On the Paris 2015 terrorist attacks
Whenever a terrorist incident occurs,
like the January 2015 terrorist killings in France,
many in public life, in the media and in politics,
with the greatest seriousness
try to tie the event back to some individuals or groups in the Middle East.
For example, this 2015-01-11 New York Times article:
“In New Era of Terrorism, a Voice From Yemen Echoes”.
Is this getting at the root of the problem?
The fact is that
some Muslims are going to be deeply offended by what they view, rightly, as insults to their religion.
Some of those offended Muslims have taken such offense
that they feel it justifies killing in the name of Allah,
as demonstrated by several similar events in Europe.
(I certainly do not condone such killing, nor feel they are justified in the killing.
But I do recognize their motivations, as reported in the media.)
Were their documented ties to various Mideast groups,
such as al-Qaeda and ISIS,
a necessary condition for them to take such actions?
I think not.
The point is that to use these home-grown terrorist incidents
as a justification for continued killing in the Mideast
not only fails to stop such incidents,
but in fact it is literally counterproductive.
It only gives Muslims more opportunity to complain about Westerners killing and intervening in the Mideast,
which in fact has been cited as motivation for many other acts of Muslim terrorism.
The need is to break this cycle of tit-for-tat violence.
There are several ways to do that:
What is the alternative to serious surveillance to detect incipient terrorist attacks?
Well, here is one.
Note the rigorous controls the "elite" makes on any thing they consider "hate speech",
i.e., which in their view promotes "hatred" of the various privileged groups in PC society,
blacks, women, minorities, Jews, homosexuals, and the list keeps expanding (e.g., "transgenders").
Well,
if it is okay (one might say kosher !) to forbid, limit, or control speech
that Jews or blacks dislike
(You want examples?
Ask
Norman Finkelstein, Michael F. Scheuer, Patrick J. Buchanan, or James D. Watson
about the personal consequences of their provocative remarks.)
then how about doing likewise
to speech that insults Allah (in the eyes of many Muslims).
Why is it okay to forbid and limit speech
that Jews, black, women or homosexuals dislike,
but not to extend the same courtesy to Muslims?
I am aware of the "past victimization" argument.
That is, perhaps, a valid distinction.
It will be for many.
But not for some Muslims, evidently.
One may wonder
how the advocates of multiculturalism and demographic-shifting immigration
can avoid responsibility for these terrorist incidents.
The fact is,
that if our Western societies had not admitted
so many people with agendas and beliefs
totally different from the previous Western norms,
these incidents would not have happened.
E.g., the Washington Post has, on its editorial page,
often praised the contributions that immigrants bring to our society,
in particular, what it has called their "energy".
Well, energy can go in different directions.
I am too sure how happy the French are about
the energy used by the 2015 Paris terrorists.
I wrote the above on Sunday evening, 2015-01-11.
The next day some comments by Michael Scheuer were published in his blog.
His proposed solution to the problem is quite different from what I proposed:
The cost of Western leaders’ deceit and interventionism will only grow
by Michael F. Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2015-01-12
Media commentary on the well-planned, professionally executed, and completely successful mujahedin operation in Paris is really quite quaint. Listened to closely, the ponderously somber pundits will have you thinking that it is September, 2001, rather than January, 2015. The canned, 15-year old comments and questions flow freely: “Horrific attack kills 12 innocents”; “the attackers have nothing to do with Islam”; “how are the young men radicalized?”; “an attack on freedom”; “Muslims must condemn the attacks”; “we are not at war with Islam”; “why this senseless violence?”; and, of course, the maddeningly absurd and irrelevant “we will bring them to justice”.
Fortunately, just before this tripe put listeners to sleep, the prize jackass of the week trotted on stage in the person of Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper.
“The fact of the matter is this, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Harper told a small audience, “The international jihadist movement has declared war.” Here, then, is one of the main reasons why the West has gotten its collective behind so regularly kicked, humiliated, and defeated since 2001. An important NATO leader, Mr. Harper seems not to know — even though the fine Canadian army along with all NATO militaries were defeated in Afghanistan — that the jihadists declared war on the United States and its vassals in August, 1996. Harper’s ignorance is important because it reminds all Westerners how hard it will be to survive the war the Islamists are waging against them when their leaders are just beginning to think there might be a war at hand fifteen years after the enemy began to fight it in earnest.
...
