Stars and Stripes

Our occasional guest-essayist Nick McAvelly turns his attention from the UK to undertake a formal logical analysis of the American media’s coverage of Islamic terrorism since 9/11.

Stars and Stripes
by Nick McAvelly

There have been multiple terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11. Whenever an attack is carried out and the perpetrators are Muslims, the assertion is inevitably made in the traditional media that not all Muslims are terrorists. This is obviously true, but it is irrelevant. If an A proposition (All S are P) is false, it does not follow that the corresponding particular affirmative proposition (Some S are P) is false.

This logical principle can be illustrated using an everyday example. Obviously, the assertion that all cats are marmalade coloured (All S are P) is false. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any marmalade cats, or that there isn’t one living at Chartwell right now, in accordance with Winston Churchill’s wishes.[1] If someone visited Chartwell and responded upon seeing the cat in question by saying, ‘Not all cats are marmalade cats’, the only thing you could say to that would be: ‘What’s your point?’

The truth of the matter is, where the subject term is Muslims, that term is not distributed, and the predicate term is men who have committed acts of violence and terrorism, the I proposition (Some S are P) is true. The frequency with which that I proposition is shown to be true by so-called ‘radicalised’ individuals arising from within the Islamic community should be of concern to everyone in America.


The I Proposition — Some S are P

In 2010, the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire instructed its readers that, in order to avoid being caught by American security measures, they should not attempt to execute a ‘spectacular’ event like 9/11, but instead, should carry out smaller scale attacks.[2] The magazine specifically recommended making an IED from a pressure cooker and running people down with a 4WD.[3]

Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, a graduate of the University of North Carolina, had already thought of that. On March 3d 2006, he drove a rented SUV into a group of students at the university, hitting nine people and sending six of them to the hospital. Taheri-azar was reported as saying that he hated Americans and Jews, that he carried out his attack in order to punish the American government for how they treated Muslims, and that he intended to kill his targets. According to the local press, Taheri-azar claimed to have read the Koran 15 times, and a student who knew him when he attended UNC was reported as saying that he was deeply committed to Islam.[4]

On 1st June 2009, Abdulhakim Muhammad, a Memphis-born convert to Islam, drove past an Army recruiting station in Little Rock Arkansas and opened fire on two American soldiers with a semi-automatic rifle. Muhammad killed Private William Long and seriously injured Private Quinton Ezeagwula, two young men who had finished their basic training just two weeks earlier. When he was arrested, Muhammad had several firearms in his truck, so he had the means to carry out his attack, and he certainly had the opportunity to carry out a drive-by shooting on a soft target. Muhammad was jailed for life without parole in July 2011. Before he was sent down, Muhammad wrote to the judge and explained his motives. In that handwritten note, Muhammad stated that he was engaged in jihad, and his actions were justified by the doctrines of Islam.[5]

Eljvir Duka, one of the men convicted of conspiring to kill American soldiers in the plot to attack Fort Dix, also stated that he was engaged in jihad. Serdar Tata, a co-conspirator of Duka’s, stated that he was acting in the name of the Islamic deity Allah. It was acknowledged by the FBI that although they could find no connection to any Al Qaeda operatives, the men convicted of conspiring to kill American soldiers had been inspired by the same radical Islamic ideology.[6]

In September 2009, an American convert to Islam named Michael Finton, aka Talib Islam, pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction after he tried to blow up a courthouse in Illinois. Upon his conviction, he was described by the Assistant Attorney General as having been under the influence of a violent and radical ideology.[7]

Faisal Shazad was sentenced to life imprisonment for an attempted terrorist attack in Times Square in May 2010 after he pleaded guilty to ten charges, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. He explained his motives by saying that he was a Muslim who was defending his religion and if he was given power over a thousand lives, he would end them all for the sake of the Islamic deity Allah.[8]

In April 2011, Farooque Ahmed, an American of Pakistani origin, pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization and collecting information to assist in planning a terrorist attack on a transit facility. He was sentenced to 23 years imprisonment. Ahmed had carried out reconnaissance on Metrorail stations in Arlington, Virginia, home of the Arlington National Cemetery, the Pentagon Memorial, the Marine Corps War Memorial and the USAF Memorial, and had indicated to an undercover agent where bombs should be placed on Metrorail trains in order to kill the most people.[9]

