Terrorism’s great achievement isn’t hijacking jetliners, but hijacking the debate. Successful terrorism persuades the terror-stricken that he’s conscience-stricken. Once adapted and internalized by its targets, asymmetric terror can be as powerful as totalitarian terror.
Ultimately, terror triumphs when it allows perpetrators to masquerade as victims. It’s the intolerant demanding tolerance that bedevils Western civil liberties and anti-defamatory organizations (as some commentators, myself included, have been suggesting for years). From diverse Holland to multicultural Canada, the story is the same. Institutions, churches, universities that stood up against the kind of anti-Semitism that doesn’t dare speak its name, are being thrown for a loop by the kind that shouts its name from the rooftops.
Never let it be said that we live in a profane age. There are more shibboleths and altars today than in any sacred grove that ever existed. To illustrate this take the current lineup of the FBI’s Most Wanted For Terrorism. Apart from the first two, the first being a member of an animal rights extremist group and the second a member of the Black Liberation Army hiding as a fugitive in Cuba, what would you make of the list?
DANIEL ANDREAS SAN DIEGO
JOANNE DEBORAH CHESIMARD
ABD AL AZIZ AWDA
HAKIMULLAH MEHSUD
IBRAHIM SALIH MOHAMMED AL-YACOUB
FAOUZI MOHAMAD AYOUB
OMAR SHAFIK HAMMAMI
JEHAD SERWAN MOSTAFA
ADAM YAHIYE GADAHN
ABDUL RAHMAN YASIN
ALI ATWA
JABER A. ELBANEH
HUSAYN MUHAMMAD AL-UMARI
ADNAN G. EL SHUKRIJUMAH
MUHAMMAD AHMED AL-MUNAWAR
JAMEL AHMED MOHAMMED ALI AL-BADAWI
AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI
ALI SAED BIN ALI EL-HOORIE
ABDULLAH AHMED ABDULLAH
ISNILON TOTONI HAPILON
RAMADAN ABDULLAH MOHAMMAD SHALLAH
HASAN IZZ-AL-DIN
MOHAMMED ALI HAMADEI
ABDELKARIM HUSSEIN MOHAMED AL-NASSER
AHMAD IBRAHIM AL-MUGHASSIL
SAIF AL-ADEL
ANAS AL-LIBY
WADOUD MUHAMMAD HAFIZ AL-TURKI
MUHAMMAD ABDULLAH KHALIL HUSSAIN AR-RAHAYYAL
JAMAL SAEED ABDUL RAHIM
ZULKIFLI ABDHIR
RADDULAN SAHIRON
Clearly what any right-thinking individual should conclude is that the list proves that we as a society have a long way evolve. That the FBI is not paying enough attention to the real danger facing the nation: the white Christian extremists. As Victor Hanson impudently asks, ‘why if so many white Christian extremists are out there have so few been droned?’
Schools in Gaza are providing military training to teenage boys in a programme that a human rights organisation says is encouraging a culture of armed resistance and a new generation of fighters.
The school curriculum includes weekly classes in which boys are familiarised with the use of Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons. Instructors from the interior ministry’s national security arm also teach first aid, firefighting and the values of “discipline and responsibility”.
The course is supplemented with voluntary camps during school breaks, in which boys are instructed in handling guns and explosives. The Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, the Islamist faction that governs Gaza, assist in the training, according to Gaza’s ministry of education website.
It denies that real weapons are used in training. However, a video shot at the Gamal Abdel Nasser school near Gaza City appears to show students carrying Kalashnikovs and a boy firing an artillery shell at a mocked-up watchtower bearing an Israeli flag. Schoolboy Izzadine Mohammed confirmed to the Guardian that he had been trained in handling real weapons at a camp this year.
