Hezbollah leader makes comments in speech memorializing group’s martyrs.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Monday that Israel would always be “haunted by the blood” of Imad Mughniyeh, the group’s former military leader who was killed in an Damascus car-bombing widely attributed to Israel in 2008.
Speaking at an event commemorating Hezbollah’s “martyrs,” Nasrallah also spoke of Imad Mughniyeh’s son, Jihad, as a martyr. Jihad Mughniyeh was killed in an airstrike on a Hezbollah convoy in southern Syria last month that has also been attributed to Israel.
“The blood of the martyr Jihad has revived the memory of the commander Hajj Imad Mughniyeh and returned this brilliant and historic leader to the forefront of events once again, confirming that his presence is still strong in the minds of friends and in the mind of the enemy, which will always be haunted by Imad Mughniyeh’s blood,” Naharnet quoted Nasrallah as saying.
Nasrallah also spoke out against the threat of Sunni jihad groups, saying he supports calls for a national counter-terrorism strategy to confront the jihadi threat. He said that Hezbollah agrees with its political opponents in Lebanon, such as former prime minister Rafik Hariri, on the need for a strategy to fight terrorists. However he added that they disagreed on the need to fight Israel.
Nasrallah opened his speech by strongly condemning Islamic State terrorists who decapitated 21 Coptic Christian Egyptians in Libya on Sunday.
“I want to strongly condemn ISIS’s crime against the Egyptian workers, which cannot be tolerated by any religion. We extend our condolences to the Egyptian people and the Coptic Church and this crime has affected both Islam and Christianity,” Naharnet quoted him as saying.
One of the Islamic State’s so-called “provinces” in Libya claims to have captured the town of Nawfaliyah. The group has released a photo set showing a large convoy entering the town. The military-style parade likely took place earlier this month. One of the photos can be seen above and the rest are at the end of this article.
In addition to the jihadists’ purported gains in Nawfaliyah, the organization’s fighters seized several key buildings, including radio and television stations, in the city of Sirte. Separate photos posted on social media show the Islamic State’s province broadcasting propaganda from one of the captured media facilities. The WAL News Agency in Libya reports that the radio station has been broadcasting a speech by Abu Muhammad al Adnani, the Islamic State’s spokesman.
The Islamic State’s province also seized control of a passport office in Sirte, demanding that its employees “repent” for their failure to swear fealty to the “caliphate.”
Assessing the extent of the Islamic State’s presence in Libya and elsewhere is difficult, as the group’s propaganda machine has exaggerated its fighters’ gains. (The same is true for the Islamic State’s jihadist rivals.) For instance, press reports said late last year that the Islamic State’s supporters had taken over the city of Derna, with a population of about 100,000 residents. But this wasn’t true.
While the Islamic State has a significant presence in Derna, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s followers are not in control of the entire city. Other jihadist groups that are not allied with the Islamic State, including the Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade (ASMB), remain deeply entrenched in Derna. In December, the ASMB announced the creation of the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC) of Derna, a jihadist alliance that has not sworn allegiance to Baghdadi. The United Nations has even erroneously reported that Ansar al Sharia in Derna, which is part of al Qaeda’s network and allied with the MSC, has defected to the Islamic State. This isn’t true either, as Ansar al Sharia’s leadership has not come out in favor of Baghdadi.
Still, the Islamic State’s network in Libya has been growing. And independent reports confirm that the group has been operating in and around Sirte.
In early February, gunmen attacked an oil field south of Sirte, killing 12 people. The French oil company Total owns a stake in the field, and French officials blamed the attack on the Islamic State’s followers.
The Islamic State’s jihadists have also kidnapped 21 Egyptian Coptic workers in Sirte. The Guardian (UK) reports that the men were captured in two separate operations in December and January.
The Coptic hostages were featured in the latest edition of Dabiq, the Islamic State’s English-language magazine, which was released last week. Photos in Dabiq show the men being marched along the coastline as their captors brandish knives. The images are reminiscent of how the Islamic State has paraded and then beheaded its captives in Iraq and Syria.
Dozens of Toyota trucks are pictured in the Islamic State’s photo set from Nawfaliyah. The photos suggest a large presence of Islamic State fighters, perhaps totaling in the hundreds.
Islamic State propaganda photos showing military parade in Nawfaliyah, Libya
It is by now no secret that the Palestinian Authority uses large portions of the international financial aid it receives to provide salaries and other payouts to terrorists who kill Jews.
But a fresh investigation by journalist Edwin Black has revealed that this is not some automatic, blind welfare system, but rather a very deliberate effort to reward those who have chosen the path of violence, and therefore encourage others to do the same.
