There's just no pleasing some people. Like Greg Sheridan.
One minute he's, like, If only Muslims were more like, well, Christians:
"Islamists have been successful beyond their wildest dreams. Like the communists before them, but more successfully than the communists,* they have established a constituency for their basic paradigm amid a substantial number of people in Western societies and the Middle East. More than that, they share in common with many non-violent Muslims a great deal of a common narrative that focuses on resentment and paranoia." (The future of Western civilization is under threat, but not just from extremists, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 21/11/15)
The next he's, like, If only (so-called) Christians were more like, well, Muslims:
"The West is undergoing a genuine civilisational crisis of belief and of governance. This is the first generation in Western history that, substantially, is not sustained by transcendent beliefs. The death of God is also in the West the death of purpose, and, for many, the death of meaning." (ibid)
[*Damn right, Greg! I mean, what a trifling affair the Soviet Union (1917/1922-1991) was compared with Islamic State's Iraqi-Syrian caliphate (2014-?).]
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Friday, November 20, 2015
Letter of the Day
"So some people don't like Optus's posters in Arabic ('Optus pulls Arabic ads after alleged threat', November 18). I have a message for them: 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9. Those are Arabic numerals. They were brought back from the Middle East by the crusaders and quickly replaced old, unwieldy Roman numerals. So if you wish to object to signs and other messages printed in Arabic, I'm sorry. You're about a thousand years too late." Phillip Cohen Lake Munmorah (Sydney Morning Herald, 19/11/12)
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Charles Waterstreet's Guide to Muslim Immigrant Youth
Hilarious:
Sydney barrister and Sun-Herald columnist Charles Waterstreet, babbling about the "blonde-haired and olive-skinned progeny of Scandinavian and Syrian origins," who "might look attractive but... will feel like aliens in a land where The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was written," takes us BACK to the wilder shores of orientalist discourse:
"The ultra-right depicted in that series of books will not take kindly to the wiry, wily desert people washed up on their shores." (Hopelessness breeds the will to destroy, 15/11/15)
Amazing, innit? A Syrian refugee from Aleppo, a CITY which has been around for about 7,000 years, washes up in Stockholm, which has been around for about 700 years... with sand in his bloody shoes!
But there's more. Here's our learned friend on Australian Muslim youth:
"Australia has done quite well considering the incipient loathing that must exist in our suburbs where young minds are trained to recite a book by heart at night and by day study subjects that have little chance to provide employment." (ibid)
There you go - just in case you were wondering what the li'l Abduls of Bankstown got up to at night.
More madrasa than home!
Not to mention the bloody sand.
I don't know whether to weep or cry...
Sydney barrister and Sun-Herald columnist Charles Waterstreet, babbling about the "blonde-haired and olive-skinned progeny of Scandinavian and Syrian origins," who "might look attractive but... will feel like aliens in a land where The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was written," takes us BACK to the wilder shores of orientalist discourse:
"The ultra-right depicted in that series of books will not take kindly to the wiry, wily desert people washed up on their shores." (Hopelessness breeds the will to destroy, 15/11/15)
Amazing, innit? A Syrian refugee from Aleppo, a CITY which has been around for about 7,000 years, washes up in Stockholm, which has been around for about 700 years... with sand in his bloody shoes!
But there's more. Here's our learned friend on Australian Muslim youth:
"Australia has done quite well considering the incipient loathing that must exist in our suburbs where young minds are trained to recite a book by heart at night and by day study subjects that have little chance to provide employment." (ibid)
There you go - just in case you were wondering what the li'l Abduls of Bankstown got up to at night.
More madrasa than home!
Not to mention the bloody sand.
I don't know whether to weep or cry...
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
How to Solve the Syrian Refugee Problem
Too many Syrian refugees? In the Middle East? In Europe?
I have the answer.
It's simplicity itself. Just a matter of logistics and funding, really.
Here's what we do:
1) All Palestinian refugees driven out of Palestine in 1948 and 1967 by Zionist terrorists return to their homes and lands in Israel. We even have a perfectly serviceable UN General Assembly resolution, from 11 December, 1948, that's never been implemented, by way of sanction. It's called Resolution 194, and here are the key words:
"[UNGA] Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return..."
