Anyone who has followed the MILNET tirades on the liberalization of our country will recognize the theme of this latest analysis.
Political Correctness is linked to major failures of bureaucracies in business to our nation's intelligence, immigration and law enforcement organizations. In fact it could easily be argued that it was Political Correctness that enabled greedy executives to bilk stockholders and employees of billions in the economic boom of recent years. Anyone who has been able to glimpse the workings of Internet or Telecom companies during that period will tell you it was not acceptable to question the good business practice, let alone the legality or moral decisions being made.
And despite clear evidence presented in Congressional testimony, letters to high level managers in government, and a very public castigation of the effects of careerism and Political Correctness in the FBI, little in the way of effective change has occurred to prevent or even mitigate the problem. And when we look at the organizations that still remain shackled by this syndrome, we find some of the old offenders. A week after the Beltway snipers were captured, the Federal Bureau of Investigation says they are NOW going to look into whether there is a domestic or international flavor to the sniper's actions or motivations. Better really late than never, but many of us already had begun making the links far before the Federal Bureau of Incompetents (sorry - we couldn't resist) got a clue.
For example, Daniel Pipes of Middle East Forum recently took issue with the media and government officials over the coverage and strategies being pursued in the Beltway Sniper case. It is Mr. Pipes' opinion that the linkage between John Allen Muhammad's Muslim beliefs and the terrorist acts he and his accomplice Lee Malvo committed is being ignored. 5 Not because there is nothing to investigate along these lines, but because there is a bias to not only ignore the possibility, but an over sensitivity to religious persecution of the Islamic mindset. Pipes was promulgating his theory from day one of the attacks.
MILNET's own analysis, tempered by the sensitivities and angst of the moment, spelled out a scenario od the organized terrorist group conducting a sniper organization. As usual we were ahead of the capture yet sensitive to fluidity of the events, risking that indications at the time might be proven wrong. Indeed not just recent MILNET analysis spells out the use of the lone actor by terrorist organizations (see Tenet 6 in the MILNET Domestic Terrorism Analysis made in our full briefing, Domestic Terror - What it Holds For the New Millenium published in May of 2001).
In a country where children are prevented from both pledging loyalty to their country AND saying a prayer in their public schools, it is strange that Christian American beliefs are not protected while a Muslim terrorist cannot be investigated for being a "foot soldier" in the Islamic Jihad against the United States and its allies.
Granted a few media/political personalities (Pat Buchannan, Sean Hannidy, Brit Hume 2, and Bill O'Reilly for instance) explored the topic for more than the thirty seconds others in the fifth estate managed to deliver. However, it was very difficult to find an in depth story on the Muslim connection of the Snipers.
The rationale appears to be a cover up of sorts. Since it is not clear that the Snipers were anything other than lone actors, then there must not be a Middle East terror connection -- or so goes the rationalization. However as Steve Emerson has been writing and saying well before 9/11, the Islamic extremists in the U.S. are capable and perhaps inspired to get their moment of fame in the Jihad. 4 Even as lone actors, there is that terrorist urge to strike out at the U.S. Like the Weatherman and Symbonese Liberation Army of the late sixties and early seventies, indigenous dissidents can turn to violence without (perhaps) being connected or directed by a parent organization. Indeed lone actors are encouraged by those very organizations to do their deeds alone. Having built the framework for violence as part of the ethos of the terrorist organization, the then turn these agents lose to do their worst if opportunity presents itself. Some, like Timothy McVeigh, may actively create their own opportunity. This is especially if the organization has a public face -- someone who authorities could go after if a direct link were established.
For instance, the Ku Klux Klan, for many decades kept their action team's and leader's identities secret. In most cases in KKK history, the identity of the membership was hidden by the trademark pointed white hood. However, in the late seventies, many KKK leaders as well as the rank-and-file came out of the darkness to proudly show their identities. The result was, of course, the arrest, trial and conviction of those executing criminal acts including the leadership known to direct those actions.
