Failed analysts keep pushing failed policies. My latest in FrontPage:
AFP reported Saturday that “experts” say “Western powers fighting Islamist groups around the globe are condemned to a never-ending battle if they only tackle the symptoms and not the underlying causes of jihadist insurgency.” That is true, but these establishment “experts” have no idea of the actual underlying causes, and are recommending the same counterterror remedies that have failed again and again.
“The West is on the road to winning all the battles and losing the war,” warns Katherine Zimmerman, who wrote a recent report for the American Enterprise Institute. On that, Zimmerman is actually right. But she and her fellow analysts are clueless about how to win it. They demonstrate in this AFP article that they haven’t the first foggiest clue as to what those underlying causes of “jihadist insurgency” really are, and have learned nothing over the last seventeen years of failed analysis, failed policies, and failed foreign misadventures.
Katherine Zimmerman, who wrote a recent report for the American Enterprise Institute, says: “It’s easy to say, ‘We’re going to kill the person responsible for making the bomb.’ It is much more difficult to say that our partner government has disenfranchised this group and it’s one of the reasons why this person joins the terrorist group. And now he is the bomb maker.”
So the problem, you see, according to the “expert” Zimmerman, is that “our partner government has disenfranchised this group,” and these disenfranchised Muslims turn to jihad. If only we stopped disenfranchising Muslims, they wouldn’t turn to jihad. Zimmerman likely doesn’t know it, but in Islamic law the goal of jihad is to establish the rule of Sharia. So what she is recommending is that we give them their goal, the rule of Islamic law, so that they won’t have to fight for it.
Yes, it’s absurd, but it’s exactly what we did in both Afghanistan and Iraq: we fought wars to install Sharia Constitutions in both countries, ignoring the fact that Sharia directs Muslims to wage war against and subjugate non-Muslims. Did it lessen the jihad? Obviously not. The Sharia Constitutions ensured that neither country would or could ever be a reliable ally of the United States, and planted the seeds for the eventual disruption of the relationships in which the U.S. has invested so many trillions of dollars.
But John Allen, who heads the Brookings Institution, wants us to spend still more. He said that the problem is “a development issue, much more than a counter-terrorism issue.”
“A development issue,” i.e., we have to help Muslim countries develop, that is, give them money, and that will end the jihad.
But jihad activity doesn’t actually arise from poverty. The New York Times reported that “not long after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001…Alan B. Krueger, the Princeton economist, tested the widespread assumption that poverty was a key factor in the making of a terrorist. Mr. Krueger’s analysis of economic figures, polls, and data on suicide bombers and hate groups found no link between economic distress and terrorism.”
CNS News noted in September 2013 that “according to a Rand Corporation report on counterterrorism, prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2009, ‘Terrorists are not particularly impoverished, uneducated, or afflicted by mental disease. Demographically, their most important characteristic is normalcy (within their environment). Terrorist leaders actually tend to come from relatively privileged backgrounds.’ One of the authors of the RAND report, Darcy Noricks, also found that according to a number of academic studies, ‘Terrorists turn out to be more rather than less educated than the general population.’”
Said AFP: “If those grievances were not taken into account, they warned, the jihadist groups were sure to be back.” And the jihadists will be back, but largely because the “experts” have no idea how to counter them.
The fact that these “experts” are so far off track is not really a surprise. The American Enterprise Institute has always been clueless, and the Brookings Institution is thoroughly compromised and Qatar-funded. Yet these are the voices that are heeded and studied at the highest levels, while I am derided and dismissed. The only thing is, I am right and they are wrong, but by the time anyone in any position of authority realizes that, it is likely to be far too late.
infidel numero uno says
Hah! Money?!#? In their dreams All they get from me is a lead slug right between the eyes!
Ed Lee says
Absolutely correct. I am armed, proficient, and have already made the decision to drop the hammer on anyone, Muslim or not, who tries to impose Islam on me or my family. Presentation of factual information about the goals of Islam by Robert Spencer, David Wood, Jamie Glazov, and Anni Cyrus (just to name a few) is proving to be useless. The people who control the world – that is the people with the vast majority of the money – think that the Islamic threat is trivial and easily managed. Who holds 80% of all the money? Multinational corporations, not governments. Control of the world is NOT in the hands of people named Trump, Putin, Macron, Trudeau, Merkel, or any other politician.
Kay says
Yep. A controlled burn makes grass grow greener in the end but that matters little to the blade being consumed.
Some with power seem to think of us as nothing more than blades of grass.