All it needs is to be implemented! End of Palestinian refugee problem!
2) Syrian refugees, currently in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe, move into the dwellings of Palestinian refugees departing Lebanon and Jordan for Israel, pending a political settlement in Syria.
I rest my case...
Oh... wait!
Israel won't let the Palestinian refugees return because, well, they're not Jews.
And the rest of the world has to pander to Israel's every vile, apartheid whim and wish - whatever the human cost - right?
I have the answer.
It's simplicity itself. Just a matter of logistics and funding, really.
Here's what we do:
1) All Palestinian refugees driven out of Palestine in 1948 and 1967 by Zionist terrorists return to their homes and lands in Israel. We even have a perfectly serviceable UN General Assembly resolution, from 11 December, 1948, that's never been implemented, by way of sanction. It's called Resolution 194, and here are the key words:
"[UNGA] Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return..."
All it needs is to be implemented! End of Palestinian refugee problem!
2) Syrian refugees, currently in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe, move into the dwellings of Palestinian refugees departing Lebanon and Jordan for Israel, pending a political settlement in Syria.
I rest my case...
Oh... wait!
Israel won't let the Palestinian refugees return because, well, they're not Jews.
And the rest of the world has to pander to Israel's every vile, apartheid whim and wish - whatever the human cost - right?
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
'You Reap What You Sow'
Some "home truths" on the Islamic State phenomenon from Bruce Hearn Mackinnon (senior lecturer in the Department of Management at Deakin University) in yesterday's Age. While Mackinnon's opinion piece is inadequate in certain respects, it is probably the best commentary on the subject to have appeared thus far in the Australian ms press. Here's just the gist:
"First, the US and its allies armed, trained and supported Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organisation in its dirty war, first against the leftist government in Afghanistan, and then against the Soviet Union who intervened in a doomed attempt to prop up the collapsing regime, which was at war with the Islamists, backed by Pakistan. This ultimately led to the September 11 attacks on the US itself. The Taliban today continues to be trained, financed and supported by forces within the Pakistan security and military establishment.
"Second, the West's support for Israel in its continued occupation of Palestinian territory and its constant and growing humiliation of Palestinian people, has been a festering sore, breeding resentment, frustration anger not only from Palestinians but the wider Muslim community, particularly in the Arab world. As if this wasn't bad enough, let's not forget that Israel was also happy to secretly fund and encourage the terrorist organisation, Hamas, in its early years, as a means of undermining the secular mainstream PLO, led by Yasser Arafat.
"Third, the US (supported by Australia) invasion and destruction of Iraq, justified by the lie about (we now know, non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, resulting in about half a million deaths, was the direct catalyst for for the formation of the Islamic State terrorist organisation - whose current military leaders are former generals from saddam Hussein's then predominantly secular Baathist regime.
"Fourth, the West's eagerness to destroy the largely secular Gaddafi regime has left Libya as a failed state, allowing criminals and terrorists a free rein to engage in violence on a mass scale.
"Fifth, the West's support for violent opposition to the Assad regime in Syria has left his country in ruins and allowed Islamo-Fascism to become the military opposition. All the talk about supporting 'moderate' opposition forces has been exposed as a lie. Syria is in the grip of a full-on sectarian war between the Shia-backed regime and the Sunni extremists, including IS and al-Nusra (al-Qaida). The West's support for the opposition in Syria has taken the form of support for Islamo-Fascism on the ground in Syria.
"Finally, the Islamo-Fascist movement, whether operating in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq or elsewhere, is known to have received financial, ideological, religious and military support from the West's key allies in the Middle East, the brutal Islamo-Fascist regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
"You reap what you sow." (After the Paris attacks: How to confront this Islamo-Fascist plague, 16/11/15)
"First, the US and its allies armed, trained and supported Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organisation in its dirty war, first against the leftist government in Afghanistan, and then against the Soviet Union who intervened in a doomed attempt to prop up the collapsing regime, which was at war with the Islamists, backed by Pakistan. This ultimately led to the September 11 attacks on the US itself. The Taliban today continues to be trained, financed and supported by forces within the Pakistan security and military establishment.
