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Five Sept. 11 Suspects to Face Trial in New York

The Obama administration has announced it will try 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9-11 Gitmo detainees in a civilian federal court in New York, allowing them the protections of the U.S. Constitution even though they are not U.S. citizens.

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Four Radical Chinese Muslims Transferred to Bermuda

Four Chinese Uighers (radical Chinese Muslims) were recently transferred to Bermuda. Do you think it's a good idea to release Gitmo detainees to idyllic vacation retreats?

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June 2, 2008

Exclusive: How Dangerous Is Jihad Terror?

Newsweek Columnist’s Bizarre Statistical Gymnastics

Joel Himelfarb

"Are we safer" because of the Bush Administration's post-September 11 efforts against Islamist terror and its state sponsors? The political Left asks this question constantly and concludes that America couldn't possibly be - even though terrorists haven't attacked the American homeland in almost seven years.

Elsewhere in the world, however, violent Jihadism and its backers appear to be ascendant. All one has to do is see the rise of Sunni and Shi'ite terrorist networks in Iraq since 2003; Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Hezbollah's rise in Lebanon; Hamas' creation of a terror state in Gaza; the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Some, if not all, of these problems have worsened during the presidency of George W. Bush. So, the world seems to be getting more dangerous. How, then, can Bush (or John McCain, for that matter) possibly claim to be succeeding in the war on terror?

That's one liberal narrative: that the world is becoming less safe and that Bush's policies are failing. A different perspective, however, comes from Fareed Zakaria, a columnist for Newsweek and The Washington Post and a fixture on television talking-head shows. When it comes to American foreign policy, Zakaria is generally an orthodox liberal - a ferocious critic of the war in Iraq and a supporter of negotiations with Iran. But even though Zakaria is no fan of the Bush Administration, he hasn't bought into the notion that the terrorists are winning and that the world is collapsing around us.

In fact, in his latest Newsweek column, Zakaria wrote that Americans are overlooking some important successes. He pointed that a new study by Canada's Simon Fraser University reports the "extraordinary drop in support for Islamist terror organizations in the Muslim world over the past five years." It turns out that the longer Muslims are exposed to the gangsterism of al Qaeda and the like, the less they want to have to do with Jihadists. One poll taken in Afghanistan in 2007 showed support for Jihadist militants in that country to be only 1%. In Pakistan's North-West Frontier province, where al Qaeda has bases, support for Osama bin Laden fell from 70% in August 2007 to 4% in January 2008.

Over the past five years in Pakistan, public support for Jihad has fallen with each terrorist attack. "This pattern is repeated in country after country in the Muslim world," writes Andrew Mack, director of the Fraser study. "Its strategic implications are critically important because historical evidence suggests that terrorist campaigns that lose public support will sooner or later be abandoned or defeated."

As Zakaria noted, this is very good news. But he doesn't take the logical next step, which would be to question the liberal article of faith: that Bush and Cheney, heading an administration that systematically violates the "rule of law" in fighting terror, is driving legions of people around the world into the arms of our enemies.

Even so, had Zakaria been content to simply make his case that Jihadists are repelling millions of Muslims, his column would have been an excellent one. Unfortunately, he wasn't. Zakaria also tried to make an unsustainable argument that sounds like something out of DNC Chairman Howard Dean's talking points: that the threat from Jihadist terrorism is declining, but Americans don't realize that because mysterious dark forces have a vested interest in scaring Americans into an inordinate fear of terror. (The only difference between Dean and Zakaria is that Dean has no reticence about blaming Republicans for everything, while Zakaria danced around the issue in his column.)

Like the above-mentioned analysis from Simon Fraser University, Zakaria believes that statistics showing that the terror problem is worsening are distorted "because they count civilian casualties from the war in Iraq as deaths caused by terrorism." What? This argument is simply ridiculous. People are being kidnapped and beheaded. They are being shot and blown up in marketplaces and on buses. We have witnessed acts of indescribable barbarism being committed for religious and geopolitical reasons in Iraq. If these actions don't fit the definition of terrorism, I don't know what does.

Why would an intelligent man like Fareed Zakaria try to make such a ridiculous argument? I think he illustrates the bankruptcy of liberal elites. These people have become used to losing national elections in this country for 40 years - and losing them largely due to the American people's well-founded suspicion that they cannot be entrusted with the national security of this country. Even in 2008, with a weak economy, and an unpopular war and unpopular president, the Democrats will be hard pressed to retake the White House. To liberal elites, the reason why politicians like George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry lost was that the Republicans manufactured fears of Communism and Jihadism to win and hold onto the White House. And if this year's election pits John McCain against Barack Obama, that scenario could very well play itself out once again. This means Republican "scare" campaigns must be rebutted at all costs. And if it means that Americans have to pretend beheadings and bus bombings aren't really acts of terrorism for that political strategy to succeed, then so be it.

Joel Himelfarb is an editorial writer for TheWashington Times. The views expressed above are his own.

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