Logic&Reason says
Islam’s supremacist aggression has been going on for 1400 years. Any resistance that comes its way is earned tenfold. Islamic leaders will always look to build new facades to hide its true agenda–which is laid out for all to see in its canonical scriptures. Non-Muslims apologists fall for the taqiyya because a. they’re ill-informed or downright ignorant; and b. they’re eager to blame the evil, oppressive West….which was not in play at Islam’s inception.
If Islam is indeed “perfect” then countries which implement Shari’ah as state rule should be models of civilization, peace, love, human rights, no? Immigrants should be flooding to them, converting to Islam! LOL!
One the facades are down, it’s easy to see what’s been at play since the early 7th century.
mortimer says
Agree L&R … Western dhimmi elites are SMUGLY UNINFORMED and CLUELESS about Islam’s motive and methods.
mortimer says
The US will never beat jihadism (an ideology) unless it fights JIHADISM *IDEOLOGICALLLY* !!!
JIHADISM and AL WALAA WAL BARAA are the *essential teachings* of Islam’s MOTIVE and METHODS.
For the COUNTERJIHAD to succeed, these *ESSENTIAL*, core teachings of Islam need to become COMMON KNOWLEDGE among the general public.
Jihad Watch readers should URGENTLY INFORM THEMSELVES about JIHADISM and AL WALAA WAL BARAA (Islam’s canonical hatred directed against the dirty KUFAAR).
Without a clear understanding of JIHADISM and AL WALAA WAL BARAA, the counterjihad will not win.
duh swami says
Give me enough money and power and I will soon rule over you…
Swell idea, ain’t it?
DHazard says
Yeah, she left out all the important steps. In the Muslim “How to…” series steps 7 – 58 involve the different ways a Muslim is expected to show their disdain towards non-Muslims. Most of this is not in the Quran so any sincere Muslim needs to attach themselves to an authentic scholar. They will tell you exactly how to do everything the way the Prophet (phlub) did, from urinating all the way to Muslim life hacks (e.g. use fishing wire to tie your left hand to an elastic waistband). Avoid embarrassing moments like when your knife fails to pierce tough neck skin and you have to borrow your Mom’s knife.
KWJ says
The Brookings Institute is a proponent of a governing body for the world and is obviously beholden to the jihadist OIC. One of the OIC’s demands and part of the Euro-Arab dialogue is giving money for development. No, they have all this oil money invested around the world (and for jihad purposes) and they should pay for their own development and learn how to develop. In no way should we hand them money for development when our own citizens need money.
It is ridiculous to attribute terrorism to “disenfranchisement” by the countries that spawn them when they are bred there with their religion. Also terrorists in Western countries have been born there and are no more or less disenfranchised then anyone else. Germany reports how Muslim children born there are already inculcated with sharia and anti-western values and jihad. Perhaps we should give Germany money for development?
People and governments need to stop supporting terrorism and countries like Saudi Arabia need to stop teaching, well, the Qur’an because they emphasize jihad and emulation of Muhammad.
They should also listen to what the terrorist group leaders say, and they are straightforward about it. The Brookings Institute is, as Robert says compromised, and another aider and abetter of those whose goal is Islamist expansionism and supremacy.
These comments are as dumb-sounding as saying terrorism is due to climate change and James Clapper saying that the Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular. These aren’t experts, they’re dhimmis.
Ray Jarman says
“A development issue,’ i.e., we have to help Muslim countries develop, that is, give them money, and that will end the jihad.” This is one of the easiest statements that I have ever seen that can be refuted. Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, The P.I., even Malaysia to a lesser extent have vibrant economies and yet the acts of terrorism continues on a daily basis. Even in a totally Islamic State such as Pakistan has experienced jihad within its own borders. Syria was very stable economically until the hatred of the Sunnis against the Shias was so great that they started an internecine which led to ISIS and tyrannical governments such as Turkey, Iran and Russia becoming involved. Having been to Syria just a year before the Obama election and his encourage of the so-called Arab Spring, I witnessed Jews, Christians, Kurds, Shias and Sunnis working side by side in the large sook in Damascus and the once beautiful city of Aleppo where Sunnis and Shias lived in very close proximity in comity to one another. As usual, if the U.N. has any thing to do with a project or even idea, it should be discarded out of hand.
underbed cat says
Lydia Church, Agree. Short comment and precisely smart.
UNCLE VLADDI says
Leftards still pretend poverty causes crime, when crime obviously causes poverty.
brane pilot says
The 70 year old Western policy of subsidizing rapid population growth in regions that cannot support large populations has borne fruit.
It is called failed states, mass migration and Islamic terrorism.
Now, after a lengthy, expensive study Western experts have determined that we need to give even greater subsidy to rapid population growth in marginal regions.
This really is the planet of the apes.