Wahhabism solely to blame for Islams Radicalism?
Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time, and there are a couple of you thanks, knows how fond I am of the President’s habit of saying that Islam has been hijacked. As if Islam’s history of murder and mayhem can be swept away by merely not mentioning them. Assuming perhaps that we are a bunch of rubes who are not able to read the history of a religion whose founder set the example by spreading the religion with a sword. Another form of that same denial lives on in those folks who want to pin all of the terrorism we see in the world today on one sect of Islam, Wahhabism.
James Woolsey who has been such a stalwart defender of this country shows how to get it wrong with this article on Wahhabism. This is not to say that he is incorrect it blaming Wahhabism for its sins. No it is to say that stopping at Wahhabism seems so shortsighted and blind when until 9/11 the worst single terrorist attack against the United States, the attack on the Marines in Lebanon, was perpetuated by Shiite Muslims, Hizballah or Party Of God. And we are not talking about penny ante attacks besides the Marine Barracks either, consider these attacks often led by someone most insiders consider to be much more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden, Imad Fayez Mugniyah: (This cronology from “PBS Frontline with additions of various sources)
- A series of kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon, including several Americans, in the 1980s;
- April 18, 1983 Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut A suicide bomber in a pickup truck loaded with explosives rammed into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Sixty-three people were killed, including 17 Americans, eight of whom were employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, including chief Middle East analyst Robert C. Ames and station chief Kenneth Haas.
- Oct. 23, 1983 Bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut A suicide bomber detonated a truck full of explosives at a U.S. Marine barracks located at Beirut International Airport; 241 U.S. Marines were killed and more than 100 others wounded.
- Dec. 12, 1983 Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait The American embassy in Kuwait was bombed in a series of attacks whose targets also included the French embassy, the control tower at the airport, the country’s main oil refinery, and a residential area for employees of the American corporation Raytheon. Six people were killed, including a suicide truck bomber, and more than 80 others were injured. The suspects were thought to be members of Al Dawa, or “The Call,” an Iranian-backed group and one of the principal Shiite groups operating against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
- March 16, 1984 CIA Station Chief William Buckley kidnapped Buckley was the fourth person to be kidnapped by militant Islamic extremists in Lebanon…– some, including Buckley, died in captivity or were killed by their kidnappers. U.S. officials believed that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah was behind most of the kidnappings (It is reported that Mugniyah personally tortured and killed Buckley)
- Sept. 20, 1984 Bombing of U.S. Embassy annex northeast of Beirut In Aukar, northeast of Beirut, a truck bomb exploded outside the U.S. Embassy annex killing 24 people, two of whom were U.S. military personnel. According to the U.S. State Department’s 1999 report on terrorist organizations, elements of Hezbollah are “known or suspected to have been involved” in the bombing.
- Dec. 3, 1984 Hijacking of Kuwait Airways Flight 221 Kuwait Airways Flight 221, on its way from Kuwait to Pakistan, was hijacked and diverted to Tehran. The hijackers demanded the release of the Kuwait 17. When the demand wasn’t met, the hijackers killed two American officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development. On the sixth day of the drama, Iranian security forces stormed the plane and released the remaining hostages.
- June 14, 1985 Hijacking of TWA Flight 847 TWA Flight 847 was hijacked en route from Athens to Rome and forced to land in Beirut, Lebanon, where the hijackers held the plane for 17 days. They demanded the release of the Kuwait 17 as well as the release of 700 fellow Shiite Muslim prisoners held in Israeli prisons and in prisons in southern Lebanon run by the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army. When these demands weren’t met, hostage Robert Dean Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was shot and his body dumped on the airport tarmac. U.S. sources implicated Hezbollah
- Major 1990s attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina—the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy (killing twenty-nine) and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center (killing ninety-five).
