Tag Archives: Islamic extremism

FTAC: Middle East Conflict (MEC): The Peace at Hand

26 Wednesday Feb 2020

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, Palestinian Territories

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Think Peace.

It’s already at hand.

The energies and numbers of Israelis and Palestinians engaged in cross-cultural activities (like this one with Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi), in trade, even in commiseration, have been stable and strong for years.

Do the extremists the west calls “terrorists” authentically represent Islam?

Do yesterday’s rockets from Gaza represent today’s Palestinians?

The PLO/PA and Hamas have ways of making the news look bad.

TOI Staff. “As PA seethes at Trump plan, top officials say all of Israel is Palestine.” The Times of Israel, February 25, 2020.

i24 News. “Liveblog: Barrage of rockets launched into Israel from Gaza as violence in south escalates.” February 24, 2020.

Other Palestinians, however, have ways of getting things done despite the efforts of the Phantoms of the Soviet to repeat their declarations — year after year for 72 years — while handily lifting some money from Palestinian pockets and skimming more from UNCHR revenues intended for Palestinian development. While the war that exists in the minds of Palestinian “Leaders” — and ticks off the IDF most of all — goes on and on and on and on, Palestinians have long been working.

Here are a few references that BackChannels regards as positive indicators for the region. The URL titles provide the story headers:

https://institute.global/insight/middle-east/israeli-palestinian-trade-depth-analysis – 10/17/2018.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/quietly-israeli-high-tech-companies-contract-gaza-engineers/ – 9/20/2017.

https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Gaza-nurses-train-in-Israel-We-speak-of-health-not-politics-612887 – 1/3/2020.

https://www.jns.org/report-palestinian-economy-flourishing-despite-pa-financial-crisis/ – 8/25/2019.

https://www.thenation.com/article/palestinians-israelis-mourning-our-dead-together/ – 5/22/2019.

https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Gaza-nurses-train-in-Israel-We-speak-of-health-not-politics-612887 – 1/3/2019.

Rawabi, Palestinian Territories

https://www.businessinsider.com/west-bank-palestine-rawabi-city-israel-news-2018-10 – 10/20/2018.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-tech/palestinian-contractors-poised-for-riches-from-israeli-tech-firms-takeover-idUSKCN1TI0QX – 6/17/2019.

–33–

FTAC: Draw Muhammad? Don’t Draw Muhammad?

31 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philosophy, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Inspiration: commentary on Dutch conservative MP Geert Wilders call for a “Draw Muhammad” event.  Related:

Mr Wilders, the firebrand leader of the Party for Freedom, has lived under round the clock protection for years because of his anti-Islam rhetoric. A 26-year-old man, reportedly from Pakistan, was arrested this week in The Hague after making an alleged death threat against Mr Wilders.

“To avoid the risk of victims of Islamic violence, I have decided to not let the cartoon contest go ahead,” he said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/31/geert-wilders-cancels-muhammad-cartoon-contest-pakistan-protests/ – 8/31/2018.

Should Wilders have pressed this old matter concerning civility, criticism, and freedom of speech?

Westerners don’t kill people over cartoons.

The “Draw Muhammad” fad goes back to the slaughtering of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/07/terrorism.religion (2004)

A civil, multicultural, and tolerant people have no need to bait those associated with any peaceful ideology, race, or religion; however, Islam has been saddled with some portion of extremists / hotheads / jihadists and the tolerant, generally speaking, chose to express that to the intolerant — and then the intolerant proved themselves exactly as depicted and expected.

The attack not so long ago on Charlie Hebdo offices: same thing.

A foiled attack in Texas involving Pamela Geller’s “Draw Muhammad” event: same thing.

There are powerful forces in the world rooted in criminality, power, and wealth that want to produce a feudal global society perpetually at war over small differences and one has most likely manipulated Islamic Terrorism to help install that “feudal mode”. The world would do well to see that clearly and follow up by continuing to diminish racial, religious, and other extremism, by embracing and promoting the benefits of liberal democracy, and by applying its better energies to other challenges and issues.

Addendum

In the United States, the First Amendment / Freedom of Speech concept suggests the tolerating of hateful speech, and so we permit white supremacists and Black Panthers to _lawfully_ gather and express themselves in the public space without restraint. 

That is freedom.

ose whose opinions are indeed hateful may suffer opprobrium for the same and social marginalization, and that is the way America has worked lo these many years since 1791.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

“Political Correctness” may diminish that freedom if and when the state attempts to codify what is acceptable criticism and what is not.