"Second, the West's support for Israel in its continued occupation of Palestinian territory and its constant and growing humiliation of Palestinian people, has been a festering sore, breeding resentment, frustration anger not only from Palestinians but the wider Muslim community, particularly in the Arab world. As if this wasn't bad enough, let's not forget that Israel was also happy to secretly fund and encourage the terrorist organisation, Hamas, in its early years, as a means of undermining the secular mainstream PLO, led by Yasser Arafat.
"Third, the US (supported by Australia) invasion and destruction of Iraq, justified by the lie about (we now know, non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, resulting in about half a million deaths, was the direct catalyst for for the formation of the Islamic State terrorist organisation - whose current military leaders are former generals from saddam Hussein's then predominantly secular Baathist regime.
"Fourth, the West's eagerness to destroy the largely secular Gaddafi regime has left Libya as a failed state, allowing criminals and terrorists a free rein to engage in violence on a mass scale.
"Fifth, the West's support for violent opposition to the Assad regime in Syria has left his country in ruins and allowed Islamo-Fascism to become the military opposition. All the talk about supporting 'moderate' opposition forces has been exposed as a lie. Syria is in the grip of a full-on sectarian war between the Shia-backed regime and the Sunni extremists, including IS and al-Nusra (al-Qaida). The West's support for the opposition in Syria has taken the form of support for Islamo-Fascism on the ground in Syria.
"Finally, the Islamo-Fascist movement, whether operating in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq or elsewhere, is known to have received financial, ideological, religious and military support from the West's key allies in the Middle East, the brutal Islamo-Fascist regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
"You reap what you sow." (After the Paris attacks: How to confront this Islamo-Fascist plague, 16/11/15)
Monday, November 16, 2015
When Journalists Sound Like IS Terrorists
Question: Why did the jihadi mongrels who perpetrated the attacks in Paris have it so damn easy?
Answer: Because there were no obstacles of any kind to obstruct them. Just your average civilian infrastructure: you know, streets, cafes, theatres, stadiums, what have you. Stroll in, stroll out:
"France has vowed a 'merciless' response to an unprecedented terrorist atrocity: six-co-ordinated attacks that stained Parisian streets with blood and left more than 120 people dead." (Paris attacks: France vows 'merciless' response to unprecedented atrocity, Nick Miller, The Sun-Herald, 15/11/15)
Question: Why did the same pack of jihadi mongrels who perpetrated the earlier attacks in Beirut have it so damn hard?
Answer: Well, they had to overcome a bastion, which is to say the projecting part of a fortification built at an angle to the line of a wall, so as to allow defensive fire in several directions, a structure that is part of a stronghold, which is a place that has been fortified to protect it against attack. Seriously:
"Lebanon was holding a day of mourning yesterday for 41 people killed in twin bombings... in southern Beirut... More than 200 people were also wounded... by the explosions... in the Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood that is a bastion of the Shia Hezbollah movement... The attacks were the deadliest to hit a Hezbollah stronghold..." (Lebanon mourns bomb victims, AFP/The Australian, 14/11/15)
Now for all I know, whoever wrote that Agence France Presse piece, with its bastion and stronghold, could have been an IS operative. After all, look at how IS claimed responsibility for the Beirut blasts:
"In a statement posted online, IS claimed... 'Soldiers of the caliphate blew themselves up in the stronghold of the heretics...'" (IS claims twin suicide blasts, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 14/11/15)
Stronghold! It's like an IS signature word, know what I mean?
Happily, I think we can safely assume that Herald journalist, Ruth Pollard's no jihadi because she didn't use the term at all in her piece, except, of necessity, in the IS quote:
"Islamic State has claimed responsibility for twin suicide blasts in the southern Beirut area of Burj al-Barajneh that killed at least 41 and injured more than 200." (ibid)
See? Not a bastion or a stronghold anywhere in sight, just your common and garden area, you know, with streets and cafes and theatres and stadiums and the like.
But just remember, from now on, whenever you see a journalist use the words stronghold or bastion in connection with an IS bombing in southern Beirut, it means that he/she is actually excusing what, if it occurred anywhere else, would be described as nothing less than a monstrous act of terrorism directed at innocent civilians. That, and sounding suspiciously like an IS propagandist.
