Bill Bennett:
Let us dispense with the nonsense that the U.S. government or the House Committee on Homeland Security is targeting or discriminating against a minority. As I point out in a book I have coming out later this month, there is one reason, and one reason only, that any of us speak of Islam in the context of terrorism, even as we know that most Muslims are not terrorists: When an adherent of the Muslim faith engages in an act of terrorism, he explains (or shouts out) that he is acting in the name of Islam.
From Wikipedia:
Islamist usageThe phrase is well known in the west for its ubiquitous use in Islamist protests, and in Islamic extremism, and has become iconic of Islamic terrorism.
After 9/11, the FBI released a letter reportedly handwritten by the hijackers and found in three separate copies on 9/11—at Dulles, at the Pennsylvania crash site, and in Mohamed Atta's suitcase. It included a checklist of final reminders for the 9/11 hijackers. An excerpt reads: "When the confrontation begins, strike like champions who do not want to go back to this world. Shout, 'Allahu Akbar,' because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers." Also, in the cockpit voice recorders found at the crash site of Flight 93, the hijackers are heard to be reciting the Takbir as the plane plummeted toward the ground.[6][7][8][9]
When in March 2002 Maryam Mohammad Yousif Farhat of Hamas, popularized as "Umm Nidal" (and subsequently elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council),[10] learned that her 17-year-old son had been killed on a suicide mission in which he killed five teenagers, she celebrated by proclaiming "Allahu Akbar!" and giving out boxes of halva and chocolates.[11][12][13] In 2003, when Imam Samudra became the second Bali bomber from a violent Islamist group to be sentenced to death for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, Samudra greeted his sentence with chants of "Allahu Akbar".[14][15][16][17][18]
In 2004, in an execution video of Nick Berg being beheaded in Iraq, as one man sawed off Berg's head the other captors shouted: "Allahu Akbar!".[19] And in the 2007 Fort Dix attack plot, a group of radical Islamists who were convicted of plotting an attack on the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey had videotaped themselves shooting weapons and shouting Allahu Akbar.[20][21][22] In 2008, Aafia Siddiqui yelled "Allah Akbar" as she fired at U.S. interrogators.[23][24][25][26]
During the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, witnesses reported that gunman Nidal Malik Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" before opening fire, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others.[27] And Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad smiled and said "Allahu Akbar" after receiving a life sentence in 2010 for his attempted bombing.[28][29]
