Understanding Radical Islam is Necessary to Defeat it
The Orlando massacre was carried by someone with a mental disease who latched on, late in his existence, to radical Islam. This lone wolf stochastic terrorist, with easy access to assault rifles and ammo, channeled his hate of LGBTQ people through a framework of radical Islam. His ex-wife is a clear data point. But let's look at radical Islam which hates the modern world and the rest of Islam.
All Abrahamic religions have extremists and radicals. Judaism has different forms and even radical ones. The KKK and others are Christian extremists and terrorists. So does Hinduism.
The Orlando monster fits into this pattern described by Fareed Zakaria;
This CNN video works as a trailer;
Modern radical Islam terrorism possibly started in Greeley, Colorado in 1949;
How the intellectual father of Osama Bin Laden's terrorist network learned to hate America in a tiny Colorado town.
...
And through it all – right up until the day in 1966 when he was executed – Qutb remembered Greeley. What he had seen in those few months stayed with him through the decades and filled him with fear, disgust, and contempt. What he saw in Greeley made him hate America.
The story doesn’t end on the Egyptian gallows. In death, Qutb’s work became even more influential. Milestones, his best-known book, has been published in nearly 2,000 editions, and though many of his books have been banned in Egypt and other moderate Arab states, millions continue to illicitly circulate throughout the Middle East and over the Internet.
His writings have become both the inspiration and the blueprint for the fundamentalist jihad that now engulfs the world. Qutb’s work is to militant Islam what Das Kapital was to communism or Mein Kampf was to the Nazis. In American terms, he is Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine, all rolled into one. His disciples include Anwar Sadat’s assassins, and Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the Egyptian cleric convicted in 1995 of plotting to blow up several New York landmarks. They include militant groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And they include a Saudi militant named Osama bin Laden.
Islam is not essentially violent, but this Qutbism cultic version is. Certainly we must add Wahabbism in Saudi Arabia to the picture but it was Qutb who got things rolling in the XX Century.
Orlando was the confluence of a mental case, homophobia, easy access to guns AND the radical Islam. My purpose is to start a discussion about this last factor and get your thoughts.
Comments
Can radical Islam be defeated?
Trump is incapable of doing so and Hillary just talks about it occasionally but IMO the more we understand this murderous anti-modernism cult the better our chances to come up with a strategy that works.
Now I also understand why Salman Rushdie was targeted by the radical Islamists.
The political revolution continues
No.
It is not possible to "defeat" radical "Islam". "Radical Islam" does not exist.
There are violent radical individuals who manipulate the Islamic faith to justify or rationalize random acts of violence. Radical "Christians" manipulate religion to justify shooting 50 LGBT people at a nightclub. Same thing. The so called "war on terrorism" is a rationalization of the Catholic "Just War" theory of war to justify killing millions of innocent men, women and children with drones. Same thing.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
The main target of radical Islam is modern Islam
I do not subscribe to the concept of "war on terrorism", you cannot fight terrorism. But radical Islam exists in the form of ISIS. And ISIS seems to resonate with some. It's a cult and many seem attracted to cults.
The political revolution continues
Questions
Is a (modern) Christian Crusade the radicalization of Christianity? If so, do we have to understand radical Christianity in order to defeat it?
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Some Christians would love a new crusade
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br_70Kbdpow]
The political revolution continues
I don't think we have finished the last one yet.
Thanks for catching the reference. = )
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
If we go by religious affiliation, nothing is more violent than
Christianity.
It's not at all close. Hundreds of millions of deaths at the hands of people who call themselves "Christians." Muslims can't compete with Christians in terms of overall slaughter through history.
The trick is, do we blame the religion for this? To me, if one does, if one blames Islam, then one must apply the same kind of standard/judgment to Christianity, when killers (and states) are Christian. And we obviously don't. We are quite selective about when to apply the religious motive. In America, it's automatically assumed that when a killer is Muslim, Islam is to blame. But we don't think that way when the killer is Christian.