Answer: Because there were no obstacles of any kind to obstruct them. Just your average civilian infrastructure: you know, streets, cafes, theatres, stadiums, what have you. Stroll in, stroll out:
"France has vowed a 'merciless' response to an unprecedented terrorist atrocity: six-co-ordinated attacks that stained Parisian streets with blood and left more than 120 people dead." (Paris attacks: France vows 'merciless' response to unprecedented atrocity, Nick Miller, The Sun-Herald, 15/11/15)
Question: Why did the same pack of jihadi mongrels who perpetrated the earlier attacks in Beirut have it so damn hard?
Answer: Well, they had to overcome a bastion, which is to say the projecting part of a fortification built at an angle to the line of a wall, so as to allow defensive fire in several directions, a structure that is part of a stronghold, which is a place that has been fortified to protect it against attack. Seriously:
"Lebanon was holding a day of mourning yesterday for 41 people killed in twin bombings... in southern Beirut... More than 200 people were also wounded... by the explosions... in the Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood that is a bastion of the Shia Hezbollah movement... The attacks were the deadliest to hit a Hezbollah stronghold..." (Lebanon mourns bomb victims, AFP/The Australian, 14/11/15)
Now for all I know, whoever wrote that Agence France Presse piece, with its bastion and stronghold, could have been an IS operative. After all, look at how IS claimed responsibility for the Beirut blasts:
"In a statement posted online, IS claimed... 'Soldiers of the caliphate blew themselves up in the stronghold of the heretics...'" (IS claims twin suicide blasts, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 14/11/15)
Stronghold! It's like an IS signature word, know what I mean?
Happily, I think we can safely assume that Herald journalist, Ruth Pollard's no jihadi because she didn't use the term at all in her piece, except, of necessity, in the IS quote:
"Islamic State has claimed responsibility for twin suicide blasts in the southern Beirut area of Burj al-Barajneh that killed at least 41 and injured more than 200." (ibid)
See? Not a bastion or a stronghold anywhere in sight, just your common and garden area, you know, with streets and cafes and theatres and stadiums and the like.
But just remember, from now on, whenever you see a journalist use the words stronghold or bastion in connection with an IS bombing in southern Beirut, it means that he/she is actually excusing what, if it occurred anywhere else, would be described as nothing less than a monstrous act of terrorism directed at innocent civilians. That, and sounding suspiciously like an IS propagandist.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Some Observations on the Carnage in Paris
by As'ad Abukhalil (aka The Angry Arab), 14/11/15
1) ISIS has gone on the offensive: in 10 days, they downed a Russian civilian airliner, massacred Hazara Shi'ites in Afghanistan, bombed the southern suburbs in Beirut and now Paris.
2) Western governments, the US and France in particular, along with their Saudi, Qatari and Turkish allies are directly responsible for the rise and expansion of ISIS through their policies in Syria, which have cradled and nurtured ISIS and its sister terrorist organizations.
3) There is no way on earth to stem the menace of ISIS and Al-Qa'idah-like organizations without going to their source in Saudi Arabia, which is the official headquarters of the Ibn Taymiyyah terrorist interpretation of Islam.
4) Ibn Taymiyyah* is the one thinker/theologian who has inspired and guided the thoughts and deeds of terrorists striking in the name of Islam.
5) Western governments AND media have been cynically silent about the victims of ISIS terrorism if the victims happen to be categorized as 'enemies.' Western governments AND media (just look at the dispatches from the New York Times and Washington Post over the last 4 years on Syria) have consistently ignored and even cheered sectarian massacres of Syrian and Lebanese civilians if they are perpetrated by foes of the Syrian regime.
6) Just as ISIS and Al-Qa'idah have brought terrorism to the heart of the West, Western governments have been exporting death and destruction to the Middle East and North Africa: from Mali to Libya to Egypt to Sudan to Somalia to Syria to Iraq to Pakistan to Afghanistan. Terrorism has been inflicted on people in those countries by ISIS and Al-Qaidah, and by the bombs and rockets and drones of Western governments.
7) All Arabs today have noticed something that cannot be ignored: how ISIS and Al-Qa'idah terrorists travel the world to inflict their terrorism but yet spare Israel and its interests. The relationship between the Zionist occupation entity and the Nusrah Front - the official branch of Al-Qa'idah in Syria - is no longer secret.**
8) ISIS cannot be defeated from the air as long as Western governments and their Gulf and Turkish allies assist it on the ground, directly or indirectly.
