Remember how Obama chest-thumped his way through the 2012 campaign as Vanquisher of "al Qaeda"?
Setting aside the absurd and distracting act of branding this entire age of expansionist Islam and jihad as "al Qaeda," the 2014 terrorism report from the State Department confirms what we already read in headlines, from Benghazi to Syria. Obama, having proclaimed from the hustings that Osama bin Laden's killing was, effectively, a jihad-ender, completely demagoged the danger with a line that is now laid bare as phony.
From the executive summary:
Al-Qa’ida (AQ) and its affiliates and adherents worldwide [ie., Islamic jihad] continue to present a serious threat to the United States, our allies, and our interests. While the international community has severely degraded AQ’s core leadership, the terrorist threat has evolved. Leadership losses in Pakistan, coupled with weak governance and instability in the Middle East and Northwest Africa, have accelerated the decentralization of the movement and led to the affiliates in the AQ network becoming more operationally autonomous from core AQ and increasingly focused on local and regional objectives. The past several years have seen the emergence of a more aggressive set of AQ affiliates and like-minded groups [Islamic jihadists], most notably in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Northwest Africa, and Somalia.
It is always a little fascinating (if unremarkable) to read how officialdom discusses religiously (Islamically) motivated armies, from ragtag to high-tech, as they follow in the footsteps of the religiously -- (Islamically) motivated armies that came before them, also attempting to extend the rule of Islam through conquest. We have centuries of history to instruct us in the legacy of jihad, but, having already assumed the crouch of Western dhimmitude, our "leaders" will say nothing bad about Islam on pain of being called an "Islamophobe" (believe me, as the sharia spreads, the penalty will worsen). Thus, they look and look for non-Islamic reasons behind what is, of course, just another recurring and predictable historical cycle of Islamic jihad against the infidel world.
Even worse, they seem to believe these reasons are more than figments of their "politically correct" (read: Marx-censored) minds. Even in the dry paragraph cited above there is a sense of non-comprehending frustration: How, the huffing is almost audible, could it be, after "the international community" severely degraded "AQ's core leadership," that "the terrorist threat" has nonetheless stll "evolved"? Don't these people realize they are supposed to be a tiny band of extremists who have no motivation without "core" leaders?
Apparently not. Worldwide, "adherents" and "like-minded groups" fight on -- although adhering to what like-mindedness officialdom won't say.
The adherents and likeminded groups themselves, however, provide the answer in their very names. Aside from one no doubt errant mention of "Islamist extremism," there is no mention of Islam in the US State Department's executive summary on what is mainly Islamic terrorism -- except is in names of the Islamic of groups on the list US-designated foreign terrorist organizations. These include Ansar al Islam, Army of Islam, Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Jemaah Islamiya, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (aka "Hillary's rebels") -- but shouldn't that be "Ansar al Islamism"? Army of Islamists? Gama'a al-Islamistyya? Never mind.
Then there's Boko Haram -- "non-Islamic education is a sin" -- Hizbollah -- "party of Allah" -- etc.
Do we detect a trend here?
Nah.