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| 158 dead and counting. |
"This is Hell"
On the subject of offending actions, I find myself sadly blogging once again about innocent people slaughtered by Islamic terrorists. Here are a few thoughts:Similarities between the massacre at the Bataclan Theater and Beslan. In both cases, killers shot innocent people while wearing suicide vests, then blew themselves up when security forces arrived, butchering additional victims. (A lot of children at Beslan.)
The war in Syria and Iraq is brutal, creating battle-hardened cadres who don't mind blood and aren't unafraid to die, thanks to their religious doctrine promising paradise to jihadis. They are trained in weapons, small-unit tactics, and won't do stupid things like the '93 World Trade Center truck bomber who was captured after returning to the rental company for his deposit. We're not gonna be that lucky with these guys.
We may have to alter American police procedure. Normally, cops seal off a hostage scene and attempt to negotiate. These Islamic goons seem down for a big body count. Cops need to be ready for dynamic entry into a very fluid, dangerous situation with many innocents present.
This kind of attack is more scary—to me—than 9/11 which was linked to airplanes and specific buildings. Something similar to these Paris attacks could erupt in any mall, movie theater, concert, sporting event. It's much more direct and personal.
The Council of American-Islamic Relations should not be interviewed after incidents like this. CAIR are Islamic boosters. If the University of Alabama football team went on a rampage and shot up a mall, the person to interview on the news would not be the guy with the Crimson Tide"bumper stickers who deplores the violence, then cries, "Roll Tide!"
Radical Islam is our foe, not "violent extremism."
My prayers to the families of the victims.
11 comments:
UNREAL seems an odd word. Sights like this are becoming too familiar. I'd also ask WHY but anyone who would kill innocent civilians has no sense of reason. Amen on the RADICAL ISLAM point. Violent Extremism is their stock in trade.
I've said it before. A sane person weilding an ax is safer than a Nutjob with a butter knife. The sane person will chop wood. What the nutjob would do with the butter knife I'd rather NOT think about at this time of night.
John, what about Christian terrorists in this country? Think Timothy McVeigh, or the people that blow up abortion clinics or kill a clinic doctor in his church.
Or the race murders of (mostly) years past. Or the killings of gay people.
A lot of killing in the name of Jesus. And it's not over.
I think it's wrong to put so much emphasis on the "Islamic." Religious zealots of all kinds have always hidden behind their religion to justify heinous acts. No religion can claim superiority on this.
In my view, It's not the Islam. It's the crazy. It's the evil.
I wish that made eradicating terrorism easier. I know it doesn't.
It's sad that we live in a world where this sort of thing is becoming LESS shocking (on account of it's happening SOMEWHERE around the world at LEAST once a year!) Now, if someone would explain, once more, how Islam is a religion of TOLERANCE and PEACE. I'm not seeing it.
Gillian,
Peaceful Muslims are in a theological vice. ISIS can, and does, claim it's carrying out the literal word of the Prophet as written in the Koran. A jihadi is rewarded with sex slaves, war booty, and a trip straight to paradise for dying in the service of his faith. The moderate Muslim claims what? It's not true? What will he do to defend his version of the faith again those who will kill to impose theirs?
As a note: the Muslim Kurds and Jordanians are battling ISIS. Whatever version of Sunni Islam the Kurds adhere to, seems very compatible with Western values.
The fight must be carried out overseas and in the west. At heart, it is an ideological battle. We are losing that phase badly.
OY! It's getting to where you can't tell the players without a program.
Sad but true, Muslims who want to live their lives are (unfairly) bunched in with the Nutbars. Apologies for that. But, like you said, it's an ideological war that finds regular Muslims stuck in the middle. Both Isis and sympathizers to their cause (even in the west) are making Jihad seem like some noble cause that no true Muslim should abstain from. And, then there are the 'perks' of killing infidels.
The cost of LEAVING Islam is one's life. The cost of STAYING means having to explain "Not all Muslims believe in this" to many who turn a deaf ear to the pleas of innocence.
Back in the 80's, many Christians advocated blowing up abortion clinics; using the same position the allies used, in blowing up railroads during WW2, to keep the Nazis from carting anymore people to concentration camps. While others simply used 'sidewalk councelling' and even barring the doors of the clinics to prevent women from getting into the clinic.
This is likely not a great analogy, but back in the day, and even now, there are those who hear the word CHRISTIAN and equate them with clinic bombers. So I see where you're going. To insist that ALL Muslims are terrorists makes NO MORE SENSE than saying everyone holding a Bible used to torch women's health facilities.
+CMcB; TRUE. I'm a Christian, but I've never bombed an abortion clinic.
Back in my Polly-Anna Prolife days, when I thought abortion was the great evil, I used to to go clinics with the hope of changing people's minds. Now I realize that IRRESPONSIBLE PARENTING is a far GREATER EVIL.
But you're right, over all. Anyone who says that Islam is the only religion with a lunatic fringe is way off base.
Charlie,
Indeed a sad world. But I'm reminded of an old Chinese proverb: "He who looks for the perfect mule will always walk."
McVeigh may well have been a Christian, but his motivation for killing was a response to government brutality in the Randy Weaver and Waco events. And yes, abortion doctors have been killed by Christians. (Though, in fairness I would wager there are more dead Frenchmen in one row of the Bataclan Theater than there are dead American abortion doctors in the 40 odd years since Roe v. Wade.)
All races periodically kill one another. A terrible thing. I watched it happen here in LA during the Rodney King riots.
Gays are indeed murdered. In the West, such an act is illegal. In ISIS territory and Iran, gays are tossed off tall buildings, or hung from cranes because being gay is illegal. In radical Islam there is no "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars." It's all-in for Allah. all the time.
Because we can't catch every burglar, doesn't mean we should ignore the one exiting our front door with the laptop.
As you mention, no one person is without sin. No faith without adherents who twist the doctrine to their own ends. But we're facing something quite terrible and confident. In their documents, Nazis and the Soviets felt enough residual shame to disguise their mass slaughters. ISIS films people burning alive in cages, uploads the footage as a recruitment video, then welcomes new soldiers, eager to die for Allah.
We can't defeat that brand of "crazy" with moral equivalence. We must name our foe or forever swing blindly at "violent extremism."
That's true: Re: We can't defeat that brand of "crazy" with moral equivalence. We must name our foe or forever swing blindly at "violent extremism."
Each perpetrator needs to be brought to justice for their actions. Although, in the case of Isis and/or Al Queada it's hard to know HOW, since they would see anything done by an enemy as Martyrdom. How DO we punish those who willingly blow themselves up?
I'll fight the temptation to get theological and just say OY VEY! Truth to tell, I didn't know ISIS and Al Quaeda were different groups. Ya learn something knew every day.
Gillian,
There are a number of Islamic groups. ISIS actually doesn't like Al Qaeda, and both of them hate the Shiite Iranians. But it's a moot point when they're gunning you down in a restaurant.
Pardon the humor, but I have to, or my brain will start leaking out of my ears. "EGAD, BRAIN!"
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so, Brain, but how will blowing oneself up help the terrorists see how miserable they're making everyone else? I'm a bit slow about these things, but...well, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?"
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