If We Deny History... People Will Die
The ongoing terrorist incident at a British Petroleum natural gas facility in Algeria is now reported to have resulted in the deaths of as many as a dozen or more hostages following an attempt by Algerian Special Forces to retake the compound.
The hostage-taking incident began at approximately 2AM on Wednesday morning when militants from the Islamic Masked Brigade, an offshoot of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) stormed the compound, located in In Amenas, taking a reported 130 hostages of various nationalities, including an unconfirmed number of Americans.
The Masked Brigade, commanded by former AQIM senior leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, is demanding the release of senior al Qaeda leaders currently in custody as well as an immediate end to the coordinated French-Malian attacks on AQIM resources in northern Mali. In recent months, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has taken over large portions of that mostly barren nation, which shares its northern border with Algeria.
Today’s raid by Algerian Special Forces is reported to have resulted in significant loss of life, among both terrorists and hostages. It is unknown at this time whether the raid was completely successful in regaining control of the compound.
While this incident in and of itself is disconcerting, it pales against the larger issue of dramatically increased al Qaeda activity in Northern Africa in the approximately two years since the start of the so-called “Arab Spring”.
When the Obama administration suborned the overthrow of the Mubarak and Gadhafi governments in Egypt and Libya the media lauded the President and his State Department for their support of “popular uprising against oppression.” The unintended (perhaps) consequence of these quasi-revolutions, as we have seen, is the legitimization of hard-core Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, long associated with terrorism and hostility toward the West in general and the United States in particular.
The fundamental philosophy of the Obama administration with regard to such organizations is, apparently, based on the notion that if we empower them they will be disinclined to view the United States as an aggressor and thereby less likely to engage in the sponsorship of radical Islamic terrorism.
The reality of Obama’s policy of appeasement, however, is much like similar efforts in our historical past. The weakened stance with regard to radical Islamists has caused them to view the United States as exactly that – weak. As such, organizations like al Qaeda have become emboldened in their actions against U.S. interests in the belief that we will not respond.
We’ve seen this movie before. The 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi netted no response from the Clinton White House, in spite of the accumulated evidence of the attacks being carried out by Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the al Qaeda affiliated organization led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
An emboldened al Qaeda then conducted, in October of 2000, the famous bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen. Again, there was no United States response. According to reports of interrogations conducted against senior al Qaeda operatives captured in the years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden was so encouraged by U.S. ineptitude in the face of repeated attacks that he enthusiastically approved the 9/11 plan, convinced that the United States would not respond in any material fashion.
As those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it, we appear now to be on the verge of reliving our own tragic history with al Qaeda. While the media and the Obama administration publicly debate the details around last year’s attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, the fact that Obama has utterly failed to respond to the deaths of four Americans – including a U.S. ambassador – has slipped below the ambient noise level.
Similarly, the United States has not in any way responded to the fact that AQIM has essentially taken over two thirds of a friendly, sovereign nation. We have offered no assistance to the Malian forces fighting well-equipped al Qaeda rebels on their own soil, nor have we come out in support of our NATO ally, France, in their efforts to assist in Mali.
Now, in real time, we’re watching the Obama administration react in an almost conciliatory manner to the al Qaeda raid on a British industrial facility in Algeria, where Americans have been taken hostage and may in fact have been killed. This morning, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, “We’re looking at all the necessary steps that we need to take in order to deal with the situation.”
Not what you’d call strong words from the Obama administration. And certainly not the sort of reaction intended to discourage future acts of terror.
The refusal of the Clinton administration to deal with al Qaeda terrorism in 1998 and 2000 inevitably resulted in the single greatest loss of life on American soil since the Civil War and the greatest single such loss inflicted by an external enemy. Make no mistake, the refusal of Barack Obama to respond in kind to these latest attacks by al Qaeda will ultimately result in a repeat of September 11, 2001.