9) Just as Western powers created and nurtured the precursor of Al-Qa'idah in Afghanistan to defeat the communist regime there, those same powers have created and nurtured a deadly cocktail of the worst Middle Eastern terrorists ever in Syria in the hope that they would bring down the Syrian regime.
10) The story of ISIS terrorism began not only with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 but also with the creation of a vast safe haven for Islamist terrorism in Libya. Libya was the biggest gift to jihadi terrorism since the fall of the Taliban.
11) The US and France (along with the GCC countries) have been creating a culture of terrorism in the region by creating a terrorist haven in Syria in the name of fighting for 'democracy and secularism' - in the stupid language of John Kerry. They have done this by making dubious distinctions between various terrorists in Syria [and] through making allies of the Nusrah Front and its affiliates.
12) The myth of moderate Syrian rebels has to be discarded. The remnants of the Free Syrian Army are basically ISIS-in-waiting.
13) Western correspondents in Beirut in charge of covering the savage war in Syria are all guilty (with the exception of Patrick Cockburn) of misinforming and misguiding their leaders. They have been ignoring and JUSTIFYING the scores of car bombs and war crimes by Syrian rebels in Syria and Lebanon because they see them as fitting in with the struggle against the Syrian regime.
14) Western human rights organizations are also guilty of creating a culture of bogus human tights rhetoric which has belittled and even justified the war crimes of Syrian rebels (see the latest HRW report on the placing of Alawite women in cages).
15) French policy under the socialist government has even elevated its relationship with the Saudi and Qatari regimes - the two governments most responsible for sponsoring, financing and arming the cocktail of dangerous terrorists in Syria.
16) It is high time for Western governments to give up on their policies and wars in Syria, not to preserve the Syrian regime (as Iran and Russia would like), but to exclude from the future both sets of war criminals there.
17) I don't like Bashar Al-Asad one bit and I have wanted the overthrow of that regime since 1976 when its army invaded Lebanon and smashed my dreams of a progressive, leftist revolution in Lebanon, but who can now disagree with the warnings given by him 3 years ago that those terrorists that the West are now supporting would one day strike at the heart of Europe? Syrian regime supporters are today reprising those words and re-airing them.
18) The Saudi and Qatari regime media (Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya in particular, but others as well) have created a culture of terrorism in which crimes against civilians who happen to be Shi'ites or Alawites or Christians or Sunnis who happen to reside in 'regime-dominated areas of Syria' are justified on a daily basis. Just yesterday, for example, Saudi and Qatari regime media provided ample justification and rationalization for the crimes, and lionized the terrorists who perpetrated them. This culture of terrorism is responsible for the climate in which the crimes in Paris have taken place.
19) Western governments can't have it both ways; they can't continue to support Gulf regimes and arming them while claiming to want to fight terrorism.
20) US and Western governments and media are responsible for a culture of selective denunciations and condemnations: they are silent about the daily crimes committed by that key Western ally, the terrorist state of Israel, against Palestinians.
21) Arabs/Muslims can't reach an agreement against all manner of terrorism as long as Western governments and Arab regimes continue to be selective in condemning terrorism.
22) Western support for dictatorships in the Arab world is responsible in many ways for the creation of ISIS and other terrorist groups.
23) Terrorist groups in the Middle East have been used and misused by local regimes, Western powers and Israel for decades.
24) Yes, the Iraq invasion of 2003 has proven to be exactly what Jacques Chirac warned it would be: a dangerous Pandora's box.
25) Obama has really not deviated from the dangerous policies of Bush, and his expansion of wars in the Middle East has fueled ISIS.
26) The Islam of Arab regimes is a dangerous and conservative Islam. It cannot be changed by Western military commanders, but it can be changed by the people of the region if they are allowed to think freely and choose: but neither the West nor the Arab regimes want the Arabs to think freely. Al-Azhar University has become, through bribes, a tool of the Saudi Wahhabi regime.