In April 2013, Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos Almonte, two men from New Jersey, were sentenced to over twenty years in prison each for conspiring to join the terrorist group Al Shabaab. According to the New York Times, Alessa had talked to an undercover agent about taking part in jihad and beheading people on camera before his arrest at Kennedy International Airport.[10]

In the wake of the most recent terrorist attack in California, Donald Trump has suggested that as a short term measure, America should stop Muslims from entering the country until the authorities ‘figure out what the hell is going on’. In order to assess this proposal, it is important to understand that being a Muslim is a necessary condition of becoming a jihadist. This logical assertion is true because the foundational beliefs of Islam are shared by all Muslims, and the development of a jihadist’s belief system can only take place within an Islamic framework. No non-Muslim will ever become a jihadist. To put this another way, where the subject term is ‘Muslims’ and the predicate term is ‘jihadists’, the A proposition (All S are P) may very well be false, but where the subject term is ‘jihadists’ and the predicate term is ‘Muslims’, the A proposition is true.


The A Proposition — All S are P

As a matter of straightforward logic, if a set of necessary conditions must obtain for a particular event to occur, then preventing any of those necessary conditions will stop that event from occurring. So Trump’s proposal would be effective, for that reason.

Such a policy would prevent some would-be immigrants from realising their personal dream, in that they would have to stay in their own country and live their own lives. In this regard they would be exactly the same as everyone else in the world who does not, and never will have, the opportunity to go and live in another country. I looked at the points system used by Australia to control immigration into its country not too long ago, and discovered that I was not eligible to emigrate to the land ‘down under’. So I’ll just stay where I am, and live my own life. Anyone who is unable to emigrate, whatever the reason, will just have to do the same. And that’s really not such a big deal, at the end of the day.

Playing devil’s advocate, it could be said that there are some genuine refugees from war-torn areas who would like to come and live in America. The correct response to that would be to point out that if America ever did take the proposed course of action as a short term measure, she would simply be following the lead of those Islamic states in the Middle East who have effectively closed their borders to such individuals.[11] In short, Trump is only proposing that America ought to do what those Islamic countries have already done.

Americans should remember that the state’s primary duty is to ensure the safety of its own citizens. That is the essential function of any state, and if the American state fails to carry out that aspect of its duties, then it is no longer a legitimate political entity. And the American state has failed to protect its own citizens, as we can see by the long list of terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam since September 11th 2001.

The fact that someone running for office would even make such a proposal is a clear indication that something is seriously wrong in America today. The current administration’s wishy-washy approach to this problem over the years has allowed the situation to deteriorate to such an extent, it can now be argued that the American state has failed in its essential purpose and is no longer a legitimate political entity. So never mind if people in other countries experience a transient emotion (a.k.a. ‘feel offended’); they’ll get over it. Never mind if people have to live in their own countries, because there is nothing too exceptional or troubling about that. That is the default position. What matters here, and what ought to be the primary concern for everyone, is that American citizens are being murdered in the street. This is real; this is happening. Innocent people are losing their lives, their potential, everything they could have been. That has all been taken away from them, and from us — by jihadists. And some people might not want to face the truth, but those jihadists were Muslims.

As someone who doesn’t live in America, I’m fairly indifferent to the practical aspects of Trump’s proposal, and I have no firm opinion as to whether it is right in principle. It’s not something that’s going to affect me directly, so I don’t care too much about it. What is interesting to me is not that Trump proposed limiting immigration, but that he said this would be a short term measure that would only last until the American authorities had ‘figured out’ the whole jihadist problem. And this is interesting because no one could say that Trump was wrong because the authorities in America obviously had ‘figured it out’!

It will soon be 2016. It’s over fourteen years since the terrorist attack on America on 9/11. And apparently, the American authorities still haven’t ‘figured out what the hell is going on’. That’s an absolute disgrace.