Can't have it both ways. If someone says religion is the cause, then that counts for Christianity as well. And there is no more violent, genocidal, vindictive or sadistic father god in all of organized religion than the god of the bible. Again, people can't have it both ways.
There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.
-- Albert Camus
When I was teaching classes in World Religions,
I very "gently" tried to explain that. Only a very few were willing to even listen. Then again, most of them had trouble understanding that Catholics are Christians. *sigh*
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
There is no squeemishness on the left over tackling the
religious right or exploring their motivations and origins. The man who bombed the abortion clinic was sympathetic to the religious right and people made note of it.
Making "note of it" and condemning a whole
religion or people based on religion is vastly different.
Few, if any, made note of Timothy McVeigh's Christian extremism. In fact, it was pretty much dismissed. See An Accurate Look at Timothy McVeigh's Beliefs for more.
It should also be noted that the Orlando shootings are being termed the biggest mass murder in the US. The Oklahoma bombing killed 168 people vs the 50 in Orlando. Is religion the difference in how one determines which is the "biggest"?
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
I made note of his christian extremism.
and I am a christian. The abortion clinic shooter in colorado was called christian extremist in my experience, and I didn't take it personally. The OK city bombing was a bombing not a shooting.
Mass murder whether by shooting or bombing is
still mass murder, and that is what I called it. I did not call the bombing a shooting or vice versa.
You did not need to take it personally because you were not being targeted by hate crimes and talk or threats to you and your family nor was your town, city or country being bombed because of another person's extremist religious beliefs. What were the repercussions on extremist Christians after the Oklahoma bombing?
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
I didn't take it personally
I didn't take it personally because calling someone "christian extremists," is only a problem for people who are christian extremists. There are people in the New Atheist movement that don't make a distinction, between a christian and a "christian extremist," but they aren't thus far violent. If people can't tell the difference between a muslim extremist and all muslims, that is a problem that can't be cured by censoring discussion. That is just bigotry, but identifying religious movements that may play a role isn't going to make it go away.
Going to be honest, I cannot be fair on Islam.
Which is why I bow out of discussions on it. I have far too negative personal experience of it, and as a result I am biased, and am aware of that bias.
I'm not trying to make any point other than everybody's got their area where they aren't as good as they wish they could be.
I look forward to reading the discussion, but will not be participating, and hope you can understand and respect why.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Hi Detroitmechworks,
'Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it." Elwood P. Dowd "
One of the classes I used to teach
was World Religions. It helped me gain a greater understanding of Islam and its teachings (not that I know a whole lot more than the surface as anyone who has not delved deeper into this or any other religion or institutionalized group). It is one of the three Abrahamic religions, all of which have a military aspect.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
What I find interesting...
is that I quite enjoy mythology of almost every culture that is NON-Abrahamic. (Except Chinese... could never really get into that one.)
Maybe it's just because I like stories, maybe because I like the fact that there are so many interpretations, and so many different little mystery cults and festivals... It may be that I just like fun, ritual gatherings, which modern religions seem to have lost in their rigid dogmas and heretic punishing.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
One Thousand and One Nights
You don't like it? I can understand not liking other Islamic developments--like Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus and the scientific method--but their mythology, I thought, was great.
The religions are Abrahamic, not cultures. Although all the religions originated in the Middle East, they spread to pretty much all cultures.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Honestly, I have not read it.
Although I know the translation by Richard Francis Burton is considered to be the definitive work on the subject. (And from what I understand much of it is "Persian".)
And yes, I'm familiar with the accomplishments of the golden age of Islam, like Astronomy, etc... (Although I was under the impression that the invention of "Arabic" numerals were actually from India, so I may be mistaken.)
Just much more fond of mythologies of the Hellenes, the Celts, and the Norse. Shinto mythology is fascinating for a similar reason, as is the Mayan and the tales of many North American tribes.