It is worth noting that during most of this time my favorite President Ronald Reagan was in office and he did diddly squat to fix the problem. Unless you call bombing a bunch of Tents in Libya action, Daniel Pipes was not impressed. Not that I don’t think that Ronald Reagan was terrific but those of you on the right who love blaming all of our current terrorism ills on Clinton need to chill a bit. Clinton deserves a significant amount of blame but Ronnie faced the worst attack against Marines in terms of deaths since Iwo Jima by withdrawing, retreating tail between our legs. The worlds greatest military power with a history of victory and bravery to match the greatest countries of the world was retreating in the face of people so illiterate their version of high tech was to have a human drive a car filled with explosives. If you think that lesson wasn’t learned by our Islamic enemies you need to avoid listening to anyone selling bridges in Brooklyn.
So now that we are seeing Iran coming forward full of vim and vigor wishing death on one and all, we might be forgiven for wondering where all those folks are, you know the ones who trumpeted Wahhabism as the only center of evil in Islam. Have they revised their estimates of our enemies? What does that do to their world view that Islam has been hijacked?
Now we have not only the Wahhabists as guilty parties for besmirching the honor of the Religion of Peace but the center of Shiite Islam as well, with Iran calling for the hanging of gays, murder of women, threatening death to one and all and believing in fantasies.
Sheesh one of these days we might be forced to wonder about Islam as a whole…one of these days soon. Said it before and will continue to say it, we should be fighting alongside the Israelis.
Obsidian Wings: The War on Wahhabism, Continued
Keep abreast of the breaking news in the ME with PJ Media
Other posts on Islam:
Paris Riots or how Nazi Germany managed to sneak up on us all!
Was Muhammed an Islamist? Or was he a moderate?
Technorati:Technorati: Islam Israel Lebanon Terrorism Bush Hamas Middle East washington post Charles Krauthammer
If you liked my post, feel free to subscribe to my rss feeds
Stumble It!
BlogoSquare
One Comment
5 Trackbacks
[...] Does the Bush administration really think that everyone not appointed to some office inside of the Bush administration is that dumb or worse disinterested? They call that retreat “victory”? Hezb’allah has been killing Americans and Israelis for 23 years, look here for a detailed record. Until 9/11 they managed to hold the record for most Americans killed in a single day. The Marines recognize that record as being the most Marines killed in a single day since Iwo Jima. We ended up making the Japanese pay dearly for the killing of Marines, witness the photo below of Nagasaki. 23 years after the murder of 241 Marines sent in as a peacekeeping force our government is playing word games regarding Hezb’allah and trying to build a consensus that they are terrorists…hold on while I beat my head into the wall. And while I am staunching the flow of blood remember also that Iran at this very goddamn moment is sending arms and terrorists into Iraq to AGAIN kill US armed forces. Not our war, indeed! [...]
[...] Yes I know that we have proof of State Sponsorship of terror but President Bush declaring that there were no connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda created the perception that Clinton was right and that Stateless actors were responsible for terror. That this is a lie put together by feckless administrations as far back as Reagan to avoid holding States to account for the actions of their proxies is lost on nearly everyone. Remember Reagan did not hold Iran to account for the murder of the Marines in 1983 a Hezballah attack. [...]
[...] Just in case anyone would like a partial list of atrocities these monsters have committed against us here is a handy dandy list for the next time you see Tony Snow. From an earlier post ranting and raving why this is our war…not our war Tony Snow should be ashamed. [...]
[...] Anyone see an “Axis of Evil” running around loose? Just wondering because you know I sort of took President Bush at his word when he declared so defiantly that either you are with us or with the terrorists. Is he waiting for a mushroom cloud to form over his head before he lives up to his brave words? Is he waiting for the latest attempt by our Government to cover their asses, the vaunted National Intelligence Director, to remove his head from his ass and alert the world that we have finally figured out who blew up the Marines in Lebanon? [...]
[...] As I pointed out in my earlier post Wahhabism our enemy? What about the Shiites until 9/11 they killed more Americans we are not only facing Wahhabists in our battle against Islamic fanatics as many have tried to insinuate. Indeed until our multi billion dollar intelligence agencies failed and allowed Bin Laden’s scraggly bunch to succeed on 9/11 Shiite Muslims sponsored by Iran managed to murder far more of us than anyone else (See Wahhabism our enemy for details of their terror). When the Hezballah murdered 241 Marines in Lebanon that was single largest day of death for the US Marines since Iwo Jima. [...]