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Tag Archives: Islamists

Politicial Perception: Myanmar, Rohingya, Terrorist Provocateur

29 Sunday Oct 2017

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Burma, Islamic extremism, Islamist victimization of Muslims, Islamists, Myanmar, political infiltration, political theater, Rohingya, terrorism

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–

 

 

 

FTAC: A Note on War, Cultural Preservation and Transformation

28 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Religion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

epistemology, Islamism, Islamists, Islamophobia, shaping battle

Some filling in on the intellectual history of Nazism and the spread of anti-Semitic myth seems in order:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/27/excerpt-1920s-the-spread-of-hate-russia-germany-laqueur/

Plainly, the defeat of “Nazi Germany” neither displaced the German language nor the German People (in their majority) but it did transform Germany into a modern and multicultural state haunted by and reacting to the crimes of the mid-20th Century.

The brutal, cowardly, and underhanded methods developed by the Nazis in their achievement and expression of martial and political power may remain — and I hope they remain – unparalleled in intensity and scope in history. Lesser cabal, like ISIL, and some states, as with Russia’s behavior in Syria, may prove equally sadistic but lesser in reach, not that we don’t pay attention.

Regarding Islam and “how many Islamists” — Daniel Pipes has been publishing on that question since 2005 — there are some approaches to coming up with percentages, but the bottom line is that Muslims would seem first in the way of jihadi violence, and so much so that their own security interests focus on keeping the Muslim Brotherhood and their relations neutralized and largely out of power.

The Moscow-Tehran relationship with Hamas and Hezbollah and others and the histories both centers of power have had with terrorism might encourage a good look those two and their historic promotions of anti-Semitism plus participation (state sponsorship for) associated with terrorism.


The prompt: an Islamophobic tirade blanketing all absent of resolving observation and reflection.

–33–

 

Also in Media: “Erdogan’s Islamist mobs know that their moment has finally arrived” | Coffee House

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by commart in Fast News Share, Turkey

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

21st Century Neo-Feudalism, Erdogan, Islamism, Islamists, medievalism, Turkey, Turkish coup

The leader of HDP, the pro-Kurdish parliamentary party that Erdogan has accused of terrorism, and the CHP – the Kemalist party traditionally closest to the military – denounced the coup.

Now, looking back, questions abound. Whose coup was it anyway and were ‘the people’ in fact organised mobs of Erdogan supporters, pre-warned and ready to take control of the streets? Why did the junta take control of the bridges and airports of Istanbul and various government institutions in Ankara while leaving the President free to call for supporters to fill the public squares to defy the tanks and defend democracy?

Read more by Yvo Fitzherbert in The Spectator: Erdogan’s Islamist mobs know that their moment has finally arrived | Coffee House – 7/17/2016.

Islam – Two Recent Political Attitude Surveys

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

attitudes, ISIS, Islam, Islamism, Islamists, polls, surveys

Reference on this blog: “Shimmer”.

Update – October 9, 2014

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/06/ben-affleck-and-bill-maher-are-both-wrong-about-islamic-fundamentalism/ – 10/6/2014.  The global survey highlights tell at least a story suspected: attitudes are different in North America from those predominant in Asia and elsewhere.

As with other mirage, as one in fact draws closer to the object sought, the shimmering stops and more solid details maintain their appearance with solidity.

Update – October 15, 2014

The most striking as well as encouraging finding is that ISIS has almost no popular support in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon – even among Sunnis. Among Egyptians, a mere 3 percent express a favorable opinion of ISIS. In Saudi Arabia, the figure is slightly higher: 5 percent rate ISIS positively. In Lebanon, not a single Christian, Shiite, or Druze respondent viewed ISIS favorably; and even among Lebanon’s Sunnis, that figure is almost equally low at 1 percent.

http://fikraforum.org/?p=5608 – Distributed 10/14/2014 by The Washington Institute.  The web page summary has attached to it the full PDF report.


The BackChannel’s page “Shimmer” launched to suggest that factual data should exist somewhere between the apologist’s “ISIS does not represent Islam” and the strident anti-Jihadist’s “Islam is represented by ISIS”.

