WarSclerotic

Europe bleeds again as terrorists in Spain plowed their vehicles into crowds of pedestrians in tourist areas in Barcelona and Cambrils. The men killed 14 people and injured more than 100.

Spanish police are currently investigating a local imam for possibly having radicalized the terrorists. The imam had apparently been preaching at a mosque in the town of Ripoll for two years, but stopped just a few months ago. The question has arisen if the mosque administration may have found out something about the imam and fired him, but never bothered to report the information to the local police and to clear the mosque of blame.

The day after the attacks in Spain, two people in Finland were hacked to death in another Islamist terrorist attack, leaving some eight injured.

We hear yet again the promises to root out the terrorism, with a warning from security agencies that they cannot stop each and every terrorist attack — words that translate into the admission that terror has gone beyond the control of European governments.

Yes, there were candlelight vigils for the victims; flags of Spain and Finland on social media profiles; there might even be a “Je Suis Barcelona” campaign — and then the long silence as if we are all in a loop, waiting for another terrorist attack..

We have seen — and these are just the recent ones — Islamist-inspired attacks in London, Manchester, Paris, Brussels, Nice, Berlin and Stockholm, all of the violence leaving scores of women, children and men dead, and even more injured and possibly disabled for life.

It does not take much common sense to understand that individuals cannot commit mass murder without any training, support and most importantly, indoctrination.

The gutless response of world leaders to so many terrorist attacks suggest that the world has apparently bought into the “victim narrative” of these extremists, who first set their own countries on fire and then entered Europe with the baggage of their totalitarian ideology, aiming to enslave the masses here too.

One can measure the effect of sympathetic propaganda towards these extremists across the globe by looking at the two very different responses towards Charlottesville attack and what followed in Barcelona and Turku, Finland.

For the Charlottesville attacker, the whole world wanted the toughest crackdown against the organizations and supporters of right-wing marchers. CEOs of giant multinational companies abandoned the US government for not immediately having provided moral clarity by denouncing reprehensible organizations by name.

The critics of the US right-wing wanted their government to tear down each and every group that showed sympathy towards right-wing ideology, while they criticized President Trump for not being specific enough; unfortunately, they seemed to prefer overlooking similarly unattractive speech on the left, such as “Pigs in a blanket; fry ’em like bacon,” accompanied by a rash of just-as-real murders of equally innocent people.

They also seem to overlook a call to blow up the White House; a display of the president’s severed bloody head and “hope” from a sitting state senator that the president is assassinated.

The media get exercised when President Trump does not parrot their scripts, but they never minded that Barack Obama would not call out leftist rioters and violent leftist organizations by name. As inner cities would burn, with innocents watching their life savings go aflame as mobs burned down their stores in cities from Baltimore to Ferguson, the Obama Administration avoided planting blame or naming hate groups. When a jihadist murdered Americans serving our nation faithfully at Fort Hood, Obama attributed the murders to “workplace violence.” Obama never could articulate the term “radical Islamist terrorist,” as though he were Lou Costello fearing what would happen to him if he said “Niagara Falls.”

Many of these people, however, would probably rush to defend extremist Islamist organizations — whether Hamas, the Council on American-Islamic Relation (CAIR), Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and so on — by stating that these poor people had nothing to do with the criminals who carried out the terror attacks in the name of their religion.

No global CEO would resign, and many of the same people would probably be very tough on President Trump for being “too tough” on Islamists in his tweets and public statements, as they were when he announced that people who applied to move to the US should first be vetted.

Moreover, the so-called “political wing” of the notorious organization Hezbollah, was allowed to join the so-called Al-Quds Day march in the streets of London just a few weeks back, on June 18.

If a terrorist organization has a political wing, does that make it less of a terrorist organization or does just legitimize its terrorism? What about inventing “political wings” for al-Qaeda and ISIS?

On Al-Quds Day, the marchers chanted slogans such as “boycott Israel” and “Zionism = Racism” but the local authorities choose to keep their eyes shut despite appeals by thousands of concerned citizens to Mayor Sadiq Khan to cancel the event. Perhaps officials thought it was not harmful for Britain if somebody spews venom against “other people” on their soil.

Former commander of British forces in Afghanistan Col. Richard Kemp tweeted Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May:

“If Enough is Enough, why does the government continue to appease Jihadists by allowing the so-called ‘Al-Quds Day’ march through London?”

The march even tried to incite the public against Jews by falsely accusing Zionist people and supporters of Israel for the Grenfell Tower apartment building fire, which left 58 people dead. One speaker was reported saying:

“Many innocents were murdered by Theresa May’s cronies – many of which are supporters of Zionist ideologies. Some of the biggest corporations who are supporting the Conservative Party are Zionists. They are responsible for the murder in Grenfell. The Zionist supporters of the Tory Party.”

It was a shock to see people from other faiths joining a rally with these Islamists, and so-called human rights activists who were joining with the members of a terrorist organization, Hezbollah.

