Category Archives: Terrorism

Why ISIS Exists Today

“Why Isis Exists Today” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

For the neoconservatives, ground zero in the creation of the Islamic State (ISIS) is the departure of the American occupying forces without a Status of Force Agreement (SOFA). At the behest of President Barack Obama, or so the allegation goes, the American military decamped, in December of 2011, without securing an SOFA. A residual American military force in Iraq was to be the thing that would have safeguarded the peace in Iraq. Broadcaster Mark Levin regularly rails about the SOFA amulet. Most Republicans lambaste Obama for failing to secure the elusive SOFA.

So high is Barack Obama’s cringe-factor that conservatives have been emboldened to dust-off an equally awful man and present him, his policies and his dynastic clan to the public for another round.

The man, President George W. Bush, did indeed sign a security pact with his satrap, Nuri al-Maliki, much to the dismay of very many Iraqis. Although the agreement was ratified behind the barricades of the Green Zone, journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi “spoke” on behalf of his battered Iraqi brothers and sister: He lobbed a loafer at Bush shouting, “This is a farewell… you dog! This is for the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!”

Saddam Hussein—both dictator and peace maker—had no Status of Force Agreement with the U.S. He did, however, use plenty of force to successfully control his fractious country. Highly attuned to the slightest Islamist rumbling, Saddam squashed these ruthlessly. When the shah of Iran was overthrown by the Khomeini Islamist revolutionaries, the secular Saddam feared the fever of fanaticism would infect Iraq. He thus extinguished any sympathetic Shiite “political activism” and “guerrilla activity” by imprisoning, executing and driving rebels across the border, into Iran. It wasn’t due process, but it wasn’t ISIS. This “principle” was articulated charmingly and ever-so politely to emissaries of another empire, in 1878: “My people will not listen unless they are killed,” explained Zulu King Cetshwayo to the British imperial meddlers, who disapproved of Zulu justice. They nevertheless went ahead and destroyed the mighty Zulu kingdom in the Anglo-Zulu War (1879), exiling its proud king. …

… Read the rest. “Why Isis Exists Today” is the current column, now on WND.

UPDATED: Adam Kokesh In ‘Amerofantacy’ Land

Iraq, Just War, libertarianism, Military, Propaganda, Terrorism, War

Adam Kokesh the soldier returned from Iraq and sobered up. Now, Kokesh is truly fighting for authentic American liberties. But does the Idiocracy even have an inkling what freedom is, any longer? Are Americans as stupid as the small and select sample interviewed by Kokesh for the YouTube clip “The Truth About American Sniper from An Iraq Combat Veteran”? Judging from the mantra mouthed throughout the exchange with viewers of American Sniper—“Navy SEAL Chris-Kyle-was-fighting-for-our-freedom”—the answer is, “Yes, they are.”

After writing for the North American market for almost 20 years—and certainly since I became persona non grata among Republicans for exposing their war propaganda—I suspect the courageous Adam Kokesh is fighting a losing battle.

But so am I.

UPDATE: Chris Kyle, Worse Than Just A Bad Ass.

Jack Kerwick does an exhaustive job of “sorting out truth from myth” about Chris Kyle. Wow. I didn’t know the half of it: “Once we are swept up in hero-worship—or maybe its idolatry—reason, facts, logic, evidence, and, most importantly, considerations of fundamental fairness and decency are all too easily swept away.”

Kerwick, moreover, cites one A.J. Delgado, who made short work of Kyle on no less a mainstream publication than National Review.

So why the hysteria over those who refuse to hero-worship this guy?

On Killing The ‘Right Way,’ For The ‘Right’ Reasons

Democracy, Islam, Jihad, Just War, Middle East, Terrorism

“Killed in an un-Islamic way” is how Jake Tapper of CNN described the torching by ISIS of a captive, caged Jordanian pilot. In case you didn’t know, beheading is killing the Islamic way.

Killing à la America, now that’s an entirely different matter. We do it right. The US is civilized: America strafes from above.

Villagers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen already know it, although the people on the ground near American drone bases in Somalia and Ethiopia are still blissfully unaware of it—Barack Obama is the uncrowned king of the killer drone. In Iraq, ordinary men and women scan the skies nervously for the telltale metallic shimmer, wondering whether they are being simply surveilled from above, as promised, or targeted by Hellfire missiles. Ditto the Iranians, who once even downed, and promptly displayed to the world, an RQ-170 Sentinel, launched into Iranian airspace by Uncle Sam.

Here is the face of disfigurement by American forces.

Still, the “good” killers can claim they are without mens rea—criminal intent—we don’t mean to disfigure and kill all the little Shakiras we’ve disfigured and killed.

The child, reported London’s Daily Mail, “was burned beyond recognition by a U.S. drone and left for dead in a trashcan. … She was found by a medical mission team two years ago and was described as ‘lucky’ by staff as two other children found with her were killed by the military attack.” “[B]rought to the U.S. from her home in Pakistan,” the girl’s American surgeons patched her up.

As you can see, not much remains of the small, charred face. Nevertheless, as the narrative goes, the little girl and tens of thousands like her, should be grateful that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men put little Shakira together again. (Or would have if they could have.)

That’s how we role; we reduce the “bad guys'” countries to rubble, decimate their neighborhoods with Daisy Cutters—all with good intentions and for a good cause: Democratizing the devils!

Ours is “The Jupiter Complex”: “the ability granted by the possession of huge air forces, to rain thunderbolts on the wicked.” “The Jupiter Complex,” writes (neoconservative) historian Paul Johnson, “was to be with the United States for the rest of the century.”

And into the next.

Savages all, if you ask me.

Playing Politics With The Pawns

Jihad, Politics, Terrorism, The State

The prisoner swap between the US and the Taliban, last year, trading five fierce-looking Muhammadans from Afghanistan’s Jihad Central for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was problematic for reasons other than that American administrations claim not to negotiate with terrorists. It is of a piece with the “release from Qatar, in December,” of an “al Qaeda operative held in a U.S. prison” in exchange for two Americans held in that country.

If the government intended to swap these prisoners for Americans, why not reserve some swap-worthy swarthies to save murdered ISIS captives Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff?

Likely because the returns were not that great. It’s all about optics and politics.