The un-usual suspects

By Clay Varney

With the recent foiled terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom and the subsequent investigation into the perpetrators, a long existing myth regarding terrorism can finally be put to rest. In seeking to explain the motivations behind terrorism, commentators have regularly expounded upon the supposed root causes of poverty and lack of education. However, with the recent arrests of several doctors involved in the attacks in the UK and Australia, this line of argument can no longer be referenced credibly. According to CNN, at least six doctors have either been detained or questioned in relation to the failed attacks. This development brings a strong slap in the face to proponents of the poverty/ignorance hypothesis as this case clearly demonstrates the fallacy of that proposal. Certainly, trained medical doctors cannot be said to be either poor or uneducated.

With this obvious refutation, one wonders if there will be a corresponding shift among counterterrorism experts regarding what causes the phenomenon. Hopefully, there will be a greater recognition of the role fanaticism plays in the committing of terrorist acts. This fanaticism manifests itself through a political ideology, Islamism, which seeks to implement its will on others through violent means. Additionally, little coverage is given, if any, to the influence Saudi-financed Wahhabi institutions have had in spreading this ideology that condones or even encourages terrorist actions.

Unfortunately, the recent plots represent a troubling development in the current struggle against jihadist terrorism as it proves that seemingly successful, well-adjusted Muslims can be seduced by the political ideology of Islamism into the killing of innocents. Any prospects of developing a successful profile of a terrorist have also been crushed. Though specific details have yet to emerge regarding the specific motivations and background behind the plot, Christopher Hitchens in an article for Slate magazine offers a few guiding points. He references the fact that a "car bomb might have been parked outside a club in Piccadilly because it was ‘ladies night’ and that this explosion might have been designed to lure people into to the street, the better to be burned and shredded by the succeeding explosion from the second car-borne cargo of gasoline and nails." Hitchens concludes by theorizing that the club was targeted specifically in order to kill a large number of club-going women.

Of course, such a target fits in well with the usual modus operandi. Regrettably, the foiled plots are par for the course for Islamists, who in their zeal for carrying out their political agenda concentrate much of their efforts on the subjugation of their own community’s women through honor killings, arranged marriages, and female circumcision. But, much like the true root causes of terrorism, these matters are downplayed if not outright ignored as well.