No doubt Trump's Saudi bestie, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (aka MBS), would be so proud of these two fanatics:
"Two Sunni Muslim men who fire bombed a Shia mosque in Melbourne... in a terrorist act have been jailed for 22 years... Ahmed Mohamed [and] Chaarani Abdullah burned down the... mosque in December 2016, following a failed attempt... the previous month. Yesterday, Supreme Court judge Andrew Tinney said the men were 'motivated by hatred, intolerance, malevolence and misguided piety. You crime is very difficult to understand and quite impossible to excuse,' he said. He said the men attacked a fundamental value in Australian society, 'namely religious freedom' in order the advance the ideology of Islamic State." ('Cowardly' mosque firebombers get 22 years,Tessa Akerman, The Australian, 25/7/19)
Judge Tinney also stated that "'[This] was more than an attack upon a mere building. It was an attack upon a branch of your faith'." (ibid)
How absolutely right he is, Wahabbist ideology notwithstanding.
Showing posts with label Islamic State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islamic State. Show all posts
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Bolton & Friends Trump Trump
In case you are under the illusion that US presidents alone call the shots when it comes to US foreign policy, check this out:
"President Donald Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, has rolled back Trump's decision to rapidly withdraw from Syria, laying out conditions for a pullout that could leave US forces there for months or even years. Bolton, making a visit to Israel said on Sunday that US forces would remain in Syria until the last remnants of Islamic State were defeated and Turkey guaranteed it would not strike Kurdish forces allied to the United States. He and other top White House advisers have led a behind-the-scenes effort to slow Trump's order and reassure allies, including Israel." (Trump's Syria pull-out on hold, David Sanger, The New York Times/Sydney Morning Herald, 8/1/19)
The US foreign policy establishment, it seems, has reminded Trump who the real target of the US war machine is - not Islamic State, but Syria (and Iran).
In fact, far from being an enemy of the US, Islamic State (as well as al-Qaida's Syrian franchise, the Nusra Front), should properly be seen as a component part of Washington's strategy to wear down the Syrian Arab Army as a prelude to the eventual overthrow of the Ba'athists in Damascus. As Stephen Gowans puts it:
"That Washington regarded the Nusra Front in a different light than Islamic State, was evidenced, in the first instance, in the reality that CIA-armed and trained rebels were embedded with al-Nusra, but not, it seemed, with Islamic State. One could search far and wide through press reports for mention of insurgents on the Western payroll who were cooperating with the Islamic State and turn up nothing. In contrast, references to US-backed rebels operating conjointly with al-Nusra were legion. Islamic State appeared to be a true anathema as far as Washington was concerned, while it was clear that US officials regarded al-Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria on altogether different terms. This became clear when Russia entered the fray in Syria with the stated goal of destroying terrorist groups, and Washington acted as if it had forgotten that it had tarred Jabhat al-Nusra with the terrorist brush. Russia can't be targeting terrorists, Washington complained. If that were its true goal, it would only be attacking Islamic State. It seemed that, unofficially at least, the United States preferred that Jabhat al-Nusra be viewed as part of the agglomeration of 'moderate' rebel groups. So it is that when the US Director of Intelligence James Clapper was asked exactly who the much-talked-about moderates were, he replied: 'Moderate these days is increasingly becoming anyone who's not affiliated with Islamic State.' Hence, as far as Washington was concerned, every non-Islamic State armed group was moderate, including al-Nusra, even though the al-Qaeda affiliate had been designated a terrorist organization by the United States itself, and despite the fact that it was part of an organization - indeed, the largest part - which attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.
"The reason for separating Islamic State from the Islamist insurgency against the Syrian Ba'athists, and regarding it as immoderate, was that, unlike al-Nusra and the al-Qaeda affiliate's CIA-armed auxiliaries, Islamic State aspired to replace more governments than Washington cared to see replaced. The US government was willing to work with any group which shared its goal of de-Ba'athifying Syria, as long as it limited its aims to that end. But it was not willing to work with an organization which also wanted to oust the government in Baghdad - which Washington had installed - or the monarchy in Riyadh, which Islamic State condemned as un-Islamic, but which Washington considered an important ally.
"What recommended Jabhat al-Nusra to Washington was that it was a useful instrument in the campaign to efface Arab nationalist ideology from the Syrian state. The US strategy was to afford the al-Nusra coalition enough support for it to wear down the Syrian government sufficiently enough that the Ba'athists would acquiesce to a political transition, but never so much support that they would be forced to yield power to the Islamists. In other words, Washington had no intention of seeing either of the participants in the decades-long battle between secular Arab nationalism and Sunni political Islam prevail. Washington would let the two sides bleed each other dry, and when they were exhausted, interpose itself with a 'compromise' candidate who would cater to US interests.
"Washington played a similar game with Islamic State, though not by calibrating its level of support, which it wasn't providing anyway, but by calibrating its military campaign against the group. The Pentagon struck Islamic State hard in Iraq, but barely at all in Syria. US airstrikes were concentrated in Iraq, reported The Wall Street Journal, because 'in Syria, US strikes against the Islamic State would inadvertently help the regime of President Bashar al-Assad militarily.' Likewise, France 'refrained from bombing the group in Syria for fear of bolstering' the Syrian government. The British, too, focused their air war overwhelmingly on Islamic State targets in Iraq, conducting less than 10% of their airstrikes on the Islamist organization's positions in Syria. The New York Times reported that 'United States-led airstrikes in Syria... largely focused on areas far outside government control, to avoid... aiding a leader whose ouster President Obama has called for.' Hence, US-coalition 'airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria... were so limited as to make it little more than a symbolic gesture.' Robert Fisk summed up the phony war against Islamic State in Syria with a sarcastic quip: 'And so we went to war against Isis in Syria - unless, of course, Isis was attacking Assad's regime, in which case we did nothing at all'." (Washington's Long War on Syria, 2017, pp 150-52)
"President Donald Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, has rolled back Trump's decision to rapidly withdraw from Syria, laying out conditions for a pullout that could leave US forces there for months or even years. Bolton, making a visit to Israel said on Sunday that US forces would remain in Syria until the last remnants of Islamic State were defeated and Turkey guaranteed it would not strike Kurdish forces allied to the United States. He and other top White House advisers have led a behind-the-scenes effort to slow Trump's order and reassure allies, including Israel." (Trump's Syria pull-out on hold, David Sanger, The New York Times/Sydney Morning Herald, 8/1/19)
The US foreign policy establishment, it seems, has reminded Trump who the real target of the US war machine is - not Islamic State, but Syria (and Iran).
In fact, far from being an enemy of the US, Islamic State (as well as al-Qaida's Syrian franchise, the Nusra Front), should properly be seen as a component part of Washington's strategy to wear down the Syrian Arab Army as a prelude to the eventual overthrow of the Ba'athists in Damascus. As Stephen Gowans puts it:
"That Washington regarded the Nusra Front in a different light than Islamic State, was evidenced, in the first instance, in the reality that CIA-armed and trained rebels were embedded with al-Nusra, but not, it seemed, with Islamic State. One could search far and wide through press reports for mention of insurgents on the Western payroll who were cooperating with the Islamic State and turn up nothing. In contrast, references to US-backed rebels operating conjointly with al-Nusra were legion. Islamic State appeared to be a true anathema as far as Washington was concerned, while it was clear that US officials regarded al-Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria on altogether different terms. This became clear when Russia entered the fray in Syria with the stated goal of destroying terrorist groups, and Washington acted as if it had forgotten that it had tarred Jabhat al-Nusra with the terrorist brush. Russia can't be targeting terrorists, Washington complained. If that were its true goal, it would only be attacking Islamic State. It seemed that, unofficially at least, the United States preferred that Jabhat al-Nusra be viewed as part of the agglomeration of 'moderate' rebel groups. So it is that when the US Director of Intelligence James Clapper was asked exactly who the much-talked-about moderates were, he replied: 'Moderate these days is increasingly becoming anyone who's not affiliated with Islamic State.' Hence, as far as Washington was concerned, every non-Islamic State armed group was moderate, including al-Nusra, even though the al-Qaeda affiliate had been designated a terrorist organization by the United States itself, and despite the fact that it was part of an organization - indeed, the largest part - which attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.
