Institutionalized and entrenched Lysenkoism. “State Dept. Still Downplaying Religious Element in Terrorist Threat Advisory,” by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, February 21:
(CNSNews.com) — A State Department “worldwide caution” updating U.S. citizens about potential terror threats has little to say about the fact that most of the terrorist groups targeting Americans profess themselves to be inspired by Islam.
The 2,000-plus word memo released this week does not use the word “Muslim” at all. “Islam” is used only where it appears in the actual name of a militant group (such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan), and in reference to “anti-Islamic videos and cartoons,” which the department says were linked to some anti-Western violence last September.
The memo uses the term “Islamist” only once — to describe extremist groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba that are active in South Asia.
Elsewhere the advisory is silent on the religious/ideological motivation driving the majority of anti-Western terrorist groups.
Yet, of the terror organizations it refers to, all but one are Islamist-oriented. They are al-Qaeda and “affiliated organizations,” including al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al-Shabaab in Somalia; the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan; Hezbollah in Lebanon; the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Islamic Jihad Union and the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement in Central Asia; and in South Asia, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Harakat ul-Mujahidin, Indian Mujahideen and unnamed “indigenous sectarian groups” — which could refer either to Islamic groups (such as the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi), or possibly radical Hindu groups.
The sole non-Islamic entity among the groups listed is the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), a secular, far-left organization that claimed responsibility for a bomb at the entrance to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey on February 1.
The department’s worldwide caution also does not specifically mention the fact that in some countries, such as Nigeria and Iraq, Christians and churches repeatedly have been picked out as terrorists” targets.
(Where potential terror targets are named, there is a reference to “places of worship” — no religion indicated — along with others such as hotels, clubs, restaurants, schools, sports venues, business offices, public areas and tourist destinations.)
In Nigeria, it says, “[t]he loosely organized group of factions known as Boko Haram continues to carry out significant improvised explosive device and suicide bombings in northern Nigeria, mainly targeting government forces and innocent civilians; attacks have increased since their attack on the U.N. building in the capital of Abuja last year. The president of Nigeria declared a state of emergency in certain areas in response to activities of extremist groups.”
The worldwide caution does not note that Christians have been the primary target of Boko Haram, which has vowed to cleanse northern Nigeria of Christians in its “jihad” and has also demanded that Nigeria’s Christian president convert to Islam or resign….