That’s the real issue here.

References:

1.   Holehouse, M. Churchill’s wish upheld as new cat welcomed to Chartwell, The Telegraph, 10 March 2014.
2.   Stakelbeck, E. The Terrorist Next Door: How the Government is Deceiving You About the Islamist Threat, Regnery Publishing, Kindle Edition, p. 45; Magazine details al Qaeda cargo plane plots, CNN, November 21st 2010.
3.   Stakelbeck, E. op. cit. Kindle Edition, pp. 52-53; New issue of magazine offers jihadists terror tips, CNN, October 12th 2010.
4.   Driver charged after SUV plows through crowd: Police say N.C. grad sought revenge for U.S. treatment of Muslims, NBC News, March 5th 2006; UNC Pit Suspect Claims Quran Supports His Actions, WRAL, December 12th 2006; Letters from Hit-and-Run Suspect Are Like Court Outburst, WRAL, March 6th 2007; UNC Run-down Defendant Deemed Competent for Trial, WRAL, June 13th 2007; Wilson, A. Taheri-Azar sentenced to more than 20 years, ABC11, August 26th 2008.
5.   Brantley, M., Cops: double shooting terror act, Arkansas Times, June 1st 2009; Osborne, S., Islamic Jihad Comes to Little Rock, Arkansas, Canada Free Press, June 3d 2009; Goetz, K., Muslim who shot soldier in Arkansas says he wanted to cause more death, KnoxNews, November 13th 2010; Letter from Abdul Muhammad to Judge Wright Jr., available at: Dao, J., A Muslim Son, a Murder Trial and Many Questions, NY Times, February 16th 2010; Abrams, J., Little Rock Shooting Suspect Joins Growing List of Muslim Converts Accused of Targeting U.S., Fox News, June 2nd 2009; Malkin, M., The Little Rock jihadist gets a life sentence, Michelle Malkin, July 26th 2011; Muhammad pleads guilty in recruiter shooting, ArkansasOnline, July 25th 2011; Tugman, L., Possible Purple Heart awards for Pvt. William Long, Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, THV11, May 8th 2012; Stakelbeck, E. op. cit., Kindle Edition, pp. 62-63.
6.   Perry, W. 6 Charged in Plot to Attack Army Post, The Washington Post, May 8th 2007; Six Suspects Indicted In Fort Dix Plot, CBS News, February 11th 2009; von Zielbauer, P. 5 Men Are Convicted in Plot on Fort Dix, New York Times, December 22nd 2008.
7.   FBI arrest 29-year-old who changed his name to Talib Islam as he tried to blow up U.S. court, Daily Mail, September 25th 2009; Rushton, B. Man accused in bombing plot known for strong stance on Islam, State Journal Register, September 24th 2009; Frieden, T. Man sentenced to 28 years for plotting to bomb federal courthouse, CNN, May 9th 2011; Illinois Man Admits Plotting to Bomb Federal Courthouse and Is Sentenced to 28 Years in Prison, Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, May 9th 2011.
8.   Faisal Shahzad Pleads Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to 10 Federal Crimes Arising from Attempted Car Bombing in Times Square, Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, June 21st, 2010; Bray, C. Times Square Plotter Gets Life Term, The Wall Street Journal, October 5th 2010.
9.   Virginia Man Sentenced to 23 Years in Prison for Plotting Attacks on D.C.-Area Metro Stations with People He Believed to Be Al-Qaeda Members, Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, April 11th 2011; Farooque Ahmed Described as Quiet Suburban Dad, CBS News, October 28th 2010.
10.   Rashbaum, W. Two Arrested at Kennedy Airport on Terror Charges, New York Times, June 6th 2010; Two New Jersey Men Sentenced to Decades in Prison for Conspiring to Kill Overseas with Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization al Shabaab, FBI Newark Division, Press Release, April 15th 2013; Terror sentencings challenge is denied by judge, in detail, NJ.com, May 25th 2013.
11.   Edmunds, D.R. Muslim Countries Refuse to Take A Single Syrian Refugee, Cite Risk of Exposure to Terrorism, Breibart, September 5th 2015; Tharoor, I. The Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing next to nothing for Syria’s refugees, Washington Post, September 4th 2015.
 

