Monday, June 29, 2015

Canada Loses Its Way in "The Fog" of Jihad--A Fog of Its Own Making

(Here's my latest for The Megaphone.)

To those who don't want to acknowledge the siren call of jihad and its effect on young minds, the whole "radicalization" thingamajig remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma shrouded in fog.

Lot and lots of fog.

What is it, these intrepid investigators query, that drives so many young'uns to want to kill infidels and/or get in on the ground floor of the latest caliphate?

Now, a new federally-funded study seeks to solve that riddle. Researchers poured over the "chatter" of seven - count 'em, seven - young men as they sauntered or raced down the path towards hard-core jihadism. And, this being a Canadian study, the concept of "diversity" played a prominent - nay, a pre-eminent - role:

While all seven subjects shared a common background, it appeared from their online activities that their interests, views and approaches were highly varied. 
Some were more focused on religion, while others were more into politics, the study says. Some immediately adopted a jihadist mindset and others took much longer to come to these views. 
"Given this diversity, it becomes obvious that any counter-radicalization needs to be tailored to the specifics of the case. Flexibility is the name of the game."...
Such "diversity." Why, it almost makes one's head spin!

I am reminded of the line uttered by an RCMP official upon the arrest of the jihadis who were called  "The Toronto 18." It would be impossible to say what brought these lads together, observed the federal cop, since they came from such a "broad strata" of society. The Toronto Star, too, had a hard time figuring it out, given that there didn't appear to be an obvious "common denominator" (even though many of the young men attended the same mosque). (At the time, conservative writer Michelle Malkin had the best wrap up of the "broad strata" idiocy. These not-in-the-least diverse young men are like "a veritable Benetton ad," she quipped.)

That was ten years ago. Ten years and untold numbers of men, women and children dead at the hands of savage jihadis. Ten years, and our official understanding of the "root cause" of jihad has gone from "broad strata" to "diversity" - in other words, it has run the gamut from to A to, well, A.
No wonder all those young lads are attracted to jihad (which, FYI, is an imperative embedded in Islam's core religious texts.) It is strong. It is resolute. It offers a great pay off, albeit one that can only be collected after death. We infidels, on the other hand, are squishy and weak. We offer tepid bromides about "diversity."

We can't even bring ourselves to identify the jihad as a holy war because that would be "mean" and "racist," and might hurt the feelings of Muslims who would be propelled into the arms of ISIS and other radical groups by our hurtfulness. (Isn't that Obama's rationale for wanting to close Gitmo - because its existence prompts the disgruntled to become radicalized?)

As Canada Day 2015 looms, it is obvious that we're as clueless as we were back in the "broad strata" days. As a result, the jihadis continue to run riot while screaming "Allahu Akbar!" as we, foolish infidels that we are, have trouble understanding what the lads could possibly mean by those words (could "Akbar" be Allah's last name?) and conduct yet another worthless "study" in a vain attempt to get to the bottom of it all.

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