The Muslim Brotherhood government of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is moving tanks and heavy arms towards the northern Sinai towards possible all-out battle with a gang that   kidnapped seven Egyptian security personnel four days ago.

Morsi has ruled out negotiating, saying there was “no room for dialogue with the criminals.” and that his government would not surrender to “blackmail.”

The abductors have not been identified but are thought to be jihadists who are demanding that Egypt release of political detainees.

The kidnap victims were seen on video, blindfolded and with their hands on their heads. One of them appealed to Morsi to agree to the captors’ demands.

The Sian has fallen into anarchy the past several years, particularly since the beginning of the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Bedouin tribes and  Al Qaeda and Hamas terrorists have carved out several areas of control in the Sinai, a major route for salve trade and trafficking in drugs and weapons.

I just finished one of the best books I’ve read in a long time, In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, which tells the story of Ambassador William Dodd, President Roosevelt’s first Ambassador to Hitler. The book chronicles the slow descent of Germany into Nazi tyranny. One of the most striking features of the narrative is the fear that slowly descends on the German populace as they become terrified of ever expressing an opinion about Hitler and his police state even in the company of close family and friends.

Yet Dodd and his family were utterly immune to such fear. Though they lived in a home that was owned by a Jewish banker; though they regularly hosted journalists who wrote critically of Hitler; though they drove by the home of Franz Von Papen – the deputy Chancellor –  to show their support even after he had been placed under house arrest by Hitler for his Marburg speech of June, 1934; though Dodd openly snubbed Hitler every year by refusing to attend the Nazi Nuremberg rally where Hitler was celebrated as a god, Dodd never had anything to fear. He did not have to worry that the S.A. would ransack his Berlin home in the middle of the night. He did not have to fear that his daughter Martha, who even had an affair with Gestapo head Rudolf Diels, would be summarily shot for her increasing disillusion with Hitler’s regime. He did not have to fear that the SS would arrest him on his frequent walks through the Tiergarten for a speech he gave on that made subtle reference to Hitler’s growing assault on freedom. And he did not have fear that roaming bands of Nazi thugs would attack him for his protests to the German Foreign Minister against unprovoked attacks that threatened the lives of Americans.

And why didn’t he fear? Because even a monster as evil as Hitler, arguably the most dangerous man that ever lived, wasn’t going to mess with the American Ambassador.

In fact, one of the stories told in the book is the day that Dodd took a walk with French Ambassador André François-Poncet in the Tiergarten when the latter told him he would not be surprised if he would be shot in the street by the S.S.

Dodd was astonished. It never occurred to him to ever worry so long as he was the American Ambassador and indeed Hitler and the Nazis never harassed Western Ambassadors.

It therefore matters that just 80 years later a bunch of terrorist thugs can think they can murder an American Ambassador in full site of the world without consequence. American diplomatic staff were once the safest people in the world, representatives of a superpower who would rain hell from the skies should you touch one of their diplomatic staff. But no more.

The growing revelations from the Congressional hearings on Benghazi that the Obama State Department watered down public statements on the attack in order to cleanse them of any mention of al Qaeda and terrorism is a travesty and shows a lack of moral will to give evil its proper name. ABC News and Fox News reported this past Friday that the departments talking points were revised a full 12 times to purge them of any mention of terrorism. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland asked the CIA to remove mention of their own security warnings about Benghazi.

According to ABC News the original paragraph read,

The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al Qaeda in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.

But Nuland was concerned that the line “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?”

I have earlier written how  Ambassador Susan Rice was utterly inappropriate to be chosen as Secretary of State based on her efforts to disassociate the word genocide from the Rwandan mass slaughters of 1994 so as not to commit the Clinton Administration to intervention.

Originally published at Rubin Reports.

There is something terribly and tragically and importantly symbolic about the Benghazi attack that may be lost in the tidal wave of details about what happened on September 11, 2012, in an incident where four American officials were murdered in a terrorist attack. This point stands at the heart of everything that has happened in American society and intellectual life during the last decade.

And that point is this: America was attacked once again on that September 11, attacked by al Qaeda in an attempt to destroy the United States—as ridiculous as that goal might seem. Yet the U.S. government blamed the attack on America itself.

Other reasons can be adduced for the official position that what happened that day was due to a video insulting Islam rather than to a terrorist attack, but this is the factor of overwhelming importance. It transformed the situation in the following ways:

–Muslims were the victims of American misbehavior, a point emerging from the administration’s wider worldview of U.S. aggression and Third World suffering, as in the lectures of all those left-wing anti-American academics and the sermons of Jeremiah Wright.