At the recent Al Quds Day march in London, it was a shock to see people from other faiths joining a rally with Islamists, and so-called human rights activists who were joining with the members of a terrorist organization, Hezbollah. Pictured: The 2014 Al Quds Day march through central London. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

In a separate event in Australia, one television anchorman asked Wassim Doureihi, the local spokesman of an Islamist organization, Hizb ut-Tahrir, to condemn ISIS, but Doureihi simply kept juggling the debate around and avoided condemning the group. He even went on indirectly to endorse ISIS by stating, as Palestinian terrorists do, that organizations such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda consider themselves a “resistance” force:

“Groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda don’t exist in vacuum. They exist as a reaction to Western interference in Islamic lands. And they view themselves, rightfully or wrongfully, irrespective of my opinion or otherwise, as a resistance effort to what they regard as an unjust occupation.”

Hizb ut-Tahrir is an extremist organization that believes in imposing an Islamist caliphate on the world using all available means. It is declared a terrorist organization by countries such as Germany and Pakistan, but ostensibly in the name of “freedom of expression”, allowed to grow across the West.

The same is true for organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots, which manage to survive in West despite being loathed by enough Egyptians to have gathered 22 million signatures to overthrow its rule there in 2013.

The demand to end support for the Muslim Brotherhood is also the issue at the heart of current standoff between Qatar and many other Middle Eastern states known as the “Saudi coalition,” presumably for its potential of overthrowing their governments.

It is in the atmosphere of this openly-stated wish for global political hegemony that Islamic hardliners successfully operate and indoctrinate local Muslim youths to further anti-democratic agendas.

The world cannot win this war by trying to catch only the minnows. As we have seen, if government agencies try to stop terrorists from bombing, they pick up machetes and knives or plow down the public with vehicles.

The terrorists are already doing their job by striking the fear in civilians. They appear determined first to establish their dominance in the minds of people through terror, probably in the hope that the public, scared and tired, will, as the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told the psychologist James Mitchell, “eventually expose her neck for us to slaughter”

The free world, if it would like to win this war, will first have to give up its duplicity. It will have to target the nurseries of terror indoctrination without cherry-picking and keeping its favorites. If it does not, global security organizations will find themselves exhausted running after individual suspects, but each time looking just at the “minnows”, never the pond they swim in.

Khadija Khan is a Pakistani journalist and commentator, currently based in Germany.

The social democrats and so-called feminists have been raising their voices for all to hear. They boast about advocating gender equality, individual rights, and advancing women’s rights. They argue that these values are universal; that every person, especially every woman, everywhere in the world, is entitled to these “inalienable” rights. Speeches are given, fundraisers are held, and an army of champions charges toward the cause.

Everyone is equal, and everyone deserves these rights. The chants, the inspirational lectures, the determination that echoes through television interviews, and is spread across the pages of magazines, all fill their followers with enthusiasm. But what is the reality?

Alongside other social democrats, Federica Mogherini, the current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, recently visited the Islamist state of Iran to attend the official endorsement and inauguration of the regime’s president, Hassan Rouhani. Instead of enforcing the standards she professes — such as the strong support for women — she folded in with those around her. Others who accepted Iran’s invitation were North Koreans, members of Hezbollah, and leaders of Hamas. All three of these groups are known for cruelty, especially against women, and crimes against humanity.

The presence of such people makes the issue of despotism more complicated than it needs to be. By attending these kinds of events, social democrats such as her repeatedly endorse and give legitimacy to repressive states that implement Islamic law, Sharia. As Mogherini rubs elbows with men who have ordered the deaths of thousands of women (and men), she toes the line of their expectations. Instead of evolving their mindset, she allowed all of the women she claims to represent, to remain oppressed, as they have been for so very long.

Mogherini took the problem even a step even farther. Instead of attempting to appear as if she were working toward progressive thinking among these violent Islamist leaders, she acted as if they were friends. She appeared proud to snap selfies with the representatives of this repressive regime. The story came under the international spotlight. Some of the deputies used their selfies with Mogherini to project their legitimacy to the international community while others created self-promotional posters of themselves with Mogherini wearing the mandatory hijab. Mogherini, a social democrat Italian politician who speaks of women’s rights and was once a member of the Italian Communist Party, delightedly agreed to follow the Islamist rule of wearing a mandatory hijab. This act of compliance sends a brutal and unshakeable message. Women in these Islamist societies are controlled by laws which proclaim they must be hidden, or treated as their husband’s property. The hijab has become a symbol of this. Conversely, when Iranian leaders visit Mogherini’s country, they do not follow Italy’s rules. Instead, Italy follows the regime’s Islamist rules by offering appeasements such as covering up nude statues and not serving wine.

Mogherini — who years ago also agreed to be in controversial picture taken with the late Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat — also played a crucial role in sealing the nuclear agreement for the Iranian regime and lifting the sanctions for those dictators. Instead of seeing these oppressors punished, she enabled them to have fewer limitations, as they still hold their own people beneath their thumbs and continue to be the cause of their suffering.

