It’s taken many years, but the New York Times had a front-page article yesterday about the growing number of incidents involving American Muslims. Titled New Incidents Test Immunity to Terrorism on U.S. Soil, by Scott Shane, the piece begins:

WASHINGTON — As the years passed after Sept. 11, 2001, without another major attack on American soil and with no sign of hidden terrorist cells, many counterterrorism specialists reached a comforting conclusion: Muslims in the United States were not very vulnerable to radicalization.

American Muslims, the reasoning went, were well assimilated in diverse communities with room for advancement. They showed little of the alienation often on display among their European counterparts, let alone attraction to extremist violence.

But with a rash of recent cases in which Americans have been accused of being drawn into terrorist scheming, the rampage at Fort Hood, Tex., last month and now the alarming account of five young Virginia men who went to Pakistan and are suspected of seeking jihad, the notion that the United States has some immunity against homegrown terrorists is coming under new scrutiny.

Any number of real experts on radical Islam could have told them there was a problem long ago — Robert Spencer, Steve Emerson, Andrew Bostom, Daniel Pipes, to name just a few. But I guess the New York Times considers them too extreme to listen to. Or maybe they’ve never heard of these people, living as they do inside their New York bubble.

There is a brief mention of the Somalis from Minnesota who went to Somalia to join the jihad.  Ann has posted countless times on this issue, including an October 5 post about an FBI warning that Somali jihadists could attack inside the U.S., using Somali-Americans recruited to their cause. She linked to a longer post by Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch. And she posted on November 2008 on the case of the missing Somalis and updated the post through July 2009 with lots of information about these kids who became jihadists.

There were earlier incidents too, by American Muslims. A few of the most recent ones are mentioned in the article, but not previous ones. Here’s just one sample post from Ann last December on the Fort Dix Six, all Muslims including a refugee from Bosnia. Think too of the Washington area snipers, whose radical Islamic ties were covered up; the various free-lance jihadists who tried to run people over with their cars; and really too many others to recall.

After 9/11, “experts” were supposed to be connecting the dots. But obviously, they didn’t. And here’s a really pathetic part of the NYT article:

Concern over the recent cases has profoundly affected Muslim organizations in the United States, which have renewed pledges to campaign against extremist thinking.

“Among leaders, there’s a recognition that there’s a challenge within our community that needs to be addressed,” said Alejandro J. Beutel, government liaison at the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Washington, and main author of a report by the council on radicalization and how to combat it.

What’s the challenge? That the “experts” are on a path to catching on to them? If these groups are so concerned about the radicalism of their youths, why have they not mounted a campaign to get radical Saudi materials out of the mosques? Why don’t they try to get rid of the imams who radicalize these kids?

And of course the New York Times does not mention taqiyya — the Muslim doctrine that gives permissions (and encouragement) to lie and deceive in the service of protecting and advancing Islam.  True expert Raymond Ibrahim describes taqiyya in an article, Islam’s doctrines of deception.  A couple of excerpts:

According to sharia, in certain situations, deception – also known as ‘taqiyya’, based on Quranic terminology, – is not only permitted but sometimes obligatory. For instance, contrary to early Christian history, Muslims who must choose between either recanting Islam or being put to death are not only permitted to lie by pretending to have apostatised, but many jurists have decreed that, according to Quran 4:29, Muslims are obligated to lie in such instances.

…. According to the authoritative Arabic text, Al-Taqiyya Fi Al-Islam: “Taqiyya [deception] is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it. We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream…Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.”

…. So-called “moderate” Muslims – or, more specifically, secularised Muslims – do not closely adhere to sharia, and therefore have little to dissemble about. On the other hand, “radical” Muslims who closely observe sharia law, which splits the world into two perpetually warring halves, will always have a “divinely sanctioned” right to deceive, until “all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to Allah” (Quran 8:39).

But Muslims are invariably victims in America, according to the politically correct doctrine of the elites, so it would be rude, insensitive and intolerant to question whether Muslims’ statements are ever intended to deceive.  And of course there is not a word about the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s support for terrorism, reported by Discover the Networks. 

Wouldn’t it be nice to see the mainstream media taking a good hard look at this issue?