America today contributes about $400 million a year in direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, and another $400 in other assistance and investments. The European Union provides a similar amount.
A year later, two Hamas operatives from the Gaza Strip admitted to an Israeli court that they had gotten into terrorism game in order to earn a decent living. Killing Jews, they said, was the best way to secure a good and steady income.
In the course of his research, Black successfully sued to gain access to previously court-sealed documents pertaining to cases heard before US courts.
Those documents revealed what Black called a “meticulous, exacting official process” in which Palestinian leaders all the way up to President Mahmoud Abbas were involved in the direct reward and encouragement of terrorism against Israel’s Jews.
One example from the documents details the case of a Palestinian Authority police officer who in 2002 participated in a number of terrorist attacks that left a total of 12 Israelis dead and many more wounded. Following his capture, Israel sentenced the officer to 13 life sentences.
The case was only reviewed in 2009, but the Palestinian Authority decided to retroactively compensate the terrorist policeman back to the time of his incarceration. He was even later given promotions and accompanying pay raises while sitting in an Israeli jail.
A second example involved a terrorist, also a member of the Palestinian Authority security forces, who was killed while carrying out an attack that left two Israelis dead on the streets of Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Social Affairs subsequently determined that this terrorist, like many others, was “martyred while performing his national duty,” and that his closest living relative, his mother, would be compensated accordingly.
Black concluded by noting that “most taxpayers in donor countries have no idea that their well-intended money is actually financing the flames of terrorism.”
(The views expressed in this article are mine and those of my (imaginary) guest author. They do not necessarily represent the views of Warsclerotic or any other editor. — DM)
Editor’s note: This is a post by my (imaginary) guest author, the Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the great State of ConfusionUtopia. He is a founding member of CCCEB (Climate Change Causes Everything Bad), a charter member of President Obama’s Go For it Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee.
Senator Librul is also justly proud of his expertise in interfaith dialogue, on the basis of which he has explained to the entire world that Islam is the religion of peace, grossly distorted by the non-Islamic Islamic State and other textual deviants. He was recently awarded the Obama Foundation’s cherished award for exemplary political correctness on the basis of his interfaith outreach. We are humiliated honored to have a post of this caliber by a quintessential Librul such as the Senator. Without further delay, here is the Senator’s article.
**********************
Almost no perpetrators of senseless, random, violent extremism are Muslims. Obama’s war on violent, random and senseless non-Islamic extremism will end the cycle of violence. Soon, all will come to trust and love us.
Here are just a few videos of non-Muslims engaged in extreme and senseless random violence.
The woman who was attacked was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She has only herself to blame and should have known better.
Like the senseless random attacks on Charlie Hedbo and a grocery store in France, this was also the fault of the alleged victim.
Even our best friends can do it.
Finally, here’s absolute proof of my analysis;
Whoops. Wrong video, but there is no proof that these folks were in any way motivated to engage in senseless, extremist and random violence by the religion of peace. Nobody is, and there is not one single word in the Holy Koran, other Muslim Holy texts or in Sharia law that so much as tolerates senseless, random extremist violence!
Besides, others do it too. Obama is absolutely right in not supporting savages like these bloodthirsty cowards in their efforts to murder innocent adherents to the religion of peace!
Senator Ted Cruz is wrong to claim that any senseless random violent extremism is Islamic.
***************
Editor’s comments:
Senator Librul is correct in stating that Islam does not promote senseless, random violence. However, he fails to explain why: Islamic violence is almost always directed against those viewed as enemies of Islam. It is therefore purposeful, not senseless. Nor, for the same reason, is it “random.” And, as I contend here, it is not “extremist.”
Here is a suggestion from one of Senator Librul’s many devoted followers:
As soon as we remove all deer crossing signs directing deer to dangerous places for highway crossings they will find safe places to cross instead. On a parallel theory, as we cease to attribute senseless, random “extremist” violence to Islam, there will be no violence of that type of which we can properly accuse Muslims.
As is his wont, Senator Librul hit the hammer on the head with the nail. The Center for American Progress most likely agrees. Although People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) may disagree, Obama’s pup Bo has graciously offered to help.
Soon Bo, with Obama leading bravely as always from behind, will end senseless non-Islamic random violence. Then, the world will be a safer and better place in which we will all enjoy peace and happiness in our time. Right?
End random, senseless “extremist” Islamic violence? What’s that? Obama and Senator Librul deem there to be none and they are probably correct. So what’s the rush?