–“Hate speech” and racism (as “Islamophobia” is often reconfigured) was the cause of troubles, with the implication that while freedom of speech and such liberties should be defended they must be limited in some ways to prevent further trouble.

–America’s proper posture should be one of apology, as in the advertisements that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made for the Pakistani and other media.

–The “misblaming,” to coin a word, on the video showed terrorist groups that not only can they attack Americans but they can do so without fear of punishment or even of blame! As the House of Representatives’ hearings show, the misattribution of responsibility also delayed the FBI’s investigation, perhaps conclusively so.

–The exercise of American power has been the cause of America’s problems and not an excess of appeasement. The chickens—in Wright’s phrase—are merely coming home to roost. Yet once the video—which nobody in the Middle East was aware of—appeared there were in fact further anti-American riots in different countries, now over the video which Clinton and others made known, and in which dozens of people died. This showed that appeasement and apology caused worse problems.

–The solution to these Middle East conflicts required a change in U.S. policies in order to avoid further offense. This meant distancing from Israel and even historic Arab allies, showing respect and encouragement even for “moderate” Islamist movements, and other measures.

In short, this is the stance of blaming America and exonerating its enemies that has seized hold of the national consciousness.

Of course, parallel responses met the Boston bombing as the mass media and academics scrambled to give alternative explanations to the terrorists’ motives.

The truth is, however, extremely simple: The United States faces a revolutionary Islamist movement that will neither go away nor moderate itself. To understand this movement and its ideology, how it is and is not rooted in Islam, its weaknesses and divisions, the forces willing to help combat it, and ways to devise strategies to battle it is the prime international need for the moment.

It is as necessary to do these things for revolutionary Islamism today as it was to do the same things regarding Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s; and for Communism in the 1940s and 1950s.

Yet the U.S. armed forces and other institutions are forbidden from holding this inquiry.

There are, of course, additional issues raised, though many of them also have far deeper significance:

–The failure of the Obama Administration to defend and rescue Americans in Benghazi is equivalent to its failures to defend American interests around the world.

–The fear of using American power in Libya that day parallels the overall retreat from the traditional bipartisan policies of credibility, deterrence, and all the other things in a great power’s lexicon.

–The standpoint that it is better to let Americans die than to risk offending certain groups. That might seem harsh but when it was decided not to send a rescue mission that was precisely what was happening.

–A lack of competence by a president who didn’t know his duty and by high-ranking subordinates who would not remind him of that duty.

The Boston Marathon bombers had planned to stage a major attack on a crowded area of the city during July 4th Independence Day celebrations, but they struck on Patriots’ Day because they had assembled their pressure cooker bombs sooner than expected.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, whose brother Tamerlan was killed in  the massive manhunt for the perpetrators of the Marathon bombings, told the FBI that had planned grisly “fireworks” by attacking a large celebration along the city’s Charles River.

Having finished constructing the bombs in Tamerlan’s apartment ahead of schedule, they drove around Boston until they decided to strike at the finish line of the Marathon, where three people were killed. Many of the more than 260 who were wounded lost logs and arms.

One law enforcement official told The Washington Post that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s version may not be true because the bombs were so complex that it is not certain they could have built the bombs as quickly as they claim without outside help.

Both law enforcement officials expressed some skepticism about Tsarnaev’s account, saying that the complexity of the bombs made it unlikely that the brothers could have completed them as fast as he claimed.

“Maybe we will never know. This is the story that he is telling us,” the official said.

The younger Tsarnaev said he and his brother struck out of anger at the United States for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also were influenced by radical Muslim clerics who incite their followers to kill and be glorified by Allah.

Regardless of whether the brothers acted alone, and regardless of the fine legal point distinguishing between “terrorists” and “murders,” there is a basic similarity between them and terrorist organizations, particularly  Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas.

All three of these terrorist groups are involved in Gaza, which Hamas controls but with increasing difficulty because of their rivals’ appetite for blood.

That is a common thread, or gene, that seems to connect terrorists and murderers.

Hamas has amassed thousands of tons of explosives and advanced weapons far beyond what most people imagine. Hezbollah in Lebanon has stockpiled so many missiles it has been described as having more  than any government in the world outside of the United States.

Like the Tsarnaev brothers, these terrorist groups live by a creed of  “attack or perish.”

There mission in life is to kill Jews, Westerners, Christians, homosexuals and even Muslims who are in anyway linked to one of the above.

That is why every senior Israeli military officer involved with Gaza and Lebanon has said that it is only a matter of time until the “next round” will come and with worse consequences than the previous.

