A common lie from the conservatives of talk radio and other media pundits is that there were no terrorist attacks during President Bush’s administration after 9/11. This is done largely to justify the foreign engagements and point out just how effective they really have been. Unfortunately, this is an utter falsehood and the record needs to be set straight.
In the fall of 2002, the Washington D.C. area was held in the grip of terror. The terror that a sniper’s bullet would penetrate their skull while they were doing ordinary things, such as getting food, going to school, fueling their cars, or just simply waiting for a train. The DC sniper shootings held the entire region in a state of fear for several days.
Eventually the two men responsible were caught. John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested and have since been convicted of their terrible crimes. But their motives were left a mystery for the most part. The prosecutors initially said that Muhammad was looking to kill his ex-wife and make it all look like she was just a random victim of an already senseless killing spree. This motive, however, did not fit and prosecutors were unable to convince a judge of it.
It was not until 2006 that we finally learned their true motives when Malvo testified in one of Muhammad’s trials. Their plan involved three phases. First, they would kill six people a day for 30 days. Fortunately, heavy traffic and poorly picked locations prevented these monsters from pulling this level of terror off. Phase two would involve shooting a pregnant woman in Baltimore and then a police officer. During the officer’s funeral, some form of improvised explosive devices would be detonated, killing several police officers in attendance.
The final phase of their plan involved extorting the United States government for money. They would then use that money to finance their next operation where both men would pick up orphans in the United States, head to Canada and train future snipers. Ultimately, these children would return to all major cities in the United States and resume the terror attacks that Muhammad began.
Fortunately for all of us, they never got past the first phase and they were unable to completely implement it. Still, their motives were clearly bent on some form of terror. But was it Islamic terror?
The answer is a simple yes. These men were members of the Nation of Islam and had various terror-related paraphernalia with them. It is also believed that they said, “Allah Akbar” during their shootings (a common phrase used by Islamic terrorists and other Muslims that means “God is Great”). These men declared a jihad against the United States.
The DC Sniper attacks were terrorist attacks. They were not on the scale of 9/11 nor were they formally organized by a foreign Islamic terror group, but they were Islamic terror attacks.
So please, if you are conservative, do yourself a favor and acknowledge that it is either naive or outright lying to say that President Bush’s policies prevented any post-9/11 terror attacks. To do so dismisses the victims and the families of the DC sniper shootings.