 

Britain and America are the consequences of terror attacks, not the cause.

He said to blame Britain and the United States for causing terrorism is

“reverse causality.” Netanyahu recalled the numerous terror attacks 

before the Iraq war and prior to 9/11, noting there was Islamic terrorism 

before 1948 when Israel became a modern state. If recent Israeli, American 

and British policies cause terrorism, how does one explain earlier terrorism?

In the U.K., The Sunday Times carried a front-page story exploding the 

Myth of a causal relationship between terrorism and poverty among Muslims.  

The newspaper reported on leaked Whitehall documents that show “Al-Qaeda is 

secretly recruiting affluent, middle-class Muslims in British universities 

and colleges to carry out terrorist attacks” in Britain. The targets of the 

“extremist recruiters” are students with “technical and professional 

qualifications.”

These are not Muslims without a future. These are bright and educated

students who, if they wished, could be productive and prosperous 

members of British society. But many are embracing a false theology and 

a god who requires them to kill “infidels.”

No amount of G8 aid to the “Palestinians,” nor a resolution of the

Arab-Israeli conflict, will pacify these current and potential killers. 

Even if Israel were obliterated (the goal of much of the Muslim world), 

the terror would continue until the entire non-Islamic world is under 

their control.

This is not the belief of an “Islamophobic” bigot. This is what they 

say in their sermons and media, teach in their schools, and believe in 

their hearts. It matters little that “the overwhelming majority of 

Muslims are not terrorists,” to quote a familiar Western mantra. 

It matters a great deal that most terrorists are Muslims. The sooner 

Western leaders and Western media begin stating what is obvious to 

most people; the quicker the real root cause can be dealt with.

The excuses given by Westerners and many Muslim clerics for terrorism 

Are just that: excuses.

If Britain and the West are guilty of failing to adequately address the

“oppression” of Muslims in Kashmir and Chechnya, do they earn points for 

intervening in Bosnia to protect Muslims and sending billions to the 

Palestinian Authority, money that went down a rat hole of corruption?

Do America and Britain win friends among Muslims for allowing them to

practice their faith openly (no Muslim country offers the type of 

religious tolerance that Muslims enjoy in the U.S. and Britain). Why 

must America and Britain be held accountable for every perceived and 

actual slight against Muslims, but beheadings of Westerners receive 

little more than pro forma condemnation and are soon forgotten?

More than 25 years ago, then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

famously noted that we in the West make a mistake when we transpose our

morality on those who don’t share it. Terrorists do not share and 

cannot be made to share our morality.

There will be no detente, entente or peace treaty between the forces of

darkness and those of light. As much as Western politicians may wish to

avoid the true root cause of this war, they do so at the peril of their

citizens. This is a religious war. The terrorists understand it as 

such.  Too many in the secular and wimpishly religious West do not.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/thomas071205.asp