That’s is why a “ceasefire” agreement is only a pause, and why the “Second Intifada” is not the last.

When Hamas first began attacking Israelis more than 20 years ago, it was with primitive Kassam rockets. With each round of violence, their missiles reached deeper into Israel.

Everyone knows they had longer-range missiles, but the government agreed with “ceasefires” to calm down the terrorists – until their need for rage could not be contained any more.

Before the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign four years ago, Hamas struck Ashkelon and Ashdod.

Before and during the Pillar of Defense campaign last November, they struck Tel Aviv and  the outskirts of Jerusalem.

They have even more devastating weapons, such as anti-aircraft missiles than can down a commercial airline,. That is why military and civilians airlines have changed their landing and take-off patterns to steer clear of Gaza.

And that is why Dzhokhar and Tamerlan did not wait for the Fourth of July.

Unless terrorists and murders disarmed, they usually are driven buy their objective to use the rigger finger, and nothing usually stops them except bullets.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev no longer is around to attack more Americans in Boston, Times Square or anywhere else. Tamerlan probably die in jail if not executed.

No one knows if America is seething with a few, or dozens or hundreds or thousands of terrorist-in-the-making.

But wherever they are, like Hamas, Hezbollah and  Al Qaeda, they will attack as soon as they can – unless someone gets them first.

Here’s a follow up to to the discovery of a terror cell in Canada. Questions are now being asked there that highlight a series of governmental decisions about one (at least) of the two men accused of plotting to carry out a terrorist attack on an interurban train. They’re questions that ought to get some wider airing and they come from Canada’s minister of citizenship and immigration, Jason Kenney.

The questions are about Raed Jaser, 35, accused, along with Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of planning to derail a Via Rail passenger train in what the Canadian authorities are calling an “al Qaeda supported” attack. Terrorism-related charges [detailed here] have been brought against the two.

From a CBC report, the government minister framed his concerns this way.

* Mohamed Jaser, with his wife, his son Jaser and two other children, travelled from Germany where they had been living, equipped with fake French passports, arriving in Canada on March 28, 1993. They applied immediately for asylum as refugees. Jaser was a boy of 10. He had been born in the United Arab Emirates, though he did not hold UAE citizenship. * The family’s request for refugee status was denied. They appealed, and must have succeeded because the report says they eventually became Canadian citizens.

* Jaser, however, did not – evidently because of a proclivity for engaging in crime. He had acquired five separate fraud-related criminal convictions and was also convicted of making death threats by the time the citizenship application was heard. These offences rendered him ineligible for citizenship.

* In 2004, the Canadian government served a deportation order on him. In court – despite the government’s claims that he should remain in detention – Jaser’s lawyer successfully argued that Jaser could not be deported because, as a Palestinian, he was stateless (though he was born in the United Arab Emirites – see below).

* Some time after that, Jaser received a pardon – why is not clear – and granted permanent residency status in Canada.

Kenney says, as minister of citizenship and immigration, that the pardon and permanent residency given as gifts to the accused terrorist happened because of “old policies.” Canada had recently legislated the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, a law designed to make it easier for Canada to expel foreigners who have faced six months or more in jail for a crime committed in Canada.

Some time after Raed Jaser got permanent residence (according to Canada’s Global News), his own father

became worried enough about his son’s religious views to ask others in the community for assistance that apparently never came through, and another two before a Toronto imam approached police through a lawyer, concerned about Jaser’s influence on youth. By the summer of 2012, he was under RCMP surveillance as part of an investigation that would ultimately see him and 30-year-old Chiheb Esseghaier arrested, accused of terrorist conspiracy and plotting to attack a passenger train… [more].

The parents’ story [source] keeps coming back to their Palestinianism:

Raed Jaser’s father, Mohammed Jaser, says he was born in Jaffa; moved with his parents to Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip as a child. Egyptian authorities refused to provide citizenship. The mother says she is a Palestinian, though born in Saudi Arabia.

The two married when she was 16, and lived in Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. She attended secretarial and business administration school. Mohammed, the father, was granted legal residence in Jordan.

Raed’s younger brothers were born in Jordan. In 1966, the Jasers all moved to United Arab Emirates. Raed was born there.

Mohammed Jaser worked there in a garage, then as a school teacher, then to an advertising and publishing firm, then to Al Syasa, a political newspaper. he describes being terrorized by UAE authorities. “We lived in fear. Palestinians in the Gulf became the target of abuse, random arrests, torture and beatings… We lived as outsiders, in fear of growing and hardening anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments. Our lives were threatened and we were harassed.”