16 thoughts on “Stars and Stripes

  1. I’m sure some have figured it out and are being muzzled like nobody’s business. America (and the rest of the West) in 2015 do not have the stomach for the truth, which is described as ‘hate speech’.
    The administration isn’t being wishy-washy, they are following their plan, which is either – if they’re ignorant – importing what they believe to be future Democrat voters or – if they’re traitors – importing current & future enemy combatants.
    Several times during the past few years, those conspiracy theories popped up about whether or not Mr. Barack Hussein Obama was or wasn’t a Muslim himself, I do not remember a clear answer, he does seem to have a rather soft spot for them.
    What’s Mr. Trudeau’s excuse?

    • Yes, the admin. is worse than wishy-washy. As has just been confirmed by a former official of the Department of Homeland Security, the administration put the kibosh on a terror investigation BECAUSE it was targeting an Islamic organization (Tablighi Jamaat) — and, as we all know, it’s pointless to look for terror ties in an Islamic organization, isn’t it?

      Now, are we to assume that Obama really believes Islamic groups are no more likely to be terror-involved than anyone else? Or should we conclude that protecting Islam is, in his mind, a higher imperative than protecting Americans?

      • I take the view that by their fruits we do know them, and that’s what matters at the end of the day. But yes, the power elite know perfectly well what they’re doing.

        I’ve had the misfortune to have dealings with govt people in one guise or another, in that they have been employed by the state in positions of some authority, and to a man they are incompetent, stupid and lazy. There’s no accountability in these organisations, and no motivation to get things right, or even to try to get things right. So I do think there could be, and probably are, quite a lot of people employed as agents of the state who are simply too stupid and lazy to think about what they’re saying and doing. And these are the very people who will never, ever admit that what they are doing is wrong. After all, that would require rational thought and an admission that there is an ethical yardstick of some kind that could be used to measure their deeds, which they don’t want to think about. After all, to these stuck up incompetent jobsworths, the state is all powerful and they work for it, so they’re sorted, pal.

        The world really is going to hell in a handbasket, and there are plenty people employed by the state who will just go along for the ride, out of laziness and incompetence. I note also a passage from Hannah Arendt in which she spoke about how such people would sacrifice anything, even themselves, so long as their fantasies remained intact. There’s plenty of people like that – I recall Laurence Rees writing about the National Socialists in Germany – the Gestapo were not all powerful with agents on every corner, but instead relied on a massive amount of co-operation from ordinary German citizens. Grasses, in other words. So I have no hope that the rank and file who are employed by the state will ever do anything except keep the engines running as we all sail through a field of icebergs. When we hit one big enough to sink us, we just need to be ready to throw those people into the water, or to leave them aboard the ship while we take to the lifeboats.

  2. Yeah. No kidding.

    And I wish these armchair Sherlocks would stop using the word “injured”.

    The word is “wounded”.

    “Injured” is something that happens when you fall out of a tree or off a ladder.

    • There is no doubt as to what happened at Little Rock in 2009. Or who the perpetrator was. Of what the motive behind the attack was. Same with the other incidents mentioned in the article. Check out the links to the sources, too. It’s all pretty damn clear.

      I wish these armchair linguists would stop wasting everyone’s time on irrelevant trivia, and instead, try spending their time doing something useful.

  3. Trudeau is Obama’s poodle. They’re both cultural Marxists who want to criminalize speech they disagree with. The Left wants to make their specific discourse on free speech, immigration, global warming, guns the official State discourse, and if your ‘speech’ contradicts that, then you’re prosecuted by the State. The Syrian refugee issue is their strategy to initially coerce our obedience (or be prosecuted), and within months to a year to be in a situation of civil insurrection by Muslims, i.e. a national emergency requiring martial law and the suspension of elections and all the democratic nuisances the Left so hates. Cultural Marxism is how they control us NOW, until the slaughter by Muslims begins, when the Left can take total control. That’s why is so important to have universal comprehensive gun confiscation so the transition can go smoothly. The ‘refugees’ are just a cynical way for the Left to destroy by proxy much of our society, so they can control most of it, post-insurrection. Never forget the only thing the Left cares about is control and power. Trudeau and Obama are weasels who crave chaos and absolute power.