The infinitely wise Dear Leader of North Korea, Kim Chi-un, has proclaimed, “let us turn ours into a country of mushrooms!” “Our very own” infinitely wise Dear Leader Obama is doing His best to beat him to it.
Obama’s task of mushrooming* will be easier, and not only because He has no doppelganger to pester Him. Of greatest importance, He already has a tremendous head start.
*To keep in the dark and feed a rich diet of manure.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
“Extremist” Muslims believe that the Koran and the Hadithmust be taken literally and that Sharia law, rather than “man made” law, must control everyone. Secular Muslims seem to disagree or not to be very interested. “Extremist” Roman Catholics believe that birth control, abortion and pre-marital sex are sinful and oppose governmental support for them. Secular Roman Catholics seem to disagree or not to be very interested.
“Extremist” Muslims are “literalist,” because they believe that the Koran is the word of Allah as faithfully transcribed by Mohamed, his messenger, and that there is no room for interpretation. The many conflicting verses in the Koran present a problem.
Rather than explain away inconsistencies in passages regulating the Muslim community, many jurists acknowledge the differences but accept that latter verses trump earlier verses. Most scholars divide the Qur’an into verses revealed by Muhammad in Mecca when his community of followers was weak and more inclined to compromise, and those revealed in Medina, where Muhammad’s strength grew. [Emphasis added, footnotes omitted.]
Classical scholars argued that anyone who studied the Qur’an without having mastered the doctrine of abrogation would be “deficient.” Those who do not accept abrogation fall outside the mainstream and, perhaps, even the religion itself. [Emphasis added.]
Islamist literalism coupled with abrogation now has temporal, and often fatal, consequences for non-Muslims as well as for “apostate” Muslims because, as Mohammad grew stronger, his words became stronger and more violent toward apostates and other non-believers.
According to an article titled “What is Islam?” Revisited by Father James V. Schall, S.J., posted at Catholic World Report on January 8th,
Islam considers itself the only true religion. It has a “narrative” of itself that all branches of Islam hold, although they differ somewhat on how it is to be achieved. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
In the Quran, there is no mention of the Trinity or Incarnation, except explicitly to deny them. It is blasphemy to believe in them, as well as to question anything connected with the Quran. Allah intends the whole world to observe the Sharia, the Muslim legal code, observing its letter. As soon as it can, this law is imposed in every Muslim land or smaller community, even in democratic states. No distinction between Islam and the state exists. Everyone is born a Muslim. If he is not a Muslim, it is because his parents or teachers corrupted him. It is impossible to convert from Islam to another religion, without grave, often lethal, consequences. [Emphasis added.]
It is not against the Quran to use violence to spread or enforce Islamic law. Those Islam conquers, even from its beginnings till now, it either kills, forces conversion, or imposes second class citizenship. The Islamic State, now so much to the forefront, seems to have the correct understanding of what the Quran intends and advocates. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Dialogue is looked upon as a sign of weakness unless it can be used to further Muslim goals. In the case of the killings that Coren lists, if they are looked upon as legitimate means, there is no need either to talk about them or to cease their presumed effectiveness in spreading Islam. One cannot really appeal to the Quran to cease these killings, as there is ample reason within it to justify them as worthy means. Had it not been possible to justify these means in the Quran, the whole history of Islam would be different. Indeed, it probably never would have expanded at all. [Emphasis added.]
Similarly, “extremist” Christians can be characterized as “literalist” because they believe, for example, that Jesus was literally conceived immaculately and literally ascended bodily into Heaven. These views now have no deadly temporal consequences for Christians or anyone else.
As for the crusades and the inquisition, which Obama used to try to divert our attention from Islam,
Islam is the only religion the textual core of which actively and unequivocally defames other religions.
Soon after Muslim gunmen killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo offices, which published satirical caricatures of Muslim prophet Muhammad, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)—the “collective voice of the Muslim world” and second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations—is again renewing calls for the United Nations to criminalize “blasphemy” against Islam, or what it more ecumenically calls, the “defamation of religions.”
To ban “defamation” of Islam — in reality to ban accurate factual analyses of its core tenets — is to engage in jihad via lawfare with the help of non-Islamic nations, including Obama’s America, while violent Islamic jihad against all religions except “true” versions of Islam continues apace.
Yet the OIC seems to miss one grand irony: if international laws would ban cartoons, books, and films on the basis that they defame Islam, they would also, by logical extension, have to ban the entire religion of Islam itself—the only religion whose core texts actively and unequivocally defame other religions, including by name. [Emphasis added.]