Course it's just my opinion, and yes I understand the difference between cultures and religions. However, that starts to blend into my disagreements with Islam, and I'll drop the subject here, because I don't want to get into an argument with folks I respect.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Ah, you had mentioned at one time being younger so I thought you
might be familiar with Aladdin, Ali Babba or Sinbad (not that Disney has ever portrayed a tale as it was written). The Thousand and One Nights is a collection of folktales derived from works in Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian tales so they do cover a wide range, Though the three I named were of Arabic origin, and it was Islamic scholars who collected them into a "book." Anyway, they were stories I enjoyed as a kid along with most of the folklore from the groups you mentioned.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
What was the Orlando shooter's connection to ISIS?
Other than calling 9-1-1 when he was flipping out, and telling the emergency dispatcher that he was pledging himself to ISIS?
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Yeah, I'm with you.
ISIS is just a convenient excuse.
I miss Colorado.
Exactly! He was just a mean SOB--a bully looking for
an excuse to unleash his pent up rage. He beat his first wife, who had the good sense to begin divorce proceedings after only four months. He was a disaster looking for a place to happen. Our highly lenient gun laws made it possible for him to take a lot of people with him.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
As far as we know, he had zero connection to them.
It was a last second thing. But his hatred of gay people and blacks went back years before ISIS even existed.
There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.
-- Albert Camus
Daesh not ISIS
Yup, and I used a cell phone to post to facebook while I took a dump in the woods pledging allegiance to the flag. That means that the flag is to blame for stinking up biosphere reserves and they should all be burned. Seriously, that is the stupidest thing I have heard... I was talking to the men on the job today and suggested that I expected some new civilian massacres, maybe a war with Russia in the next couple days (or weeks) using Omar Maltine (whatever) as a poster boy. Even Sanders fell into the trap.
BTW, I use "Daesh", an insulting Arab name for ISIS.
Here is the interactive battle map for June 2, 2016. http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/fr/map/desyracuse-syria-civil-war-2-june-20...
If the USA, NATO, Turkey would just back off and sit on their thumbs, Syria, Iran and Russia would wipe the floor with these Daesh/Al Nusra lunatics in short order.
From the Light House.
There are a lot of Christians I don't understand.
I was raised fundamentalist Christian [great music!], but a lot of what goes under the heading of "fundamentalism" is just beyond my understanding. The basic teachings of the group I was raised with included "You're not always responsible for what happens to you but you are responsible for how you react to it" and "Following God's laws won't make you rich. You follow His laws because he is God and you are not."
And my favorite one: "On judgement day, no one is going to stand in for you. Following orders or he started it first won't help you. You and only you are responsible for your actions."
All of this seems a hell of a long way from trying to control other people's sex lives and the prosperity gospel preached on television.
I've grown into an agnostic through the years, but I do miss the music.
ETA:
So how am I to understand "fundalmentalism" in other religions?
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
I'm not convinced that radical Islam had much play
in this terrible tragedy, and I'm also not convinced that the shooter was mentally ill. We say that about every shooting in America these days, but it can't always be true, statistically. Is hatred or intolerance of others mental illness? How do we even define mental illness? The shooter's ex-wife certainly believes that he was mentally ill, but he physically and verbally abused her and essentially kidnapped her.
The guy sounded like a goddamned asshole to me, honestly. You don't need to be mentally ill to be a douchebag of the highest order. A sociopath, maybe, though.
The shooter just fucking hated gay people, straight-up. (Ha! No pun intended.)
Interesting angle, about the dude who lived in Greeley, Colorado for a time. I've been to Greeley and it's kind of an overgrown cow town -- certainly no bastion of liberal thought, like Boulder or Denver. It's weird that Qutb hated it so much because it's fairly conservative, as far as Colorado goes.
I've done a good bit of reading about Wahabbism (to understand both radical Islam and D'aesh), but I just don't think that's what this is. I think Orlando's killer just used it as an excuse to massacre a bunch of LGBTQs that he hated.