One site explaining the Tsarnaev brother’s homicidal motivations offered this helpful comparison: “al-Qaeda is a form of right-wing Islam”. It’s a phrase almost as good as “dark skinned white American
We have to wise up. Why have we not until now? Because we have forgotten common sense; unlearned the idea that to win means waging mental strife so that the sword can sleep in your hand. That we can’t fight the enemy by “law enforcement”. Why did we miss something so plain? Because it required the recovery of old idea: if you are trying to kill me then you are my enemy. And if you are my enemy I will fight you.
But we are so beyond that. We want to feel other people’s pain. We want to demonstrate how enlightened, tolerant and progressive we are. We want to do everything except face the facts. And that’s why we won’t ever stop having to drone people all over the map and hunt them down house to house.
The process of opposition stops when then enemy gives up trying to harm you. Then you have have what is called peace. And the world turns again. In the coming weeks the Internet will be deluged with long and involved tracts purporting to explain things. It will offer new perspectives, new insights, new … but perhaps that is not half so important as the need to remember the old things; and to unlumber the attics of our mind.
I share the outrage of every American citizen with regard to the terrorism in Boston. We don’t know who did it…what group or lunatic or sleeper cell….let the FBI and CIA do the work and investigation.
I think of Israel whose towns and citizens have been subject to this type of carnage every single year of its 65 year history. Rockets from Gaza, bombs in buses, cafeterias, markets, hotels, celebrations…..endless terrorism.
Now, when the murderers who are responsible for the deadly explosions in Boston are apprehended, will anyone dare suggest that they get an independent state in the heartland of Massachusetts?
Just asking…..rsk
The world is constantly held up by terrorists and nowadays it tends to give in, if not to the specific operations to the narrative being imposed on it. We do see rescue operations sometimes—as in the Algerian army’s disastrous “rescue” in which all the technicians being held hostage at a gas field were killed—and sometimes we don’t, as in Benghazi while the U.S. government stood by as men it had sent into a dangerous situation were murdered.
Yet what happens is that even if the terrorists don’t always win in their military operations they succeed in intimidating the West to hand over its intellectual property—by suppressing its own debate—and sometimes to pay tribute money as well.
As a reward for failing to fulfill its commitments and cheering on terrorist attacks, the UN’s General Assembly assigned non-member state status to the Palestinian Authority. Billions of dollars of U.S. aid go to Pakistan, which helps the Taliban and shields al-Qaida. Arms are handed over to Syrian Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Turkish government backs a terrorist group to create a violent confrontation with Israel (the IHH in the Gaza flotilla) and President Obama declares that regime to be his soul mate. Even after an official report that Hizballah carried out a terrorist attack in Bulgaria, the European Union won’t put it on the terrorism list.
There is a long list of such items. Terrorism mugs the West and gets paid off as long as it doesn’t overreach too much. Not attacking the World Trade Center is enough to make some group America’s “friend.”
TIMBUKTU, Mali — In their hurry to flee last month, al-Qaida fighters left behind a crucial document: Tucked under a pile of papers and trash is a confidential letter, spelling out the terror network’s strategy for conquering northern Mali and reflecting internal discord over how to rule the region.
The document is an unprecedented window into the terrorist operation, indicating that al-Qaida predicted the military intervention that would dislodge it in January and recognized its own vulnerability.
The letter also shows a sharp division within al-Qaida’s Africa chapter over how quickly and how strictly to apply Islamic law, with its senior commander expressing dismay over the whipping of women and the destruction of Timbuktu’s ancient monuments. It moreover leaves no doubt that despite a temporary withdrawal into the desert, al-Qaida plans to operate in the region over the long haul, and is willing to make short-term concessions on ideology to gain the allies it acknowledges it needs.
The more than nine-page document, found by The Associated Press in a building occupied by the Islamic extremists for almost a year, is signed by Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, the nom de guerre of Abdelmalek Droukdel, the senior commander appointed by Osama bin Laden to run al-Qaida’s branch in Africa. The clear-headed, point-by-point assessment resembles a memo from a CEO to his top managers and lays out for his jihadists in Mali what they have done wrong in months past, and what they need to do to correct their behavior in the future.