It should be noted that Islam-defending apologist and the strident Jihad watcher share the same abhorrence as regards what ISIS represents.  In contest, however, one argues that Muhammad the Messenger and the Qur’an are okey dokey and some Muslims are nutty (and need to be dealt with) and the other’s analysis suggests Muhammad’s battlefield history — with the Banu Qurayza signal to what was to come — plus the contradictions within the Qur’an plus patently vicious Hadith, including the counsel to deceive the infidel, are just plain ugly all the way through.

Now we’re starting to see numbers.

From a dimensional perspective, fog floats with them: the reduction “ISIS bad : Brotherhood good : Hamas very good” (suggested by facets of the Fikra Forum report) is a head scratcher: what central beliefs and tenets and related attitudes constitute irreducible surveyed objects of interest?

While the “Islamic Small Wars” burn everywhere beneath the surface or on it,  the want to address those “beliefs, tenets, and related attitudes” as candidly, completely and specifically as possible remains compelling.

Related and Recommended Reading

One woman gestured to her hijab, her face flushed, shouting: “Who are you to talk about these victims, when you aren’t even visibly Muslim?” For good measure, she added that I was personally responsible for the post 9/11 escalation in the harassment of veiled Muslim women.

I was stunned.

Ahmed, Qanta.  “In the Company of Prophets: One Muslim’s journey into Islamism, courtesy of Rutgers.”  National Review, October 15, 2014.

Update October 24, 2014

http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/09/10/muslim-publics-share-concerns-about-extremist-groups/ – 9/10/2013.  This poll predates the other two, but it belongs here as may Daniel Pipes’ classic “How Many Islamists?” from 2003.

# # #

FTAC – On the Middle Against the Extremes

23 Friday May 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology, Religion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

criticism, Islamists, narcissism

This showed up a few days ago from the CAIR-friendly side, I suppose, with a different slant but the same theme. http://time.com/104804/debunking-the-extremist-myth-that-islam-is-anti-jewish/ Narcissistic “tenderness” promotes this full-blown anti-defamation response when in fact the “anti-Jihad” writers like Steve Emerson, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer have plenty of historic and current material with which to work.

In 2003, Daniel Pipes asked “How many Islamists?” That was the concern in the ranks of the watching back then. I would hope that after so many years with the growth of the social networks and development of a wondrously broad global intelligentsia that we may see states of affairs more clearly, and perhaps that to the effect that one may see the secular dictator and religious zealot as sharing similar personality features and the “middle, mild, and moderate” (I have my tropes) have to bond across many boundaries — economic, political, religious — to get the reins on them.

_____

Doing this “FTAC” thing is like Carson’s “Carnac” (I’m that old): you get the comment first, then the stimulus.  In this case, it was the Investigative Project on Terrorism’s latest, “Proving Our Point” (May 23, 2014).

Cultural grammar, language, political psychology, malignant narcissism — the themes come together.

* * *

I’ve a hard time staying away from this blog.

🙂

May we find peace in opposition to those who foment dissension, injustice, and violence around the world.

Shabbat Shalom.

# # #

Comment Attending Syria’s Proto-Jihad State

16 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Syria

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Islamic Jihad, Islamic Small Wars, Islamists, ISW, political, political psychology, politics, Syria

Saudi Commander in Jabhat al-Nusra Gives a Speech Before Aleppo Prison Attack, Asks ISIL to Join – YouTube – 2/15/2014.

Related: Future of Deadlocked Syria Talks in Question – 2/15/2014; French Ambassador to Syria, Eric Chevallier Argues with Syrian National Coalition | – 2/14/2014.

______

The Syrian People haven’t control of any army representing their needs, which today are immense with suffering.

The three amigos of dictatorship — Putin-Assad-Khamenei — have positioned and milked Syria’s productive capacities and strategic location for some time.  One may have hoped for Russia in the post-Soviet, post-KGB era to have taken the lead in producing a post-Soviet buffer and client in Syria, which by legacy may be conceded to Russia’s zone of control and influence (if we’re going to have that kind of world with superpowers locked into strategic checkmate for everyone’s security).

No dice.

Post-Soviet has transformed into a 19th Century style oligarchy suspended firmly in favor and patronage around the “vertical of power”.  So far.  Putin knows what’s needed and is capable of change.  Nonetheless, the horror he has back in Syria cannot or will not differentiate between combatants and noncombatant constituents, and state media RT and others have spun barrel-bombing Bashar al-Assad into the hero of Syrian secularism.