There is a lot about this whole thing that bothers me, but the gun angle REALLY REALLY REALLY bothers me. In fact, I unfriended someone last night on Facebook who was bitching and moaning about how his poor little second amendment rights are being trampled upon and how the big meanies who want AR-15s banned want to see him rounded up and arrested or some such bullshit. I wrote a really long comment that basically screamed "YOUR RIGHT TO OWN AN AUTOMATIC WEAPON STOPS ABOUT AN INCH FROM MY BISEXUAL FACE, MOTHERFUCKER!", but then just deleted it, left a short sarcastic comment, and unfriended him.
Oy. Between Donald Trump and this incessant shooting crap, I am so ashamed to be an American right now. I want out.
Seriously.
I miss Colorado.
The double post gremlin strikes again
Oh and this comment is why I love you so much
I can't tell if you are
talking to me or yourself, but I kinda love you, too.
I miss Colorado.
I'm talking about you Shiz.
: )
I miss Colorado.
Just wondering
who has to understand them and who has to defeat them? Who is responsible for them being radical?
What Would It Take?
Think about the logistics of "defeating" radical Islam for a moment. As I see it, it would take an effort the size of the American mobilization for WWII.
It would be necessary to put massive armies on the ground to kill, or to capture and control, so many people across so large a territory. You couldn't ever release them from custody, for as a recent right-wing "news" story claims, several Guantanamo detainees deemed safe to release have since been "proven" to have been involved with recent attacks on Western personnel in Muslim lands. (We'll just ignore how the treatment such people have endured for years, whether guilty or not, would make a violent radical out of almost anyone.) The effort would take until these people -isolated from their communities so as to not interfere with the re-education of the entire population - all died. It would take the American equivalent of the infamous Soviet Gulag system to even come close to success, not that success is likely.
Is this the kind of nation we are willing to become? It would make us no different than those we seek to eradicate, except that we have superior killing technology.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
Us, not us, us. n/t
What did you think of --
Loretta Napoleoni's Terror, Incorporated, advising the US to go after the hawala system? I know it's an old (2005) text, but might it still have some value?
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
Radical Islam is taught in Pakistan with money from Saudi Arabia
How Saudi Arabia exports radical Islam
The political revolution continues
Yes, Our GOOD Friends
The ones who threatened us with economic collapse if they were sued for participation in the 9/11 attacks, for whom a white washed rewriting of the infamous 29 pages of the 9-11 reports will deliver exoneration after all these years of hiding the truth from us (regardless of what is in those pages, we aren't allowed to know the details).
The ones whose extreme religion is pushed into the Muslim world to expand those opposed to the way of life the rest of us have.
The ones we are teaching to wage war so that they can become the Caliphate Muslims seem to desire no matter what their other views on global life.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
And personally, I think even for the Saudi's
it's about oil money and domination over that continent too. I think "radical Islam" is just rolled out for their peons, so they can fight to the death for essentially, profit.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Isn’t the hawala system banking for “little people” — the 99%?
Whereas big banks can do billions in money-laundering for terrorist-supporting Gulf moguls and potentates, for organized crime, for drug barons, and for Western intel spooks’ dirty work — and even if caught, get off with no more than a slap on the wrist?
That just seems like two-tiered or “look over there!” distraction justice to me.
I don’t know about Greeley
I have only been to Greeley CO once. Don't know the connection to radical Islam. I have lived in Yemen for several years, and I'm here to tell you that almost all people everywhere simply want the best for themselves and their families. If just a tiny percentage of the 2 billion Muslims were terrorists, there would be millions of terrorists.
"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
Mass Shooting at Pulse.
Right now, the MSN Networks are yapping about the mass shooting about a 15-20 minute drive from my house. That happened early Sunday morning. On Friday nite, a young talented singer was gunned down as she signed autographs. That was a block and a half from my house. Both shooters were killed. Both committed these horrific acts with firearms purchased legally. What is it with guns and killing? I have never purchased a gun. I never will. The Pulse killer hated gay people. Religion played a small part in both cases. The other shooting will always be a question mark. American Popular Culture is drenched in violence and blood. Guns are a cinch to obtain. The whole situation is beyond sick. Recd.