"The reason for separating Islamic State from the Islamist insurgency against the Syrian Ba'athists, and regarding it as immoderate, was that, unlike al-Nusra and the al-Qaeda affiliate's CIA-armed auxiliaries, Islamic State aspired to replace more governments than Washington cared to see replaced. The US government was willing to work with any group which shared its goal of de-Ba'athifying Syria, as long as it limited its aims to that end. But it was not willing to work with an organization which also wanted to oust the government in Baghdad - which Washington had installed - or the monarchy in Riyadh, which Islamic State condemned as un-Islamic, but which Washington considered an important ally.
"What recommended Jabhat al-Nusra to Washington was that it was a useful instrument in the campaign to efface Arab nationalist ideology from the Syrian state. The US strategy was to afford the al-Nusra coalition enough support for it to wear down the Syrian government sufficiently enough that the Ba'athists would acquiesce to a political transition, but never so much support that they would be forced to yield power to the Islamists. In other words, Washington had no intention of seeing either of the participants in the decades-long battle between secular Arab nationalism and Sunni political Islam prevail. Washington would let the two sides bleed each other dry, and when they were exhausted, interpose itself with a 'compromise' candidate who would cater to US interests.
"Washington played a similar game with Islamic State, though not by calibrating its level of support, which it wasn't providing anyway, but by calibrating its military campaign against the group. The Pentagon struck Islamic State hard in Iraq, but barely at all in Syria. US airstrikes were concentrated in Iraq, reported The Wall Street Journal, because 'in Syria, US strikes against the Islamic State would inadvertently help the regime of President Bashar al-Assad militarily.' Likewise, France 'refrained from bombing the group in Syria for fear of bolstering' the Syrian government. The British, too, focused their air war overwhelmingly on Islamic State targets in Iraq, conducting less than 10% of their airstrikes on the Islamist organization's positions in Syria. The New York Times reported that 'United States-led airstrikes in Syria... largely focused on areas far outside government control, to avoid... aiding a leader whose ouster President Obama has called for.' Hence, US-coalition 'airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria... were so limited as to make it little more than a symbolic gesture.' Robert Fisk summed up the phony war against Islamic State in Syria with a sarcastic quip: 'And so we went to war against Isis in Syria - unless, of course, Isis was attacking Assad's regime, in which case we did nothing at all'." (Washington's Long War on Syria, 2017, pp 150-52)
Sunday, December 23, 2018
US Coalition 'Cure' Worse than IS Disease
So Trump is at last pulling US forces out of Syria. In my view, the sooner the US gets out of Syria, not to mention the entire Middle East - and stays out - the better.
If you want to know why, read the following chilling news report - keeping in mind, as you read, that it was the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 that unleashed Islamic State, first on Iraq, then on Syria:
"An Amnesty International report last June said [Raqqa's] civilian casualty figures admitted by the US-led coalition were grossly under-representative. Before that report, the coalition suggested only 23 Syrian civilians had died in its campaign in Raqqa, which destroyed nearly 80% of the city. Britain's Ministry of Defence consistently and incredibly claimed it had no evidence of civilian casualties caused by the 275 British airstrikes in Raqqa or to more than 750 in Mosul, Iraq... 'At least the Americans admit to having caused civilian casualties,' Airwars director Chris Woods said yesterday. 'Britain, like Russia, France, Australia, Belgium and the Dutch, claim their bombs only kill bad people, which is ridiculous'.
"The operation by the Syrian recovery teams [of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces] suggests Amnesty and Airwars are accurate in their assessment of civilian casualties. Data shared with The Times, which was up to date on December 11, said teams had recovered 3280 corpses since work began in January. This included the bodies of 604 children younger than 16; 538 adult civilian women; 1251 civilian men; and 792 fighters. In 95 cases, it was not possible to identify age or sex. Thousands of civilians were wounded during the operation, in which US forces fired more than 30,000 artillery shells into the city as well as airstrikes by jets from Britain, Australia and France. American units fired more artillery into Raqqa than into any other city since the Vietnam War...
"Hannan Mukhlaf, 27, lost two brothers, two sisters, two sisters-in-law and their five children in a coalition airstrike on her family's home in August last year... 'Islamic State were cruel to all but the coalition used airstrikes against us as if we were animals. If just one person in the West was killed in such a way, everybody would be talking about it. But thousands of us died like this here - bombed like we were animals'. The grim work of recovering bodies goes on." (Raqqa's dead tell a haunting tale of coalition civilian casualties by the thousands, Anthony Lloyd, The Times/The Australian, 21/12/18)
The fact is that the US is directly responsible both for inflicting the IS contagion on Syria, and for inflicting on its hapless Syrian victims an aerial and artillery bombardment infinitely worse than the disease itself.
Typically, there are those who either don't get it or don't care. One such is Australia's prime minister. Fresh from his Jerusalem debacle:
"Scott Morrison has vowed to stay the course in the war against terrorism in the Middle East, warning that 'we cannot be complacent' about the threat of a resurgence of Islamic State, a day after Donald Trump withdrew US troops from Syria and amid reports he is planning to draw down forces in Afghanistan." (PM's vow on terror alliance, Paul Maley/ Cameron Stewart, The Australian, 22/12/18)
Apparently, this stems from the dogma that we must "deny terrorist organisations safe havens in which to plan and export terror attacks across the globe, including the Indo-Pacific." (ibid)
Whenever you hear this kind of simple-minded rhetoric about "denying terrorist organisations safe havens," please remember the fate of the thousands of mangled and maimed civilians in Raqqa and Mosul.
If you want to know why, read the following chilling news report - keeping in mind, as you read, that it was the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 that unleashed Islamic State, first on Iraq, then on Syria:
"An Amnesty International report last June said [Raqqa's] civilian casualty figures admitted by the US-led coalition were grossly under-representative. Before that report, the coalition suggested only 23 Syrian civilians had died in its campaign in Raqqa, which destroyed nearly 80% of the city. Britain's Ministry of Defence consistently and incredibly claimed it had no evidence of civilian casualties caused by the 275 British airstrikes in Raqqa or to more than 750 in Mosul, Iraq... 'At least the Americans admit to having caused civilian casualties,' Airwars director Chris Woods said yesterday. 'Britain, like Russia, France, Australia, Belgium and the Dutch, claim their bombs only kill bad people, which is ridiculous'.
"The operation by the Syrian recovery teams [of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces] suggests Amnesty and Airwars are accurate in their assessment of civilian casualties. Data shared with The Times, which was up to date on December 11, said teams had recovered 3280 corpses since work began in January. This included the bodies of 604 children younger than 16; 538 adult civilian women; 1251 civilian men; and 792 fighters. In 95 cases, it was not possible to identify age or sex. Thousands of civilians were wounded during the operation, in which US forces fired more than 30,000 artillery shells into the city as well as airstrikes by jets from Britain, Australia and France. American units fired more artillery into Raqqa than into any other city since the Vietnam War...
"Hannan Mukhlaf, 27, lost two brothers, two sisters, two sisters-in-law and their five children in a coalition airstrike on her family's home in August last year... 'Islamic State were cruel to all but the coalition used airstrikes against us as if we were animals. If just one person in the West was killed in such a way, everybody would be talking about it. But thousands of us died like this here - bombed like we were animals'. The grim work of recovering bodies goes on." (Raqqa's dead tell a haunting tale of coalition civilian casualties by the thousands, Anthony Lloyd, The Times/The Australian, 21/12/18)
The fact is that the US is directly responsible both for inflicting the IS contagion on Syria, and for inflicting on its hapless Syrian victims an aerial and artillery bombardment infinitely worse than the disease itself.
Typically, there are those who either don't get it or don't care. One such is Australia's prime minister. Fresh from his Jerusalem debacle:
"Scott Morrison has vowed to stay the course in the war against terrorism in the Middle East, warning that 'we cannot be complacent' about the threat of a resurgence of Islamic State, a day after Donald Trump withdrew US troops from Syria and amid reports he is planning to draw down forces in Afghanistan." (PM's vow on terror alliance, Paul Maley/ Cameron Stewart, The Australian, 22/12/18)
Apparently, this stems from the dogma that we must "deny terrorist organisations safe havens in which to plan and export terror attacks across the globe, including the Indo-Pacific." (ibid)
Whenever you hear this kind of simple-minded rhetoric about "denying terrorist organisations safe havens," please remember the fate of the thousands of mangled and maimed civilians in Raqqa and Mosul.
