{"id":312073,"date":"2017-06-09T23:06:50","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T22:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=312073"},"modified":"2017-06-09T23:18:24","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T22:18:24","slug":"islamic-terrorism-perpetrated-fundamentalist-sunnis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/islamic-terrorism-perpetrated-fundamentalist-sunnis\/","title":{"rendered":"All Islamic Terrorism Is Perpetrated by Fundamentalist Sunnis,"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Except Terrorism Against Israel<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

My examination of 54 prominent international examples of what U.S. President Donald Trump is presumably referring to when he uses his often-repeated but never defined phrase \u201cradical Islamic terrorism\u201d indicates that it is exclusively a phenomenon that is financed by the U.S. government\u2019s Sunni fundamentalist royal Arab \u2018allies\u2019 and their subordinates, and not at all by Iran or its allies or any Shiites at all. Each of the perpetrators was either funded by those royals, or else inspired by the organizations, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, that those royals fund, and which are often also armed by U.S.-made weapons that were funded by those royals. In other words: the U.S. government is allied with the perpetrators. <\/span><\/p>\n

Though U.S. President Donald Trump blames Shias, such as the leaders of Iran and of Syria, for what he calls \u201cradical Islamic terrorism,\u201d and he favors sanctions etc. against them for that alleged reason, those Shia leaders and their countries are actually constantly being attacked by Islamic terrorists, and this terrorism is frequently perpetrated specifically in order to overthrow them (which the U.S. government supports even overtly, such as in the case of Bashar al-Assad). Furthermore, all of that terrorism and those attacks, not only against the U.S. and Iran but against all nations except for Israel, are perpetrated not by Shia such as the U.S. President alleges, but instead by fundamentalist Sunnis, and they are financed by the very same fundamentalist Sunni Arab leaders that President Trump calls America\u2019s allies against \u201cradical Islamic terrorism.\u201d<\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

My review of well-known Islamic terrorist incidents shows that, other than terrorism inside and against Israel, all Islamic terrorism is perpetrated by fundamentalist Sunnis<\/i>, none of it is perpetrated by Shia, either fundamentalist or not<\/span><\/a>, though the U.S. government and its allies blame Shia countries for \u201cradical Islamic terrorism\u201d \u2014 even while the U.S. government and its officials know full well<\/span><\/a> that only<\/i>\u00a0 <\/span>fundamentalist Sunnis are actually behind it. Israel, the Sauds, and their client-nations \u2014 and U.S. weapons-manufacturing firms such as Lockheed Martin \u2014 benefit, but the publics get slaughtered by these terrorist groups, which are financed by America\u2019s \u2018allies\u2019, and armed largely by the U.S.<\/span><\/p>\n

The exceptional case is Israel. Specifically in that country, Al Quds Brigades in the Gaza Strip are \u201cmajority funded by Iran\u201d<\/span><\/a>, but, even in Israel, America\u2019s allies contribute to the terrorism. The dominant Hamas in the Gaza Strip is not Shiite, but is instead strictly fundamentalist Sunni, with the \u201cdonor bodies located in Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Britain, Germany, the United States, United Arab Emirates, Italy and France\u201d<\/span><\/a>. (That\u2019s most of the strongly U.S.-allied countries.) The other major terrorist organization in Israel is Hezbollah, which is fundamentalist Shia, and is funded by Shia throughout the world<\/span><\/a>, not only<\/i> in Iran (such as the U.S. government frequently implies, though it\u2019s false to attribute Hezbollah to Iran, instead of to the world\u2019s wealthy Shia everywhere). <\/span><\/p>\n

However, outside<\/i> Israel, all of the Islamic terrorism is perpetrated by fundamentalist Sunni groups, such as Al Qaeda, ISIS, and their regional affiliate organizations, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba<\/span><\/a> in India.<\/span><\/p>\n

The countries that the U.S. government rails against and imposes economic sanctions against, are the non<\/i>-sponsors of radical Islamic terrorism (except in Israel), and are themselves the chief victims<\/i> of it, such as Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Those countries\u2019 governments, and Shia populations, are purely victims of Islamic terrorism (sometimes beheaded for being so), not perpetrators of it (except, occasionally, against Israel \u2014 but, even there, they don\u2019t have any monopoly, whereas Islamic terrorism against countries other<\/i> than Israel is virtually, if not entirely, a Sunni fundamentalist monopoly). <\/span><\/p>\n

