The Patriot Post® · 'Lone Wolf Attack'? Wrong!

After the latest Islamist assault, let us reiterate the proper interpretation of such attacks.

As noted in my column, Islamic Jihad – Target USA, the most likely near-term type of attack against civilian and military personnel on our turf, will be similar to the conventional Islamist assaults in the Middle East – mass shootings, vehicular assaults or homicidal bombings. This type of attack is low tech but effective in terms of instilling public fear with the long-term goal of extorting policy change. However, a note of caution about the predictable “analysis” that will follow these attacks. Government and media analysts alike will assert 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 14 people (including a child before birth) 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. Barack Hussein Obama was right when he told Americans, "We don’t know all the answers yet” and cautioned against “jumping to conclusions.”

But now we do “know all the answers,” and the indisputable conclusion is that these acts are directly tied to Islamic jihad and the worldwide caliphate that Islamist extremists are seeking to establish. 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 Muslim leaders, who would like to be perceived as legitimate representatives of Islam, offer little condemnation of Islamic violence. Their silence is deafening.

Despite the incontestable fact that the jihadi ideology connects all terrorist acts committed by Islamists, during Obama years in office, as was the case in during the Clinton administration years, he and his lockstep media outlets insisted Islamic attacks were not tied to established Islamic terrorist groups.

They describe Islamist assailants as “lone wolf” actors or “radicalized,” and those mischaracterizations constitute a lethal misunderstanding of the Jihadi threat. Describing their attacks as “criminal activity” or “workplace violence” is asinine.

Clearly there is a double standard when the Left and their media outlets characterize anarchist acts of terrorism, such as the tragic bombing in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh from New York, and Terry Nichols from Michigan. They were, correctly, accused of being aligned with “radical anti-government groups” even though they took no orders from anyone – they planned and executed the Oklahoma attack on their own. Nobody accused McVeigh or Nichols of being “lone wolves.”

Until Islamist attackers are recognized for what they are – part of a worldwide network connected by ideology, the result will be that Islamist terrorism will propagate unabated.