Jihad: A lost cause

Dr. Richard L. Benkin writes from USA                                     

I am going to tell you a big secret—a secret that Islamist radicals and their appeasers have been trying to keep from you.  Are you ready?  The radicals are losing and losing badly!  We all hear the radical rants periodically, whether the enigmatic tapes from Osama bin Laden (usually from some dreadful cave or wilderness—nice digs, Osama), the empty bluster of radical Arab and Muslim leaders (Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is the poster child; his people are chaffing at his wrong-headed attacks on their traditional freedoms and undermining his whacky policies every chance they get; while he pours money down the drain for his dream of becoming a third rate power—mediocrity is some tough goal), or absurd sermons about talking rocks that call for Jewish deaths (sponsored by fearful leaders who have neither taste nor backbone for moral courage).  They used to anger me.  Later, I just got sick of hearing the empty rhetoric.  Now, I find them humorous.

Do not be hoodwinked by one-sided news and opinion.  It is a phenomenon less of any conspiracy than it is of the way the news industry works; especially in Europe, which tends to dominate the information you are fed.  Only a truly independent publication like Weekly Blitz will provide you with solid facts that you will not see in those media.

Israel:  When were the last time terrorist bombings in Israel?  Yesterday?  Last week?  Actually, it was ten months ago in Eilat when a suicide bomber killed three Israelis in a bakery.  The one before that was in April 2006 in Tel Aviv, which killed seven Israelis, two Romanians, one American, and one French citizen.  There were two others in 2006 that killed four Israelis.  Scattered shootings and stabbings since January 1, 2006 killed four Israelis and an Italian in the disputed territories.  Not much result for a lot of bluster by the terrorists.  An Israeli official agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity.  Continued reports of thwarted attempts and regular promises of increased attacks by various terror factions indicate that the drop is not for want of trying.  He attributed part of the success to the anti-terror fence and to better technology and noted that Israel is the world leader in security technology.  But, he added, “We stop most of them in their beds.”  Good information; good technology; good control over the region.

Boycotts by unions and other primarily European leftist groups have been hyped as evidence that Israel is becoming more isolated and vulnerable.  Yet, while such things are opposed on moral grounds, they have had no real impact on Israel’s economy.  Tourism is up; Israeli participation in international organizations is up; and so are objective statistics.  For the first half of 2007: real GDP growth was up 6.6 percent, even higher than the first half of 2006, which was 5.1 percent; Israeli GDP growth was 2.5 times more than the average of OECD countries (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development composed of Europe, North America, Japan, and South Korea); foreign investment in Israel—always high—increased by almost ten percent; exports grew by 6.3 percent; and the World Bank, will sell up to $1 million of its bonds in Israeli shekels.

Iraq: Criticizing the war in Iraq has become one of the media’s favorite pastimes, even though all agree that ridding the Iraqis and the world of Saddam Hussein was an accomplishment in itself.  Reports often give the impression of growing terrorism and a nation on the verge of civil war.  But that impression is debunked by one of the world’s most vocal critics:  the UN.  “The ceasefire declared by the Mahdi Army, the Sunni insurgent alliance against Al-Qaida, the pact reached by the Sadrists and the efforts by the Multinational Force and the Iraqi security forces” contributed to a serious drop in all casualties, according to B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs.  These and other signs of progress “must not be missed,” he said.   Even the previously critical Washington Post featured the same positive news last month, noting “al-Qaeda's sanctuaries have been reduced 60 to 70 percent” in the past several months.  It also concluded that those who so recently criticized the war as showing “no letup in Iraq's bloodshed were -- to put it simply -- wrong.”

The Bad News? Several experts have documented the near destruction of al Qaeda in the Middle East.  The Iraq War has turned out to be an “elegant trap,” according to one of them that duped al Qaeda into swarming the country making their ultimate destruction a foregone conclusion.  The bad news for South Asians is that with the terrorist group on the run, it has made those nations its primary focus.  I have been writing about that trend since June 2006, documenting al Qaeda’s work with various intelligence agencies in the area and its alliances with other anti-democratic forces.  Had the military not intervened in January, most experts agree, the Islamists would have forced serious gains in the scheduled elections (especially with its forces leaking through porous borders with the cooperation of communists to the north and east).  The good news is that the military did stop them.  The bad news is that the terrorists remain in place, and they still can count on fear and appeasement driving government policy in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India.

As an American, I can recall the atmosphere after September 11, 2001.  We were convinced, and remained so for some time, that another mega-terror attack on our soil was only a matter of time. It still might come, but in the more than six years since 9/11, al Qaeda and its allies have failed in several attempts to do so.  All of this is contrary to the popular—and misleading—image of the US as a nation without the resolve to defeat a committed cadre of terrorists.  Anti-democratic forces like al Qaeda and anti-democratic leaders like Ahmedinejad take our internal debates as evidence of weakness.  Yet, like their ideological predecessors including Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Slobodan Mlosovich, and others; they mistake that strength for a weakness.  This has led them and still leads them to suffocate their own people.  In return, instead of their resolve and creativity, they end up with anger and resentment that is their ultimate undoing.