The Evil Whose Name May Not Be Spoken

Today's major threat is one well understood, but one we aren't supposed to mention.  If this sounds weird consider the NY Times of May 23rd, 2013.  More specifically, consider the following three stories:

Page A10, World Briefing:  "Sweden: Riots Continue in Immigrant Neighborhoods --
Hundreds of young people burned cars and attacked police officers this week in three nights of riots in immigrant neighborhoods of Stockholm, Sweden't capital."

Let's stop here for a moment.  The NY Times, adds, for those who don't already know this, that the place that's experienced the rioting, Stockholm, also happens to be Sweden't capital.  However, the exact locations in Stockholm, where the rioting took taken place, were referred to simply as "immigrant neighborhoods."   The Times saw no need to mention that these immigrant neighborhoods are, by and large, Muslim neighborhoods -- neighborhoods to which Muslims have flocked from various Islamic nations to enjoy Sweden's social entitlements.  These immigrant neighborhoods are, essentially, Islamic communities.

So why the rioting?  "The riots appear to have been started by the police killing of a 69-year old man wielding a machete in (the neighborhood of) Husby this month, which prompted accusations of police brutality."  So the man wielding the machete was 69 -- good to know.  But, what about this 69-year old man wielding a machete?  What kind of 69-year old goes around wielding a machete?  Isn't that dangerous?  And, what's with the machete?  Hint, hint: Muslims favor something large and sharp when they decide to commit a bit of mayhem.  (Of course, serious kitchen cutting tools including a meat cleaver were used by two Muslims who hacked to death an unarmed British soldier in London.  See below.)

This sorry kind of reporting may not be entirely the fault of the NY Times.  They very likely took the story from a Swedish source and the Swedes are, if anything, more politically correct than the Times.

Page A26 Court Documents Detail A Deadly Family Feud From Brooklyn to Pakistan
"She (Amina Ajmal) fled her husband and her family, sneaking out of her home in Pakistan to take sanctuary in the American Embassy, which then whisked her to a secret hideout in the United States."
Amina, having been born in America,  was "an American citizen who said she had ben held captive for years by her own relatives in Pakistan and forced to marry a man there who only wanted an American visa."

A transcript of a recorded phone call her father made to Amina has her father saying the following, "I will not end this until I find you.  I will kill their entire family."

Per the article, "(Two people) (r)elatives of the man who had helped her escape ... were gunned down while riding a motorcycle through the streets of Gujrat."

Further transcripts of Mr. Choudhry, Amina's father,  has him saying the following: "Even if I did kill him, isn't a person supposed to kill that being, when he finds out that his daughter ran away because of him? .... My name is tainted everywhere in newspapers, on TV channels, that I am a man with no honor, my daughters are whores."

"The Brooklyn house (of Mr. Choudhry)" the NY Times goes on to explain, " (is) a modest, cluttered home full of children's toys and adorned with verses from the Koran ........"

Mr. Choudhry is not without supporters.  One individual (a member of the Pakistani National Assembly" wrote in an affidavit that Mr. Choudhry's  family was 'famous for helping the poor people of the area, and always stood for the rights of women in our society.' "

So, what have we here, a good Muslim, a Muslim who helps the poor, attempting to redeem his "honor?"

Page A6 'Barbaric' Attack in London Renews Fears of Terror Threat  -- Man Near Barracks Is Hacked to Death    "LONDON ---  In an attack that raised new fears of terrorism in Britain, a man walking near a military barracks in south London on Wednesday was rammed by a car and then hacked to death by two knife-wielding assailants, according to witness accounts carried by British news media."

"ITV News showed a video taken with a cellphone at the scene in Woolwich, in which a man who appears to be in his 20s or early 30s holds a cleaver in one of his bloodied hands.  He offers what seems to be a political message before the police arrive."

"Organizations representing Britain's 2.5 million Muslims were quick to condemn the attack."

Three points:  (1)  The incidents above all involved Muslims creating mayhem because of their understanding of their Muslim faith,  (2) Muslim organizations have in some cases spoken out against  acts perpetrated in the name of Islam, and (3) news articles, such as those cited here, largely skirt the role of Islamic religious behavior in these various atrocities.  In the case of Swedish media, no mention is made of Islam although a close reading of the news makes abundantly clear that the rioting was by Muslims in response to the fatal shooting of a Muslim waving a machete.  And then there is the Pakistani man in Brooklyn, who allegedly ordered the killing of individuals in Pakistan to redeem his "honor," in pursuance of his code of proper behavior.  Where does one acquire such a code, especially if one lives in a home that features framed sayings from the Koran?

Terror is what you experience when a tsunami rushes towards you.  Terror is what you experience when your airplane has to make an emergency landing.  Terror is what you feel as a gunman demands your wallet.  But, the terror on which we are supposedly waging a war are not from acts of nature, or something one experiences when one's plane appears not to be performing properly.  Nor is it when you find yourself threatened by a criminal.  The war, such as it is, represents our effort to defend ourselves against Islamic extremism.  It is the hostility of Muslims being directed against non-Muslims or towards Muslims of a different persuasion.

The value of calling Islamic terrorism what it is is that it would hopefully prompt stronger action from moderate Muslims.  Who better than a Muslim to preach to a fellow Muslims what is allowed by their mutual faith and what is not.  It is unseemly for one faith to preach to another.  Islamic terrorism is, or should be, a challenge first and foremost to fellow Muslims.  Yes, they have on occasion spoken out against fanatical behavior.  But they must do more -- far, far more.