Understanding “Jihadistan” and Islamic terrorism

The first constitutional responsibility of any U.S. President is to our national security. In the event that our vital national interests are threatened, the President has the authority to commit armed forces to protect those interests.

On 11 September, 2001, after eight years of the Clinton administration’s national security malfeasance, and eight months of into the newly installed Bush administration’s effort to reorder national security priorities, most Americans were unaware that in 1998, a deadly terrorist cell had settled into our midst. But before noon on that beautiful Fall morning, it became clear that our vital national interests – both the security of our homeland and the stability of our energy providers abroad – were under assault. An enemy had declared war on the United States, and it was an enemy unlike any before.

Sheik Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, al-Qa'ida (translated as “The Base”), constitute an asymmetric enemy – part of an international and increasingly unified Islamic terrorist network supported, in part, by nation states like Iran and Syria, and previously by Afghanistan and Iraq.

Unlike symmetric threats emanating from clearly defined nation states such as Russia and China – those with unambiguous political, economic and geographical interests – an asymmetric enemy defies nation-state status, thus presenting new and daunting national-security challenges for the executive branch and U.S. military planners.

Perhaps the most difficult of these challenges is the task of keeping Americans focused on why this asymmetric threat must be engaged (short of periodic catastrophic wake-up calls). It is critical that Americans understand this formidable adversary, particularly since liberal Democrats and their Leftmedia outlets have politicized our efforts to both combat this enemy and support democratic reforms in the Middle East.

Unfortunately, out of deference to cultural sensitivity and diversity, a succession of CINC’s have yet to clearly define or, dare we say, profile“ these asymmetric Islamists adversaries, primarily because this threat is global in nature, and not hierarchal.

The Patriot coined the word "Jihadistan,” to better encompass the nature of the Islamic threat. Jihadistan is a borderless nation of Islamic extremists that constitutes al-Qa'ida and other Muslim terrorist groups around the world. Most of these groups, and individuals, are autonomous by standard hierarchal definition, and are connected by ideology rather than centralized command and control. This makes identifying and containing this enemy, very difficult.

Jihadistan is, indeed, a borderless nation. The “Islamic World” of the Q'uran recognizes no political borders. Though the “pre-Medina” suras of the Q'uran do not support acts of terrorism or mass murder, the “post-Mecca” suras of the Q'uran and the Hadith (Mohammed’s teachings) authorizes jihad, or “holy war,” against all “the enemies of God.” All orthodox Muslims are bound by the combined “pre-Medina” and “post-Mecca” Q'uran.

For the record, the body of these “enemies” or infidels, consists of all Muslim or non-Muslim heretics, those who refute any teachings of Mohammed. Do you refute any teachings of Mohammed? Then you are, ultimately, a target.

Jihadists, then, are characterized by the toxic Wahhabism of Osama bin Laden and his ilk – those who would enforce the Q'uran’s “holy war” against all “the enemies of God.” Islamism is a death-loving cult. In the words of Osama: “We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us.”

Al-Qa'ida and other emerging Islamist groups seek to disable the U.S. by disrupting continuity of government and/or commerce, using any means at their disposal, and thus, undermining our political, military and cultural support for Liberty around the world. We experienced a sample of this disruption after the 9/11 attack. Osama’s plan, “American Hiroshima,” outlines an Islamist attack on the U.S. with multiple nukes – technology provided by Iran or Russia, and fissile cores provided by Iranian, Pakistani or Russian profiteers. But there are other catastrophic terrorist threats, most notably, “Bio-Bombers,” who can launch a pandemic in the U.S.

One thing is certain about such adversaries, they thrive on indecision and weakness. Bill Clinton declined numerous opportunities to capture or kill Osama, including TWO opportunities when our Spec Ops shooters had him, literally

Of course, the most likely near-term form of attack against military and civilian personnel on our turf, will be similar to the conventional Islamist assaults in the Middle East – homicidal bombings or mass shootings. This type of attack is low tech but effective in terms of achieving instilling public fear with the long term goal of extorting policy change. However, a note of caution about the predictable “analysis” which will follow these attacks. Government and media analysts alike, will assert that there is “no known connection between the assailant and Islamist terrorist groups.” That assertion is patently false.

Recall that in 2009, after Nidal Malik Hasan, yelling “Allahu Akbar,” killed 13 people and wounded 30 others at Ft. Hood, The New York Times opined: “[It is] important to avoid drawing prejudicial conclusions from the fact that Major Hasan is an American Muslim whose parents came from the Middle East. President Obama was right when he told Americans, ‘we don’t know all the answers yet’ and cautioned everyone against ‘jumping to conclusions.’”

For the record, all Islamist terror attacks in the West have been perpetrated by a global network of Islamofascist groups and individuals under the banner, “Allahu Akbar.” These include the al-Qa'ida network (the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack), and their contemporary manifestations, ISIL and the Islamic State. Point of clarification: “Allahu Akbar” translates “Allah is the Greatest.” The Demo/MSM propaganda machine often reports the translation as something quiet different: “god is great.” As properly translated, Allahu Akbar claims only the god of Islam is great, and has been the violent warring cry of jihadi terrorists for generations, in their centuries-long effort to conquer infidels and establish a worldwide caliphate. Under those words, countless victims of Islamic supremacists – men, women and children – have been slaughtered. As such, it perilously dangerous to erroneously refer to contemporary Islamic terrorists in the West as “lone wolves,” because they are connected to worldwide jihad by way of the Qur'an, the foundational fabric linking all Islamist violence.

Well, we do “know all the answers” now, and the conclusion is that these acts are directly tied to Islam. Yet the Obama administration and their media outlets insist the Ft. Hood attack, like the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, were not tied to established Islamic terrorist groups. They offer the same errant analysis of the 2009 murder of two American soldiers outside a military recruiting center in Little Rock, and conspiracies to detonate bombs in Times Square and the NYC subway system. The result is that Islamist ideology is allowed to propagate and flourish across our nation, unabated.

However, these attacks and those to come, were and will be directly tied to worldwide Jihad by way of the Qur'an, the foundational fabric linking all Islamist violence. Fact is, American Islamists, such as Louis Farrakhan, Anwar al-Awlaki, Sheikh Ibrahim and other self-appointed clerics, have galvanized their following by preaching hatred for America. And other American Muslin leaders, who would like to be perceived as legitimate representatives of Islam, offer little condemnation of Islamic violence. Their silence is deafening.

Describing Islamist assailants as so-called “lone wolf” actors or “radicalized,” constitutes a lethal misunderstanding of the Jihadi threat. Describing their attacks as “criminal activity” or “workplace violence,” is asinine. The attacks being committed in the United States are all connected by the fabric of Islamic Jihad.

Meanwhile, Islamist terror groups are thriving and the threat of catastrophic attack against the American homeland, is on the rise.

Ultimately, globally, Islamists seek to contain or kill those who do not subscribe to their Islamofascist ideology, and if they are not adequately contained on their own soil, their acts of terrorism will undoubtedly extend to our own soil.

How many members of the Muslim faith subscribe to the notion that non-adherents are infidels? Perhaps fewer than ten percent take such a hard line. But to put this in perspective, if just one percent of Muslims worldwide inhabit the brotherhood of Jihadistan, then there are 10 times more Jihadists than there are uniformed American combat personnel in our combined military service branches.

Jihadistan is thus a formidable, but not insuperable, enemy.

For more on the nature of Jihadistan, read The Real Islam.

National Security Primers

• Part 2 Responding to the WMD threat
• Part 3 The Long War
• Part 4 The Unthinkable
• Part 5 The Real Islam