I live in West Kelowna. I enjoy reading your editorials in the Daily Courier periodically and want to comment on this morning's edition concerning the Paris crisis.
I agree that the worst thing we can do is a knee jerk reaction. There has been too much of that from the west, the first was the George Bush invasion of Iraq. All it has done is to spread these cancerous jihadist cells. It reflected a total lack of understanding of the background. Two excellent books came out about that time that provide excellent background information - The Two Faces of Islam by Stephen Schwartz and Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror.
There was also an excellent article in the October 2003 edition of National Geographic.
All these extremist Muslim groups are based on the Wahhabi sect which has been around for about 300 years.
It was started by Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, born the son of a judge in 1703 in the Najd region of Arabia. He had extremist religious tendencies and he travelled widely to Basra, Baghdad, Damascus, Kurdistan, Iran and India.
Obviously, he had the necessary financial resources to do that.
I won't go into detail on his religious beliefs but his teachings are reflected in the jihadist groups of today - Al-Qaeda, Islamic State (or ISIS), Taliban, etc.
The main targets of early Wahhabi aggression were the two major Muslims sects - Shiites and Sunnis. The objective was to assume control of the Muslim sector of the world.
It is only in very recent history that various Jihad groups have been attacking soft Western targets. What has become very clear since 9/11 is that Western intelligence has failed to understand or penetrate the networks of Islamist ultra-radicals.
It is quite obvious that these groups are well financed, probably from oil wealth in countries like Saudi Arabia.
I do not know how the problem should be addressed but I do know that what we are doing today is not working.
The invasion of Iraq got rid of Saddam Hussein but released a powder keg of conflicting forces. The same applies to Osama Bin Laden. The problem is getting worse, not better.
Canada sending five aircrafts to fight ISIS shows our allies that we support them, but it is like a mosquito bite on the jihadists. If we bite too hard, there will be retaliation.
I'm afraid I do not know the answer but strongly believe the problem requires a lot of study by people who understand the problem better then I do.
Chris Hansen
Kelowna
