Calling it "Terrorism"

The following was written by Christopher Holton, Vice President of Outreach for the Center for Security Policy, originally published on Holton's web site with the title, And the whole “terrorism” debate continues yet again…

In the wake of the San Bernardino attack yesterday morning, we are once again witnessing the pointless debate in law enforcement circles, as well as the news media, as to whether the mass shooting was an act of “terrorism.”

This morning on Fox News, a so-called “expert” was dissecting the Justice Department’s official definition of terrorism to justify the FBI’s hesitation in classifying what is, let’s face it, another act of war.

That same “expert” claimed that this was another example of “self-radicalization” over the internet and thus was very difficult to classify.

Fighting through the nausea induced by the talking heads’ ignorance, I managed to utter the word, “Hogwash.”

We must refrain as a country from once again entering into a debate on what amounts largely to semantics about whether or not this latest massacre was an act of “terrorism.”

We need to get away from focusing on the term “terrorism.” Some folks still don’t consider the 1983 Beirut Barracks bombing by Hezbollah which killed 241 Marines, sailors and soldiers an act of terrorism because, by some widely regarded definitions, attacks on combatants under such circumstances cannot be termed “terrorism.”

The San Bernardino massacre and the 1983 attack on the Marine Barracks, though very different, were both acts of JIHAD.

The Jihadis themselves don’t refer to themselves as “terrorists.” But they most assuredly refer to themselves as “Jihadis.”

I say let them own that title. If one of them goes out on his own and shoots up a ticket counter at LAX, beheads a grandmother with a knife in Moore, Oklahoma, or shoots up a county health facility in California, those are acts of Jihad, just as 9-11 was an act of Jihad.

This was never a war on “terrorism.”

We are at war with the Jihadists. They are waging Jihad against us and that takes many forms:

• Outright military confict (see Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs)
• Insurgency (See Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria, Thailand, Philippines, Pakistan, India, Somalia, Yemen, and others)
• Terrorism (9-11, Paris, train bombings in Spain, 7/7 bombings in the UK, Mumbai, etc)
• Individual acts of violent Jihad (DC sniper, LAX shooting, Ft. Hood, Garland, Texas, Moore Oklahoma, Chattanooga, Tennessee, etc.)
• Financial Jihad (zakat payments to Islamic charities which, by Islamic Shariah law, fund Jihad, Sharia-Compliant Finance)
• Civilizational Jihad (peaceful methods, such as political influence operations (Muslim Brotherhood fronts such as CAIR, ISNA), mass immigration, lawfare, imposing Islamic customs on the West (insisting we play by their rules)).

All of this is jihad. Jihad is the key. We should not get wrapped up in trying to classify it in our own vernacular. Orient on the enemy's doctrine and learn how he thinks and acts.

IT’S JIHAD.

This was also posted here on Foundation for Coexistence for sharing purposes.