While there’s some truth to that, the damage in death and injury, dispersion and lost cities tell that the want of a healthy secularism pales before the ambition to again deeply subjugate the Syrian People to the Assad will.

A Look At the Other Side

Al-Nusra and ISIL and a large assortment of fighters, from upside-down European teenagers to old village militia, has looked to the Qur’an for guidance toward the development of Syrian theocracy or caliphate, either way another autocratic system bent on the glorification — today: self-aggrandizement — of leaders and the subjugation of all others.  They have discovered instead, so far, the endless divisions and egotism inherent in narcissistic “mobocracy” and “thugocracy”.

Instead of launching war of principle to unseat a brutal dictatorship, the Islamists find themselves fighting over personalities, which, if any may step back from it, they might find a war over the character of leadership personality itself.

The “west” and most of the world able to make itself helpful has now a proven capability for moving humanitarian aid to regions troubled by natural disaster and war, and a part of that involves the volunteering of military assets; however, the world hasn’t got the principle of deploying a military coalition as an invading force in a civil war.  NATO “Coalitions of the Willing” have involved at least the chimera of direct threat (Iraq) underscored, again, by the workings — including state support for terrorism — of an obscene dictatorship, or actual attack from foreign lands (Afghanistan).

Those volunteers most passionate about fighting in Syria have repeatedly proven themselves confused about God, humanity, and themselves — or none would have had the chance, much less the motivation, for throwing bakers into their own ovens.  Now they and we are in a terrible position: pushing out against Assad-Khamenei (with Putin in a supporting role), there is no expanding middle force.  The kernel for that should have been General Idris, but good, much less, civil, even nice, doesn’t seem to work in the Syrian theater.

Between dictatorship-for-money and tyranny attached to an egotistical presumption about one’s self and God, the French, among others, have signaled refusal to support either fascist track.

______

Why Israel should urgently consider saving Syrian lives | JPost | Israel News – 2/13/2014.

Israelis have been providing emergency medical care, including longer-term care, to Syrians injured or in need of medical attention (Syrian mothers have borne children in Israel).  They have also pitched in with humanitarian relief even with the erasure of Hebrew or origin labels attached to care shipments.

Related: IRIN Middle East | Briefing: Why humanitarians wary of “humanitarian corridors” | Syria | Aid Policy | Conflict | Early Warning | Food Security | Health & Nutrition 3/19/2012; France to join UN resolution on Syria humanitarian corridors – France – Syria – RFI – 2/10/2014.

It’s not like it hasn’t been thought about, but even the band-aid of an “humanitarian corridor”, a DMZ, a safe zone on Syrian soil adjacent to affected boundaries, requires defense.

Experience with the camps developed for the refugees of 1948 suggests too that such become permanent habitations and develop their own political character, a character sustained and damned by charity across generations and ensured by Arab prejudice and will, the refugees remaining disenfranchised and, so well demonstrated by what has happened to the Yarmouk Camp in Syria, treated as military assets held for war rather than like human beings.

______

It may be taken with a weary nod that Muslim teens and converts outside of Syria have been drawn to the fighting, for such fighting presents to them as noble and packaged with many other directions and emotions about things in the world, while the adults in charge (for the time being) seem not very far from the illusions and passions of youth themselves.  They are up there on the ramparts, “loaded for bear” (as hunters say), and full of themselves but now, the evil on the other side exceeding what they have made of themselves, they have to stay, and what the world would fight for, if it could get it together, is what they themselves may have to fight for, and that starts with change within.

So one would wish not to see one tyrant replaced by another, but in Syria’s brutal and frequently absurd medieval fighting, the tyrannical within the opposition needs must recognize itself and bend toward the grain of humanity.

Related: Congress Approves Weapons to ‘Moderate’ Rebels – Middle East – News – Israel National News – 1/28/2014; Syrian Rebels To Receive Anti-Aircraft Weapons from Saudi Arabia | TIME.com – 2/15/2014.

# # #

Programming – Nihilism – Islamists

09 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Religion, Syria

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Al Qaeda, Islam, islamic humanism, Islamists, Kurdish community, northern Syria, political Islam, terrorism

By labeling the acts of radical Islamists as mere “terrorism” we imply that there is an Achilles heel to expose — a political demand or a territorial gain with which they might barter, with which we might naively appease.

The reality is completely different. Their goals are nihilistic and non-negotiable: they want the total elimination of all who are not with them. Nairobi was possibly the most explicit demonstration of such.

