Administration Missing Boko Haram's Islamist Motives

The Obama administration continues to treat religion as a non-factor in Nigeria's Islamist campaign of violence, despite the group repeatedly broadcasting its motives, argues Raymond Ibrahim for the Gatestone Institute. But while the political correctness continues to mask the intolerance of Islam, Nigeria continues to bleed.

In early August, Boko Haram released a video calling on Nigeria's Christian president to "repent and forsake Christianity." According to Ibrahim, the Islamist group's violent campaign reflects a general lack of tolerance in Nigeria's Muslim north, which broke out in rioting in April 2011 after Nigeria reelected the Christian president in a landslide vote.

But despite the obvious religiously-motivated intolerance, Ibrahim states that the "administration has agreed to spend $600 million in an USAID initiative launched to ascertain the "true causes" behind Boko Haram's murderous bloodlust."

"Once again, then, reality is easily ascertained—at root, Boko Haram's terror campaign is entirely motivated by religion—even as the Obama administration refuses to designate the group as a terrorist organization, spends millions of U.S. tax dollars on superfluous initiatives (or diversions), and pressures the Nigerian president to make concessions, including building more mosques, the very structures where Muslims are radicalized and recruited to Boko Haram's jihad," he notes.

Related Topics: Daniel E. Rogell, Boko Haram, Gatestone Institute, Raymond Ibrahim

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