More modern (and one might say smarter) domestic and international terrorist organizations tend to teach that individual acts of terrorism is not only heroic, but in the case of Islamic extremists, produces martyrdom and the keys to heaven. This new "individual contributor" policy serves two purposes; it is much harder to detect a small number (i.e. 1-3) perpetrators of terrorism and it protects the organization which has spawned the terrorist. An example of this technique is the brainwashing of young Palestinians that Israel and their friends are evil and then promising martyrdom if that young person will strap on a bomb or pick up a gun. The bomb materials or the gun is provided secretly by terrorist organization through the Madrass teaching the Islamic Extremist view of the Jihad, and the lone actor goes into an Israeli settlement or city and kills as many Jews as possible.
Thus our modern aversion to linking religion, no matter how extreme, to acts of violence continues to plague our country and presents a clear and present danger. It also points out a huge hole in our ability to protect against future terrorist attacks. Witness he recent furor over immigration officials fingerprinting visitors some certain Muslim countries known for allowing terrorists free access to transportation. The liberalization of government fails to recognize the danger despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Federal investigators have only recently began to look at any indications that might link John Allen Muhammad's and Malvo's activities to the Islamic Jihad. In our society that now frowns upon positive ideological forces, it is not correct to call the ideals of the Islamic Jihad evil -- we are instead encouraged to "understand" and change OUR behavior or abandon our ideology. Nothing is more evil than an ideology which condones such violence, yet protecting our citizens by adopting ideologues that brook zero tolerance to that same violence are not only deemed more evil, but their very discussion is deemed unacceptable.
In fact, in watching the coverage of the Sniper story, the most often question asked by the "news analysts" other than "who could it be" was "why is this person doing this". Few spent more than a few seconds on domestic terrorism rather than a lone madman. Yet those covering terrorism, both domestic and international like MILNET were quick to recognize the hallmark of the snipings -- general, hard biting, random violence that is not only visible but incredibly stressful across our entire population.
In fact several psychologists noted that the media needed to be careful in their coverage in order to reduce the possibility of creating a nationwide delayed stress syndrome in television viewers -- as if 9/11 hadn't already taken our nation further in that regard than at any other time in history.
Moreover, many analysts of terror (including MILNET) recognize two types of terrorist attacks, the "big splash" like 9/11 and the exceedingly stressful terror of the "lone gunmen" like the Beltway Sniper. The awful attack on tourists in Bali on one side of terrorist approaches, and the Anthrax letter attacks on the other side. Indeed, the McVeigh bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City and a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv also fit these same types of terrorism.
Like the still unsolved (and perhaps destined to never be solved) Anthrax attacks, our government investigators just can't seem to connect the dots. The "forest fore the trees" syndrome is at work, and it appears to be surrounded by that pesky PC business again.
For example, going down the Politically in-Correct investigative path points out key elements that are common in domestic as well as many international terrorist acts:
But more telling than the maliase is the response to those who dare to look in the direction of criminal behavior as terrorist behavior. An email-er responding to Bill O'Reilly on Fox's No Spin Zone, went as far as to draw the conclusion that O'Reilly's voicing the terrorist connection was all wrong citing the acts of Timothy McVeigh as evidence that the theory doesn't hold water. The viewer clearly missed the point. On the contrary, McVeigh is an excellent case of the lone actor trained by domestic terrorists happy to see their protégé' go out and commit terrorist acts seemingly without direction and without attribution to any particular group. Anyone who believes McVeigh wasn't built like a missile and aimed at the U.S. government by anti-government activists is living in a world of fantasy.
And nearly every media analyst, perhaps fearing for their own credibility voiced their solid conviction that the snipings were the act of a lone, deluded serial killer rather -- actively expressing doubt that this was an act of a domestic terrorist. Faced with a number of attributes that ruled out the serial killer theory, the fell back on "it is not an exact science" and continued to deny the terrorist threat.
Regardless of whether it is science or simply educated conjecture, the
attitude that fails to consider that John Allen Muhammad is a domestic
terrorist is not only dangerous, but will feed others to do similar deeds.
This is because we will, in the end, fail to "connect the dots" because
some of those dots might not be Politically Correct.
© Copyright, 2002, Michael Crawford, MILNET