Category Archives: Islam

Meanwhile, In ‘Liberated’ Libya

Hillary Clinton, Islam, Jihad, Terrorism, War

“Whence ISIS?” and “Don’t Know Shiite From Shinola” detail the genesis of ISIS in Iraq. In Libya, ISIS was liberated to act with barbarity and impunity by the 2016 presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton and her soul sisters.

“The war in Libya was Hilary’s special project. As in Greek mythology, it all began with three Gorgon sisters. Medusa’s posse included Samantha Power (special assistant to the president and member of his National Security Council), and UN Ambassador Susan Rice. The women devised the casus belli for this war, and cultivated the ‘angels and demons’ Disney production, which starred an evil dictator who was killing his noble people, and three amazon warriors, who—high on estrogen-driven paternalism—rode to the rescue.” (See “Murder on Her Mind.”)

Libya was “a war of the womb; a product of the romantic minds of women who fantasize about an Arab awakening. It was estrogen-driven paternalism on steroids.” (MORE)

Pursuant to the release by Islamic State of “a video on Sunday that appeared to show the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya,” scholar of Islam Robert Spencer clarifies the meaning of the attendant ISIS statement, to the effect that, “Safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for”:

Note that the Islamic State is here referring to Egyptian Christians — the indigenous people of Egypt — as “Crusaders.” Their ignorance of history is in service of their claim that Christians have no place in the Middle East. Their fanatical adherence to Islamic law has made them aggressive, violent, and supremacist — but no one wants to face the implications of that.

Muslims Are Targets; Jews ‘Random’ Victims

Anti-Semitism, Islam, Judaism & Jews, Media

CNN’s Brooke Baldwin is reliable and unremarkable in channeling her network’s all-too predictable double standards. Yesterday, before an investigation into the motive for their murders had been concluded—Brooke was celebrating the lives of 23-year-old Deah Barakat, his wife, 21- year-old Yusor Mohammad; and her sister, 19-year-old Razan Mohammad, while also privileging the theory of a hate crime.

The three young Muslim students had been “shot and killed” in the Chapel Hill, North Carolina, area, over what seems to be a dispute over a parking bay.

One of the biggest questions here, as this man has been taken into custody, and one of the questions is, was this a hate crime. We’re they targeted based on their culture and their religion? They father of these young women seems to think so based upon a number of instances in the past with this individual you’re looking at on the screen.

AND:

KHAN: You know, we live in a time of intense individualism [prick] and consumerism and these three served as shining examples to youth all over the world of the hearts that they have, the importance of serving others. They lived for something greater than themselves.

I met Deah many years ago. Him and his wife, Yusor, helped launch the United Muslim Relief Triangle Chapter. The younger sister, Razan, was a current officer in our chapter at the UMR Triangle Chapter in Raleigh/Chapel Hill and Durham. And her job was monthly feedings for the homeless. And she would set up feedings where our students and young volunteers would go out every month and serve the people of Raleigh. And that should tell you everything you need to know about the characters of these people. These were the best of the best. These are the kind of people, characters, the kind of children that every parent dreams for. And it’s a tragic, tragic loss for the community.

BALDWIN: I’m so glad you pointed out the monthly homeless feedings. I’ve seen pictures on the Internet. I mean it’s not just that Deah was going to go to Turkey this summer, but this is something they did daily, weekly, monthly. Can you talk to me a little bit more about Deah’s trip, though, to Turkey this summer? I mean why was this so important to him?

KHAN: You know, Deah was following in his brother’s footsteps also. His brother, Fatis (ph), served with us and served Syrian refugees in Turkey before. This is a family that has inspired many people in the community. It’s not just – it wasn’t just Deah. It was the brother and the sister. And what Deah was doing was getting together — help to get dental – meet the dental needs of Syrian refugees. And this is something that no one really discusses or talks about. It’s really, really hard to inspire people to get them involved for something like dental relief, but it’s something that’s so important that we don’t realize. And he picked up something that was so tough and went after it and did a great job. And if you – and I really hope this mission continues and it will be fulfilled. And we’re going to do our best to hopefully support them and make sure that this is recorded on his good deeds.

BALDWIN: The – I read a quote a moment ago from “The Raleigh News and Observer,” from the two women’s father saying that he feels absolutely that the three of them were attacked because of their religion, because of their culture. And when you look at the suspect’s FaceBook page, and I’m not wasting anyone’s time reading any of it, but it’s clearly very anti-religion. And I’ll just leave it there. I was looking at Deah’s Twitter feed and one of the tweets I just

At first, it sounded as if the students, who were fine kids, had been singled out for their faith, the giveaway being the women’s attire. However, from his Facebook postings (so many know-nothings; so many unabashed opinions) it would appear that the perpetrator was an atheist zealot who hated religion with a passion and often defended Muslims with reference to Christian hypocrisy.

What I would like to know is where are Baldwin’s eulogies and accolades for “Yoav Hattab, son of Tunisian chief rabbi,” who was incidental collateral, if one is to believe Barack Obama, in the attack in Paris on “a Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket?

