David Brooks, "Religion’s Wicked Neighbor": Insulting Our Intelligence

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Religion’s Wicked Neighbor," David Brooks takes President Obama to task for "refus[ing] to use the word 'Islam' in reference to Islamist terrorism." Brooks writes:

"Obama is using language to engineer a reaction rather than to tell the truth, which is the definition of propaganda. Most world leaders talk about Islamist terror, but Obama apparently thinks that if he uses the phrase 'Islamic radicalism' the rest of us will be too dim to be able to distinguish between the terrorists and the millions of good-hearted Muslims who want only to live in fellowship and peace.

Worst of all, his decision to dance around an unpleasant reality is part of the enveloping cloud of political correctness that drives people to Donald Trump."

Brooks goes on to say that religious terrorists act on their own behalf, not on account of God:

"For the terrorist, a sense of humiliation is the primary reality. Terrorism emerges from a psychic state, not a spiritual one. This turns into a grievance, the belief that some external enemy is the cause of this injury, rather than some internal weakness.

. . . .

For the religious person it’s about God. For the terrorist, it’s about himself. When Omar Mateen was in the midst of his rampage, he was posting on Facebook and calling a TV station. His audience was us, not the Divine.

Omar Mateen wanted us to think he was martyring himself in the name of holiness. He was actually a sad loser obliterating himself for the sake of revenge."

Islamic terrorists are "sad losers" acting from a "psychic state, not a spiritual one"? It's about themselves? It's about revenge? Sorry, but this is a grotesque oversimplification.

Brooks would do well to read "The Age of Sacred Terror," a 2002 New York Times "Notable Book," by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon. Benjamin and Simon write in relevant part:

"Religious violence is typically different from any other kind of warfare - for the simple reason that for a true believer, there is no compromise about the sacred. Or, to put it in a more monotheistic key: One God, one truth. Tolerance is not an intrinsic part of any of the monotheistic religions. For some believers, the outcome of a conflict cannot be ambiguous.

When the issues are sacred demands, there can be no bargaining. The believer cannot compromise on the will of God. Killing becomes an end in itself, rather than one instrument arrayed among nonlethal instruments in a bargaining process. Such believers want a lot of people dead and may not care whether a lot of people are watching, as long as God sees what has been done in His name."

My advice, David: Take a flight from genteel Manhattan to the wilds of Guantanamo, arrange interviews with a cross-section of the Islamic terrorists being held there, and decide for yourself whether these monsters were acting for "themselves." You're apt to experience an epiphany.

Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin, "Could Paris Happen Here?": Sorry, Boys, It's Coming

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In a guest New York Times op-ed entitled "Could Paris Happen Here?," Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin, authors of "The Age of Sacred Terror" (I've read it, and it's on a shelf in front of my computer as I type this blog entry), would have us know that American anxiety over terror attacks similar to those in Paris are "unwarranted" and "no one should panic." Simon and Benjamin contend:

"The slaughter in France depended on four things: easy access to Paris, European citizens happy to massacre their compatriots, a Euro-jihadist infrastructure to supply weapons and security agencies that lacked resources to monitor the individuals involved. These are problems the United States does not have — at least not nearly to the degree that Europe does, undermining its ability to defend itself.

. . . .

It appears the Paris attacks involved both Middle Eastern operatives and Muslims from France and Belgium. But some high-profile exceptions aside, American Muslims are much less attracted to the Islamic State and its ideology than European Muslims seem to be. Americans have traveled to ISIS-controlled territories at a rate of roughly a third that of their European Union coreligionists.

Yes, some of the worst attacks of recent years here at home have been by deeply alienated Muslims, including Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, and the Tsarnaev brothers, perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing. But the incidence of such malcontents is lower than in Europe, whose larger Muslim communities, social science data shows, are markedly less integrated.

Although European governments have been working to ameliorate grievances, European Muslims remain poorer, more ghettoized and more discriminated against than American Muslims, whose levels of education and income mirror those of the entire American population."

Or stated otherwise, American homeland security has improved markedly since 9/11, American Muslims are more integrated than their European co-religionists, and there is significantly less reason to worry. I disagree. Sure, Simon has degrees from Harvard, Columbia and Princeton, and Benjamin has degrees from Harvard and Oxford, but in my opinion (I worked a "bit" in counter-terrorism, and the West should be focused on choking off the flow of funding to the Islamic State via Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait), they're ignoring key factors weighing against their conclusion.

First, these Islamic State f*ckers (a term of art used widely in academia) are as shrewd as they are vicious. For example, they can beat US airport security and American passport checks. (Compare American airport security staffing with the highly motivated students doing the job in Israel.)

Second, American Muslims are not as "passive" as Simon and Benjamin would have us believe. As reported by the Pew Research Center in an August 30, 2011 article entitled "Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism," eight percent of US Muslims believe that suicide bombing can "often/sometimes" be justified. Now that's a relief! If you randomly place 100 American adult Muslims in a room, only eight of them think that it's "often/sometimes" justified to blow you to kingdom come.

But why rely only on Pew? In a June 2015 poll of 600 Muslim-Americans, The Polling Company determined:

• If shariah conflicts with the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, 33 percent answered that shariah "should be considered supreme."
• 36 percent declared that Muslims in the US should be free to choose courts or tribunals in the US that apply shariah law, whereas 15 percent opined that Muslims in the US should be subject only to shariah courts.
• 29 percent strongly or somewhat agreed that "violence against those that insult the prophet Mohammad, the Qur'an, or Islamic faith is sometimes acceptable."
• 25 percent strongly or somewhat agreed that "Violence against Americans here in the United States can be justified as part of the global jihad."
• 19 percent believed that "the use of violence in the United States is justified in order to make shariah the law of the land in this country."
• Nine percent believed that the beliefs of the Islamic State are "correct and consistent with shariah."
• Eight percent believed that the beliefs of al-Qaeda are "correct and consistent with shariah."

Having perused these numbers, are you feeling better? I'm not.

Sorry to disagree, boys, but it's coming.