Radicalized terror

By Jim Killebrew

[January 10, 2015]  The media, especially the Fox News Network, has been critical of the Administration not using the term, "Radical Islamic Terrorist" to describe the attack in Paris, France. Apparently many believe the Islamic religion has been hijacked by radical jihadists who are speaking for the religion as they go about their terrorist activities. Once again, in the beginning of the attack there was speculation the shooters in Paris were "self-radicalized." This, in a country where approximately twenty percent of the population is now Muslim.

It seems this term "self radicalized" is being tossed around a lot intimating that people who are already in the country where they initiate a terrorist attack are somehow independently, without the help of anyone outside their sphere of influence is helping them to become "radicalized" to engage in terrorist activities. This was the almost immediate conclusion the Administration drew regarding the two men who were charged with the Boston Marathon bombing; they were "self radicalized."

That seems almost like an "oxymoron" where a person can become influenced to the extent of being "radical" about some cause without there even being a cause of which to be a part. In the case of the Boston bombing where bombs were made, detonation devices were constructed, certain materials were used in combination that closely resembled the same combination used in other bombings in other parts of the world, containers to carry the explosive material were common to other bombings in the Middle East. Of course, when three other people were arrested in connection with the two who carried out the bombing, it became known there was a greater "network" than simple self-radicalization. Not being an expert in these matters, it still seems that just on the surface of the evidence one would have to at least consider those who carry out these types of terrorist activities may not have been working alone.

Therefore, as in the Boston bombers incident, if all of those similarities exist, the components, type of explosives, canisters (pressure cookers), types of shrapnel, the older brother traveling to Russia for six months, reading and studying the material published by radicals in Islam, then how could the Administration conclude within just hours of the bombing and arrest of the one brother that they were "self radicalized"? Likewise, during the Paris terrorist attack, America's immediate response was described by the White House Press Secretary as a "terrible act of violence." A short time later the President framed the attack as a "cowardly evil attack." We have since learned at least one of the brothers who carried out the attack in Paris trained in Yemen.

The American media cannot be taken off the hook for trying to deny the facts of the attacks such as the ones in Boston and Paris. In some instances, when the incidents were reported, they were couched in perceptions of those who would blame the victims for having engaged in some terrorist conduct against the Muslim community as to deserve what they got. There seems to be a ubiquitous attempt from the liberal media to deflect the blame from the perpetrators and place it on those who were simply going about their business just before they were attacked and killed. Along with the Administration the liberally-slanted media seems to favor the position of refraining to call these attacks in Boston, Paris, and even those in Canada and Australia, the work of Radical Islamic terrorists, who for the most part, are connected to the larger terrorist network being carried out all over the world by ISIS, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, and the Palestinian state. The terror is real; the terror is deadly, and it needs to be identified for what and who it is.

Could it be that the Administration believes this has to be the conclusion in order to fit the narrative the Administration has projected? The Administration maintains they have destroyed the capability of terrorist actions world-wide. If so, it seems like a very dangerous position to turn a blind eye to extended investigations, restricting theories of cause to just a narrow narrative and shutting down interrogation efforts prematurely to curtail the collection of further threats. Those actions, it seems, could put the citizens of America and the world in further danger.

[By JIM KILLEBREW]