Senseless in Syria?

Foreign Policy, Islam, Jihad

The tale of American hostage Kayla Mueller, who died recently while in the custody of ISIS, gets increasingly curious by the minute.

While a veteran intelligence reporter at CNN stated today that he very much doubted ISIS would have “given” Mueller to one of its fighters as some sort of a prize bride, this is indeed what “intelligence officials” are telling CNN.

Moreover, Ms. Mueller, it would appear, was not officially employed by any “serious organizations” such as “Doctors Without Borders” or the “Norwegian Refugee Council, UNHCR.” “Doctors Without Borders just doesn’t take anyone who turns up at the border. It’s a difficult thing to get a role like that,” explained Janine Di Giovanni, an award-winning, experienced correspondent.

During the Bosnian War, there were a lot of so-called freelance NGO people who showed up and wanted to help. Some of them did a lot of good. Some of them brought goods into the besieged cities, like Sarajevo and Mustar. And some of them, frankly, were nut jobs that were more hazardous on the ground than helpful.

Instead of hysterically romanticizing Ms. Mueller, as media have done (so far), Di Giovanni counters with a sober, sensible appraisal:

I thought she was incredibly young, incredibly naive, very inexperienced. I thought she was passionate and warm and well- meaning and well-intentioned. But to be honest, I left from meeting her incredibly worried. I thought, this is someone that’s going to get into trouble.

I’ve been working in war zones for more than 20 years and so my intuitions about when it’s right to cross into borders, when it’s not, are pretty well honed. That doesn’t prevent me from getting into trouble either. It’s just, I was very surprised at how naive she was, at how almost excited to be going into Syria.

I was with another colleague and she was with her Syrian friend, who’s also a friend of mine, an activist. And while it’s really touching to see people that are that devoted to a cause, as her mother said, peace and to try to bring peace to the world, I think it also has to be pointed out that war in places like Syria are not the place to go when you are very inexperienced, if you don’t have hostile environment training, if you’ve never been in war zones before.

Senseless in Syria? So it would appear.

The ISIS-Baathists Axis

Iraq, Islam, Politics, Terrorism

To listen to the neoconservative and the pseudo-conservative interventionists who mar American media, it’s all so simple with “dem terrorists,” so black and white. Let’s go in there, again, and knock their collective block off. For those of us who grasp the complexity and intransigence of the region and its players, it comes as no surprise to learn that the “tight inner group” of the Islamic State, numbering 12-15 members, consists of “former high officers from the Baath army which served Saddam Hussein up until the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Members of this group ranged in rank from lieutenant-colonel to general.”

Ex-Maj. Gen. Abu Ali al-Anbari, its outstanding figure, acts as Al Baghdadi senior lieutenant. He also appears to be the brain that has charted ISIS’s current military strategy which, our sources learn, focuses on three major thrusts: the activation of sleeper cells in Europe for coordinated terrorist operations: multiple, synchronized attacks in the Middle East along a line running from Tripoli, Libya, through Egyptian Suez Canal cities and encompassing the Sinai Peninsula; and the full-dress Iraqi-Syrian warfront, with the accent currently on the major offensive launched Thursday, March 29, to capture the big Iraq oil town of Kirkuk.
Debkafile was first to report the arrival in Sinai during the first week of December of a group of ISIS officers from Iraq to take command of their latest convert, Ansar Beit Al-Miqdas.
Another former Iraqi army officer was entrusted with coordinating ISIS operations between the East Libyan Islamist contingent and the Sinai movement. Their mission is to topple the rule of President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi.
The imported Iraqi command made its presence felt in Libya Tuesday, Jan. 27 …

(DEBKAFile)

The ISIS-Ba’athist Axis is truly a fascinating thing. It explains why “Islamic State functions at present with machinelike efficiency in pursuit of its goals.” (DEBKAFile)

Adds a Commentary magazine commentator: “The simple fact of the matter is that former Baathists are today Islamists”:

Long before Saddam’s ouster, Baathism had stopped being an ideology and had instead become a vessel for power. It’s not too much of a leap for yesterday’s Baathists to become today’s Islamists. Indeed, Saddam Hussein himself found religion after his 1991 military defeat. That’s when “God is Great” appeared in Arabic on the Iraqi flag, and in the years before Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Fedayeen Saddam roamed Baghdad acting as morality police as stringent as those of ISIS today. Dozens of women, for example, were beheaded for alleged morality crimes.
In an interview with the Japanese news service NHK, former vice president Tariq al-Hashemi, a staunch Sunni Islamist convicted of terrorism charges under Prime Minister Maliki (but in a court with many Sunni justices), reported that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was a former Baathist.
When I met with a former Baathist general as well as a member of Saddam Hussein’s intelligence service this past summer after Mosul’s fall, they were quite open that they cooperated with ISIS, even if they did not fully subordinate themselves to them.
Were Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and is his successor Haider al-Abbadi paranoid about Baathists and many in the Sunni Arab community? You betcha. Is that paranoia without justification? Absolutely not. …

(Commentary)