Mogherini then tweeted about her blog post, which states “It was an opportunity to talk again to Rouhani, to Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and to the Supreme Leader’s foreign policy advisor, Ali Akbar Velayati”.

Is this really an opportunity to be proud of and boast about? And what did she talk to them about?

While Mogherini is joyfully attending events with these Islamist leaders and rejoicing in having taking pictures beside them, does she ever think about the millions of women who are brutally oppressed under these Islamist regimes? Does she consider those women balled up and crying on the floor after being beaten by their husbands? Does she ever think about hundreds of people — men and women — being executed, often after sham trials, every year, and based on the Islamist laws in this country?

During her visit to Iran this month, Federica Mogherini (left), the current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, rubbed elbows with men who have ordered the deaths of thousands of women (and men). Does she ever think about hundreds of people being executed, often after sham trials, every year, and based on the Islamist laws in this country? (Image source: European Commission)

While she shakes the hands of these men, does think of the nine-year-old girls who are “legally” being forced into marriage with the government’s approval?

Where are all the women’s rights, liberal moral values that she and her party stand for? They were not at the celebration, and they were certainly not represented by those selfies.

Women are dehumanized, subjugated and treated as inferior on a daily basis in Islamist state of Iran as well as other Muslim states. Many people in there are struggling every day despite all the dangers they face to obtain the few rights they can. In general, a woman’s testimony in court is worth half of a man’s testimony. Women need approval from their male guardian to leave the country, and in Saudi Arabia, to leave their home. Women cannot obtain a passport without a guardian’s consent. In Iran, a man can marry any woman he desires. Men are allowed to have four wives and an unlimited number of temporary marriages (mut’a), but women can only marry a Muslim man. Honor killings continue while the regime turns a blind eye to them.

Based on the law of tamkin (obedience), women must provide full accessibility and unhampered sexual availability to her husband. Article 1105 of Iran’s Islamist Civil Code states, “In relations between husband and wife, the position of the head of the family exclusively belongs to the husband.” Article 1117 of the Iran’s Islamist Civil Code states that states :

“The husband can prevent his wife from an occupation or technical profession which is incompatible with the family’s interests or the dignity of him or his wife.”

Men can initiate a unilateral divorce. Women receive only half of what men get in inheritance. A wife gets to receive only one-sixth of an inheritance if she has a son when her husband dies. If she has only a daughter, the inheritance would not automatically go to them. The deceased husband’s family — brothers, sibling and parents — would have a call on it as well. Women cannot become judges… and the list goes on.

Of course, people such as Mogherini are fully cognizant of these atrocities and the discrimination which are repeatedly reported by human rights organizations. These are even possibly the same abuses that people such as Mogherini then use to rally funds at their parties and splash in disturbing images across the media. Not one of these European leaders can plead ignorance of the acts that those men commit.

Yet, there we see people like Mogherini shaking the hands that rob women of their freedom and their voices.

The fact is that these supposed feminists not only turn a blind eye to those atrocities, but their presence at these events actively endorses and legitimizes the rule of these dictators.

People like Mogherini may be calling for admission to exclusive clubs and higher salaries for women because that equality is fair. But why, if they claim that they are champions and front-runners of women all around the world, do they contribute to, and facilitate the rule of ruthless dictators against their own people?

When the subject turns to the specific cases of millions of oppressed women around the world — such as Asia Bibi, a Christian mother on death row in Pakistan for seven years for taking a drink of water; or the 19-year-old who, this year, was raped by her cousin at gunpoint and then sentenced to death by stoning for “adultery”; or who were forced to marry their rapists; or child marriages at 12,000 a day; or women who are beaten by their husbands or who have acid thrown in their faces; or women used as suicide bombers — they become totally silent. They disregard these women’s rights.

By demonstrating their support for these regimes and the men that enforce them, people such as Mogherini significantly weaken and undermine the indigenous movements that attempt to advance precisely the human rights that people such as Mogherini claim to advocate.

When Mogherini smiles in her hijab in Iran, she is delivering a strong blow to women rights movements that attempt to remove the compulsion of the obligatory hijab and grant women equal autonomy, education and freedom. She is empowering suppression.

A true advocate of individual rights and democracy might instead have set a brave example. Women such as Mogherini are feeding into the system, not destroying it. Those who continue to give legitimacy to oppressors and Islamists need to be held accountable.

Finally, my message to people such as Mogherini and others like her is simple: Do you have any conscience or sense of decency? Or is it simply all about power, money, narcissism, and manipulations at the cost of the oppressed, including women? Can you hear that little girl’s cry, or are your ears as deaf to it as the men who cause it?

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He is a Harvard-educated and Iranian-American political scientist, businessman, and author of “Peaceful Reformation in Iran’s Islam“. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu.