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| Fifth Column |
| Sudden Jihad Syndrome |
| 2006-03-14 |
| By Daniel Pipes “Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers.” I wrote those words days after 9/11 and have been criticized for them ever since. But an incident on March 3 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill suggests I did not go far enough. ... In brief, Taheri-azar represents the ultimate Islamist nightmare: a seemingly well-adjusted Muslim whose religion inspires him, out of the blue, to murder non-Muslims. Taheri-azar acknowledged planning his jihad for over two years, or during his university sojourn. It’s not hard to imagine how his ideas developed, given the coherence of Islamist ideology, its immense reach (including a Muslim Student Association at UNC), and its resonance among many Muslims. Were Taheri-azar unique in his surreptitious adoption of radical Islam, one could ignore his case, but he fits into a widespread pattern of Muslims who lead quiet lives before turning to terrorism. Their number includes the 9/11 hijackers, the London transport bombers, and Maher Hawash, the Intel engineer arrested before he could join the Taliban in Afghanistan. Mohammed Ali Alayed, the Saudi living in Houston fits, the pattern because he stabbed and murdered Ariel Sellouk, a Jewish man who was his one-time friend. So do some converts to Islam; who suspected Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old Belgian woman, would turn up in Iraq as a suicide bomber throwing herself against an American military base? This is what I have dubbed the Sudden Jihad Syndrome, whereby normal-appearing Muslims abruptly become violent. It has the awful but legitimate consequence of casting suspicion on all Muslims. Who knows whence the next jihadi? How can one be confident a law-abiding Muslim will not suddenly erupt in a homicidal rage? Yes, of course, their numbers are very small, but they are disproportionately much higher than among non-Muslims. This syndrome helps explain the fear of Islam and mistrust of Muslims that polls have shown on the rise since 9/11. The Muslim response of denouncing these views as bias, as the “new anti-Semitism,” or “Islamophobia” is as baseless as accusing anti-Nazis of “Germanophobia” or anti-Communists of “Russophobia.” Instead of presenting themselves as victims, Muslims should address this fear by developing a moderate, modern, and good-neighborly version of Islam that rejects radical Islam, jihad, and the subordination of “infidels.” Rest at link. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #5 look who is talking, numero 6... if this is not an exemplary case of projection, I dunno what is. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2006-03-14 21:02 |
| #4 Sounds a lot like STS, Sudden Troll Syndrome. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-03-14 18:43 |
| #3 Lol, RC. Bam! At some point, most of us will end up on the same page. Poor li'l Danny's been in the slow lane for years. He may not make it. He has to keep inventing juicy stop-gap rationalizations to ease his way down the mountain of elaborate Muzzy bullshit he's constructed over the years. I can't help but feel a perverse satisfaction reading people who once proudly claimed an imaginary moral high ground now abandoning carefully crafted rhetorical redoubts of feel-good prattle, one after another, to try to accommodate the facts as the farce plays out. Reminds me of institutionalized bad science... here, just one more tweak of the accepted theory, then everything will be okey-dokey. Rinse. Repeat. Yewbetcha. I love his close. They "should" blah blah blah. Yeah? No shit? Shoulda coulda woulda "Pipe"dream, lol. Follow the evidence, baby. They ain't fucking doing it. Got it? Evidence. Facts. Reality. Everything else is wanking, Dannyboy. You've got Sudden Excuse Syndrome, son. Planning a book, I'll bet. Another bit of the faux-moral worldview that needs to fall is the AlQ is our only true enemy myth. Truth is, there are 50-100-1000-googleplex insanely Muzzy factions and fuckwits out there, ranging from inept "cells" of one who rent Jeeps and run over people who were recently their classmates to well-meaning but foolish columnists who do us all a disservice by creating fantastical confabulations blunting the facts to suit personal world-views to lying apologist fronts and think-tanks and "charity" organizations to well-funded "pseudo states" which seek the destruction of an entire people. What they have in common is the point, not whether or not they're AlQ members or Hamas members Hezbollah members or any other "officially recognized" group. Try this out and see which makes more sense, Pipes' latest dilemma explained away, or a simplified evidence-based take: By their behavior (only the fools still parse their words) they are easily identified by their common goal: destroy anything and everything that isn't Islam by any means available. Our response should be simple, once that realization takes root: destroy anything and everything that is Islam by any means available. Duh. My opinion. Yes. I am evil. Patience has expired. My bad. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-03-14 11:31 |
| #2 Pipes has a serious Pollyanna complex when it comes to Islam. He keeps clicking his heels together, saying "there ARE moderates, there ARE moderates", and expecting something to happen. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-03-14 07:57 |
| #1 The outbreak of wishful thinking at the end spoils a tolerably good article. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-03-14 07:52 |