Op-Ed: The Myth of American Oppression of Muslims

WaPo quoted a statement by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed saying the 9/11 mastermind plotted that attack, and many others, of behalf of Muslims everywhere "oppressed by America." Ironic, considering the oppression of Muslims is greatest under extremists like KSM.

Earlier this morning I was reading an opinion piece by NewsBusters' Brent Bozell titled "Seeing Moral Grays in 9/11." That post referenced an earlier oped by the Washington Post's Barton Gellman titled "9/11 Trial Could Become a Parable of Right and Wrong." Both opeds are very much worth reading, and provide astute assessments of the 9/11 trials and all they will entail for American and the world from differing POVs. But it was a statement linked at WaPo by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from a 2007 military tribunal hearing that jumped off the page at me. In his statement at that tribunal, KSM admitted that he plotted the 9/11 attacks and many more, including radiological and biological terror attacks, on behalf of Muslims everywhere "oppressed by America." KSM's definition of oppression differs greatly from mine. Didn't we help Afghan Muslims fight the Soviets, then leave when it was all over? As I also recall from well-documented events in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, it was under radical Islamist extremists like KSM, bin Laden and Mullah Omar that the bloody oppression of Muslims was greater than anywhere else on earth. Music and televisions were banned. Women were barred from leaving their homes without male relative escorts. They were also beaten with sticks like dogs if they did not meet strict "Islamic" dress codes. Fingernails discovered to be painted were ripped out with pliers. During soccer games the Taliban moved through the crowd, beating anyone who cheered with sticks. Cheering was allowed during the halftime executions only, when men were hung from the goalposts and women were shot in the head. Let us also not forget the attempted genocide of the Hazaras. Today in that troubled nation, the Taliban seeks to "liberate" Afghanistan by suicide-bombing packed markets and mosques, and splashing acid in the faces of young girls who dare attend school. All that, presumably, is KSM's definition of liberation. But let us move outside Afghanistan and look at Muslim oppression elsewhere. Many defenders of the Islamist Iranian regime point to the CIA overthrow of the Iranian government and installation of the Shah in 1953. Yet since the "liberating" Islamic Revolution in 1979, the oppression of Muslims is nearly as bad as it was in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Women and young girls are executed for the crime of being raped, or even defending themselves from rape. Gays are hunted down, imprisoned, tortured and exterminated. And the world has bore full witness to the true nature of the fascist Ahamadinejad regime in the wake of the Green Revolution. The rapes in prison. The forced confessions on state TV. The beatings and murders in the streets. The sentencing to death of five Green protesters for the crime of demanding their stolen votes back. Not to mention that Iran's Islamist extremist regime has also exported its terror as far away as Argentina, where many of Iran's leaders are wanted by Interpol for their suspected involvement in the worst terror attacks in Argentina's history. Such ruthless oppression of Muslims by other Muslims is endemic in the Islamic world: in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Hamas-controlled Gaza and Yemen, to name a few. In Sudan, the radical Islamist leadership of Gen. Omar Bashir is perpetrating genocide. Yet it is America which those regimes externalize their own evils on by pointing their fingers at the United States. All that said, can America's intervention in Iraq even compare to Saddam's blood-drenched legacy? Or the foul legacy of Al Qaeda in Iraq, members of which even went so far as to demand farmers put diapers on sheep, and cut the fingers off of smokers in Arbil? Or all the human abattoirs that have been discovered in Iraq, along with AQ manuals describing how best to apply drills or raw electricity to testicles and other sensitive body parts? Tell me where on this planet that American armed forces rule over Muslims at all, never mind with an iron boot. Our brave Marines even disarmed themselves in order to provide desperately needed aid in Indonesia after the tsunami. America was also first on the scene after the earthquakes in Pakistan, utilizing our considerable military logistics capabilities to reach remote stricken areas no one else could. The fact of the matter is, Muslims around the world have no better friend than America. It was a US-led coalition that drove Saddam's armies from Kuwait in the midst of their rape and conquest taking place there in 1990. We even stepped aside so that Kuwaiti and other Muslim nations' armies would be the first to enter Kuwait City. There has also been no safer place in the world for peaceful freedom-loving Muslims to live than in America, which is why so many of them come here. Thousands have fled the exact same ruthless Muslim-on-Muslim oppression, violence and slaughter that I have described here. Despite many claims of the oppression and persecution of Muslims in the United States, or fears of violent backlashes after the 9/11 attacks and radical Islamist extremist Nidal Hasan's recent gunning down of 54 soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood, the fact remains that Jews are six times more likely to suffer hate crimes than Muslims in this country. So when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed speaks of the oppression of Muslims by America during his trial, you know the truth of the matter. We Americans have made many mistakes along the way, as often happens in the fog and naked brutality of war. But those Americans who have committed war crimes and other abuses have been punished under the law. Regimes like Iran routinely commit far worse crimes and human rights abuses as a matter of state policy. Today, Afghanistan and Iraq are far better off than they were under the blood-soaked and oppressive reigns of megalomaniacs like Saddam Hussein, bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. When it comes right down to it, Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda committed the 9/11 atrocities for the same exact reasons Hitler and the Nazis bombed and invaded Poland: to send a message of terror to America, inspire fear and force the capitulation of their enemies. America does not and never will capitulate to evil men. Graveyards around the world are filled with hundreds of thousands who gave their lives fighting the worst evils in history, including our own dark legacy of slavery. With my words today, I fight the twisted lies that psychotic ideologues like bin Laden, KSM, Hitler and their violent bloodthirsty stooges spewed as a matter of course. Their evil words and deeds stand naked in their violence for all the world to see. KSM may rant as he wishes. But we Americans will know what the truth of the matter is. And the truth is men like KSM, bin Laden and their many foul bloodthirsty minions in Al Qaeda have ruthlessly oppressed and massacred more innocent Muslims than America has in its history. American soldiers go out of their way to protect innocent Muslims. Jihadists like KSM go out of their way to kill as many innocent Muslims as possible. If anything sums up the War on Terror against radical Islamist extremism, that's it. Let the trial take place. When the videos of 9/11 play in court, and the jihadis like KSM cheer on the destruction, slaughter and falling bodies, the world will truly know just how foul and subhuman they really are. It should also serve as a stark reminder as to why we went to war in Afghanistan in the first place. In that respect, I now agree with the civilian trials in New York. Give KSM and the rest of the WTC Five their day in court. Let the world see them for who they really are, and American justice for what it really is. As opposed to the throat-cutting and suicide-bombing brand of "justice" KSM and Al Qaeda meted out to reporter Daniel Pearl and tens of thousands of other innocents across the globe just since 9/11 alone.