Monday, February 19, 2018
Great Moments in Qur'anic Commentary
Oh wow:
"Tamim Khaja, 20, who has pleaded guilty to doing an act in preparation for, or planning a terrorist act, had scoped out potential target buildings in Sydney including the Parramatta District Court precinct and Timor Army Barracks... Khaja had said he was motivated not by watching YouTube videos but 'straight from the verses of Koran... Khaja [also] said he would keep in mind that 'it's happening for the sake of Allah' if anyone comes in his way. 'So I'm not going to stop firing. I'm not going to stop firing wallahi [I swear to Allah]. If there's like a two-month-old baby... I wouldn't buckle in that situation, akhi'. " (Terrorist talk was like 'planning a picnic', says judge, AAP/ Sydney Morning Herald, 17/2/18)
Hey, all of you illustrious Qur'anic commentators of the past, it's time to move over! Yes, that includes you Sahl at-Tustari of Basra (d. 896), Ibn al-'Arabi of Andalus (d. 1092), and 'Imad ad-Din Isma'il b. Kathir of Damascus (d. 1373).
There's a new boy on the block from Sydney, Australia, and his Qur'anic commentary is, like, amaaazing.. I mean, who'd have thought you could get the Parramatta District Court precinct, the Timor Army Barracks and distracting, two-month-old babies out of the Qur'an? All that, and he wears a reverse baseball cap too.
"Tamim Khaja, 20, who has pleaded guilty to doing an act in preparation for, or planning a terrorist act, had scoped out potential target buildings in Sydney including the Parramatta District Court precinct and Timor Army Barracks... Khaja had said he was motivated not by watching YouTube videos but 'straight from the verses of Koran... Khaja [also] said he would keep in mind that 'it's happening for the sake of Allah' if anyone comes in his way. 'So I'm not going to stop firing. I'm not going to stop firing wallahi [I swear to Allah]. If there's like a two-month-old baby... I wouldn't buckle in that situation, akhi'. " (Terrorist talk was like 'planning a picnic', says judge, AAP/ Sydney Morning Herald, 17/2/18)
Hey, all of you illustrious Qur'anic commentators of the past, it's time to move over! Yes, that includes you Sahl at-Tustari of Basra (d. 896), Ibn al-'Arabi of Andalus (d. 1092), and 'Imad ad-Din Isma'il b. Kathir of Damascus (d. 1373).
There's a new boy on the block from Sydney, Australia, and his Qur'anic commentary is, like, amaaazing.. I mean, who'd have thought you could get the Parramatta District Court precinct, the Timor Army Barracks and distracting, two-month-old babies out of the Qur'an? All that, and he wears a reverse baseball cap too.
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Caliphate 'Exactly Like Israel'
An oldie but a goldie:
Man: Why do Muslims need a caliphate? Why?
Man: OK, I'll give you an example: Israel, a Jewish state, and the one who wants to go and live in Israel, they go and live in Israel. They come from Russia, they come from Europe, they come from everywhere. They've got this Israeli state. Khilafah would be like a country. Exactly like Israel, and the Jews go to Israel from all over the world. It's not like what people think - they're going to be cutting hands, they're killing people and lashing women and men. No, it's not like that. Islamic khilafah, it's a very fair thing. It's very fair.
David Rutledge: More voices from the streets of Melbourne, talking there with Michael Nassar. (Dreaming of the caliphate, Encounter, abc.net.au, 11/10/14)
Man: Why do Muslims need a caliphate? Why?
Man: OK, I'll give you an example: Israel, a Jewish state, and the one who wants to go and live in Israel, they go and live in Israel. They come from Russia, they come from Europe, they come from everywhere. They've got this Israeli state. Khilafah would be like a country. Exactly like Israel, and the Jews go to Israel from all over the world. It's not like what people think - they're going to be cutting hands, they're killing people and lashing women and men. No, it's not like that. Islamic khilafah, it's a very fair thing. It's very fair.
David Rutledge: More voices from the streets of Melbourne, talking there with Michael Nassar. (Dreaming of the caliphate, Encounter, abc.net.au, 11/10/14)
Thursday, October 26, 2017
A Newie on Me
I'm used to Syria's president being routinely demonised by the msm ('dictator'/'tyrant'), and seeing his government referred to pejoratively as a 'regime' (another indication that the war in Syria is actually a regime-change war against Syria), but this is the first time I've read something like this:
"In the end, cats and dogs were feeding on shredded human flesh in the streets. But when the siege first closed in, life in Raqqa went on much as before. There were niggling court cases over property rights; Islamic State had its own bureaucracy. There were the public executions, and there were multi-million-dollar business deals with the Syrian regime... Abu Mahmoud, 50, an estate agent before the war, is one of those men who can see profit in a crisis. He was putting together a contract for Islamic State to sell $US5 million worth of concrete oil pipelines to the regime. Sadly for him, the deal finally collapsed when the caliphate's capital was surrounded. (Dogs ate the dead as noose tightened on ISIS stronghold, Richard Spencer, The Times, 21/10/17/ The Australian, 24/10/17)
Richard Spencer is a Middle East correspondent for Murdoch's The Times. To get some idea where he's coming from, see his 30/8/17 piece, Will the West confront the power of Hezbollah: While we have focused on defeating Isis in the Middle East, an old foe has grown even stronger.
"In the end, cats and dogs were feeding on shredded human flesh in the streets. But when the siege first closed in, life in Raqqa went on much as before. There were niggling court cases over property rights; Islamic State had its own bureaucracy. There were the public executions, and there were multi-million-dollar business deals with the Syrian regime... Abu Mahmoud, 50, an estate agent before the war, is one of those men who can see profit in a crisis. He was putting together a contract for Islamic State to sell $US5 million worth of concrete oil pipelines to the regime. Sadly for him, the deal finally collapsed when the caliphate's capital was surrounded. (Dogs ate the dead as noose tightened on ISIS stronghold, Richard Spencer, The Times, 21/10/17/ The Australian, 24/10/17)
Richard Spencer is a Middle East correspondent for Murdoch's The Times. To get some idea where he's coming from, see his 30/8/17 piece, Will the West confront the power of Hezbollah: While we have focused on defeating Isis in the Middle East, an old foe has grown even stronger.
Monday, August 21, 2017
Palestine Can Wait
Not just criminal, cutthroat scum, but mega-delusional as well:
"Spain has been a serious target for Islamic State because of its five-centuries-old land claims to the territory of Melilla and Ceuta, on the African continent bordering Morocco. The Counter-Terrorism Project reports: 'Spain's current anxieties are exacerbated by ISIS, al-Qa'ida, and other Islamist groups' vows to 'reconquer' what they refer to as 'al-Andalus',' the historic Arabic name for the Iberian mainland. Up until the late 15th century, large parts of Spain and Portugal were under the control of an Islamic caliphate. Spain is thus considered part of 'occupied lands' by jihadists and a legitimate target for re-inclusion in a future Islamic Caliphate. A Spanish-speaking ISIS member declared in 2014, 'I tell you, Spain is the land of our forefathers, and, Allah willing, we are going to liberate it, with the might of Allah...'
"Last year Islamic State called on its followers to attack Spanish tourist sites to avenge the crimes committed by Spain against Muslims, referring to the bloody 1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa where 60,000 Muslims were killed." (Tougher controls thwarted attacks, Jacqueline Magnay, The Australian, 19/8/17)
"Spain has been a serious target for Islamic State because of its five-centuries-old land claims to the territory of Melilla and Ceuta, on the African continent bordering Morocco. The Counter-Terrorism Project reports: 'Spain's current anxieties are exacerbated by ISIS, al-Qa'ida, and other Islamist groups' vows to 'reconquer' what they refer to as 'al-Andalus',' the historic Arabic name for the Iberian mainland. Up until the late 15th century, large parts of Spain and Portugal were under the control of an Islamic caliphate. Spain is thus considered part of 'occupied lands' by jihadists and a legitimate target for re-inclusion in a future Islamic Caliphate. A Spanish-speaking ISIS member declared in 2014, 'I tell you, Spain is the land of our forefathers, and, Allah willing, we are going to liberate it, with the might of Allah...'