We don’t like hate speech, but we think so much of “domestic tranquility” — a term also embedded in America’s foundations — that we tolerate the presence of it in the open, and we then address it with counter-arguments and social behavior, i.e., we walk away from it and shun those who beliefs and attitudes are not what we ourselves in our collective American majority would wish to embrace.

Perhaps Geert Wilders has recognized that we are 14 years along from the assassination of Theo Van Gogh, and he has chosen a socially responsible route, not necessarily the best political stance. On the other hand, since September 11, 2001 the world has engaged in a great conversation about Islamic extremism and perhaps as progress has been made in diminishing the appeal of it — and motivation for it — the urge to condemn Islam for it has perhaps been diminished as well.

–33–

Politicial Perception: Myanmar, Rohingya, Terrorist Provocateur

29 Sunday Oct 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Asia, Burma, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Myanmar, Political Psychology, Politics

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

But not everyone wants to be sacrificed. When vigilante mobs and Myanmar’s soldiers burned down his village, Noor Kamal, 18, tried to flee with his 6-year-old brother, Noor Faruq. Both were hacked in the head by ethnic Rakhine armed with machetes and scythes.

At a bleak government hospital in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Noor Kamal shivered with outrage at the ARSA insurgents from his village in northern Maungdaw Township, who attacked a local police post last month. “We are the ones who are suffering because of Al Yaqin,” he said. “They disappeared after the attack. We were the ones left behind for the military to kill.”

Beech, Hannah.  “Rohingya Militants Vow to Fight Myanmar Despite Disastrous Cost.”  The New York Times, September 17, 2017.

The Rohingya, marginalized in Burma / Myanmar and ripe for agitation by Islamist organizations have been forced into conflict by way of the agitation and provocations produced by the latter.

As you read through the excerpts chosen by BackChannels for display and continue following the story, the image of the “poor Rohingyans” being placed at the mercy of Myanmar military may need to be modified by the barbaric criminality produced by those who have infiltrated their numbers.

Still, what compels Myanmar to use so much force against the Rohingya?

BackChannels would venture that earlier border insecurity and inability to defend informants and detect the Islamists for arrest have contributed to the wholesale response.

In essence, the Ummah is especially being “played” — manipulated! — by Islamic extremists who have learned how to abuse the innocent among Muslims to turn them into the victims of larger but also legitimate forces.  This is the same model that Hamas has used in its rapacious abuse of the Palestinians to create the showcase of victimization while the leadership and patronage system make off with billions in loot wrung from global sympathy.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/283-myanmar-new-muslim-insurgency-rakhine-state – 12/15/2016:

The insurgent group, which refers to itself as Harakah al-Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), is led by a committee of Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia and is commanded on the ground by Rohingya with international training and experience in modern guerrilla war tactics. It benefits from the legitimacy provided by local and international fatwas (religious judicial opinions) in support of its cause and enjoys considerable sympathy and backing from Muslims in northern Rakhine State, including several hundred locally trained recruits.

The emergence of this well-organised, apparently well-funded group is a game-changer in the Myanmar government’s efforts to address the complex challenges in Rakhine State, which include longstanding discrimination against its Muslim population, denial of rights and lack of citizenship. The current use of disproportionate military force in response to the attacks, which fails to adequately distinguish militants from civilians, together with denial of humanitarian assistance to an extremely vulnerable population and the lack of an overarching political strategy that would offer them some hope for the future, is unlikely to dislodge the group and risks generating a spiral of violence and potential mass displacement.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/12/asia/arsa-rohingya-militants-who-are-they/index.html – 9/12/2017

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-14/al-qaeda-urges-muslims-globally-to-aid-rohingya-in-myanmar/8946390 – 9/14/2017

Al Qaeda has warned Myanmar will face punishment for its “crimes against the Rohingyas”.

“The savage treatment meted out to our Muslim brothers … shall not pass without punishment,” Al Qaeda said in a statement, according to the SITE monitoring group.

“The Government of Myanmar shall be made to taste what our Muslim brothers have tasted.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya/at-least-71-killed-in-myanmar-as-rohingya-insurgents-stage-major-attack-idUSKCN1B507K – 8/24/2017

*

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/myanmar-rohingya-crisis-islamic-terror-groups-may-take-advantage.html – 9/13/2017

But not everyone wants to be sacrificed. When vigilante mobs and Myanmar’s soldiers burned down his village, Noor Kamal, 18, tried to flee with his 6-year-old brother, Noor Faruq. Both were hacked in the head by ethnic Rakhine armed with machetes and scythes.