For example,
Consider Christianity alone: Koran 5:73 declares that “Infidels are they who say God is one of three,” a reference to the Christian Trinity; Koran 5:72 says “Infidels are they who say God is the Christ, [Jesus] son of Mary”; and Koran 9:30 complains that “the Christians say the Christ is the son of God … may God’s curse be upon them!”
. . . .
[T]he Christian Cross, venerated among millions, is depicted—is defamed—in Islam: according to canonical hadiths, when he returns, Jesus (“Prophet Isa”) will destroy all crosses; and Muhammad, who never allowed the cross in his presence, once ordered someone wearing a cross to “throw away this piece of idol from yourself.” Unsurprisingly, the cross is banned and often destroyed whenever visible in many Muslim countries.
Reforming Islam
Egyptian President al-Sisi — who appears to be a fairly secular Muslim — told Muslim clerics in Cairo on New Years Day (on or about the date when Mohamed’s birthday is celebrated) that Islam needs to be reformed, substantially. He “accused Islamic thinking of being the scourge of humanity—in words that no Western leader would dare utter.” Following his address,
Sisi went to the St. Mark Coptic Cathedral during Christmas Eve Mass to offer Egypt’s Christian minority his congratulations and well wishing. Here again he made history as the first Egyptian president to enter a church during Christmas mass—a thing vehemently criticized by the nation’s Islamists, including the Salafi party (Islamic law bans well wishing to non-Muslims on their religious celebrations, which is why earlier presidents—Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, and of course Morsi—never attended Christmas mass). [Emphasis added.]
met with a delegation aligned with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood . . . . It is understood that the group, which included a leading Brotherhood-aligned judge and a Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarian, discussed their ongoing efforts against the current Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. [Emphasis added.]
El-Sisi came to power after he deposed the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist government in a popularly backed coup. After only one year of Muslim Brotherhood rule, 15 million people came out onto the streets demanding an end to their rule.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s stated goal is the recreation of an Islamic caliphate, although they follow a policy of the gradual implementation of sharia law. [Emphasis added.]
The Muslim Brotherhood, and “extremist” Islam in general, are Obama’s friends and advisers. They are also now the largest and most destructive enemies of western civilization; Obama assists them at every opportunity.
Meanwhile, a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, Hamas, is busily training thousands of youth to attack Israel, the only free and democratic nation, as well as the only outpost of western civilization, in the Middle East.
On February 10th, a Jordanian columnist wrote, consistently with President al-Sisi’s remarks, that
“The escapism that mainstream Islam has nothing to do with those atrocities does not hold water anymore because Wahabism and Islam have become indistinguishable. To understand the crisis of Muslims today, one has to remember that Wahabism exists in several textbooks containing the alleged sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, or books of ‘Hadith,’ revered by so many. What we must confront is the undeniable fact that it is from many stories found in these books that the unprecedented cruelty of groups such as the so-called Islamic State and Jabhat Al-Nusra emanates. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
“There is obviously a propensity towards eliminating ‘the other’ imbedded deep within Wahabist ideology. It is not only foolish to deny this fact, it is also dangerous, for we would be covering the cancerous tumour with a bandage. What we cannot deny is that many of the Wahabist textbooks are the same operating manuals that Islamist butchers use to justify their savagery. For example, very few people know that while [the Jordanian pilot] Muath was being set on fire in that macabre video, the voiceover was a recitation of an Ibn Taymiyah fatwa deeming the incineration of unbelievers a legitimate act of jihad. Ibn Taymiyah is not some obscure scholar on the fringe of Sunni Islam. In the Sunni world, he is universally venerated with the title ‘Sheikh of Islam,’ elevating him to an almost infallible clerical status. [Emphasis added.]
“If we really want to defend Islam as a religion of mercy, if we really want to be believed when we proclaim the innocence of this religion, we need to do more than just repeat this meaningless mantra about us having nothing to do with [ISIS]. We have to muster the courage to identify the specific texts that actually defame Islam, denounce them and permanently cleanse Islamic tradition of them.” [Emphasis added.]
Until “extremist” Islam reforms itself, as al-Sisi (and a few other Muslims) contend that it must, Islam in all of its manifestations will remain an existential threat to what’s left of western civilization. If Islam manages to reform itself Obama — who considers Islam to be just peachy now — will, once again, be shown to have been on the wrong side of history.
Nuclear Iran
Unfortunately, Obama’s place on the wrong side of history may become apparent long before Islam is reformed, when Iran gets (or is permitted to keep) and uses “the bomb.” Iran, and perhaps Obama, have availed themselves of the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya, which
allows Muslims to have a declared agenda, and a secret agenda (Jihad, slaughter, and mayhem) during time of weakness, this is called Taqiyya.” To put it in simpler words, it is the “art” of deception, or more correctly, of deceiving non-Muslim infidels. [Emphasis added.]