"Last year Islamic State called on its followers to attack Spanish tourist sites to avenge the crimes committed by Spain against Muslims, referring to the bloody 1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa where 60,000 Muslims were killed." (Tougher controls thwarted attacks, Jacqueline Magnay, The Australian, 19/8/17)
Monday, August 7, 2017
What's Asad Got to Do With It?
This is how the Australian's national security editor, Paul Maley, chooses to introduce his story on the alleged Islamic State plot to blow up a Sydney-Abu Dhabi flight last month:
"As Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad rained down chemical gas on the village of Khan Shaykhun... a senior Islamic State fighter in Syria sent a text message to his brother in Australia." (From Syria to Sydney: how plot unfolded, 5/8/17)
"As Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad rained down chemical gas on the village of Khan Shaykhun... a senior Islamic State fighter in Syria sent a text message to his brother in Australia." (From Syria to Sydney: how plot unfolded, 5/8/17)
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Tunisian Jihadis
A group of revealing July 13 tweets by Lebanese journalist Jenan Moussa (lightly edited for clarity) on Tunisian jihadis in Syria:
I gained access to ISIS prisoners captured by Kurds in Raqqa. One of them was a Tunisian ISIS member...
I sat for 2 hours with a 34-year-old Tunisian ISIS prisoner. During the interview he never looked me in the eye because I'm a female reporter.
I asked him why he joined ISIS. He said, When the Muslim Brotherhood government was in power*, they encouraged the youth to go to Syria.
He said, In Tunisia the mosques said, Go to Syria for jihad. And we were told there'd be no repercussions when we returned. So I left.
My friend and I flew to Turkey. When the customs officer at Istanbul Airport realized we were going to Syria, he said, Yalla, go fast!
It was just so easy to join ISIS in Syria. Now I look back and I think, Was this all a conspiracy to get us all in one place and kill us all?
[*Presumably a reference to Rached Ghannouchi's Ennahda Movement government of 2011-14. Abdel Bari Atwan has this to say on the subject: "I have observed Tunisians in the ranks in previous jihads, but only in very small numbers... former Tunisian dictator Ben Ali suppressed all jihadist activity and imprisoned even moderate Islamists. The 2011 revolution and the subsequent victory of Islamist parties inspired a revival of hard-line Islamism in that country. Now, groups like Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of the Law, based in Libya) are able to recruit openly and have funded and facilitated the passage of Tunisian jihadists to the frontline." (Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate, 2015, pp 165-66)]
I gained access to ISIS prisoners captured by Kurds in Raqqa. One of them was a Tunisian ISIS member...
I sat for 2 hours with a 34-year-old Tunisian ISIS prisoner. During the interview he never looked me in the eye because I'm a female reporter.
I asked him why he joined ISIS. He said, When the Muslim Brotherhood government was in power*, they encouraged the youth to go to Syria.
He said, In Tunisia the mosques said, Go to Syria for jihad. And we were told there'd be no repercussions when we returned. So I left.
My friend and I flew to Turkey. When the customs officer at Istanbul Airport realized we were going to Syria, he said, Yalla, go fast!
It was just so easy to join ISIS in Syria. Now I look back and I think, Was this all a conspiracy to get us all in one place and kill us all?
[*Presumably a reference to Rached Ghannouchi's Ennahda Movement government of 2011-14. Abdel Bari Atwan has this to say on the subject: "I have observed Tunisians in the ranks in previous jihads, but only in very small numbers... former Tunisian dictator Ben Ali suppressed all jihadist activity and imprisoned even moderate Islamists. The 2011 revolution and the subsequent victory of Islamist parties inspired a revival of hard-line Islamism in that country. Now, groups like Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of the Law, based in Libya) are able to recruit openly and have funded and facilitated the passage of Tunisian jihadists to the frontline." (Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate, 2015, pp 165-66)]
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
The Wahhabi Campaign to Close the Muslim Mind
The following reflection by Nabil Echchaibi (Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Colorado-Boulder) rings true:
"My aim here is not to disparage a civilization, but to diagnose its current malaise, one that inflicts Muslims today and prevents them from thinking themselves into the world, not because they are incapable of doing it, but because of a coordinated campaign to deny them the right to do it. Like many Muslims, I feel the weight of this tension every day because the distance between our religious leaders and the world in which we live is a gaping hole.
"The biggest orchestrator of this campaign is not Isis. That is only one of its sad manifestations. It is Saudi Arabia and its rampant Wahhabi religiosity which cripples everything Muslim today. Its literalist theology is suffocating and has no place in the modern world.
"How can we tolerate a religious system which still flogs its people in public squares, denies its women basic rights like driving and looking out windows and criminalizes any form of dissent? Weighty words fit for a colossal peril that is Saudi Arabia. I do not mince my words because this tragedy has gone on for too long and it robs Muslims around the world of their ability to think their religion anew.
"In fact, I agree with Algerian author Kamel Daoud who made a subtle distinction between a 'black Isis' and a 'white Isis.' Black Isis, he says, beheads, pillages, kills indiscriminately, and destroys the cultural heritage of humanity, whereas white Isis - Saudi Arabia - is better dressed and cleaner, but does more or less the same thing." (Muslims today face a deep malaise. We must confront it, theguardian.com, 18/6/17)
"My aim here is not to disparage a civilization, but to diagnose its current malaise, one that inflicts Muslims today and prevents them from thinking themselves into the world, not because they are incapable of doing it, but because of a coordinated campaign to deny them the right to do it. Like many Muslims, I feel the weight of this tension every day because the distance between our religious leaders and the world in which we live is a gaping hole.
"The biggest orchestrator of this campaign is not Isis. That is only one of its sad manifestations. It is Saudi Arabia and its rampant Wahhabi religiosity which cripples everything Muslim today. Its literalist theology is suffocating and has no place in the modern world.
"How can we tolerate a religious system which still flogs its people in public squares, denies its women basic rights like driving and looking out windows and criminalizes any form of dissent? Weighty words fit for a colossal peril that is Saudi Arabia. I do not mince my words because this tragedy has gone on for too long and it robs Muslims around the world of their ability to think their religion anew.
"In fact, I agree with Algerian author Kamel Daoud who made a subtle distinction between a 'black Isis' and a 'white Isis.' Black Isis, he says, beheads, pillages, kills indiscriminately, and destroys the cultural heritage of humanity, whereas white Isis - Saudi Arabia - is better dressed and cleaner, but does more or less the same thing." (Muslims today face a deep malaise. We must confront it, theguardian.com, 18/6/17)
Monday, June 19, 2017
Netanyahu's Wet Dream
"US forces have opened fire on Iranian-backed forces in Syria three times in the past month, amid mounting tensions that observers and former officials worry could easily turn into an unplanned, spiralling conflict. The three recent incidents took place at al-Tanf, a remote desert outpost near the point where the Syrian, Iraqi and Jordanian borders meet. There a 150-strong force of US soldiers who are training local fighters to take on the Islamic State was approached by convoys of militias fighting for the Assad regime. They responded with air strikes... The string of incidents has illustrated has illustrated how the eastern Syrian desert is becoming an arena for confrontation between the US and Iran... Trump has portrayed Iranian influence as a global threat on a par with with Isis and al-Qaida." ('The war after Isis': has Trump opened the door to conflict with Iran?, Julian Borger, theguardian.com, 18/6/17)
Friday, May 26, 2017
Abedi's Accomplices
Well said:
"Here's what the media and politicians don't want you to know about the Manchester, UK, suicide attack: Salman Abedi, the 22-year-old who killed nearly two dozen concert-goers in Manchester, was the product of the US and UK overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and 'regime change' policy in Syria. He was a radicalised Libyan whose family fled Gaddafi's secular Libya, and later he trained to be an armed 'rebel' in Syria, fighting for the US and UK 'regime change' policy toward the secular Assad government. The suicide attacker was the direct product of US and UK interventions in the greater Middle East.
