The Reach of 'Outreach' Exceeds its Grasp

In an interview with FrontPage Magazine's Jamie Glazov, Robert Spencer points to the pointlessness of liberals' "outreach":

They constantly ignore the possibility that the jihadis might not always be reacting to things America has done, but may hate us for reasons of their own, independent of our actions. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a classic recipient of Western largesse designed to win over the loyalties of Muslims – he was educated at the British International School in Lome, Togo. Yet contact with solicitous and friendly non-Muslim Westerners obviously did nothing to quell his jihadist fervor. And the son of a rich man (who notified American authorities about his jihadist sentiments, to no avail), Abdulmutallab once again proves false the idea that poverty causes terrorism. The myriad aid programs that are based on this false assumption have done nothing to stop or even slow jihad terrorism, and they never will.


Abdulmutallab was, in all likelihood, “radicalized” not by Western oppression but by the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah. All the concerted efforts by the State Department and DHS to ignore the jihad doctrine and reach out to people they deemed to be “moderate Muslims” have likewise not worked.

According to the Nigerian newspaper This Day, when Abdulmutallab was at the British International School, “he was known for preaching about Islam to his schoolmates and he was popularly called ‘Alfa,’ a local coinage for Islamic scholar.” This illustrates yet again that, contrary to the popular view, Islamic jihadists present themselves among their fellow Muslims as the exponents of authentic Islam, making their case from the Qur’an and Sunnah — and those Muslims who oppose jihadist violence and Islamic supremacism have never successfully refuted their arguments.

Outreach to moderate Muslims has not aided in this effort, and has deceived the general public into thinking that the influence of peaceful Muslims over jihadists is much larger than it actually is.

Similarly, airport security measures have duped the public into thinking it's being kept safe when in fact each time you get on a plane bound for an American destination you're more or less playing a game of Jihadi Roulette.