Wikipedia keeps a \u201cList of Islamist Terrorist Attacks\u201d<\/span><\/a>, which currently describes 479 Islamic terrorist incidents. I have looked into the perpetrators of 54 of these incidents that struck me as having been especially publicized in the U.S., and that thus might reasonably be expected to have formed the American public\u2019s general impression of Islamic terrorism, if the U.S. is a democracy (and so the public in the U.S. would be informed by an honest press), but I excluded all incidents that were against Israel, because if the U.S. is a democracy, then the U.S. public wouldn\u2019t be focused on any single foreign<\/i> country\u2019s experience with Islamic terrorism, but would instead be concerned mainly about the national (U.S.), and then secondarily the global international, problem \u2014 no one foreign country. Every one of the perpetrators, so far as I was able to determine from the news-reports, has been fundamentalist Sunni (affiliated with, or else inspired by, known fundamentalist Sunni terrorist organizations). In none of the 54 instances was any connection at all indicated to the Shiite terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which group focuses solely against Israel, nor connected to any other Shia organization. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here are those 54 incidents (and for the basic details about each one, see that wikipedia list of all 479 attacks<\/span><\/a>), all of which would reasonably be referred to by the phrase (if used by an American) \u201cradical Islamic terrorism,\u201d if any terrorist attack would be referred to by that commonly-used-by-Trump phrase:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S., 11 September 2001, 4 hijacked airliners<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S., 4 July 2002, shooting at Los Angeles International Airport<\/span><\/p>\n

Indonesia, 12 October 2002, Bali bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia, 23 October 2002, Moscow theater hostage crisis<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia, 12 May 2003, Znamenskoye Grozny suicide bombing<\/span><\/p>\n

Indonesia, 5 August 2003, Marriott Hotel bombing in Mega Kuningan, South Jakarta<\/span><\/p>\n

Turkey, 15-20 November 2003, Istanbul bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

Philippines, 27 February 2004, sinking of Super Ferry by Abu Sayyaf<\/span><\/p>\n

Turkey, 9 March 2004, pipe-bomb attack in Istanbul restaurant<\/span><\/p>\n

Spain, 11 March 2004, Madrid train bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia, 31 August 2004, Moscow Metro bombing<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia, 1-3 September 2004, Beslan school hostage crisis<\/span><\/p>\n

Indonesia, 9 September 2004, Australian Embassy bombing in Jakarta<\/span><\/p>\n

UK, 7 July 2005, London bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

Indonesia, 1 October 2005, Bali, Jimbaran, and Kuta, bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

India, 11 July 2006, Mumbai train bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

India, 13 May 2007, Jaipur bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

India, 26 July 2008, Ahmedabad bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

India, 13 September 2008, Delhi bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

India, 26 November 2008, Mumbai attacks in the financial center<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S., 1 June 2009, Little Rock recruiting office shooting<\/span><\/p>\n

Indonesia, 17 July 2009, Marriott and Ritz-Carlton bombings in Mega Kuningan<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S., 5 November 2009, Fort Hood shooting<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia, 29 March 2010, Moscow Metro bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

Iran, 15 July 2010, Zahedan bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

Egypt, 1 January 2011, Alexandria bombing<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia, 24 January 2011, Domodedovo International Airport bombing<\/span><\/p>\n

Egypt, 7 May 2011, Attacks on Imbaba Coptic church<\/span><\/p>\n

China, 30 July 2011, Knife and bomb attacks in Kashgar<\/span><\/p>\n

Bosnia and Herzogovina, 28 October 2011, U.S. Embassy shooting<\/span><\/p>\n

Nigeria, 25 December 2011, church bombings in four cities<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia, 3 May 2012, Makhachkala attack<\/span><\/p>\n

Libya, 11 September 2012, Benghazi attack on U.S. Consulate<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S., 15 April 2013, Boston Marathon bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

Syria, August 2014, ISIS massacres 700 residents of Deir Ezzor<\/span><\/p>\n

France, 7-9 January 2015, Charlie Hebdo shootings<\/span><\/p>\n

Nigeria, 8 January 2015, Baga massacre<\/span><\/p>\n

Denmark, 14 February 2015, Copenhagen shootings<\/span><\/p>\n

Nigeria, 26-30 June 2015, Boko Haram rampage kills 200+<\/span><\/p>\n

France, 13 November 2015, Paris bombings and shootings<\/span><\/p>\n

Belgium, 22 March 2016, Brussels bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

Iraq, 3 July 2016, Baghdad bombings<\/span><\/p>\n

France, 14 July 2016, Nice truck-attack<\/span><\/p>\n

Germany, 18 July 2016, Wuerzburg knife-hatchet attack<\/span><\/p>\n

Germany, 24 July 2016, Ansbach suicide-bombing<\/span><\/p>\n

France, 26 July 2016, Rouen church attacks<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S., 28 November 2016, Ohio State U. car-attack<\/span><\/p>\n