27) It is not sectarian to declare Saudi Wahhabi doctrine as the official doctrine of jihadi terrorism. Wahhabiyeh is not a sect: it is a school of fanatical thought and terrorist practice.
28) How do Western powers fight ISIS? They foolishly rely on a royal buffoon in Jordan and on the UAE regime to engage in the promotion of a kinder Islam in social media. The fools in DC who think that those potentates have any standing among young Muslims need to have their heads examined.
29) Western powers and media are all hypocrites: they still cheer or cover up the war crimes of ISIS and Nusrah in Syria if the affected victims happen to reside in Syrian regime-controlled areas.
30) There should be a categorical end to external support of ALL Syrian rebels and to the Syrian regime by all sides.
31) Finally, why does the media coverage portray these massacres as West-vs-Islam when many of the victims in Paris are likely to be Muslims, and when ISIS in the Middle East kills far more Muslims than non-Muslims, despite the fact that members of the US Congress only see Jews and Christians as victims?
[*Ibn Taymiyyah's (1263-1328) writings are a major source for the wahhabi/salafi movements in Islam, which reject modernity and advocate that society should emulate that of Muhammad and the early believers, as literally described by the Qur'an and the hadith;**See my 3/7/15 post Those Rebels, That Hospital, Our Ambassador & His Wife.]
1) ISIS has gone on the offensive: in 10 days, they downed a Russian civilian airliner, massacred Hazara Shi'ites in Afghanistan, bombed the southern suburbs in Beirut and now Paris.
2) Western governments, the US and France in particular, along with their Saudi, Qatari and Turkish allies are directly responsible for the rise and expansion of ISIS through their policies in Syria, which have cradled and nurtured ISIS and its sister terrorist organizations.
3) There is no way on earth to stem the menace of ISIS and Al-Qa'idah-like organizations without going to their source in Saudi Arabia, which is the official headquarters of the Ibn Taymiyyah terrorist interpretation of Islam.
4) Ibn Taymiyyah* is the one thinker/theologian who has inspired and guided the thoughts and deeds of terrorists striking in the name of Islam.
5) Western governments AND media have been cynically silent about the victims of ISIS terrorism if the victims happen to be categorized as 'enemies.' Western governments AND media (just look at the dispatches from the New York Times and Washington Post over the last 4 years on Syria) have consistently ignored and even cheered sectarian massacres of Syrian and Lebanese civilians if they are perpetrated by foes of the Syrian regime.
6) Just as ISIS and Al-Qa'idah have brought terrorism to the heart of the West, Western governments have been exporting death and destruction to the Middle East and North Africa: from Mali to Libya to Egypt to Sudan to Somalia to Syria to Iraq to Pakistan to Afghanistan. Terrorism has been inflicted on people in those countries by ISIS and Al-Qaidah, and by the bombs and rockets and drones of Western governments.
7) All Arabs today have noticed something that cannot be ignored: how ISIS and Al-Qa'idah terrorists travel the world to inflict their terrorism but yet spare Israel and its interests. The relationship between the Zionist occupation entity and the Nusrah Front - the official branch of Al-Qa'idah in Syria - is no longer secret.**
8) ISIS cannot be defeated from the air as long as Western governments and their Gulf and Turkish allies assist it on the ground, directly or indirectly.
9) Just as Western powers created and nurtured the precursor of Al-Qa'idah in Afghanistan to defeat the communist regime there, those same powers have created and nurtured a deadly cocktail of the worst Middle Eastern terrorists ever in Syria in the hope that they would bring down the Syrian regime.
10) The story of ISIS terrorism began not only with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 but also with the creation of a vast safe haven for Islamist terrorism in Libya. Libya was the biggest gift to jihadi terrorism since the fall of the Taliban.
11) The US and France (along with the GCC countries) have been creating a culture of terrorism in the region by creating a terrorist haven in Syria in the name of fighting for 'democracy and secularism' - in the stupid language of John Kerry. They have done this by making dubious distinctions between various terrorists in Syria [and] through making allies of the Nusrah Front and its affiliates.
12) The myth of moderate Syrian rebels has to be discarded. The remnants of the Free Syrian Army are basically ISIS-in-waiting.