After 24 years in the UAE, the family moved to Germany in January 1991. “The Jaser children were denied asylum.” They again “lived as outsiders, in fear of growing and hardening anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments. Our lives were threatened and we were harassed.”

In a press conference Monday afternoon, Canadian authorities announced that two Al Qaeda linked suspects  – suspects who were directed and supported by al Qaeda in Iran – were arrested Monday morning, April 22.  At least one attack was intended to derail a New York to Toronto passenger train.  The attack was in the planning stage when the suspects were arrested.

Those arrested were described as an Al Qaeda linked-cell which had been engaged in plans for over a year to engage in major terrorist attacks. Their activities had been monitored since August of 2012.  The cross-border operations included the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the FBI and the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.

In response to questions during the press conference, the Canadian authorities revealed that the terrorists received direction and guidance from Al Qaeda in Iran.  They made clear, however, that there was no evidence of any connection to the Iranian government.

The two suspects arrested are Rahid Jasser and Shahid Esegehr, of Montreal.  Their bail hearing will take place tomorrow in Canada. The two are not Canadian citizens.

“I commend our Canadian counterterrorism partners, particularly the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, for their efforts in stopping a major terrorist plot which was intended to cause significant loss of human life including New Yorkers. During my years on the Homeland Security Committee it has been my privilege to work with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canadian intelligence services and all counterterrorism units in Canada,” said Congressman Peter King (R-NY).  King is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Counterintelligence & Terrorism Committee and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

It seems that my suspicions about the motives of the Boston terrorist bombers were correct. This was not some crazy person going wild. This was a deliberate act based on Islamist/Jihadist fervor. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and his younger other, Dzhokar carefully planned and executed it. Fortunately the death of one and capture of the other has to be one of the quickest end to a manhunt (of criminals of this magnitude) in U.S. history. It also seems to be clear that Tamerlan, a once assimilated Chechniyan who married an American woman, became a radicalized Islamist during a lengthy visit to his homeland.

It is still early in the investigation. But is unlikely that any new information will change the basic assumptions now being made. Radical Islam is behind the attack. I assume Dzhokar was somehow persuaded to join him in this effort by his older brother – who was somehow also able to convince him about about the justice of killing innocent people for “the cause.”

Everything that has been revealed about Dzhokar so far says “normal.” He was a popular out-going 19-year old; a completely naturalized citizen. He was enrolled in college, well adjusted and well liked. He was kind and considerate. There seemed to be no anger issues with this young Muslim. So far all those interviewed who knew him only had superlatives to say about him. They are shocked that he had anything to do with this. That a normal and seemingly well adjusted American kid can be so easily convinced to help commit a terrorist act of this magnitude is in and of itself is terrifying.

In this era of the ubiquitous surveillance camera, they were quickly identified as having placed the bombs. A manhunt ensued. Tamerlan was shot and killed in a confrontational major shootout with law enforcement officials. His younger brother Dzhokar was later captured alive although seriously wounded. Hopefully he will survive and will be interrogated.

There are a lot of unanswered questions. Are there any additional co-conspirators? What was their motivation? What precipitated their act? How could Dzhokar join his older brother so easily? Could this have been prevented with better security measures? How much liberty are we willing to give up for better security? …All good questions. But for me the one question that keeps coming up that I am not sure has an answer is how do we fight an idea?

As of now it seems that these two brothers were not a part of any organized terrorist group. They decided to act on their own motivated by the ideals of radical Islam.

These are the ideals that are behind every suicide bomber who blew themselves up in Israel. This is the ideology behind Hamas, Hizballah, and every other jihadist group in the world. This is what caused our problems Iraq after we eliminated Saddam Hussein and still causes our problems with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Just about every American soldier who was ever killed in the Middle East was killed because of Islamist radicalism. And let’s not forget 9/11. I don’t think there can be any doubt about that.

Yes, there are other non-Islamist radicals that can carry out terrorist bombings. That was made very clear by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma in April of 1995. But I don’t think it is disputable that Islamism is the biggest international threat to security in our day.

More than ever the focus needs to be on the idea rather than it does on any given group carrying out terror. Whether it is al Qaeda or any other group. This should be painfully obvious after the events in Boston last week. You don’t need more than one person to carry out a major act of terror. Not that al Qaida should be ignored. But it is the idea that motivates them that ought to be the main focus of counter terrorism.

