Counter-Terrorism: The People Smugglers Are Getting Rich

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November 3, 2015: Denmark is joining many other European countries by adopting new laws that make it more difficult for local Moslem immigrants to participate in terrorist activities overseas. In Denmark it will soon be a crime to fight for a foreign cause outside the country and the penalties include loss of Danish citizenship or simply deportation if the offender is not a Danish citizen. Children born of migrants will no longer automatically become citizens. In other words migrants will have to prove they are worthy of being Danes before being allowed to stay in the country and become citizens. Those who join Islamic terrorist organizations are clearly not wanted but in many European nations the existing laws made it difficult to prosecute migrants who become Islamic terrorists.

What’s happening in Denmark is part of a trend. Since 2001, it's become more difficult for migrants, especially Moslems, to stay in Europe. More of these refugees are getting deported back to the old country. And those wanted by the United States are getting extradited, although only after the Americans promise not to send the accused to Guantanamo, or to execute them. Other than that it's good riddance. The Europeans need all the jail cells they can get, because more and more of their own Moslems are crossing the line, and getting locked up. Despite decades of good intentions and accepting millions of Moslem refugees Europeans are realizing that they have caused more problems than they hoped to solve.

Since 2001 opinion polls of European Moslems indicated that several percent of them have a favorable attitude towards Islamic terrorism. The actual percentage varies from year to year and country to country. As many as twenty percent believe that suicide bombing, and similar violence against civilians can sometimes be justified to defend Islam. A similar percentage have witnessed other Moslems expressing, or calling for, support of Islamic radicalism and terrorism. Most Moslems are concerned about the rise of Islamic radicalism among local Moslems while also tolerating many local Moslems who support such violence.

Moslems often stress that attacks that are "justified" are mainly those against Israel. Moslem media and politicians have been preaching virulent anti-Semitism for over a century now, and it only got worse when Israel was established in 1948. This Moslem propaganda is pretty nasty stuff, and you can pick it up on al Jazeera or the Internet, although the worst of it is only available on Arab language sites. Al Qaeda, which originally did not see Israel as a primary target, eventually changed its mind when it found that Moslems conditioned to hate Israel can be converted into general purpose Islamic terrorists. This anti-Semitism often expresses itself in the form of physical assaults on Jews or damage to Jewish religious or educational buildings.

In Europe there are about 15 million Moslems. American Moslems are much more successful economically, and optimistic about living in a non-Moslem culture, than their more numerous European counterparts. The European Moslems are about twice as likely to justify terrorist acts. European Moslems are much less optimistic about their prospects in a non-Moslem culture. For that reason, Islamic leaders who back an Islamic takeover of Europe are quite popular in European Moslem communities.

Countries with higher percentages of Moslems also tend to have a higher proportion of people in favor of Islamic terrorism. There, the main reason for such violence is the "defense of Islam." Despite the fact that Moslems are attacking non-Moslems all over the world, Moslem media and politicians get away with proclaiming that Islam is "under attack." This contradiction is hardly recognized in the West, which is supposed to be the chief aggressor. But in the Moslem media, there are endless screeds calling on Moslems to help defend Islam. How can this be? A lot of it has to do with cultural attitudes towards logic and fantasy. Even in the United States, you have a lot of people who believe in conspiracy theories, including ones about the September 11, 2001 attacks being a plot by the U.S. government to get the nation into a war. This is believed by a majority of people in some Moslem majority nations, and a quarter of U.S. Moslems, do not believe that Arabs were responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks, despite forensic evidence, and al Qaeda leaders bragging about it on videos.

While many Europeans believed Islamic terrorism in their midst was caused by the American invasion of Iraq, the local police knew better. Islamic terrorism has been a problem in Europe for over three decades, and in the 1990s it was getting worse. After September 11, 2001, and especially after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it was fashionable for more Moslems, especially young ones, to declare America an "enemy of Islam."

More thoughtful Moslems realized that the Islamic terrorists were screwing up things for everyone. This has actually helped curb many returning (from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia or wherever) European Moslem Islamic terrorists because their families point out that more terrorist violence in Europe risks seeing more calls for all Moslems to be expelled. While non-Moslem Europeans see that as very unlikely, the Moslem migrants come from a region where that approach is practiced regularly. But because of all the Islamic terrorist violence all Moslems were now tainted. European Moslems are also well aware that Islamic terrorists spend most of their time killing Moslems in Moslem countries. This was nothing new for most Moslems, because this kind of terrorism had been going on for over a decade before 2001. Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan were all suffering from Moslem-on-Moslem violence in the 1990s. All in the name of religion.

Europe has about six times as many Moslems as the United States, and the ones in Europe are rather more into Islamic terrorism than their brethren across the Atlantic. This is because of the widespread prejudice in Europe, and isolation from the terrorism back in the old country. Islamic terrorism is easier to admire if it is far away. Moreover, American police came down hard on Islamic radicals after September 11, 2001. That, plus the patriotism of most U.S. Moslems, led to lots of imprisonments and deportations (many U.S. Moslems were illegal aliens).

In Europe, the Moslem populations were often allowed to exist as a very foreign presence. Sort of ethnic enclaves, and within these areas Islamic radicalism flourished. There were only a few terrorist attacks, and it was only because the security forces hustled that there weren't more. While (most of) the local politicians continued to preach ethnic diversity, they were told by their security people that over one percent of their Moslems were willing to get involved in terrorist activities, and that there were thousands of European Moslems that needed to be watched. These included Islamic radicals who had fled the United States, or the Middle East. Europe was a convenient place for Islamic radicals to hide out. The social welfare benefits were excellent. If an Islamic radical could afford it, his wife (or wives) and kids could be brought in, and the European governments would take care of them. However, after September 11, 2001, it was no longer easy to get in as a political refugee. But there were professional people-smugglers who, for a fee, could get just about anyone into Europe. These days the people smugglers are getting rich.