In my book,
Queen’s
Gambit, one of the central themes is the threat that we face from terrorism.
It is a topic that I dealt extensively with during my time with the NYPD.
Back in the 90’s I was part of a unit that provided
dignitary protection and conducted threat assessments, both for individual
security as well as commercial and residential sites. It was a difficult task,
one that was made ever harder when we encountered resistance from the people we
were trying to protect.
A case in point was in 1997, after the
Centennial
Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia. I was sent to a major sporting venue
and asked to evaluate their security and make recommendations. I spent several
days going through their facility assessing the risks and taking notes. On the
last day, I sat down with the senior members of the organization, and made my
recommendations.
I instructed them on tightening perimeter security,
establishing designated areas where spectators and packages could be searched,
etc. It was nothing that I would consider overly egregious. It took about five
minutes before I realized that I was just wasting my breath. I vividly recall
one of the execs commentating that they couldn’t search attendees because their event didn’t draw that type of person.
I closed up my folder and wished them luck.
Not long after that, an individual was apprehended inside
the venue by officers assigned to the event. This person had a large carving
knife in their possession, something which would have been picked up long
before the individual had entered the facility. A tragedy was avoided only by sheer
luck.
It is the way I feel about the times that we are living.
As we have seen in the recent terror attacks in Paris,
France, coupled with those in Ottawa, Canada, and Sydney, Australia, terrorism
is alive and well. The real problem is not that terrorism exists, but our
unwillingness to properly address it.
To be certain, the outcome in Paris was a failure, not a
success. The minute the terrorists began their killing spree inside
Charlie Hebdo we lost. In essence, we
became reactive to the situation, attempting to put an end to it, when in reality;
we should have been proactive and kept it from happening in the first place.
My aim here is not to play Monday morning quarterback, but
to instruct.
Think of terrorism as a tool, like a hammer. It is used to
bring about a particular response; it is the reason why you hear it referred to
by different names: political terrorism, narco-terrorism, biological terrorism,
and even eco-terrorism. The real threat however is the person wielding that
tool. In order to properly address the threat, you need to know the mindset of
the person.
The immediate threat that we face today is one driven by a
religious zealotry to the nth degree.
That is a statement of fact which simply cannot be ignored. If you want to be
politically correct, and bury your head in the sand, then you better pray that
you are just as lucky as those sporting executives were and pray that law
enforcement, or the intelligence communities, catch them before they do
whatever it is they are planning.
Those who subscribe to the religious tenants of radical Islam have no desire to sit down
and discuss their animus toward you. They believe in only two things:
conversion or death.
Amazingly, there is a certain segment of society which
believes that ‘we cannot be like them’. As if by simply doing nothing, we will
somehow convince them to lay down their swords to join us in some utopian global
citizen fairytale.
It sounds quite naïve to decry the use of non-lethal interrogation techniques,
such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation, when your enemy is only interested
in killing you. If you don’t understand this fundamental difference, you are
part of the problem.
For starters, when it comes to the basics of Islam, most are
woefully uneducated. The majority of folks couldn’t tell you what the difference
was between Sunni or Shia, or the many other denominations of Islam. Not that I
can blame them, as many struggle with defining their own religious beliefs let
alone a complex religion like Islam. The issue I have is that, if you are
uneducated, you shouldn’t be interjecting yourself into the conversation.
George Bush, and enhanced
interrogation techniques, did not create the problem of Jihad, it has been
around for over a thousand years. We are not in a traditional war, but a
religious one. Our enemy cannot be appeased with money or land; they seek only
to spread their brand of religion, opposition to which means death.
The French are going to have to come to terms with a monster
that they helped create. In an attempt to be politically correct, they allowed
their core principles to be modified. The first time they surrendered, they set
in motion a practice that has brought them to the brink.
There are now an estimated 750 Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or No-Go Zones, across the
nation of France. These are areas where the government has simply raised the
white flag, allowing the local community to take over. As a result, these areas
are not governed by the laws of France, but by Islamic Sharia law. In many
instances the police or other public safety, such as fire and ambulance
services, will not even go in to these areas.
This is not isolated to France; this is also seen in growing
areas of the United Kingdom and Sweden. Even in the United States, there are
burgeoning Muslim communities in places like Dearborn, Michigan, where locals
are calling for the equivalent of No-Go Zones and the institution of Sharia
courts.
What the French failed to realize is that terrorism is not a
criminal problem. Islamic terrorists, like the Kouachi brothers and Amedy
Coulibaly, are at war. Treating them as if they are a common criminal, who can
be rehabilitate and returned back to society, is ludicrous. In fact, lax prison
rules have allowed them to become a prime recruiting location.
Amedy Coulibaly converted to radical Islam while in prison
in 2005. It was during that prison stint when he met Cherif Kouachi. The two men became devoted followers of Djamel
Beghal, a French-Algerian man with ties to al-Qaeda, who was convicted of
plotting in 2001 to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Coulibaly tried to
break another militant Islamist, Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, out of
prison in 2013. Although he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison,
he served only several months before he was released early.
This is the mindset that believes that a terrorist is a
criminal and a prison sentence administers the proper amount of justice. It is
a mindset that we are seeing here in the United States as well. Western
civilization seems loath to accept the fact that this is a war we are fighting;
choosing to believe it is a criminal justice issue.
Imprisoning people like this serves only to keep them isolated
for a finite amount of time until they are once again released to the
battlefield, a fact we have seen replayed when Gitmo prisoners have been
released. In their minds, they are prisoners of war and their duty does not end
till they die or the war is won.
Whether you like it or not, this is the reality we now face.
Yesterday, over forty world leaders participated in a march
in Paris denouncing terrorism. It was the largest assemblage since the
Americans liberated that city during WWII. Unfortunately, absent from the scene
were representatives of this administration. Yes, the American Ambassador was
there, somewhere, but when you have
the representative heads of France, Israel, England, Germany, and so many other
nations, the least the administration could have done was send the
vice-president.
However, this administration does not want to address the real
threat posed by radical Islam. It wants to paint a narrative that terrorism is
on the decline, not the upswing that we are witnessing with our own eyes. They want to view it as a simple criminal justice problem and mete out
sentences in civilian court. What could go wrong with that?
After all, we saw how well it worked out for France.
The photo at the top of this article is the enemy that we now face. It speaks to the contempt with which they view us. The glint of orange fabric at the bottom was just the latest victim, but, to be sure, they envision each and every one of us in that position.
It's our choice to decide whether we try to reason with the devil or fight back.
Here is the cover artwork for the 3rd installment in the James Maguire series: Bishop's Gate