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The tone and timing of the letter suggest that al-Qaida is learning from its mistakes in places like Somalia and Algeria, where attempts to unilaterally impose its version of Islam backfired. They also reflect the influence of the Arab Spring, which showed the power of people to break regimes, and turned on its head al-Qaida’s long-held view that only violence could bring about wholesale change, Guidere said.
The letter suggests a change in the thinking, if not the rhetoric, of Droukdel, who is asking his men to behave with a restraint that he himself is not known for. Droukdel is believed to have overseen numerous suicide bombings, including one in 2007 where al-Qaida fighters bombed the United Nations building and a new government building in Algiers, killing 41 people. The same year, the U.S. designated him a global terrorist and banned Americans from doing business with him.
In a video disseminated on jihadist forums a few months ago, Droukdel dared the French to intervene in Mali and said his men will turn the region into a “graveyard” for foreign fighters, according to a transcript provided by Washington-based SITE Intelligence.
Latest photos of Concentration Camp Gaza
This is a photo essay of Islamic University in Gaza from Palestine Times:
More on this wonderful university, and its history with terrorism, here and here.
More on this wonderful university, and its history with terrorism, here and here.
Algerian leaders adopted an eradication policy against Islamist insurgents in a war that cost more than 100,000 lives. The insurgents eventually accepted amnesty and renounced violence. Remnants of the insurgency have been fighting for an Islamic state in northern Mali, Porter said.
All three AQIM factions in North Africa and the Sahara were “on a downward trend” until 2012, Porter said. The collapse of Libya, which allowed weapons from Gadhafi’s vast arsenal to be seized by extremists, “helped them gain power in northern Mali and the group has transformed from 2011 and 2012,” he said.
ברצועת עזה לא חסר כלום, לפחות לא דבר שישראל מונעת מהתושבים. את האוכל ישראל מספקת להם דרך מחסום ארז מתוצרת ישראלית - השוק בעזה עמוס בתוצרת ישראלית. החשמל גם כן מסופק לרצועה למרות חוב של מליונים לחברת החשמל הישראלית. הבניינים מפוארים ורבי קומות. אפילו שרותי רפואה ובתי חולים יש בשפע. מי שמבקש, הטיפול בישראל לא נמנע ממנו ואפילו נותנים לו עדיפות. אלו הם חיי הישראלים, בתמורה לנתינה שלהם לעם הערבי שחי ברצועת עזה - ירי טילים לעבר אוכלוסייה ישראלית אזרחית.
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Civilian population in the Gaza Strip is not missing anything, at least not that Israel is preventing them. Israel provides Israeli-made and products food for them through the Erez passage - Gaza’s market is full with Israeli pruducts. Electricity also provided Strip despite a debt of millions to the IEC. Luxury buildings and high rises are common in Gaza. Even the medical services and hospitals abound. Even though, any person who wants to, gets treatment in Israel and and even give it priority. These are the lives of Israelis, in exchange for their giving Arab people living in Gaza - fired rockets at Israeli civilian population.
Hamas is a flagrantly anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-feminist and anti-gay movement dedicated to genocide. The United States, Canada and the European Union all consider it a terrorist organization. Hamas strives to kill the maximum number of Israeli civilians while using its own population as a human shield — under international law, a double war crime. Why, then, would the same free press that Hamas silences help advance its strategy?
Media naturally gravitate toward dramatic and highly visual stories. Reports of 5.5 million Israelis gathered nightly in bomb shelters scarcely compete with the Palestinian father interviewed after losing his son. Both are, of course, newsworthy, but the first tells a more complete story while the second stirs emotions.
This is precisely what Hamas wants. It seeks to instill a visceral disgust for any Israeli act of self-defense, even one taken after years of unprovoked aggression.
