Letter to the American Public (1)

On the Axis of Jihadism

By Walid Phares and Behrooz Behbudi

Because for 11 years, the American public wasn't informed about the
threat that led to September 11 and because the classrooms and newsrooms
of the United States were not educated enough about the global threat of
"Jihadism," we feel it is incumbent on individual citizens to educate
themselves about this danger and mobilize to prevent a Future Jihad
looming around the world and at home. It is important that American
citizens understand who the "Jihadists" are, what they want to achieve, and
how they are proceeding. Without this knowledge, the American public will
be unable to be part of the political debate about national security
and the War on Terror. And if deprived from the support of an informed
public, the US Government, now and in the future, cannot sustain
difficult decisions pertaining to the defeat of the Terrorist enemy.

Today in The Washington Times, Dr. Walid Phares discusses the release of Fox News journalist and camera man.

The release in Gaza of Fox News journalist Steve Centanni and camera man Olaf Wiig, kidnapped Aug. 14 by a group calling itself Holy Jihad Brigade, raises a number of salient issues: "We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint," Mr. Centanni told Fox News. "Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on."

Such a statement raises a number of points. First, it is not unusual that jihadist groups would force hostages to convert to Islam. But at the same time it hasn't been a systematic behavior. Over the past 25 years, jihadist organizations, cells and captors — including al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Laskar Jihad, Jemaa Islamiya, Salafi Combat group, etc. — have taken hostages.

by: Julia A. Seymour, March 21, 2006

When the airliners took down the World Trade Center towers, Americans struggled to find answers. They found some, but a discernible haze over the minds and eyes of Americans existed in those post 9/11 days. The truth many failed to realize was that the jihadists were already here. They were in our towers; the ivory ones.

The cloud of confusion in the minds of a majority of Americans, including those in government, had been created by the academic community since the 1970s, according to Walid Phares. He has taught at Florida International University, University of Miami and Florida Atlantic University in addition to lecturing at others.

Phares’ book, Future Jihad, examines the historical context of jihad, the groups of radical Islamists that seek to establish a caliphate, as well as the reasons America was unprepared and left in confusion by the attacks on September 11, 2001. Phares is a terrorism and Mid-East expert for MSNBC/NBC as well as a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington D.C.