Europe, beware: Obama speaks with two tongues
By Hans Vogel
Obama is holding out an olive branch to Islam: "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy," Obama is quoted as saying, adding "We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect." Coincidentally, across the board US-muslim relations are quite good. Most Middle Eastern regimes are somehow or other supported by the US. Saudi Arabia is a close ally and so are the Gulf States. Egypt's regime can only survive thanks to regular wheat shipments from the US. Arab (Muslim) bankers and businessmen have invested heavily in the US economy and have been buying plenty of bonds over the past decades.
On the other hand, Obama has announced he will step up military efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while the recently inaugurated US embassy in Iraq indicates the US is planning to stay indefinitely and continue to run the country like a colony or protectorate.
In line with Samuel Huntington's concept of a struggle between civilizations, at least since 9/11 2001, the US has been engaged in a widely publicized war on Muslim fundamentalism. It has been trying with reasonable success to draw its European client states into the fight as well, but the Europeans seem reluctant to go whole hog. After all, there are sizeable Muslim minorities in most of Western Europe. North African Muslims, especially young male Moroccans who tend to be woefully undereducated, constitute a serious social problem in countries like France, the Netherlands and Belgium. These kids tend to be violent, volatile and aggressive, engaging in periodic bouts of rioting with often devastating results. There are efforts under way by imams in Britain and elsewhere to introduce Muslim law (sharia) in neighborhoods with a Muslim majority. With segregation rampant-most Western European inner cities are in the process of being islamicized or are already muslim-it is understandable native Western Europeans are worried about the future. Most are now afraid of terrorism.
The Threat of Terrorism
There is a widespread belief, often nurtured by Western European governments for reasons of expediency, that Islamist terrorism has become a major threat. However, so far these fears are not at all supported by data.
According to Europol's "EU Terrorism Situation and Trend report 2007," (which covers 2006), there were only 498 terrorist attacks in that year, "the vast majority of them resulted only in material damage and were not intended to kill." Yet although there was only one terrorist attack identified as "islamist", almost 260 persons (out of a total of some 700) were arrested on suspicions of planning islamist terrorist attacks.
According to the Europol report 2008 (covering 2007), Islamist terrorism was as insignificant. Out of 583 terrorist attacks, almost 90% were separatist, most of the remaining left or right-wing extremist, and only 4 islamist. More than a thousand persons were arrested, 200 of them in connection with islamist terrorism. On the basis of these two official reports it is more than safe to say that in Western and Central Europe, islamic terrorism is still virtually non-existant, almost a figment of the imagination.
The only parts of Europe where islamist terrorism has been and still is a serious problem are the southern regions of Russia, such as Chechnya and Dagestan. However, in many acts of terrorism perpetrated here, the hand of foreign intelligence agencies can be recognized. For instance, trouble in Russia's southern regions is advantageous to the furthering of US strategic interests in the Caucasus.
This is not to say that terrorism is unknown in Europe. On the contrary: some parts of Europe have witnessed vicious terrorist attacks. None, however perpetrated by islamists. Since 1980, the most important of these were:
1.The Bologna train station bombing (2 august 1980): 85 killed, 200 injured.
2.The Lockerbie incident, the attack on PanAm flight 103 (21 december
1988): 270 killed.
3.The Atocha train station bombing (Madrid, 11 march 2004): 191 killed,
1755 injured.
4.The London underground bombings (7 July 2005): 56 killed, 700 injured.
European governments and most of the media would have us believe these terrorist attacks were all islamic inspired, but it so happens they are not. All of the above terrorist attacks are shrouded in mystery and the real perpetrators have not been caught. The Bologna bombing was probably done by the Italian secret service (at the time called SISMI), in cooperation with the secret masonic lodge P2. The operation has a strong scent of involvement by one of NATO's secret armies, set up in Europe since 1945 by the OSS (later the CIA) and the British secret service MI6. The Swiss historian Daniele Ganser has made a name for himself researching this sensitive topic, coming up with quite disturbing facts and shocking conclusions. The underground organization created by the US and British spy agencies, specialized in terrorist operations, is known as gladio. In several European countries gladio operatives have committed attacks under the guise of some extremist political group. Whether acting upon their own initiative or prompted by top-secret directives from Washington or some European government, gladio operatives have in some cases indeed helped to create a climate of fear by violent attacks, through terrorism that is.
