While we weren’t watching
Those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome like to claim that the increase in Muslim vs. everyone attacks are all George Bush's fault, because he had the temerity to strike back. Certainly, we're more aware of Muslim vs. the world attacks, because 9/11 got our antennae up. It's useful, though, to remember that the real crescendo started in the 1990s on Clinton's watch (and, no, I haven't forgotten the Iranian embassy or the Marines killed in Beirut — those were just throat clearings). At American Thinker, Alan Fraser compiles a useful list of the things Clinton managed to ignore and pass on to his successor:
Here is a short list of Islamist hits occurring on his watch while “he waited for tomorrow”
1992 Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina; 29 die.
1993 February 26 World Trade Center bombing kills 6 and injures over 1000 people
1994 Bombing of Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina kills 86 and wounds 300. Eight days later the Israeli Embassy in London and a Jewish charity are car-bombed. 20 are wounded. All three incidents are blamed on Hezbollah.
1994 July 19 Alas Chiricanas bombing kills 21 people
1994 Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by GIA members who planned to crash the plane on Paris but didn’t succeed.
1994 A small bomb explodes on board Philippine Airlines flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. Authorities found out that Ramzi Yousef planted the bomb to test it for his planned terrorist attack.
1995 Islamist terror bombings in France by a GIA unit (Khaled Kelkal being one of the operational leaders). These attacks killed 8 and injured more than 100.
1995 Bombing of military compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
1996 A series of four suicide bombings in Israel leave 60 dead and 284 wounded within 10 days.
1996 Khobar Towers bombing. 19 U.S. servicemen and one Saudi were killed and 372 wounded.
1997 Islamic terrorists attack tourists in Luxor, Egypt, killing 71 people, most of them European and Japanese vacationers.
1997 A terrorist opened fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from the United States, Argentina, Switzerland and France. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claimed this was a punishment attack against the “enemies of Palestine”.
1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 225 people and injuring more than 4,000.
1999 Gunmen opened fire on Shi’a Muslims worshipping in an Islamabad mosque killing 16 people injuring 25.
1999 Indian Airlines Flight 814, is hijacked, one passenger is killed and some hostages are released.
1999 August 31 – September 22 Russian Apartment Bombings kills about 300 people.
2000 USS Cole bombing kills 17 US sailors
Anyone in the West who continues to believe that we are not at war with Islam is so deep in self-delusion that he (or she) may never see daylight again. The fact that this thinking is delusional, though, doesn't seem to prevent it from dominating either public discourse or the West's invariable response to repeated Islamic attacks.