"According to the London Telegraph, Abedi, a son of Libyan immigrants living in a radicalized Muslim neighbourhood in Manchester, had returned to Libya several times after the overthrow of Muamar Gaddafi, most recently just weeks ago. After the US/UK and allied 'liberation' of Libya, all manner of previously outlawed and fiercely suppressed radical jihadist groups suddenly found they had free rein to operate in Libya. This is the Libya that Abedi returned to and where he likely prepared for his suicide attack on pop concert attendees. Before the US-led attack on Libya in 2011, there was no al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any other related terrorist organization operating (at least with impunity) on Libyan soil.
"Gaddafi himself warned Europe in January 2011 that if they overthrew his government the result would be radical Islamist attacks on Europe, but European governments paid no heed to the warnings. Post-Gaddafi Libya became an incubator of Islamist terrorists and terrorism, including prime recruiting ground for extremists to fight jihad in Syria against the also-secular Bashar Assad.
"In Salman Abedi we have the convergence of both these disastrous US/UK and allied interventions, however: it turns out that not only did Abedi make trips to Libya to radicalize and train for terror, but he also traveled to Syria to become one of the 'Syria rebels' fighting on the same side as the US and UK to overthrow the Assad government. Was he perhaps even trained in a CIA program? We don't know, but it certainly is possible.
"While the mainstream media and opportunistic politicians will argue that the only solution is more western intervention in the Middle East, the plain truth is that at least partial responsibility for this attack lies at the feet of those who pushed and pursued western intervention in Libya and Syria, There would have been no jihadist training camps in Libya had Gaddafi not been overthrown by the US/UK and allies. There would have been no explosion of ISIS or al-Qaeda in Syria had it not been for the US/UK and allied policy of 'regime change' in that country. When thinking about Abedi's guilt for this heinous act of murder, do not forget those interventionists who lit the fuse that started the conflagration. the guilt rests squarely on their shoulders as well." (Manchester bomber was product of West's Libya/Syria intervention, Daniel McAdams, antiwar.com, 24/5/17)
"Here's what the media and politicians don't want you to know about the Manchester, UK, suicide attack: Salman Abedi, the 22-year-old who killed nearly two dozen concert-goers in Manchester, was the product of the US and UK overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and 'regime change' policy in Syria. He was a radicalised Libyan whose family fled Gaddafi's secular Libya, and later he trained to be an armed 'rebel' in Syria, fighting for the US and UK 'regime change' policy toward the secular Assad government. The suicide attacker was the direct product of US and UK interventions in the greater Middle East.
"According to the London Telegraph, Abedi, a son of Libyan immigrants living in a radicalized Muslim neighbourhood in Manchester, had returned to Libya several times after the overthrow of Muamar Gaddafi, most recently just weeks ago. After the US/UK and allied 'liberation' of Libya, all manner of previously outlawed and fiercely suppressed radical jihadist groups suddenly found they had free rein to operate in Libya. This is the Libya that Abedi returned to and where he likely prepared for his suicide attack on pop concert attendees. Before the US-led attack on Libya in 2011, there was no al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any other related terrorist organization operating (at least with impunity) on Libyan soil.
"Gaddafi himself warned Europe in January 2011 that if they overthrew his government the result would be radical Islamist attacks on Europe, but European governments paid no heed to the warnings. Post-Gaddafi Libya became an incubator of Islamist terrorists and terrorism, including prime recruiting ground for extremists to fight jihad in Syria against the also-secular Bashar Assad.
"In Salman Abedi we have the convergence of both these disastrous US/UK and allied interventions, however: it turns out that not only did Abedi make trips to Libya to radicalize and train for terror, but he also traveled to Syria to become one of the 'Syria rebels' fighting on the same side as the US and UK to overthrow the Assad government. Was he perhaps even trained in a CIA program? We don't know, but it certainly is possible.
"While the mainstream media and opportunistic politicians will argue that the only solution is more western intervention in the Middle East, the plain truth is that at least partial responsibility for this attack lies at the feet of those who pushed and pursued western intervention in Libya and Syria, There would have been no jihadist training camps in Libya had Gaddafi not been overthrown by the US/UK and allies. There would have been no explosion of ISIS or al-Qaeda in Syria had it not been for the US/UK and allied policy of 'regime change' in that country. When thinking about Abedi's guilt for this heinous act of murder, do not forget those interventionists who lit the fuse that started the conflagration. the guilt rests squarely on their shoulders as well." (Manchester bomber was product of West's Libya/Syria intervention, Daniel McAdams, antiwar.com, 24/5/17)
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Zionist Dreaming
The 1982 Yinon Plan (A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties):
"Lebanon's total dissolution into 5 provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula, and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi'ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes, who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today."
The Yinon Plan in action today:
"If Assad wins,' one IDF official in the Golan Heights told me, 'we will have Hezbollah not on two borders but one.'
"Yavne, the brigadier general, similarly described the Iranian influence as significantly more worrisome than ISIS or other Sunni Muslim terror groups: 'If I can be frank, the radical axis headed by Iran is more risky than the global jihad one,' said Yavne. 'It is much more knowledgeable, stronger, with a bigger arsenal.'
"As far as these Israeli officers are concerned, the ideal strategy is to sit back and let both typres of groups duke it out - and work to contain the conflict rather than trying to end it with military forces. As the IDF intelligence officer put it, 'the battle for deterrence is easier than the battle for influence.'
"But does that mean that the United States and its allies should simply allow ISIS to retain its so-called caliphate in parts of eastern Syria and eastern Iraq? 'Why not?' the officer shot back. 'When they asked the late [Israeli] Prime Minister Menachem Begin in the Iran-Iraq War in the 8os, who does Israel stand for, Iraq or Iran, he said, 'I wish luck to both parties. They can go at it, killing each other.' The same thing is here. You have ISIS killing Al Qaeda by the thousands, Al Qaeda killing ISIS by the thousands. And they are both killing Hezbollah and Assad." (Israeli officers: You're doing ISIS wrong, Bryan Bender, politico.com, 22/5/17)
"Lebanon's total dissolution into 5 provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula, and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi'ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes, who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today."
The Yinon Plan in action today:
"If Assad wins,' one IDF official in the Golan Heights told me, 'we will have Hezbollah not on two borders but one.'
"Yavne, the brigadier general, similarly described the Iranian influence as significantly more worrisome than ISIS or other Sunni Muslim terror groups: 'If I can be frank, the radical axis headed by Iran is more risky than the global jihad one,' said Yavne. 'It is much more knowledgeable, stronger, with a bigger arsenal.'
"As far as these Israeli officers are concerned, the ideal strategy is to sit back and let both typres of groups duke it out - and work to contain the conflict rather than trying to end it with military forces. As the IDF intelligence officer put it, 'the battle for deterrence is easier than the battle for influence.'
"But does that mean that the United States and its allies should simply allow ISIS to retain its so-called caliphate in parts of eastern Syria and eastern Iraq? 'Why not?' the officer shot back. 'When they asked the late [Israeli] Prime Minister Menachem Begin in the Iran-Iraq War in the 8os, who does Israel stand for, Iraq or Iran, he said, 'I wish luck to both parties. They can go at it, killing each other.' The same thing is here. You have ISIS killing Al Qaeda by the thousands, Al Qaeda killing ISIS by the thousands. And they are both killing Hezbollah and Assad." (Israeli officers: You're doing ISIS wrong, Bryan Bender, politico.com, 22/5/17)
Friday, April 28, 2017
Innocent Bystander in Tough Neighbourhood...
... receives apology from its mates in Syria:
"Fighters loyal to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) have apologized for launching an attack on Israeli forces last year in the disputed [sic: occupied] Golan Heights region, according to Israel's former defense minister." (ISIS fighters regret attacking Israel & have 'apologized, former defense minister says, Tom O'Connor, newsweek.com, 27/4/17)
"Fighters loyal to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) have apologized for launching an attack on Israeli forces last year in the disputed [sic: occupied] Golan Heights region, according to Israel's former defense minister." (ISIS fighters regret attacking Israel & have 'apologized, former defense minister says, Tom O'Connor, newsweek.com, 27/4/17)
Saturday, April 15, 2017
The Angry Brigades
In a 9/2/15 post, Me, Myself & I in Raqqa & Melbourne, I featured a snapshot of wannabe Australian jihadi Musa Cerantonio.