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Radical Islamic terrorism is a problem
But as a US citizen I am more concerned with stopping the much greater terrorism committed by US military personnel all over North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Just as the illegal US bombing of Cambodia gave rise to the Khmer Rouge, we are creating enemies with every family that we murder.
Interesting, but Greeley has not gone Qutb's way.
I live near Greeley, worked there last year with Somali Muslim refugee schoolkids. Greeley has thriving Somali and Burmese Muslim refugee communities, whose traditions are quite distinct. Compare Catholic and Lutheran worship traditions - both Christian, but so different. Greeley truly is a melting pot these days - women in hijabs, Spanish-speaking families, students, people of all races mingle in more or less harmonious community.
I used to let the Somali kids come in my room to pray during lunch hours. I could only do this if I allowed any other kids who wanted to pray to use my room, as well. Observant Muslims need to pray 5 X a day.
Greeley is represented by Tea Party anti-immigrant politicians - Jerry Sonnenberg, Cory Gardner, and Ken Buck.
Refugees are here legally - and the meat packing industries in the area are quite happy to have them as employees. The story goes that when Ken Buck organized a raid that deported hundreds of Mexican and Central American immigrants, the meat packing industries organized a "Welcome to Greeley" movement for the African and Asian refugees.
But the meatpacking industry has not been friendly to religious freedom for the useful refugee populations - when workers at the Carhardt plant wanted to pray on their own lunch and bathroom breaks,the employer cracked down, and ultimately fired 200 of the workers. (This was my diary on coloradopols).
The issues of religious freedom for Muslim workers are constantly cropping up across the US, particularly in the meatpacking industry, and Teamsters and other unions are very reluctant to support their Muslim brothers and sisters.
So I don't know what Qutb would say about Muslims in Greeley today - probably he'd be appalled that they are working so hard to become educated and be mainstreamed into regular Greeley society.
They're holding hard onto their own cultural and religious traditions. Here's my take on the "radical Islamic" danger - stop fricking discriminating against normal Muslim kids who want to assimilate. I vividly remember one of my students, a bright 13 year old whom I'll call Hassan. He was working on a science presentation about the solar system. He found a meme by some racist stating that "Islamic science was that the earth was flat and the earth was the center of the solar system." I remember how outraged he was. Tears in his eyes. All I could tell him was that there are ignorant people in the world, and he just has to hold on to who he is...he knows he's not ignorant.
My point is if you want to radicalize people, all you really have to do is to dehumanize them and treat them like crap. Don't do that.
How much of "Radical Islam"
is a result of the continued interference in the internal affairs of countries in the Middle East? Did it exist in its present virulent form before WW1, WW2? How much responsibility does the West have for its rise? How much are we to blame for its acceptance by its adherents?
Before we can hope to counter it, we'd best understand how it came to resent the West so violently. I'd argue that, short of an all-out war (which would only serve to further radicalize Muslims who feel their very way of life is under attack,) we will never be able to overcome its appeal as long as we keep killing innocent Muslims in support of American financial and political interests.
So, how do we "defeat" the very thing we've cultivated through our short-sightedness?
Maybe we ought to pay greater heed to this:
This was an amazing comment, thank you nt
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
Thank you for saying this
you beat me to it but did such a better job than I would at it! Every time I hear that "they hate us for our freedoms" crap I bring just this point up. We went over there and partitioned a region into "countries" we set up. We have deposed popularly elected leaders to install free market goons to maintain US and Western European financial interests. How in hell would WE feel if that were our country? We had no right to do that and have no right to be over there now trying to enforce it.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
prosecute the Law-breakers
-- Not the by-standers.
Amazing comment, thank you. nt
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
Radical Islam or hateful parents?
I turns out that the shooter had a profile on a gay dating service and has been seen at Pulse dozens of times, drinking.
meanwhile, his father states that he shouldn't have murdered people because God will kill homosexuals.