[H]e is one of the two world leaders in the West telling the truth, warning of what is to come (Geert Wilders of the Netherlands is the other). This burden of responsibility for his people (how many of us wish our leaders had even a bit of that?) has earned him only the venom of the Obama Administration, who see him as trying to spoil their strategy of leading by procrastination. [Emphasis added.]
It is also becoming increasingly clear that the Obama Administration’s policy consists of running after Iran, in order to concede everything it wants, just to be able wave a piece of paper not worth the ink on it, claiming there is “a deal.” Iran, for its part, would probably prefer not to sign anything, and most likely will not. Meanwhile, both sides continue strenuously to claim the opposite. [Emphasis added.]
Iran seems likely to get and use, or to keep and use, nuclear weapons by virtue of the essentially bilateral Iran – US nuclear negotiations. Please see also The Iran scam continues, which I wrote in January of last year. The situation has worsened since then, with substantial concessions to, and few if any of significance by, Iran.
The U.S. concessions have, in part, been in exchange for Iran’s “help” in defeating the Islamic State and hence becoming the major power in the Middle East.
Iran would be the hegemon of the Middle East. Some states would accept Tehran’s authority, striking deals and kowtowing in order to survive. Europeans would accommodate Iran, based on its control of the flow of Gulf oil. Israel and Saudi Arabia, nations that Iran’s rulers have threatened to wipe from the map, would be left to fend for themselves. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Doran cites evidence that in the first year of Obama’s first term, there were more White House meetings on Iran than any other national security concern. Detente with Iran was seen as “an urgent priority,” but the president “consistently wrapped his approach to that priority in exceptional layers of secrecy” because he was convinced that neither Congress nor the American public would support him. [Emphasis added.]
A year ago, Doran further reports, Benjamin Rhodes, a member of the president’s inner circle, told a group of Democratic activists (unaware that he was being recorded) that a deal with Iran would prove to be “probably the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term on foreign policy.” He made clear that there would be no treaty requiring the Senate’s advice and consent. [Emphasis added.]
The president believes that “the less we know about his Iran plans, the better,” Doran concludes. “Yet those plans, as Rhodes stressed, are not a minor or incidental component of his foreign policy. To the contrary, they are central to his administration’s strategic thinking about the role of the United States in the world, and especially in the Middle East.” [Emphasis added.]
Obama’s plans may well blow up in His face and, of greater importance, ours. Iran, particularly with the help of Russia and North Korea, will be able to do it. Here is a
short animated film being aired across Iran, [which] shows the nuclear destruction of Israel and opens with the word ‘Holocaust’ appearing on the screen, underneath which a Star of David is shown, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Tuesday.
Don’t worry; be happy
Here’s the Revolting Truth from Andrew Klavan, which debunks everything bad ever said about Obama. Sort of.
Iraqi security forces on Friday repelled an attack by Islamic State insurgents against an air base in Anbar province where U.S. Marines are training Iraqi troops, Iraqi and U.S. military officials said.
Militants from the jihadist group had attacked the Ain al-Asad base and the nearby town of al-Baghdadi a day earlier, leading to sporadic clashes in the town overnight.
Al-Baghdadi has been besieged for months by Islamic State, which captured swathes of northern and western Iraq last year, prompting a campaign of U.S.-led airstrikes and the deployment of hundreds of U.S. military advisers to the country.
A U.S. defense official said the Iraqi forces had stopped the attack and re-secured the facility.
“Coalition forces were several kilometers from the attack and at no stage were they under direct threat from this action,” the official said.
About 320 U.S. Marines are training members of the Iraqi 7th Division at the base, which has been struck by mortar fire on at least one previous occasion since December.
Iraq’s Defense Ministry said on its website the Iraqi army killed eight assailants near the base, which is about 85 km (50 miles) northwest of Ramadi.
An Iraqi military official in Baghdad told Reuters the insurgents had taken advantage of a lull in the airstrikes, caused by poor weather, to launch the offensive.
He said Islamic State had been cleared from most of al-Baghdadi, with the remaining fighting centered around a police station.
That conflicted with reports from a tribal leader who said the jihadists were still in control of much of the town.
Ongoing clashes and poor communications in the area made it difficult to confirm such reports.
U.S. defense officials told CNN there are no plans to evacuate U.S. personnel from the air base, which is just a few miles from al-Baghdadi, but security officials said the militants are closing in on it and Iraqi forces are calling for reinforcements.
According to officials, the base has not been attacked but is taking sporadic indirect fire from militants in the form of rocket launchers and mortars.