Sweden, 7 April 2017, Drottninggatan truck-attack<\/span><\/p>\n

Egypt, 9 April 2017, Coptic churches attacked in several cities<\/span><\/p>\n

France, 20 April 2017, Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es shooting-rampage<\/span><\/p>\n

UK, 22 May 2017, Manchester Arena massacre<\/span><\/p>\n

Egypt, 26 May 2017, Minya shootings of Copts<\/span><\/p>\n

UK, 3 June 2017, Knife-attacks on London Bridge<\/span><\/p>\n

France, 6 June Notre Dame knife attacks<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

100% of those attacks were by fundamentalist Sunnis.<\/span><\/p>\n

That is not intended to constitute an all-inclusive count of all terrorist instances, but to be instead a count of instances that I, an American, recollected seeing reported since the time of the 11 September 2001 attacks against America, and, thus, as being reasonably what is referred to by Trump\u2019s often-repeated phrase, \u201cradical Islamic terrorism.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The conclusion that I draw from those 54 instances is that U.S. President Trump is himself strongly allied with the chief international funders of what he calls \u201cradical Islamic terrorism\u201d<\/span><\/a>. For example, when ISIS on June 7th did deadly gun and suicide-bomb attacks against Iran\u2019s parliament in Tehran, Trump immediately responded by blaming Iran\u2019s government for that, by saying, \u201cWe underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.\u201d<\/span><\/a> Later that same day, the pro-Saud, anti-Shiite, CNN reported<\/span><\/a>, \u201cIran’s Revolutionary Guards say Saudi Arabia supported ISIS in the deadly twin attacks in Tehran on Wednesday, an accusation likely to infuriate the Saudi kingdom amid high tensions in the region.\u201d (In other words: if the Sauds attack Iran afterward, they\u2019ll just be doing what the Iranian government should have expected \u2014 and the Sauds would not, in that case, be doubling-up on their own hatred and aggression against Iran and against Shia generally, such as in Yemen and Syria.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Contrast this Trump-response versus the way Iran had responded to the 9\/11 attacks against Americans: \u201cAfter 9\/11, Iran not only denounced the attacks and cooperated with the United States in Afghanistan, but also offered to negotiate a comprehensive resolution of differences with no preconditions.\u201d<\/span><\/a> (George W. Bush responded to that initiative by Iran, only slightly less hostilely than Trump did to the attacks by ISIS in Tehran. The names of U.S. Presidents change far more frequently than U.S. government policies do. Trump, Obama, and Bush, are merely different brand-names for the same basic governmental product. The U.S. aristocracy remains much the same regardless of the nominal President etc.)<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, however, I should note that Trump\u2019s phrase \u201cradical Islamic terrorism\u201d presumes the existence of such a thing as \u201cmoderate<\/i> Islamic terrorism,\u201d and that Trump\u2019s remaining admirers evidently don\u2019t care about, nor even notice, such ugly, or even stupid, implications of this phrase that he often uses. He would be better advised to remove the term \u201cradical\u201d from it. He might as well distinguish between \u201cradical\u201d versus \u201cmoderate\u201d genocides, as talk about \u201cradical\u201d versus \u201cmoderate\u201d terrorism. But there is no evidence that his followers even notice that ugly absurdity from him.<\/span><\/p>\n

The evidence is clear and overwhelming, that the U.S. government is allied with the people who fund international Islamic terrorist groups, except for<\/i> the few Islamic terrorist groups that perpetrate their attacks in or otherwise against Israel. At least in this regard, the U.S. government is clearly anti-American (i.e., against the American people), but the owners of U.S. weapons-manufacturing firms benefit from it, and so too do Israel and the owners of the fundamentalist Sunni countries that are treated by the U.S. government as \u2018allies\u2019 but might perhaps more accurately be referred to (along with Israel\u2019s aristocracy) as America\u2019s \u201cmasters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Just in as this was being written, came the news,\u00a0\u201cSaudi Soccer Team Refuse To Observe Minute’s Silence For London Terror Attack Victims\u201d<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Except Terrorism Against Israel Eric Zuesse My examination of 54 prominent international examples of what U.S. President Donald Trump is presumably referring to when he uses his often-repeated but never defined phrase \u201cradical Islamic terrorism\u201d indicates that it is exclusively a phenomenon that is financed by the U.S. government\u2019s Sunni fundamentalist royal Arab \u2018allies\u2019 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":312081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-312073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}