It’s Not the Bomb, It’s Not the Gun, It’s Not the Truck
Get rid of all those things, and you still have the problem. This week has seen a worldwide rash of stabbings and hackings, too.
BY CounterJihad · @CounterjihadUS | July 20, 2016
In the wake of the Nice terror attack, former US Special Forces Master Sergeant Jim Hanson told journalists that the use of the truck proved that we can’t stop this kind of terrorism by focusing on the method of killing. “It’s not guns, it’s not bombs, it’s not trucks,” he said, but rather, “the ideology of sharia and jihad that motivates them to kill.”
This week has borne him out on that point.
Most famously, an Afghan refugee — allegedly 17, but he arrived unaccompanied and without records — undertook to hack German train passengers with an axe. The German government, following the lead of Angela Merkel and defending her refugee policy, refused to refer to this attack as terrorism. The German media followed suit:
German media have been describing the event as an “attack,” not a “terror attack.” And the event seems even less like an orchestrated act of Islamist terror since there have been indications that the young man may have turned into a radical Islamist within only a few days after hearing about the death of a good friend back in Afghanistan.
But whatever the terminology may be: Many people see something systematic in the series of large and small attacks carried out without exception by Muslims. Many are afraid their own lives are at risk – and that’s the very point of terrorism.
As noted in the article, the young man clearly thought of himself as an actor in service to the Islamic State (ISIS). He not only filmed a video explaining his intentions and loyalties, he sent it to them so that they could claim him after the fact as one of their own. They likewise recognized his claim to be a citizen of their caliphate, and did indeed accept the legitimacy of his claim that he had the right to act on their behalf as a “soldier of the caliphate.”
This is not mere opportunism by ISIS, although of course it helps their cause to appear to have agents everywhere. The Islamic State honestly believes itself to be the legitimate government of all Muslims everywhere. It is part of their ideology that not only Western states but, even moreso, states in the so-called Muslim World should be overthrown and replaced by a new caliphate. They believe themselves to be that caliphate. When a Muslim like this young man stands up and strikes a blow in their name, they recognize him as one of their own warriors. That means that they broadcast, also, that his death in their cause is martyrdom entitled to the rewards promised by their reading of the faith.
Meanwhile, in France, a woman and her three daughters — one as young as eight — were stabbed at a seaside resort by a Moroccan Muslim for daring to appear in public in what he deemed insufficiently modest attire. The youngest girl was stabbed in the lung. The response by the French government has been to refuse to speculate on his motives, and to try to quash the reports that he had complained about their dress. French journalists are being less compliant than the German press about going along with the government’s attempt to put blinders on them.
In Ottawa, three incidents of stabbings by Muslims occurred within 30 hours. The press there has been quite compliant in not mentioning possible motives. But “knife jihad” is a known thing in Israel, where it has claimed the life of at least one US citizen as well as numerous Israelis. In China, Foreign Policy reports that at least a hundred Muslims have joined the Islamic State, and that multiple knife attacks against Chinese targets have been carried out by them.
It’s a mistake to focus on the tool. The real issue is the ideology.