Two security officials told CNN that security forces from the base killed eight suicide bombers on Friday who were trying to penetrate the air base.
At the same time, a U.S. defense official said that U.S. troops do not consider themselves trapped, are not contemplating a ground engagement with the Islamic State, and there have been no injuries to U.S. forces at the base, CNN said.
“It bears watching,” retired Col. Thomas Lynch, a National Defense University fellow, told Fox News, regarding the reports.
He stressed, however, that for the militants to be a real threat to the base they would need get through the perimeter.
“It’s not impossible,” Lynch said, but to do it they would have to amass a large number of fighters — which would make them “vulnerable” to airstrikes.
Rear Admiral Kirby is not trying to be satirical. Or is he?– DM)
Yesterday, Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby cast a positive light on jihadists from the Taliban and al Qaeda who have been released from Guantanamo and have returned to wage jihad. The topic came up in the discussion of an airstrike that killed Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, a senior Taliban commander who was detained at Guantanamo from 2001 to 2007, released to Afghan custody and freed in 2009, and returned to the Taliban shortly afterward to assume the role of a senior military commander up until his defection to the Islamic State earlier this year. Below is the exchange, from the Pentagon’s transcript:
Q: Why was he released?REAR ADM. KIRBY: Joe, I don’t have the records on this guy from — from Guantanamo Bay.
Yes, he was a detainee. He was released in 2007. He was released to Kabul.
The other thing that we’ve said — and this is another great example, because we had a long, you know, discussion not too long ago about the — the recidivism and particularly the issue of this — this one individual who reengaged there in Qatar, and we said that they return to the battlefield and to the fight at their own peril. Mr. Kadim is proof of that.
Kirby’s statement that Khadim’s death should be viewed as a positive is cold comfort to the hundreds of Afghans, Americans, and Coalition personnel who were killed while Khadim commanded forces in southern Afghanistan. The jihadist was able to operate for more than six years as a top level Taliban commander and has the blood of thousands on his hands.
Khadim and Mullah Zakir, another Guantanamo alum (who is still alive; he “resigned due to ill health,” according to the Taliban) were responsible for implementing the Taliban’s counter-surge strategy. While the the jihadist group failed to halt Coalition and Afghan forces’ gains in the south from 2009 to 2011 (gains which are now melting away), at least 875 Coalition members were killed during the fighting in Kandahar (273 killed) and Helmand (602 killed) during that time period, according to iCasualties (note, data on Coalition members killed by province after 2011 is not available on the iCasualties website). The number of Afghan security personnel and civilians killed in Kandahar and Helmand by the Taliban during that timeframe is not available, but is likely in the thousands.
Despite this, Kirby doubles down and says Guantanamo should be closed, which means even more jihadists will be freed.
Q: After seeing such example, like former Guantanamo detainee who was released and went back to the — to work with the Taliban, is the Pentagon still convinced that Guantanamo should be closed?REAR ADM. KIRBY: Yes. The Pentagon’s position is that the detainee facility should be closed. Secretary Hagel has made that clear on any number of occasions. There’s no change to that.
(I think it may be satire, random of course. — DM)
French police guard the Hyper Cacher market in Paris
Random? You’d almost think we were dealing with an identifiable enemy motivated by a distinct ideology that is drawn verbatim from a particular belief system’s scriptures. Nah . . .
******************
I don’t understand why folks are giving President Obama and his spokes-minions such a hard time over his insistence that Ahmedy Coulibaly, the terrorist who just happened to be Muslim committing terrorism that had nothing to do with Islam, was just “randomly” picking out folks in Paris to kill when he randomly came upon a grocery that just happened to be Jewish and, coincidentally, to have Jews in it, whom he randomly killed.
Sure, we know Coulibaly called a French TV station during the siege, said he was loyal to the Islamic State that has nothing to do with Islam, and that he picked this kosher market because he was targeting Jews. But you can’t believe everything you hear on TV — just ask Brian Williams.
Come to think of it, the Paris attack seems an awful lot like another random one in 2008. Back then, another group of Pakistani terrorists who just happened to be Muslim, and who belonged to the Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamic terrorist organization that has nothing to do with Islam, went looking for random folks to kill and just happened to stumble on the Nariman House, a Chabad Lubavitch Jewish center which, coincidentally, had Jews in it — Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife,Rivka, then six months pregnant.
Of course, when they were randomly detaining these two folks who happened to be Jewish before randomly killing them, the terrorists who happened to be Muslim were overheard in radio transmissions discussing how “the lives of Jews were worth 50 times those of non-Jews” in this jihad that had nothing to do with Islam. But hey, totally random, right?