Although French political scientist Olivier Roy's focus, in his essay Who are the new jihadis? (theguardian.com, 13/4/17), is on French jihadis, he could just as easily have been writing about the likes of Cerantonio. His essay is therefore as relevant here as in France.
He sees "contemporary jihadism, at least in the west," essentially as a "youth movement... constructed independently of parental religion and culture," and stresses, above all, its nihilistic character:
"The systematic association with death is one of the keys to understanding today's radicalisation: the nihilist dimension is central. What seduces and fascinates is the idea of pure revolt. Violence is not a means. It is an end in itself."
Crucially, he makes the point that contemporary jihadist terrorism "does not arise from the radicalisation of Islam, but from the Islamisation of radicalism."
"The typical radical," Roy points out, "is a young, second-generation immigrant or convert, very often involved in episodes of petty crime, with practically no religious education, but having a rapid and recent trajectory of conversion/reconversion, more often in the framework of a group of friends or over the internet than in the context of a mosque. The embrace of religion is rarely kept secret, but rather is exhibited, but it does not necessarily correspond to immersion in religious practice. The rhetoric of rupture is violent - the enemy is kafir, one with whom no compromise is possible - but also includes their own family, the members of which are accused of observing Islam improperly, or refusing to convert."
In addition to their ignorance of Islam, Roy finds that the type has zero engagement with, or interest in, the real problems and issues that afflict the Middle East:
"The Muslim community such terrorists are eager to avenge is almost never specified. It is a non-historical and non-spatial reality. When they rail against western policy in the Middle East, jihadis use the term 'crusaders'; they do not refer to the French colonisation of Algeria. Radicals never explicitly refer to the colonial period. They reject or disregard all Palestinian and religious movements that have come before them. They do not always align themselves with the struggle of their fathers; almost none of them go back to their parents' countries of origin to wage jihad. It is noteworthy that none of the jihadis, whether born Muslim or converted, has to my knowledge campaigned as part of a pro-Palestinian movement or belonged to any sort of association to combat Islamophobia, or even an Islamic NGO. These radicalised youths read texts in French or English circulating over the internet, but not works in Arabic.
"Oddly enough, the defenders of Islamic State never talk about sharia and almost never talk about the Islamic society that will be built under the auspices of Isis. Those who say they went to Syria because they wanted 'to live in a true Islamic society' are typically returnees who deny having participated in violence while there... Living in an Islamic society does not interest jihadis: they do not go to the Middle East to live, but to die. That is the paradox: these young radicals are not utopians, they are nihilists."
Finally, he underlines his thesis that it is not Islam as such that motivates these troubled souls, but rather a form of narcissism:
"There is a temptation to see in Islam a radical ideology that mobilises throngs of people in the Muslim world, just as Nazism was able to mobilise large sections of the German people. But the reality is that Isis's pretensions to establish a global caliphate is a delusion - that is why it draws in violent youngsters who have delusions of grandeur."
Although French political scientist Olivier Roy's focus, in his essay Who are the new jihadis? (theguardian.com, 13/4/17), is on French jihadis, he could just as easily have been writing about the likes of Cerantonio. His essay is therefore as relevant here as in France.
He sees "contemporary jihadism, at least in the west," essentially as a "youth movement... constructed independently of parental religion and culture," and stresses, above all, its nihilistic character:
"The systematic association with death is one of the keys to understanding today's radicalisation: the nihilist dimension is central. What seduces and fascinates is the idea of pure revolt. Violence is not a means. It is an end in itself."
Crucially, he makes the point that contemporary jihadist terrorism "does not arise from the radicalisation of Islam, but from the Islamisation of radicalism."
"The typical radical," Roy points out, "is a young, second-generation immigrant or convert, very often involved in episodes of petty crime, with practically no religious education, but having a rapid and recent trajectory of conversion/reconversion, more often in the framework of a group of friends or over the internet than in the context of a mosque. The embrace of religion is rarely kept secret, but rather is exhibited, but it does not necessarily correspond to immersion in religious practice. The rhetoric of rupture is violent - the enemy is kafir, one with whom no compromise is possible - but also includes their own family, the members of which are accused of observing Islam improperly, or refusing to convert."
In addition to their ignorance of Islam, Roy finds that the type has zero engagement with, or interest in, the real problems and issues that afflict the Middle East:
"The Muslim community such terrorists are eager to avenge is almost never specified. It is a non-historical and non-spatial reality. When they rail against western policy in the Middle East, jihadis use the term 'crusaders'; they do not refer to the French colonisation of Algeria. Radicals never explicitly refer to the colonial period. They reject or disregard all Palestinian and religious movements that have come before them. They do not always align themselves with the struggle of their fathers; almost none of them go back to their parents' countries of origin to wage jihad. It is noteworthy that none of the jihadis, whether born Muslim or converted, has to my knowledge campaigned as part of a pro-Palestinian movement or belonged to any sort of association to combat Islamophobia, or even an Islamic NGO. These radicalised youths read texts in French or English circulating over the internet, but not works in Arabic.
"Oddly enough, the defenders of Islamic State never talk about sharia and almost never talk about the Islamic society that will be built under the auspices of Isis. Those who say they went to Syria because they wanted 'to live in a true Islamic society' are typically returnees who deny having participated in violence while there... Living in an Islamic society does not interest jihadis: they do not go to the Middle East to live, but to die. That is the paradox: these young radicals are not utopians, they are nihilists."
Finally, he underlines his thesis that it is not Islam as such that motivates these troubled souls, but rather a form of narcissism:
"There is a temptation to see in Islam a radical ideology that mobilises throngs of people in the Muslim world, just as Nazism was able to mobilise large sections of the German people. But the reality is that Isis's pretensions to establish a global caliphate is a delusion - that is why it draws in violent youngsters who have delusions of grandeur."
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
'Republic of Fear' Revisited
In his moving feature, The women of Mosul & liberation from IS, Fairfax journalist Michael Bachelard writes that:
"Repression of all kinds was routine. Conservative Islam might require modesty but IS demanded invisibility. Under strictly enforced clothing rules, it was virtually impossible to visit the public square - certainly not without a male relative. 'Everyone was looking at you, all the time. Everyone was watching your movements,' says mother-of-five Ayat, at the Jada'ah camp near Qayyarah. 'We were to afraid to do anything... so we stopped going out at all.' Failing to wear gloves, flat shoes, or the double veil; even allowing a glimpse of flesh by lifting the veil a crack to check money at the market or to sip a drink - any of these breaches could lead to punishment. Some women were fined 50,000 ($50) or 100,000 dinars, others were whipped or hit with a wooden baton." (Sydney Morning Herald, 5/3/17)
This is Iraq 2017, 14 years on from the US overthrow of the secular, Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003. While Saddam's Iraq may now be just a distant memory for women like Ayat, older Iraqi women would perhaps remember it with more than just nostalgia, even, relative to the present, as a kind of paradise lost.
It is worth remembering just how that relative paradise was viewed in the West before it was swept away in 2003, and replaced with the current nightmare world of Shia sectarianism in Baghdad and Wahhabi sectarian madness in Mosul.
Perhaps the most influential book on the subject of pre-2003 Iraq was the best-selling Republic of Fear (1989), written by Iraqi expat, Samir al-Khalil, the nom de plume of Kanan Makiya,
Makiya's thesis is that "Fear is the cement that holds together this strange body politic in Iraq. All forms of organization not directly controlled by the party have been wiped out. The public is atomized and broken up, which is why it can be made to believe anything. A society that used to revel in politics is not only subdued and silent, but profoundly apolitical. Fear is the agency of that transformation; the kind of fear that comes not only from what the neighbours might say, but that makes people careful of what they say in front of their children." (p 275)
Makiya, it should be pointed out, along with the likes of Ahmad Chalabi and Fouad Ajami, went on to become the 'native informant' component of the US ziocons, whose strident advocacy of regime change in Iraq was critical to the Bush/Blair invasion and occupation of Iraq, and he is on record as having described the initial US 'shock and awe' bombing of Baghdad as "music to my ears."*
Needless to say, without that invasion and occupation, first Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), and then its even more extreme offspring, Islamic State (IS), would never have appeared on the Iraqi scene, let alone gone on to take key Iraqi cities such a Mosul and transform them into the kind of Wahhabi sectarian hellholes described by women such as Ayat.