13) Western correspondents in Beirut in charge of covering the savage war in Syria are all guilty (with the exception of Patrick Cockburn) of misinforming and misguiding their leaders. They have been ignoring and JUSTIFYING the scores of car bombs and war crimes by Syrian rebels in Syria and Lebanon because they see them as fitting in with the struggle against the Syrian regime.
14) Western human rights organizations are also guilty of creating a culture of bogus human tights rhetoric which has belittled and even justified the war crimes of Syrian rebels (see the latest HRW report on the placing of Alawite women in cages).
15) French policy under the socialist government has even elevated its relationship with the Saudi and Qatari regimes - the two governments most responsible for sponsoring, financing and arming the cocktail of dangerous terrorists in Syria.
16) It is high time for Western governments to give up on their policies and wars in Syria, not to preserve the Syrian regime (as Iran and Russia would like), but to exclude from the future both sets of war criminals there.
17) I don't like Bashar Al-Asad one bit and I have wanted the overthrow of that regime since 1976 when its army invaded Lebanon and smashed my dreams of a progressive, leftist revolution in Lebanon, but who can now disagree with the warnings given by him 3 years ago that those terrorists that the West are now supporting would one day strike at the heart of Europe? Syrian regime supporters are today reprising those words and re-airing them.
18) The Saudi and Qatari regime media (Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya in particular, but others as well) have created a culture of terrorism in which crimes against civilians who happen to be Shi'ites or Alawites or Christians or Sunnis who happen to reside in 'regime-dominated areas of Syria' are justified on a daily basis. Just yesterday, for example, Saudi and Qatari regime media provided ample justification and rationalization for the crimes, and lionized the terrorists who perpetrated them. This culture of terrorism is responsible for the climate in which the crimes in Paris have taken place.
19) Western governments can't have it both ways; they can't continue to support Gulf regimes and arming them while claiming to want to fight terrorism.
20) US and Western governments and media are responsible for a culture of selective denunciations and condemnations: they are silent about the daily crimes committed by that key Western ally, the terrorist state of Israel, against Palestinians.
21) Arabs/Muslims can't reach an agreement against all manner of terrorism as long as Western governments and Arab regimes continue to be selective in condemning terrorism.
22) Western support for dictatorships in the Arab world is responsible in many ways for the creation of ISIS and other terrorist groups.
23) Terrorist groups in the Middle East have been used and misused by local regimes, Western powers and Israel for decades.
24) Yes, the Iraq invasion of 2003 has proven to be exactly what Jacques Chirac warned it would be: a dangerous Pandora's box.
25) Obama has really not deviated from the dangerous policies of Bush, and his expansion of wars in the Middle East has fueled ISIS.
26) The Islam of Arab regimes is a dangerous and conservative Islam. It cannot be changed by Western military commanders, but it can be changed by the people of the region if they are allowed to think freely and choose: but neither the West nor the Arab regimes want the Arabs to think freely. Al-Azhar University has become, through bribes, a tool of the Saudi Wahhabi regime.
27) It is not sectarian to declare Saudi Wahhabi doctrine as the official doctrine of jihadi terrorism. Wahhabiyeh is not a sect: it is a school of fanatical thought and terrorist practice.
28) How do Western powers fight ISIS? They foolishly rely on a royal buffoon in Jordan and on the UAE regime to engage in the promotion of a kinder Islam in social media. The fools in DC who think that those potentates have any standing among young Muslims need to have their heads examined.
29) Western powers and media are all hypocrites: they still cheer or cover up the war crimes of ISIS and Nusrah in Syria if the affected victims happen to reside in Syrian regime-controlled areas.
30) There should be a categorical end to external support of ALL Syrian rebels and to the Syrian regime by all sides.
31) Finally, why does the media coverage portray these massacres as West-vs-Islam when many of the victims in Paris are likely to be Muslims, and when ISIS in the Middle East kills far more Muslims than non-Muslims, despite the fact that members of the US Congress only see Jews and Christians as victims?
[*Ibn Taymiyyah's (1263-1328) writings are a major source for the wahhabi/salafi movements in Islam, which reject modernity and advocate that society should emulate that of Muhammad and the early believers, as literally described by the Qur'an and the hadith;**See my 3/7/15 post Those Rebels, That Hospital, Our Ambassador & His Wife.]
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