Qanta Ahmed – The new jihad — a violent, intrusive and dangerous threat to world order | Fox News – 10/9/2013.

Someone raised expectations, perhaps; someone provided explicit instruction; someone’s words were received amplified, heightened, deified, perhaps; and someone challenged The Wisdom, saying in effect, “Prove it – it is either of the stars or not.”

Along the line of the Christian anti-Jihad, there is no way away from elements of scripture delivered in practical and literal terms.  Their experience of what on this blog I call “shimmer” starts with their examination of the Quran plus impression from history plus, finally, an acquaintance with Hadith.  None of that ends well, and less for Christian pride than its basis in Jewish thought after Hillel.

For the Jews, the noise starts somewhere beyond the arguments and themes inspired by — but seldom stated explicitly in — the Torah.  Even with something as simple as “The Binding of Isaac”, the reader is never told whether the test is of Abraham’s obedience, which is the common interpretation, or one given to children by their parents, or of conscience, which is a little bit more incisive and likely to arrive as epiphany with sufficient fascination and reflection.

The Jews long ago formed a culture apart and have learned a great deal about themselves and others.  Credit the Torah for that.  Or credit the necessity of separation given the humanity that must have gathered in the ancient desert appalled with the world, and, later, with Pharaoh.  Muslims, by comparison, have formed of the seduced or the conquered of the world, and whatever spirit predated Muhammad would seem to persist in expression now conflated with Islam.

Whether what is in Qanta Ahmed to grasp as a modern Muslim woman a progressive and humanist Islam is actually in Islam, I don’t know, for there are many forces in the Ummah — the “Islamists” but a facet, the “sword verses” another, the conflations with child marriages and honor killings producing yet additional self-slander and fuel for critics, and the  history of conquest (start with the wholesale slaughter of the men and rape of daughters and wives of the Banu Qurayza) — that would belie the assertion.

For the Kurds fighting Al Qaeda today in northern Syria, nothing has changed: they know their old enemy.

Additional Reference

Concerns with terrorist atrocities in Christian or western states may overlook the inkblot spread of Al Qaeda-defined conflict in ungoverned or autonomously governed spaces.  That context tells of a format in warfare as familiar to the 7th Century as it is to the morning news sifted by foreign affairs wonks.

The Kurdish community in northern Syria hasn’t to care about the modern humanist assertion, reformation, or survival of Islam: a Muslim army, self-appointed, self-defined, has arrived on their doorstep to convert or annihilate them, and they know it and have taken up defensive positions and initiated diplomatic efforts congruent with that.

Syrian Kurdish Leader Urges Turkey to End Support for Salafists – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 10/9/2013.

Syria: Al-Qaeda wants to control Iraq and Turkey border zones | News | World | Mail & Guardian – 10/5/2013.

Syria: Al-Qaeda Branch Battles Kurds, Threatens Ankara | Al Akhbar English – 10/1/2013.

Al-Qaida claims rare attacks in northern Iraq Republican American – 10/8/2013.

Addendum

Abdul Hakim Quick – a preacher from the Islamic Education and Research Academy, who has called upon God to “clean and purify Al-Aqsa from the filth of the Yahood [Jews]” and to “clean all of the lands from the filth of the Kafirun [non-believers].” He has also stated: “They said ‘what is the Islamic position [on homosexuality]?’ And I told them. Put my name in the paper. The punishment is death. And I’m not going to change this religion.”

UK Charity Commission Permits Hamas Charity :: Gatestone Institute – 10/4/2013.

# # #

Syria – The Cost of Incoherence

05 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Middle East, Regions, Syria

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Al Nusra, Al Qaeda, analysis, Islamists, Obama, political, politics, Putin, Qusayr, rebels, Syria

Of course one reason why President Barack Obama and other Western leaders are staying well on the sidelines in this conflict may be precisely due to the intelligence reports warning that Assad is a far harder nut to crack than previously thought.

Syrian Army forces guard a checkpoint in Damascus in May 2013. Better armed, and better logistical support.(Reuters)

That and the fact that the rebels are no closer to forming a winning, united or even trustworthy insurgency

Stewart, Brian.  “Brian Stewart: Is Syria’s Assad turning the tide of battle?”  CBC News, June 5, 2013.