At a bleak government hospital in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Noor Kamal shivered with outrage at the ARSA insurgents from his village in northern Maungdaw Township, who attacked a local police post last month. “We are the ones who are suffering because of Al Yaqin,” he said. “They disappeared after the attack. We were the ones left behind for the military to kill.”

http://www.mizzima.com/news-domestic/uehrd-begins-reconstruction-houses-rakhine-state

Myanmar has launched a project of re-construction of destroyed houses in conflict-torn areas in northern Rakhine state under a mechanism of the Union Enterprises for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development (UEHRD), Xinhua reported quoting the Myanmar News Agency.

Someone always has to pick up the pieces — and the terrorists never do.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/mounting-evidence-of-genocide-in-myanmar-watchdogs-warn/ – 11/16/2017. Related: BBC – “Tillerson Calls for Myanmar Rohingya Investigation” – 11/15/2017; CNN – “Tillerson refuses to label Rohingya crisis ‘ethnic cleansing,’ calls for investigation” – 11/15/2017; Sky News – “Tillerson: Scenes of Rohingya suffering ‘just horrific’” – 11/15/2017.

–33–

 

 

 

Also in Media -Retrospective (2014)Look at American Policy and Language Associated with (Islamic) Extremism

31 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Syndicate Red Brown Green

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

In October 2014, Katharine Gorka of the Council on Global Security published a white paper on how language was developed and finessed by the American government to cultivate the moderate and discourage extremists.  While noting “The conscious effort not to insult “peaceful” Muslims and at the same time not confer legitimacy on violent Muslims,” she settles on a critique of “Social Movement Theory and Counter-Terrorism Policy,” which turns out also a criticism of the Obama Administration’s approach to “Allahu Akbar” terrorist attacks up to the approximate date of publication.

Here is an excerpt from the thesis of the work:

What are the implications of the Social Movement paradigm for U.S. counter-terrorism policy? First and foremost, it dismisses the ideas and beliefs that inspire
terrorists to act. It reduces their actions from religiously or ideologically inspired acts of will to merely reflexive reaction, little more than an involuntary response to abject circumstances. In this way it also serves to legitimize the actions of extremists, deeming them not as the unjust and horrific acts that they are but as the rational and justified response to negative circumstances, whether they be imperialism, colonialism, tyranny, or poverty.

To be clear, social movement theory can provide valuable and instructive insights into how groups form and behave, but as a unitary and all-encompassing lens through which to view Islamic terrorism and extremism, it dooms the United
States to strategic failure.

Not surprisingly, this single issue is at the heart of the current debate. Today, in the United States, the most important point of contention over U.S. counter-terrorism policy is its deliberate rejection of the ideological component, of the way in which Islam itself drives or inspires extremism or terrorism.

A large number of authors and analysts, as well as lawmakers, have criticized the systemic failure of the U.S. government to address the ideological component of Islamist terrorism.

This paper argues that the roots of that failure lie here, in the application of social movement theory to Islamic activism. If one looks closely at the policy documents that emerged from Obama’s National Security Staff around this time, one can see the influence of social movement theory as well as the criticisms these documents elicited.

 

Gorka, Katharine C.  “The Flawed Science Behind America’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy.” (PDF) White paper, p. 11.  The Council on Global Security, October 2014.

 

As a history, Gorka’s paper covers the many strategies that have been applied to detected and quelling Islamist violence — or should that be “Islamist”?

BackChannels has dropped the quotation marks for at least that much.

While dismissing the “social movement paradigm” as a foundation for counterterrorism strategy, Gorka may have overlooked other contributing variables, much including messianic-narcissistic drives in Islamist leaders and the ranks that support them, and behind that — basically taking place earlier in the formation of personality — the “narcissistic mortification” that drive compulsive wishes and actions beyond normal boundaries in belligerence and the importance of the centrality of control to proponents.

While making the “call the spade a spade argument” — ” . . . language must be used that accurately identifies and distinguishes the enemy, for example, the Global Jihadist Movement” — Gorka may have missed the extremism developing in the Red “comrade networks” of the anti-Semitic International Solidarity / Palestinian Solidarity movements and in such “Brown” and “New Nationalist” spheres as the right-wing Jobbik in Hungary and now so many name-your-nation “defense leagues” springing up in response to the goad of Islamist terrorist events.

-33-