Makiya, writing on the subject of Iraqi women under Baathist rule in Republic of Fear, depicts, relative to the lives of women in Mosul under Islamic State, what must seem to us now as a near golden age of feminism:
"The entry of women into the educational system as a whole is another noteworthy Ba'thist accomplishment. In 1970-71, there were 318,524 girls in primary school, 88,595 at the secondary level, and 9,212 at the university level. For the 1979-80 school year the absolute numbers were respectively as follows: 1,165,856, 278,485, and 28,647. By 1980 women accounted for 46% of all teachers, 29% of physicians, 46% of dentists, 70% of pharmacists, 15% of accountants, 14% of factory workers, and 16% of civil servants [...] The important thing about all the legislation on women was precisely where it chose to make the break with tradition. Islamic law has always been clear regarding its view of the subordinate status of women in relation to men as a direct consequence of their sex... Moreover, there is nothing in the very sincere and far-reaching efforts of the Bath to involve women in the labour force or to mobilize them that is un-Islamic, although it certainly represents a radical break with traditional society and deeply cherished values. One need only mention the masses of veiled women mobilized by the Islamic movement in Iran, not only against the Shah, but to break up some of the early feminist demonstrations against Khomeini's edict on the veil." (pp 89-91)
All of which only accentuates the culpability of Bush, the Ziocons, and their Arab fellow travellers, for the appalling plight of the women so vividly described by Bachelard.
[*See Advocating a war in Iraq & offering an apology for what came after, Tim Arango, nytimes.com, 13/5/16]
"Repression of all kinds was routine. Conservative Islam might require modesty but IS demanded invisibility. Under strictly enforced clothing rules, it was virtually impossible to visit the public square - certainly not without a male relative. 'Everyone was looking at you, all the time. Everyone was watching your movements,' says mother-of-five Ayat, at the Jada'ah camp near Qayyarah. 'We were to afraid to do anything... so we stopped going out at all.' Failing to wear gloves, flat shoes, or the double veil; even allowing a glimpse of flesh by lifting the veil a crack to check money at the market or to sip a drink - any of these breaches could lead to punishment. Some women were fined 50,000 ($50) or 100,000 dinars, others were whipped or hit with a wooden baton." (Sydney Morning Herald, 5/3/17)
This is Iraq 2017, 14 years on from the US overthrow of the secular, Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003. While Saddam's Iraq may now be just a distant memory for women like Ayat, older Iraqi women would perhaps remember it with more than just nostalgia, even, relative to the present, as a kind of paradise lost.
It is worth remembering just how that relative paradise was viewed in the West before it was swept away in 2003, and replaced with the current nightmare world of Shia sectarianism in Baghdad and Wahhabi sectarian madness in Mosul.
Perhaps the most influential book on the subject of pre-2003 Iraq was the best-selling Republic of Fear (1989), written by Iraqi expat, Samir al-Khalil, the nom de plume of Kanan Makiya,
Makiya's thesis is that "Fear is the cement that holds together this strange body politic in Iraq. All forms of organization not directly controlled by the party have been wiped out. The public is atomized and broken up, which is why it can be made to believe anything. A society that used to revel in politics is not only subdued and silent, but profoundly apolitical. Fear is the agency of that transformation; the kind of fear that comes not only from what the neighbours might say, but that makes people careful of what they say in front of their children." (p 275)
Makiya, it should be pointed out, along with the likes of Ahmad Chalabi and Fouad Ajami, went on to become the 'native informant' component of the US ziocons, whose strident advocacy of regime change in Iraq was critical to the Bush/Blair invasion and occupation of Iraq, and he is on record as having described the initial US 'shock and awe' bombing of Baghdad as "music to my ears."*
Needless to say, without that invasion and occupation, first Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), and then its even more extreme offspring, Islamic State (IS), would never have appeared on the Iraqi scene, let alone gone on to take key Iraqi cities such a Mosul and transform them into the kind of Wahhabi sectarian hellholes described by women such as Ayat.
Makiya, writing on the subject of Iraqi women under Baathist rule in Republic of Fear, depicts, relative to the lives of women in Mosul under Islamic State, what must seem to us now as a near golden age of feminism:
"The entry of women into the educational system as a whole is another noteworthy Ba'thist accomplishment. In 1970-71, there were 318,524 girls in primary school, 88,595 at the secondary level, and 9,212 at the university level. For the 1979-80 school year the absolute numbers were respectively as follows: 1,165,856, 278,485, and 28,647. By 1980 women accounted for 46% of all teachers, 29% of physicians, 46% of dentists, 70% of pharmacists, 15% of accountants, 14% of factory workers, and 16% of civil servants [...] The important thing about all the legislation on women was precisely where it chose to make the break with tradition. Islamic law has always been clear regarding its view of the subordinate status of women in relation to men as a direct consequence of their sex... Moreover, there is nothing in the very sincere and far-reaching efforts of the Bath to involve women in the labour force or to mobilize them that is un-Islamic, although it certainly represents a radical break with traditional society and deeply cherished values. One need only mention the masses of veiled women mobilized by the Islamic movement in Iran, not only against the Shah, but to break up some of the early feminist demonstrations against Khomeini's edict on the veil." (pp 89-91)
All of which only accentuates the culpability of Bush, the Ziocons, and their Arab fellow travellers, for the appalling plight of the women so vividly described by Bachelard.
[*See Advocating a war in Iraq & offering an apology for what came after, Tim Arango, nytimes.com, 13/5/16]
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Clinton Emailed
From John Pilger's interview with Julian Assange, Emails show Clinton Foundation funders also bankroll ISIS: the explosive interview with John Pilger, newmatilda.com, 5/11/16:
Pilger: The emails that give evidence of access for money and how Hillary Clinton herself benefited from this and how she's benefiting politically are quite extraordinary. I'm thinking of when the Qatari representative was given 5 minutes with Bill Clinton for a million dollar cheque.
Assange: And 12m from Morocco... For Hillary Clinton to attend [a party]
Pilger: In terms of US foreign policy, that's where the emails are most revealing, where they show the direct connection between Hillary Clinton and the foundation of jihadism, of ISIS, in the Middle East. Can you talk about how the emails demonstrate [that] those who are meant to be fighting the ISIS jihadists are actually those who have helped create it?
Assange: There's an early 2014 email from Hillary Clinton... to her campaign manager John Podesta that states ISIS is funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This is the most significant email in the whole collection, and... because Saudi and Qatari money is spread all over the Clinton Foundation. Even the US government agrees that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS. But the dodge has always been that it's just some rogue princes, using their cut of the oil money to do whatever they like, but that, actually, the government disapproves. But that email says that no, it is the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar that have been funding ISIS.
Pilger: The Saudis, Qataris, Moroccans, Bahrainis... were giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, and the State Department was approving massive arms sales, particularly to Saudi Arabia.
Assange: Under Hillary Clinton the world's largest ever arms deal was made with Saudi Arabia, [worth] more than $80 billion. In fact, during her tenure as secretary of state, total arms exports from the United States, in terms of dollar value, have doubled.
Pilger: Of course, the consequence of that is that ISIS has been created largely with money from the very people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation.
Assange: Yes.
(Assange goes on to reveal that Clinton is the public face of Wall Street and that "half the Obama cabinet was basically nominated by a representative from City Bank.")
Pilger: Why was she so enthusiastic about the destruction of Libya? What have the emails told us about what happened there, because Libya is such a source for so much of the mayhem now in Syria... and it was almost Hillary Clinton's invasion?
Assange: Libya... was Hillary Clinton's war. Obama initially opposed it, Hillary Clinton championed it. That's documented throughout her emails. She'd put her favorite agent, Sidney Blumenthal onto it. More than 1,700 out of the 33,000 of the emails we've published are just about Libya. It wasn't about cheap oil. She saw the removal of Gaddafi... as something she could use in her run-up to election as president. In late 2011, an internal document called the Libya Tick Tock was produced for her. It's a chronology of how she was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state, which resulted in around 40,000 deaths in Libya. Jihadists, ISIS moved in, leading to the European refugee crisis... As Gaddafi said at the time: 'What do these Europeans think they're doing, trying to bomb and destroy Libya? There's going to be a flood of migrants and jihadists out of Africa and into Europe,' and that's exactly what happened.
