INDIAN AMERICAN
INTELLECTUALS FORUM
Tel: (718) 478-5735/(718) 271-0453
Katarian@aol.com/Arish.sahani@gmail.com
http://intellectualsforum.blogspot.com/





Michael S. Swetnam:
Chairman and CEO
Potomac Institute for Policy Studies
901 North Stuart Street, Suite 20
Arlington, VA 22203

February 9, 2012

14th Annual Seminar on International Cooperation in Combating Terrorism

Dear Mr. Swetnam:

Thank you for inviting our group for the 14th Annual Seminar on International Cooperation in Combating Terrorism held at Washington , D.C. on February 2, 2012. We are beholden to you and your organization.

In this connection, however, we would like to convey some points to you about our impressions regarding the Seminar.

The distinguished speakers no doubt spoke about terrorism. But, to our dismay and astonishment, in order to be politically correct, they did not pin point specific responsibility on anyone! The intellectuals, academics and government officials had no clear message to convey. It looked to us as though the leaders either were baffled and confused, merely eager to show their scholarship in the field of terrorism studies, not wanting to offend any parties, or all three. Not much in the way of operational or action oriented suggestions came out of the conference.

The Islamists would have gleefully enjoyed the non-comprehension and cluelessness of “Infidel” leaders regarding Quran, Hadith and Surah. Because of fear of reproach or violent reaction from Jihadists they were sugar coating the blunt truth and acting like sophomores.

A cursory glance at the history of terrorism will clearly indicate the fact that most of the terrorist activities, at least 95% of them, all over the world in the last 50 years have been and are being conducted by the adherents of Islam and trained Islamic terrorists..

The World Trade Center in New York, Beslan in Russia, Bali in Indonesia, Madrid in Spain, London, Mumbai, Godhra Railway Station in India, India’s Parliament Complex in New Delhi, Thailand and Philippine – these were all cases of global Muslim terrorism.

In Sudan , Jihad was declared and approximately two and half million Christians were butchered by Islamists.

Boko Haram, an Islamic organization in Nigeria, is believed to be responsible for killing and maiming hundreds of people.

Many of the Islamic nations agree on the point that Israel should be wiped out from the face of the map.

Somali Jihadists and The Islamist al-Shabab militia who are slaughtering people like goats in Mogadishu are all the followers of Islam.

There is a wholesale attack and murder of Coptic Christians in Egypt by the Islamic Brotherhood.

Last month, 40 Islamic extremist organizations held three big public meetings in Pakistan . In Multan , Lahore and Karachi somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000 jihadists vigorously participated in each meeting. They vowed to break India into pieces, kill Americans and wipe out Israel .

Hindus and Sikhs have been ethnically cleansed from Pakistan by radical Islamists since the founding of the state. Millions of Hindus have been forcibly converted to Islam and / or forced to flee from Bangladesh . More than half a million Hindus have been forcibly driven from the Indian state of Kashmir by Deobandi / Barelvi / Salafist / Wahhabi Islamic terrorists.

We should clearly understand that the aim of these terrorists is not to merely kill and maim innocent people. Their collective and sinister goal is to frighten ordinary citizens into submission, occupy their country, Islamaize it and then establish Khalifat (rule of Allah) all over the world. They rely on certain ayats (articles) from the Koran that explicitly advocate such an action.

We believe that the purpose of the Seminar was not served properly. In spite of voluminous and irrefutable evidence that radical Islamists and their religious teachings are the root cause of terrorism, it did not make any serious attempt to identify them and or suggest solutions or approaches to this dangerous problem.

It looked to us that the experts were groping in the dark for some sort of solution to this endemic disease, without offending anyone. We are sadly mistaken if we believe that by killing some terrorists here and there, we can solve this knotty problem. We have to be bold enough to identify our enemies clearly, and then go after their jugular vein. This is the only language that terrorists understand.

One more thing which we would like to bring to your attention is that we should never confuse the individual criminal behavior of people like Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma with well orchestrated, ideologically driven, collectively organized, and massively funded acts by Islamic states like Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Our future generations will not forgive us for our disingenuous intellectual gymnastics aimed at avoiding the real issue for reasons of political correctness – shades of Neville Chamberlain when addressing the Nazi threat in relation to Poland .

Terrorism, specifically Islamic terrorism is a very serious issue affecting the lives of billions of human beings on this earth. We cannot afford to act like dainty dilettantes.

If such a renowned and reputable think tank like Potomac Institute hesitates to call out the root cause of terrorism and cannot / will not come up with solid solutions to tackle the same – only God can save us!

Best regards,

Narain Kataria
President
Indian American Intellectual Forum

Cc: Yalexander@Potomacinstitute.org
icts@potomacinstitute.org , Mincons@indiagov.com, lkinney@potomacinstitue.org

(We will appreciate it very much if you could kindly
circulate to concerned officials – thanks)