By the way, have you ever flipped randomly through Islamic scripture?
I just happened to land on sura 5:82 — wasn’t looking for anything in particular, you see — and found that it says: “Strongest among men in enmity to the Believers wilt thou find the Jews and pagans.”
Could something have been mistranslated? Maybe the revelation to the prophet really said “folks” but got somehow got written down as “Jews”? Doesn’t seem too likely. If you turn back a few verses, to sura 5:64, you learn Muslims believe the Jews have profoundly insulted Allah, claiming that “Allah’s hand is tied up” — which, as explained by the notes provided in the Saudi government’s English translation of the Koran, is a blasphemous taunt akin to calling Allah “close-fisted” and ungenerous.
In response, Allah instructs Muslims that it is the Jews whose hands should be tied up, and that they should be “accursed for the [blasphemy] they utter.” The verse adds:
The revelation that cometh to thee from Allah increaseth in most of [the Jews] their obstinate rebellion and blasphemy. Amongst them, We have placed enmity and hatred till the Day of Judgment. Every time they kindle the fire of war, Allah doth extinguish it. But they (ever) strive to do mischief on earth. And Allah loveth not those who do mischief.
That doesn’t seem very random.
Nor does sura 2:61, which explains that Allah has stamped the Jews with “humiliation and misery” because “they went on rejecting the signs of Allah and slaying His Messengers without just cause.” We further learn, four verses later, of Allah’s command that the Jews become “apes — despised and rejected” because they violated the sabbath.
Sura 5:41 describes the Jews as “men who will listen to any lie.”
According to sura 4:160–161, because of the “iniquity of the Jews,” Allah made it “unlawful for them” to eat certain “good and wholesome” foods. He was angered because
they hindered many from Allah’s way; . . . they took usury, though they were forbidden, and . . . they devoured men’s wealth wrongfully. We have prepared for those among them who reject Faith a grievous chastisement.
Given these, it should come as no surprise that Allah, in sura 5:51, instructs Muslims, “Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends.” These passages probably also explain why, in sura 9:29, Allah commands Muslims to fight the Jews and the Christians until they agree to live under Allah’s law, pay a tax, and feel themselves subdued.
And let’s not forget the Hadith — authoritative collections of the recorded words and deeds of the prophet Mohammed. Like the Koran, they have scriptural standing in Islam. Also like the Koran, they often do not treat Jews as “random folks.”
Indeed, we are told that, in his dying words, the prophet cursed the Jews, along with the Christians:
When the last moment of the life of Allah’s Apostle came he started putting his ‘Khamisa’ on his face and when he felt hot and short of breath he took it off his face and said, “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their Prophets.” [Sahih Bukari, Book 1, volume 8, no. 427.]
In fact, in several hadith, the prophet is reported to have stated:
The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.
I know you’ll be stunned to hear this, but even though Islamic terrorists have nothing to do with Islam, they appear to think Islamic scripture means what it says. So if you were randomly to peruse, say, the charter of Hamas — an Islamic terrorist group that has nothing to do with Islam and that is randomly the Palestinian branch of the “largely secular” Muslim Brotherhood — look what you find in Article 7:
Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!
Random? You’d almost think we were dealing with an identifiable enemy motivated by a distinct ideology that is drawn verbatim from a particular belief system’s scriptures. Nah . . .
(It would be encouraging if such statements were more often made in the “legitimate news” media of the U.S. and the “free” world. — DM)
In a February 10, 2015 article in the English-language Jordanian daily Jordan Times, titled “We Have a Problem”, attorney and columnist Zaid Nabulsi wrote that Muslims must not suffice with protesting that “Islam is innocent” of the terrorists’ actions. They must also acknowledge that the extremism of terrorist organizations like ISIS emanates directly from the teachings of Wahhabi Islam that now permeate the Sunni world, and from messages spread by the Muslim Brotherhood and by prominent clerics like Yousuf Al-Qaradawi. He added that Muslims must be brave enough not merely to condemn the ideology of the terrorists, but also to renounce Islamic texts that are incompatible with basic human values, including certain hadiths that are erroneously attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, as well as the writings of certain prominent medieval scholars, such as Ibn Taymiyyah.