    • The issue is whether the American authorities have indeed ‘figured out what the hell is happening’. When I wrote the article I left it where DT left it. He’s a clever guy and knew exactly what he was doing.

      I took it no further at this time, because as we all know the enforcers and spies for the neo-totalitarians have [it in] for this site, so there would be no benefit saying something they would get all excited about, thereby dropping the Baron and his lady wife in it.

      But we all know that Soetoro or whoever he is has no need at all to ‘figure anything out’ about the RoP or the politics of chaos, as you say.

      I’m just waiting to hear what the Donald says next time …

      • Trump may be “clever” in how to make himself wealthy and famous, and he certainly likes to tell everyone how superlatively great and smart and unracist etc. he considers himself. But he doesn’t appear to have given much serious thought to “what the hell is going on,” as his crude and vapid formulation suggests.

        Many of us were prompted by 9/11 to figure out what was going on. Trump appears to have waited until he decided to run for president.

        At the beginning of his campaign, he was blustering about what a terrible person he thought Pamela Geller was for “provoking” Muslims and “offending everyone” by asserting our free-speech rights in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre (and the Jyllands-Posten cartoons a decade earlier). And in his attack on Geller, he (characteristically) asserted that he’s much braver than she has ever been!

        Trump will keep making brash pronouncements on one side or another of an issue, and will keep shifting his stance according to the publicity needs of the moment, and will keep saying he’s the most and best and greatest. But I don’t expect to hear anything from him revealing an informed and thoughtful grasp of the Islam problem.

        • Well it’ll be interesting to see what happens next, that’s for sure. He’s certainly put the cat among the pigeons. And his poll numbers appear to be on the rise, so he may win the whole thing yet – then there’ll be fun and games!

        • The only Americans who may have an informed and thoughtful grasp of the Islam problem are some of the soldiers who were in Iraq or Afghanistan, perhaps the odd college student who got harassed non-stop during her trip to France over the summer, other than that, the US population is still blissfully ignorant regarding the full extent of the potential disaster.
          Trump may not know anything, but neither do the others, and he does at least have the intestinal fortitude to say what the Silent Majority are thinking, while everyone else just utters the usual meaningless platitudes.

          • I beg to differ. This American knows a great deal about Islam and what is happening in Europe and here in the US. I also make it a point, as in, my own personal mission, to share this information with as many people as I can. I have helped open the eyes of many people who were once ambivalent or oblivious. In doing this I sometimes think of that shampoo commercial from the 1970s, I can’t remember the brand, but the tag line was “and you tell two friends, and so on, and so on….”

          • This American has spent the past three years working in North Africa.

            Believe me, I’m well-informed about the major problem of our time.

    • Speaking of Trudeau, has anyone else been horrified by the coverage of the Syrians’ arrival in Canada? The mass media have elevated their propagandizing to “Triumph of the Will” levels. Utterly unbelievable

  4. The slaughter by Muslims is already well past a dribble. Obama and the bunch of charactets spoking to the press from the White House respond as know nothings – denying and lying. Reassurance to our enemies that it will be quite some time before unravel the pc chains. I imagine.

  5. The extent to which the Mainstream Media in the United States is under the control of
    the “White House” is just plain scary. Some people here don’t get their news from any
    other source but the MSM; those are generally the ones who are older and didn’t
    bother with computers or the internet.

    There is not much historical knowledge of Islam and how many victims it has claimed
    over time. Unless a person takes the time to read up on it; they remain ignorant of
    the seriousness of its aims.

    When I was in high school (over 50 yrs. ago), we got an exchange student from Turkey. She was a Moslem; that’s about all we were told – that, and that they called their god,
    Allah. Most of us had never heard of the Moslem religion.

    I think Hussein Obama IS a Muslim. Common sense tells me that is the only
    sensible answer to the puzzle of Obama.

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