This is something that anyone with half a brain should have known for the longest time. But in our politically correct world, connecting terror to a specific religion is counter to one of America’s most sacred values, religious tolerance. Government officials are therefore loathe to mention Islam and terror in the same sentence. While I agree that we ought not castigate an entire religion for the acts of a few, it makes no sense to overlook the obvious.

I am the first to say that the vast majority of Muslims living in America are not terrorists. Most of them love this country and want to live peaceful lives while practicing their religion freely. This does not mean that they aren’t anti-Israel. I’m sure that most of them are. They buy into the narrative of Israeli occupation being the source of all evil. But most of them would never support terror in pursuit of what they perceive to be justice for the Palestinians. But the root of worldwide terror is in Islam’s radical religious element. Ignoring this simple fact because of political correctness may be our biggest folly.

That said Muslims in this country ought not be persecuted. On the contrary. They have the same right as anyone else to pursue happiness and practice their religion in this country. But even they must realize the extent of Islamist extremism. Extra vigilance about Muslims living in this country must be part of our security considerations. Muslims themselves can be just as easily victimized by terrorist bombers as anyone else. A truly patriotic Muslim should therefore be the first to condemn it and understand why their community gets more scrutiny. They should welcome that. I’ll bet that some of them actually do welcome it.

If there is any silver lining here, it is that the media will hopefully finally realize what I have from the very beginning. That it is Islamism that is the enemy and not al Qaeda. Al Qaida is but one tool of many dedicated to the cause. There must be hundreds more like them. Who knows how many sleeper cells there are! Some Jihadist groups might only have two members as was most likely the case with the Tsarnaev brothers. There are a number of Jihadist websites that are dedicated to recruiting innocent Muslims into their cause and provide simple instructions on how to build devastating bombs with easily obtainable household items.

How stupid must the media have been not to have seen all of this till now? These websites did not happen yesterday. Well at least now it is being noticed. Much of the commentary I’ve seen since the bombing seems to finally be getting it. And that is a good thing.

I just hope that this new realization does not wear off so that we end up going back to a political correctness that ignores the real danger. If it does, then we will have learned nothing from what happened in Boston last week.

Visit Emes Ve-Emunah.

The commentariat universally rejected my Apr. 11 column arguing that Western governments should “Support Assad” on the grounds that he is losing and we don’t want the Islamist rebels to win in Syria but prefer a stalemate. An Arabic website in France threatened me.

Fine. But the Wall Street Journal today reports in “U.S. Fears Syria Rebel Victory, for Now” by Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes that the Obama administration is in fact following my counsel. To start with, the U.S. government fears “an outright rebel military victory”:

Senior Obama administration officials have caught some lawmakers and allies by surprise in recent weeks with an amended approach to Syria: They don’t want an outright rebel military victory right now because they believe, in the words of one senior official, that the “good guys” may not come out on top.

Of course, fearing a rebel victory gets in the way of ousting the current regime, its goal, leading to a self-contradictory muddle:

This assessment complicates the White House’s long-standing push to see President Assad step from power. It also puts a spotlight on the U.S.’s cautious approach to helping the opposition, much to the frustration of U.S. allies including France and the U.K., which want to arm Syria’s moderate rebels. The result of this shift, these officials say, is the U.S. has sought a controlled increase in support to moderate rebel factions. … “We all want Assad to fall tomorrow, but a wholesale institutional turnover overnight doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” a senior U.S. official said. “The end game requires a very careful calibration that doesn’t tip the meter in an unintended way toward groups that could produce the kind of post-Assad Syria that we aren’t looking for.”

Trouble is, Washington is attempting to thread a needle that it lacks the finesse to achieve:

Administration officials fear that with Islamists tied to al Qaeda increasingly dominating the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, too swift a rebel victory would undercut hopes for finding a diplomatic solution, according to current and former officials. It would also shatter national institutions along with what remains of civil order, these people say, increasing the danger that Syrian chemical weapons will be used or transferred to terrorists.

…

Officials say it will require delicate maneuvering to restrain the influence of radicals while buying time to strengthen moderate rebels who Western governments hope will assume national leadership if Mr. Assad can be persuaded to leave. … By strengthening moderates, the U.S. wants to put pressure on Assad supporters to cut a deal that would preserve governing institutions. …

Comments: (1) Obviously, I am pleased to learn that the Obama administration quietly has a adopted a sensible policy toward Syria. (2) Let’s hope that its unrealistic plan to guide the “good guys” to rule the country will fade with added experience; and that it will instead follow a balance-of-power approach such as I advocate.

Originally published at DanielPipes.org and The National Review Online, The Corner, April 17, 2013, under the title, “US Fears Syria Rebel Victory, for Now.”