Some Thoughts On "Home Grown" Terrorism In The West

What is common between London, Toronto and Miami? If we are to trust various government agencies, the three had terror acts committed or planned by young youth who were born and raised.

The London case seem to be very plausible in that who the authorities claim to be the suicide bombers are indeed those who executed the operation. They are young British born Muslims.

Although I am a bit skeptical on the Toronto and the Miami cases, it is too early to reach a conclusion.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that all these cases are indeed the so called "home grown" terrorism.

What is "Home Grown"?

First, let us discuss this 'home grown' label for a bit.

The media takes this to mean that natives of a country are willing to commit acts of terror against it. This is nothing new though, if you consider that countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have suffered terrorism from their respective citizens for decades. Even in the West, you find people like the Unabomber, Timothy McVeigh and countless others who did commit acts of terror against the USA, while being born and raised in the USA.

So, this label is confusing in that it adds nothing new, and tries to brush off terrorism as a 'foreign' phenomenon.

Al-Qaeda Is Winning

So far, Al-Qaeda's mode of operation is to send foreign trained operatives who form one or more cells and carry out the operation, often in coordination.

However, if we are to say that home grown means that it is not planned, directed and financed from abroad, by foreign operatives, then these three cases show something new: those who carried these attacks did not get planning, direction or financing from Al-Qaeda.

They merely got inspiration from Al-Qaeda though, which means that the Al-Qaeda as a "corporation" may have been suppressed, but as a "franchise" it is successful and ongoing.

As someone said, US President G. W. Bush is the best recruiter for Al-Qaeda. By invading Iraq, the US has fuelled the anger of many youth (as well as others) in the Arab world, and also Muslim youth in Western countries. An example is the recently killed Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, who was not a problem prior to that invasion.

What is amazing is how both Bin Laden and Bush play into each others hands so well. This, regretfully, causes many conspiracy theories to flourish muddying the waters for everyone else to see what is happening, and how the two are destroying our world together.

In effect, to borrow from corporate terminology, Al-Qaeda has moved from a "direct sales" model  to a "franchise" model and this is expanding its marketshare so to speak ...