The news breaking for the past several hours is that Syrian troops with a boost from Hezbollah have gained control of al-Qusayr, a border town associated with arms smuggling from Lebanon and prized for the highway connecting Damascus to Homs.

Last month, Real Clear Politics suggested that “Without stronger U.S. measures, the most likely outcome is the fragmentation of Syria into warring fiefdoms, with some turf controlled by Iran and some by al-Qaeda” (“U.S. policy on Syria still lacks coherence,” May 1, 2013).  As much may be a nightmare come true.

While General Selim Idriss of the Free Syrian Army may be counted on to represent a moderate proto-democratic force, the crowd beneath the umbrella may be too diverse, negatively so, for moving in that one direction.

More than a year ago, the Institute for the Study of War published Joseph Holliday’s Middle East Security Report 3: Syria’s Armed Opposition (March 2012), which notes in its executive summary section the following:

“As the militias continue to face overwhelming regime firepower the likelihood of their radicalization may increase. moreover, the indigenous rebels may turn to al-Qaeda for high-end weaponry and spectacular tactics as the regime’s escalation leaves the rebels with no proportionate response, as occurred in iraq in 2005-2006. Developing relations with armed opposition leaders and recognizing specific rebel organizations may help to deter this dangerous trend.”

As much has come to pass.

This comes from a Reuters filing in mid-May:

“Nusra is now two Nusras. One that is pursuing al Qaeda’s agenda of a greater Islamic nation, and another that is Syrian with a national agenda to help us fight Assad,” said a senior rebel commander in Syria who has close ties to the Nusra Front.

“It is disintegrating from within.”

Today, the black flag of Al Qaeda flies over Raqqa, Syria.

From Al Arabiya:

“Anyone who might have a complaint against any element of the Islamic state, whether the Emir or an ordinary soldier, can come and submit their complaint in any headquarters building of the Islamic state,” the notice stated. “The complaint should be in writing, provide details and give evidence.”

Al-Qaeda then goes on to promise that those who commit transgressions will face justice.

The weird left, from “globalresearch” to “counterpunch” to “infowars” have been having a field day asserting an Obama+Al-Qaeda connection (as much I deduce from the headers alone: “How Obama and Al-Qaeda Became Syrian Bedfellows”; “Obama to Arm Al-Qaeda Terrorists in Syria”.

You can look those up yourself.

I’m only wondering if I need to buy a new olive drab field jacket, say about two sizes up from whatever was in the closet in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In Syria, perhaps signaled by the state’s turnaround in Qusayr, Putin wins this round because, oh honey oh baby Obama, ain’t no one carrying around even a smidgen of the west in less than half a brain wants to hang around with Al Qaeda and its ilk, and it appears those have gotten their hooks into the community of rebel organizations in Syria, General Idriss’s moderate appeal notwithstanding.

*****

Reference

Al Arabiya.  “Al-Qaeda sets up ‘complaints department’ in Syrian city of Raqqa.”  June 3, 2013.

Al Jazeera.  “Syrian army regains strategic city of Qusayr.”  June 5, 2013.

BBC.  “Syrian rebels ‘can fight Hezbollah in Lebanon’ – Idriss.”  June 5, 2013.

Hornik, P. David.  “Showdown in Syria.”  Frontpage Magazine, May 30, 2013.

Karouny, Mariam.  “Insight: Syria’s Nusra Front eclipsed by Iraq-based al Qaeda.”  Reuters, May 17, 2013.

Sly, Liz.  “Islamic law comes to rebel-held Syria.”  The Washington Post, March 19, 2013.  Excerpt:

Building on the reputation they have earned in recent months as the rebellion’s most accomplished fighters, Islamist units are seeking to assert their authority over civilian life, imposing Islamic codes and punishments and administering day-to-day matters such as divorce, marriage and vehicle licensing.

Spencer, Richard.  “Al-Qaeda’s Syrian wing takes over the oilfields once belonging to Assad.”  The Telegraph, May 18, 2013.  Excerpt:

Their battlefield supremacy has enabled them to seize the economic as well as the military high-ground.

In Raqqa, they also control flour production, earning money from selling to bakeries, some of which they own as well. “Jabhat now own everything here,” one disillusioned secular activist said.

The Washington Post.  “A grim anniversary: Two years of conflict in Syria.” May 18, 2013.  The video is the same as the YouTube copy posted above this reference section.

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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