The substantive post-Paris changes from Western leaders will come when they inevitably enhance the war they are already waging against their own people and their peoples’ civil liberties, rather than by ordering the hugely expensive Western militaries to annihilate the Islamists, their civilian supporters and funders, and whatever infrastructure they possess. Because it is so utterly unfashionable to kill in the necessary numbers those who are killing you, perpetual adolescents like Obama, Harper, Cameron, Hollande, Merkel, and their colleagues will increase surveillance of their own civilians, their communications, and their bank accounts; make international air travel more intrusive and arduous; and work overtime to silence and/or penalize those citizens who speak the simple, irrefutable fact that an increasing part of Islam is at war with the West, and that that war is motivated not by Western lifestyles but by what Western governments do in the Muslim world — be it invading Muslim countries, coddling Israel, or championing those who blaspheme the Prophet.
...
by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
judgenap.com, 2015-01-14
...
And how hypocritical was it of the French government
to claim it defends free speech!
In France, you can go to jail if you publicly express hatred
for a group whose members may be defined generally
by characteristics of birth,
such as gender, age, race, place of origin or religion.
You can also go to jail for using speech to defy the government.
This past weekend, millions of folks in France
wore buttons and headbands that proclaimed in French:
"I am Charlie Hebdo."
Those whose buttons proclaimed "I am not Charlie Hebdo"
were asked by the police to remove them.
Those who wore buttons that proclaimed,
either satirically or hatefully, "I am Kouachi" were arrested.
Arrested for speech at a march in support of free speech?
Yes.
What's going on here?
What's going on in France,
and what might be the future in America,
is
the government defending the speech with which it agrees
and punishing the speech with which it disagrees.
...
Why do some in radical Islam kill innocents in the West
in order to affect the policies of Western governments?
Might it be because
the fruitless Western invasion of Iraq
killed 650,000 persons, most of whom were innocent civilians?
Might it be because
that invasion brought al-Qaida to the region and spawned ISIS?
Might it be because
Obama has killed more innocent civilians in the Middle East with his drones
than were killed by the planes in the U.S. on 9/11?
...
like the January 2015 terrorist killings in France,
many in public life, in the media and in politics,
with the greatest seriousness
try to tie the event back to some individuals or groups in the Middle East.
For example, this 2015-01-11 New York Times article:
“In New Era of Terrorism, a Voice From Yemen Echoes”.
Is this getting at the root of the problem?
The fact is that
some Muslims are going to be deeply offended by what they view, rightly, as insults to their religion.
Some of those offended Muslims have taken such offense
that they feel it justifies killing in the name of Allah,
as demonstrated by several similar events in Europe.
(I certainly do not condone such killing, nor feel they are justified in the killing.
But I do recognize their motivations, as reported in the media.)
Were their documented ties to various Mideast groups,
such as al-Qaeda and ISIS,
a necessary condition for them to take such actions?
I think not.
The point is that to use these home-grown terrorist incidents
as a justification for continued killing in the Mideast
not only fails to stop such incidents,
but in fact it is literally counterproductive.
It only gives Muslims more opportunity to complain about Westerners killing and intervening in the Mideast,
which in fact has been cited as motivation for many other acts of Muslim terrorism.
The need is to break this cycle of tit-for-tat violence.
There are several ways to do that:
- End the support for
Israel's undeniable and unilateral territorial aggressions into Palestine.
Support the vary reasonable motion the Palestinians have made to the U.N.
to require an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 boundary
by a fixed, specific date.
This would take off the table a legitimate source for Muslim grievance.
(For another person who articulates that position,
listen to this cut (at 1m12s) from
Michael Scheuer's testimony before Congress on 2013-10-09,
and even more specifically,
this cut (at 2m47s).
Embeds of those cuts:
and
) - Unhappy as it makes the "civil libertarians" in Western society,
perform effective surveillance, electronic and otherwise,
on Muslim individuals and groups suspected of being potential terrorists.
I am well aware that that outrages both many very upstanding and responsible Muslims,
but how else do they propose that Western society defends itself?
(There is an alternative, which I discuss below).
What is the alternative to serious surveillance to detect incipient terrorist attacks?
Well, here is one.
Note the rigorous controls the "elite" makes on any thing they consider "hate speech",
i.e., which in their view promotes "hatred" of the various privileged groups in PC society,
blacks, women, minorities, Jews, homosexuals, and the list keeps expanding (e.g., "transgenders").
Well,
if it is okay (one might say kosher !) to forbid, limit, or control speech
that Jews or blacks dislike
(You want examples?
Ask
Norman Finkelstein, Michael F. Scheuer, Patrick J. Buchanan, or James D. Watson
about the personal consequences of their provocative remarks.)
then how about doing likewise
to speech that insults Allah (in the eyes of many Muslims).
Why is it okay to forbid and limit speech
that Jews, black, women or homosexuals dislike,
but not to extend the same courtesy to Muslims?
I am aware of the "past victimization" argument.
That is, perhaps, a valid distinction.
It will be for many.
But not for some Muslims, evidently.
One may wonder
how the advocates of multiculturalism and demographic-shifting immigration
can avoid responsibility for these terrorist incidents.
The fact is,
that if our Western societies had not admitted
so many people with agendas and beliefs
totally different from the previous Western norms,
these incidents would not have happened.
E.g., the Washington Post has, on its editorial page,
often praised the contributions that immigrants bring to our society,
in particular, what it has called their "energy".
Well, energy can go in different directions.
I am too sure how happy the French are about
the energy used by the 2015 Paris terrorists.
I wrote the above on Sunday evening, 2015-01-11.
The next day some comments by Michael Scheuer were published in his blog.
His proposed solution to the problem is quite different from what I proposed:
2015-01-12-Scheuer-on-paris-the-cost-of-western-leaders-deceit-and-interventionism-will-only-grow
On Paris:The cost of Western leaders’ deceit and interventionism will only grow
by Michael F. Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2015-01-12
Media commentary on the well-planned, professionally executed, and completely successful mujahedin operation in Paris is really quite quaint. Listened to closely, the ponderously somber pundits will have you thinking that it is September, 2001, rather than January, 2015. The canned, 15-year old comments and questions flow freely: “Horrific attack kills 12 innocents”; “the attackers have nothing to do with Islam”; “how are the young men radicalized?”; “an attack on freedom”; “Muslims must condemn the attacks”; “we are not at war with Islam”; “why this senseless violence?”; and, of course, the maddeningly absurd and irrelevant “we will bring them to justice”.
Fortunately, just before this tripe put listeners to sleep, the prize jackass of the week trotted on stage in the person of Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper.
“The fact of the matter is this, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Harper told a small audience, “The international jihadist movement has declared war.” Here, then, is one of the main reasons why the West has gotten its collective behind so regularly kicked, humiliated, and defeated since 2001. An important NATO leader, Mr. Harper seems not to know — even though the fine Canadian army along with all NATO militaries were defeated in Afghanistan — that the jihadists declared war on the United States and its vassals in August, 1996. Harper’s ignorance is important because it reminds all Westerners how hard it will be to survive the war the Islamists are waging against them when their leaders are just beginning to think there might be a war at hand fifteen years after the enemy began to fight it in earnest.
...
The substantive post-Paris changes from Western leaders will come when they inevitably enhance the war they are already waging against their own people and their peoples’ civil liberties, rather than by ordering the hugely expensive Western militaries to annihilate the Islamists, their civilian supporters and funders, and whatever infrastructure they possess. Because it is so utterly unfashionable to kill in the necessary numbers those who are killing you, perpetual adolescents like Obama, Harper, Cameron, Hollande, Merkel, and their colleagues will increase surveillance of their own civilians, their communications, and their bank accounts; make international air travel more intrusive and arduous; and work overtime to silence and/or penalize those citizens who speak the simple, irrefutable fact that an increasing part of Islam is at war with the West, and that that war is motivated not by Western lifestyles but by what Western governments do in the Muslim world — be it invading Muslim countries, coddling Israel, or championing those who blaspheme the Prophet.
...
2015-01-14-Napolitano-what-freedom-of-speech?
What Freedom of Speech?by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
judgenap.com, 2015-01-14
...
And how hypocritical was it of the French government
to claim it defends free speech!
In France, you can go to jail if you publicly express hatred
for a group whose members may be defined generally
by characteristics of birth,
such as gender, age, race, place of origin or religion.
You can also go to jail for using speech to defy the government.
This past weekend, millions of folks in France
wore buttons and headbands that proclaimed in French:
"I am Charlie Hebdo."
Those whose buttons proclaimed "I am not Charlie Hebdo"
were asked by the police to remove them.
Those who wore buttons that proclaimed,
either satirically or hatefully, "I am Kouachi" were arrested.
Arrested for speech at a march in support of free speech?
Yes.
What's going on here?
What's going on in France,
and what might be the future in America,
is
the government defending the speech with which it agrees
and punishing the speech with which it disagrees.
...
Why do some in radical Islam kill innocents in the West
in order to affect the policies of Western governments?
Might it be because
the fruitless Western invasion of Iraq
killed 650,000 persons, most of whom were innocent civilians?
Might it be because
that invasion brought al-Qaida to the region and spawned ISIS?
Might it be because
Obama has killed more innocent civilians in the Middle East with his drones
than were killed by the planes in the U.S. on 9/11?
...
posted by KHarbaugh at 09:00
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