Pilger: The emails that give evidence of access for money and how Hillary Clinton herself benefited from this and how she's benefiting politically are quite extraordinary. I'm thinking of when the Qatari representative was given 5 minutes with Bill Clinton for a million dollar cheque.
Assange: And 12m from Morocco... For Hillary Clinton to attend [a party]
Pilger: In terms of US foreign policy, that's where the emails are most revealing, where they show the direct connection between Hillary Clinton and the foundation of jihadism, of ISIS, in the Middle East. Can you talk about how the emails demonstrate [that] those who are meant to be fighting the ISIS jihadists are actually those who have helped create it?
Assange: There's an early 2014 email from Hillary Clinton... to her campaign manager John Podesta that states ISIS is funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This is the most significant email in the whole collection, and... because Saudi and Qatari money is spread all over the Clinton Foundation. Even the US government agrees that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS. But the dodge has always been that it's just some rogue princes, using their cut of the oil money to do whatever they like, but that, actually, the government disapproves. But that email says that no, it is the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar that have been funding ISIS.
Pilger: The Saudis, Qataris, Moroccans, Bahrainis... were giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, and the State Department was approving massive arms sales, particularly to Saudi Arabia.
Assange: Under Hillary Clinton the world's largest ever arms deal was made with Saudi Arabia, [worth] more than $80 billion. In fact, during her tenure as secretary of state, total arms exports from the United States, in terms of dollar value, have doubled.
Pilger: Of course, the consequence of that is that ISIS has been created largely with money from the very people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation.
Assange: Yes.
(Assange goes on to reveal that Clinton is the public face of Wall Street and that "half the Obama cabinet was basically nominated by a representative from City Bank.")
Pilger: Why was she so enthusiastic about the destruction of Libya? What have the emails told us about what happened there, because Libya is such a source for so much of the mayhem now in Syria... and it was almost Hillary Clinton's invasion?
Assange: Libya... was Hillary Clinton's war. Obama initially opposed it, Hillary Clinton championed it. That's documented throughout her emails. She'd put her favorite agent, Sidney Blumenthal onto it. More than 1,700 out of the 33,000 of the emails we've published are just about Libya. It wasn't about cheap oil. She saw the removal of Gaddafi... as something she could use in her run-up to election as president. In late 2011, an internal document called the Libya Tick Tock was produced for her. It's a chronology of how she was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state, which resulted in around 40,000 deaths in Libya. Jihadists, ISIS moved in, leading to the European refugee crisis... As Gaddafi said at the time: 'What do these Europeans think they're doing, trying to bomb and destroy Libya? There's going to be a flood of migrants and jihadists out of Africa and into Europe,' and that's exactly what happened.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Welcome to 'Rebel-Unfriendly' Iraq
Meanwhile, just across the 'border' in Iraq, the whole country's a 'rebel'-friendly-free zone. Not a rollicking freedom fighter to be found anywhere. Just fanatics with guns and beards who take people hostage:
"Islamic State forces in Iraq have abducted tens of thousands of men, women and children from areas around Mosul and are using them as 'human shields' in strategic sites in the city as Iraqi troops advance, the UN human rights office confirmed on Friday." (IS uses thousands as human shields in Mosul: UN, Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters/ Sydney Morning Herald, 30/10/16)
Iraq's sooo much easier to understand than Syria.
"Islamic State forces in Iraq have abducted tens of thousands of men, women and children from areas around Mosul and are using them as 'human shields' in strategic sites in the city as Iraqi troops advance, the UN human rights office confirmed on Friday." (IS uses thousands as human shields in Mosul: UN, Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters/ Sydney Morning Herald, 30/10/16)
Iraq's sooo much easier to understand than Syria.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Who Now Controls Mount Thardah?
FYI. Here is the first ever reference to the ISIS takeover of Syrian positions on Mt Thardah (following the American/Australian/Danish 'accidental' bombing of Syrian army positions there) I've seen in the Australian ms press:
"Syria and the US have been at loggerheads since an airstrike by the coalition hit Syrian troops... on Saturday. US officials said the attack... was accidental and the warplanes intended to target ISIS positions. Russia said the strikes killed more than 60 Syrian troops and, afterwards, ISIS militants briefly overran regime positions." (Defiant or delusional? Assad rails against the West, Ian Phillips & Zeina Karam, AP/The Australian, 24/9/16)
Briefly overran? Is this deliberate disinformation, or is the devastated Syrian army now back in control Mount Thardah? That'd be quite a comeback, would it not?
[See my posts WTF are We Doing in Syria? (19/9/16) & Blame It on the Whizzbangs (21/9/16).]
"Syria and the US have been at loggerheads since an airstrike by the coalition hit Syrian troops... on Saturday. US officials said the attack... was accidental and the warplanes intended to target ISIS positions. Russia said the strikes killed more than 60 Syrian troops and, afterwards, ISIS militants briefly overran regime positions." (Defiant or delusional? Assad rails against the West, Ian Phillips & Zeina Karam, AP/The Australian, 24/9/16)
Briefly overran? Is this deliberate disinformation, or is the devastated Syrian army now back in control Mount Thardah? That'd be quite a comeback, would it not?
[See my posts WTF are We Doing in Syria? (19/9/16) & Blame It on the Whizzbangs (21/9/16).]
Monday, September 19, 2016
WTF are We Doing in Syria?
Just in:
"Australia has said its warplanes took part in US-led airstrikes in eastern Syria that mistakenly killed Syrian army troops in an incident threatening to wreck an already tenuous ceasefire before it is a week old... An Australian defence department statement said its jets had targeted what had been thought to be Islamic State (Isis) fighters... The US [and Australia] has offered condolences and insisted that the airstrikes were a mistake. It said it had targeted Tharda mountain where a Syrian government offensive was seeking to capture Isis positions overlooking the Deir ez-Zour military airport." (Australian warplanes took part in airstrikes that killed Syrian troops, Julian Borger, The Guardian, 19/9/16)
However:
"Thardah mountain is made up of 6... hills, all under SAA control with no prior presence of Isis on them./ [It] has always been under SAA control, bar a small breach a few months ago, which was quickly reversed./ So again CENTCOM's statement in which it says coalition has bombed these positions in the past is puzzling." (Tweets by former Sunday Times journalist Hala Jaber, 18/9/16)
Incidentally, Israel has been the only country up to now killing Syrian troops on Syrian soil.
PS: "In the defense of the Deir Ezzor Airport, the Syrian military has long depended on an army base in Jebel Tharda to repel ISIS advances. That base has been lost this weekend, after a disastrous series of US-led airstrikes killed a large number of Syrian troops defending the base, and ISIS quickly overran what was left." (ISIS overruns Syrian army base after US bombings, Jason Ditz, antiwar.com, 18/9/16)
"Australia has said its warplanes took part in US-led airstrikes in eastern Syria that mistakenly killed Syrian army troops in an incident threatening to wreck an already tenuous ceasefire before it is a week old... An Australian defence department statement said its jets had targeted what had been thought to be Islamic State (Isis) fighters... The US [and Australia] has offered condolences and insisted that the airstrikes were a mistake. It said it had targeted Tharda mountain where a Syrian government offensive was seeking to capture Isis positions overlooking the Deir ez-Zour military airport." (Australian warplanes took part in airstrikes that killed Syrian troops, Julian Borger, The Guardian, 19/9/16)
However:
"Thardah mountain is made up of 6... hills, all under SAA control with no prior presence of Isis on them./ [It] has always been under SAA control, bar a small breach a few months ago, which was quickly reversed./ So again CENTCOM's statement in which it says coalition has bombed these positions in the past is puzzling." (Tweets by former Sunday Times journalist Hala Jaber, 18/9/16)
Incidentally, Israel has been the only country up to now killing Syrian troops on Syrian soil.
PS: "In the defense of the Deir Ezzor Airport, the Syrian military has long depended on an army base in Jebel Tharda to repel ISIS advances. That base has been lost this weekend, after a disastrous series of US-led airstrikes killed a large number of Syrian troops defending the base, and ISIS quickly overran what was left." (ISIS overruns Syrian army base after US bombings, Jason Ditz, antiwar.com, 18/9/16)
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