The following are excerpts from his article:
“Some Wahabist Teachings, Which Have Permeated The Air We Breathe In The Muslim World, Are Simply Irreconcilable With Decent Human Values”
“Enough is enough. It is time to speak out. ‘Islam is innocent’ is an incomplete sentence. Introspection is needed, for, if we shy away from reality, the alternative will be more images like those we witnessed last Tuesday night, when brave Lt. Muath Al-Kasasbeh was burnt to death in a cage…
“Some Wahabist teachings, which have permeated the air we breathe in the Muslim world, are simply irreconcilable with decent human values, especially the ones that declare that every non-Wahabist is a disposable body whose bloodletting is unproblematic. So enough of this burial of our heads in the sand. It has become tiresome to keep hearing the unproductive cliché that Islam is innocent after each atrocity committed by devout fanatics who did nothing except execute the exact letter of their textbooks, which order them to slaughter the infidels.
“The escapism that mainstream Islam has nothing to do with those atrocities does not hold water anymore because Wahabism and Islam have become indistinguishable. To understand the crisis of Muslims today, one has to remember that Wahabism exists in several textbooks containing the alleged sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, or books of ‘Hadith,’ revered by so many. What we must confront is the undeniable fact that it is from many stories found in these books that the unprecedented cruelty of groups such as the so-called Islamic State and Jabhat Al-Nusra emanates.
“The problem today has nothing to do with the original spirit of Prophet Mohammad’s message. Nor has it anything to do with the tumultuous history of Muslims over 14 centuries, parts of which were no doubt glorious and enlightened. The catastrophe today is with the visible manifestation of Islam in the modern world, as demonstrated by the prevalent beliefs and practices of many people who call themselves Muslims.”
“[The]Negative Image Of Muslims Is Not All Just Smoke And No Fire”
“[But] this negative image of Muslims is not all just smoke and no fire. This is what those 120 Islamic scholars who sent a letter to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi last year could not fathom. [ISIS] did not invent a new Islam. On the contrary, its followers are strict adherents of the same textbooks quoted in that long letter (bizarrely addressed to ‘Dr Ibrahim Awwad Al-Badri,’ Baghdadi’s real name, bestowing intellectual respectability upon this mass murderer, as if one were writing a letter to the mayor of Copenhagen). In fact, the scholars’ letter was a misguided attempt to disinfect Wahabism, to cleanse it from itself, by claiming that IS simply misinterpreted texts that are otherwise compatible with human decency. In that sense, the letter squabbled over the semantics of the alleged instructions by the Prophet to spread Islam by the sword, but it did not dare renounce the authenticity of those same sayings…
“If we truly want to defend Islam, we need to perform a much more invasive surgery. Take the Muslim Brotherhood as an example of the prevalence of the Wahabist teachings among Muslims today. The Brotherhood is the virtual womb that incubated all the current jihadist groups, including Al-Qaeda itself (Al- Zawahiri hailed from the Egyptian MB offshoot that murdered president Anwar Sadat). Yet, when Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006, the three most senior leaders of the MB in Jordan brazenly visited the condolence house in Zarqa and announced to the media that Zarqawi was a martyr in the eyes of God, despite Zarqawi having blown up three hotels in Amman the previous year, killing scores of Jordanians going about their lives or celebrating a peaceful wedding…
“The orgy of decapitations in Syria over the last four years was promoted by very rich Sunni clerics such as Yusuf Al-Qaradawi and Mohammad Al-Uraifi, aided by the countless satellite stations openly calling for the murder of Alawites and Shiites, and financed by billions from extremely wealthy but hateful Muslims. So, enough with the denials. It is time to raise the alarm. We have a problem!”
“If We Really Want To Defend Islam As A Religion Of Mercy… We Have To Muster The Courage To Identify The Specific Texts That Actually Defame Islam, Denounce Them And Permanently Cleanse Islamic Tradition Of Them”
“There is obviously a propensity towards eliminating ‘the other’ imbedded deep within Wahabist ideology. It is not only foolish to deny this fact, it is also dangerous, for we would be covering the cancerous tumour with a bandage. What we cannot deny is that many of the Wahabist textbooks are the same operating manuals that Islamist butchers use to justify their savagery. For example, very few people know that while [the Jordanian pilot] Muath was being set on fire in that macabre video, the voiceover was a recitation of an Ibn Taymiyah fatwa deeming the incineration of unbelievers a legitimate act of jihad. Ibn Taymiyah is not some obscure scholar on the fringe of Sunni Islam. In the Sunni world, he is universally venerated with the title ‘Sheikh of Islam,’ elevating him to an almost infallible clerical status.
“If we really want to defend Islam as a religion of mercy, if we really want to be believed when we proclaim the innocence of this religion, we need to do more than just repeat this meaningless mantra about us having nothing to do with [ISIS]. We have to muster the courage to identify the specific texts that actually defame Islam, denounce them and permanently cleanse Islamic tradition of them.”
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