So, this is more of a case of parents who messaged to their child that they wouldn't love him if he didn't fit their profile of acceptable people. imagine the self-loathing that emerges when you are one of the people that your father has been spewing about all your life?
Most mass shootings in this country have nothing to do with Islam. Something like 2 out of the last 100 shooters have identified as such. This wasn't about Islam. This was about a broken young man who turned the profound pain of facing rejection by his parents into an explosion at others.
That said, I agree that in order to understand the strain of extremism playing out in Muslim communities around the planet, but mostly in the Middle East and Africa, we need to understand how outside forces shaped the dynamics within those places and planted the seeds for it.
Alleged Orlando shooter a Pulse regular?
And he messaged with another Pulse regular using using a gay chat app . . .
Lot of details here, but, of course, TPTB have already declared this a matter of "radical Islam," so I doubt this story will be ever be reported beyond locally.
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
This is even more devastating then.
A closet case who hated himself so much for being gay that he shot up a bunch of people because they reminded him of himself?!?
Jesus Fucking Christ Almighty. That explains SO much.
I went Googling about this and ended up on Gawker first. (Don't judge me, yeah, I read it!) The first comment under the article sums it up perfectly:
Yup. It appears this story has some legs, too, because Gawker also put this article up just as I was quoting the first:
There we go. Let my disgust at anti-LGBTQ assholes become more firmly entrenched.
I miss Colorado.
I've been seeing stuff
in the Sentinel that sort of leaves the reader with the notion that this guy was some kind of wannabe terrorist (example: used to boast at one of his jobs that he had "Muslim connections", like he was some kind of bigshot overseas). Nobody in the local press has suggested he was gay, let alone closeted, though (and yes, that kind of crossed my mind too).
But it's like Washington wants this so very, very badly to be a Big Terrorist Attack Worthy of WAR. So much of what I'm reading locally here differs from the national slant, it's like they're talking about two different people. But maybe that's just me, I haven't immersed myself in the coverage (we're still reeling from the Friday night deranged-fan attack on that young lady from The Voice). Given how much of it there has been, that's probably a good thing..
Definitely, let's not let a good tragedy go to waste.
The gubmint surveillance complex always takes advantage of anything that can be spun into terrorism. Keep scaring the hell out of the public so their (already insane) budget gets doubled or tripled.
With so many witnesses saying he's frequented the club, it sounds totally credible. Sounds like his own self-hatred or someone ignoring his advances, triggered this looney toon.
Wackjobs with easy access to military assault rifles. What could go wrong? And the aholes in congress will do nothing about it. If 20 dead children in Sandyhook didn't provoke a response, why would 50 dead gays? It won't. Not as long as the NRA checks keep rolling in.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
Jeez.....
I speculated about just this yesterday in email with some friends. Although my point there was more of trying to show that there is simply no way to know why someone does shit like this. But it sure makes sense. A LOT more sense than "radical Islam" to me, but that's just me. Roll them all together though, religion and it's extreme judgments for those who don't "fit in" properly, then some guns with lots of ammo, an angry young man full of self loathing, and you've got the perfect storm. And our media will ignore this aspect, naturally, all in order to keep the wars and terror going.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I spent a couple of weeks in Morocco
last September and of course spoke to many Muslims there. Morocco was a major tourist destination before 9/11 but there have not been very many American tourists since then. The Moroccans I spoke to missed us but were very understanding of the 9/11 backlash. They blamed the terrorist acts on a small minority of Muslims whom they called "the crazies". They said that the crazies were only 0.04% of all Muslims. They told me it wasn't much of a problem in Morocco because their king outlawed all violent radical preaching.
BTW my avatar is a picture I took of a brotherhood-themed mural on the wall of a home in the _medina_ (old walled city) of Asilah, Morocco.
"Please clap." -- Jeb Bush
The reformation
Islam is going through its reformation, inspired by the Salafi/Wahhabis. Just like the Christian reformation, its an attempt to return to a pure form with literal readings of the scriptures. Maybe the 30 year war is the best analog.
But it didn't start in a vacuum. The middle east had plenty of secural reformists after WWII and independence. Most of them were also socialist (in the social democratic sense), leading to their ouster by the US and western Europe, leading to a choice between western-backed dictatorships and theocrats.
There is nothing ever wrong with more understanding but understanding radical Islam is as easy as understanding any fundamentalist movement. What we need isn't to understand radical Islam better but to stop creating the chaos that leads to fundamentalism, whether its in Iraq, Yemen, or wherever else.
When the Shah’s regime began to wobble, all I heard from U.S.
strategists of the Council on Foreign Relations stripe was OMG, the Tudeh Party (the Iranian communist party) is gonna take over! We’re gonna lose the Great Game to Russia! Send in the clerics! Quick, bring that ayatollah guy back from exile!
Everything we’ve ever done in that part of the world seems to be driven by greed for land and resources, contempt, dehumanization, and ignorance.
ISIS is a homegrown monster
We created it and we feed it. Enough with the demonetization of Islam by blaming 'radical' fundies argument. We feed our own Christian radical fundies and give them credence. So forget about those extremists in the ME and look to the ruling lunatics we have here in der Homeland. Radical? What does that mean anyway?
You have entirely overlooked what US 'foreign policy' has done to the people living in the ME. Radical my ass. Think about what the radical invasions, radical occupation and radical killing. along with supporting monster puppet's has done to the ME. Start with Iran and the CIA's coup t'atat that took out Mohammad Mosaddegh. So the Shah was not a radical? Yeah right the Savak was so not radical. BP, the Brits and the CIA had nothing to do do with radicalizing the Iranians. Thank you Ike you kindly bastard.
Pardon me Shockwave but I don't buy into ISIS hysteria or any thing the US does in the ME. We made this. How about you look at our policy in the ME regarding Israel and the Saudis. What strange radical bedfellows and yet... how about what we the US does to kindle the flames of radicalism both in the ME and here in der Homeland. We reap what we sow both nationally and in the world at large.
I can't believe I posted this song it's not like I like Blue Oyster Cult but come on people do not let the cooked up fear of radical anything seep into your acceptance of the rat bastards right and left's absolute distortion of geopolitical malfeasance influence you to into thinking this modern cooked up ME crusade is based on any thing other then PNAC, Great Game, Neocon propoganda.
Radical Islamist will only be
Radical Islamist will only be defeated by removing or displacing Radical Religion.
Tough road to tow.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Another angle to consider...
I have noticed at least three separate violent murders of Transgender folks in the news over the last couple weeks and wonder about this. Am I just noticing because of the current awareness? Is the news (I do online only, no TV) just picking up these stories more of late? Or is the negative rhetoric in the news, brought out in discussing the proposed protective laws for bathroom use for example, causing a backlash? By that I mean, if one group is hated as a class, and you have someone mentally unbalanced, does this direct them to that group as a target of their violence? When there is a large amount of anti-abortion news it seems it always leads to violence at an abortion clinic.
Am I seeing patterns here that don't exist?
As regards the shooter in Orlando, could it be that his violent streak had less to do with ISIS and more to do with an unstable mind influenced by hate media? The narrative of it being a radical Islam problem gives legitimacy to an enemy, rationalizes more law enforcement spending, and gives us a group that is different than us toward which to focus our hate. But to take a hard look at our current culture and say that something is wrong to fester this type of violence within our society, is painful and difficult.
Another hard look that we as a culture need to do, is why are people being drawn into ISIS in the first place? Is there some correctable deficiency within our current culture that makes them susceptible to recruitment?
Is ISIS the root problem, or merely the symptom of something else that is the root problem? And do we throw resources toward fighting radical Islam, or toward fighting that underlying cause?
One Qutb observation I agree with
Deleting religion from this, can this statement not be an accurate description of the way many Americans experience life?
”Life is comprised of constant worry, constant work, constant yearning, the constant quenching of thirst and the effort to be on time.”
One doesn't need to be religious to see the expectation that there has to be more to living than this.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.