Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

I’m only surprised it took this long.

In a 1999 article I wrote:

“A few weeks ago in Israel, a terrorist drove his car into a crowd of civilians, intent on mass murder.”

The Islamic-jihadi tactic of mowing down innocent civilians with a motor vehicle isn’t new. It didn’t start after 9/11. It didn’t start in Nice, France. It didn’t start on London Bridge.

As far as I know yesterday’s attack on worshippers exiting London’s Finsbury Mosque is the first time this method of attack has been used by a non-Muslim against Muslims.

Finsbury

War between Muslims and non-Muslims is nothing new. It goes back well before the Crusades—starting at the end of the 11th century—to the foundations of Islam itself. According to Wikipedia—“Muhammad spent his last ten years, from 622 to 632, as the leader of Medina in a state of war with pagan Mecca.”

The Marine Corps Hymn in its second line—“To the shores of Tripoli”—memorializes the United States fighting Islamic Barbary Pirates in the early 19th century—but these piratical raids had been ongoing already for centuries.

It’s not Islamophobic to note the historical fact that Islam, when it reaches beyond religious proselytizing into territorial expansion—is violently aggressive.

So a counter-attack using a terrorist tactic pioneered by Islamic partisans is surprising only in that it took until June 2017 to happen.

Anything I say beyond this will be obvious and trite, dividing along political lines.

Some people will say, “Good. They had it coming.”

Other people will say, “This is just another case of prejudice against Muslims.”

And I find it fruitful to quote Proverbs 11:29: “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.”

Or, “What goes around, comes around.”

Or, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”

Told you I’d be obvious and trite.

So let me add just one more point from my perspective as a libertarian.

I’ll say it in three sentences:

Only individuals exist.

Individuals are to be judged as innocent or guilty only by their own actions.

Targeting any collective merely on the basis of guilt-by-association is evil.