London and the world is reeling from the video from yesterday of two Muslim men who killed and mutilated the body of an English soldier and then asked people to film them as they raved about their atrocity. The men reportedly screamed “Allah Akbar” as they butchered the soldier. A man now identified as Michael Adebolajo is shown promising onlookers that “you and your kids will be next.” In the midst of this horror scene however there was inspirational moments including a woman who gets off her bus to confront Abebolajo covered in blood and holding a meat cleaver.
In the disturbing video below, Abebolajo proclaims “The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers.” Of course, he did not have the courage to confront the soldier head on. He hit him with his car before butchering him and posing for YouTube. Abebolajo is shown telling viewers “Remove your governments – they don’t care about you. You think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start bursting our guns? You think politicians are going to die?”
He warns that more will die and “No, it’s going to be the average guy, like you, and your children. So get rid of them – tell them to bring our troops back so we can… so you can all live in peace.” Abebolajo is known by the Muslim name Mujahid. He adopts the same excuse used throughout the ages by those who use religion to justify their blood lust: “We swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
He then added a bizarre claim of regret . . . not for the murder of course but the women watching: “I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you.”
It was in this disgusting scene of religious violence that a true representative stepped forward. She is mother-of-two Ingrid Loyau-Kennett and was on a bus when the scene unfolded. She got off the bus and, when others were walking by or cowering, she walked up to the killer and demanded that he stop.
One of the killers insisted “We want to start a war in London tonight,” but she replied calmly “Right now it is only you versus many people, you are going to lose.”
Yes they will Ingrid, but it is because for every grotesque monster like these two men, we have Ingrid Loyau-Kennett and human beings like her.
Trial and execution, by beheading, on the 6:00 News……………..
@dave “Religion is Man’s most vile invention.” I think you haven’t gone far enough. Man is God’s most vile invention. OK, and the women too. What? Don’t agree? Then Karnak say “May the larva of 10,000 chiggers infest your armpits!”.
“Bad” Muslims for instigating the crusades.
It certainly seems to me that the attacks on the US and Britain are a direct result of our illegal wars against several middle eastern countries. The sooner all our troops leave the middle east the sooner the attacks will stop. Put the money now being spent into renewable energy and the need to dominate the oil rich countries will go away. Set the military up for strictly defense and there will be lots of money to lessen the deficit, pay down the debt, honor the Social Security fund, increase funds for education (btw, getting rid of the banks as middlemen for student loans would be a good thing), expand the VA system to a universal coverage, single payer system of medical care, oh, I could go on and on about better uses for the all the money being spent on killing innocent people around the world.
The bad Muslims obey the Qur’an to the letter.
It seems we are at war with an age old death cult and the most silly of liberal responses is to analyze their motivations and our role in them even as they hold the scimitar above our heads. I don’t question the charging bull as I try to avoid him.
This verse describes the Muslim religion that does what they do calling it good:King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. There is no truth in the Qur’an. Therefore they do nothing that is good.
AP:
“But the proximate cause of these attacks are plainly political grievances: namely, the belief that engaging in violence against aggressive western nations is the only way to deter and/or avenge western violence that kills Muslim civilians.”
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Perhaps our offshore pundit can then explain why if its simply the West’s killing of modern day Muslim civilians that’s sets them off on their murderous behavior, our future third President had the same problem with the caliphs of his day while acting as our ambassador (along with the future second President, John Adams):
We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the Grounds of their pretensions to make war upon a Nation who had done them no Injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our Friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.
The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.
~Thos. Jefferson. March 28, 1786
Sound familiar? See comment above.
History has all the answers; you just need to find the right historian.
scape:
“It’s an unwillingness to see all the world’s inhabitants as human beings, just as worthwhile as one’s own tribe, who care about their families and friends. It’s a barbaric faith in the ability of violence to solve our problems.”
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Like the tango it takes two and our Islamic fundamentalists have decided the West is the locus of all evil in the world. Let’s look at their words and for once let’s assume they mean what they say:
“We are at war against infidels. Take this message with you, ‘I ask all Islamic nations, all Muslims, all Islamic armies, and all heads of Islamic states to join the Holy War. There are many enemies to be killed or destroyed. Jihad must triumph…Muslims have no alternative… to an armed Holy War against profane governments… Holy War means the conquest of all non-Muslim territories… It will… be the duty of every able bodied adult male to volunteer for this war of conquest, the final aim of which is to put Koranic law in power from one end of the earth to the other.’“ ( Ayatollah Khomeini, “The U.S. is the devil on this planet.” World Islamic Popular Command )
A transcript by Yasser Ghalban (June 22, 2006 pronouncement), a Hamas terrorist leader makes clear how, as with Hizbollah, the liquidation of Jews in Israel by jihad is linked to Hamas’ own universal ambitions: “The Jihad for Allah… is the way of Truth and the way for Salvation and the way which will lead us to crush the Jews and expel them from our country Palestine. Just as the Jews ran from Gaza, the Americans will run from Iraq and Afghanistan and the Russians will run from Chechnya, and the Indian will run from Kashmir.” ( Apocalyptic Muslim Jew Hatred FrontPageMagazine.com | July 18, 2006 By Andrew G. Bostom )
Syrian Television, September 9, 1996 “Palestine is from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea”: , Hussein was asked what the boundaries of “Palestine” are. He replied that “all Palestinians agree that the just boundaries of Palestine are the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Realistically, whatever can be obtained now should be accepted and that subsequent events perhaps in the next fifteen or twenty years would present an opportunity to realize the just boundaries of Palestine.”
Ahmad Khomeini, son of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, says…Iran’s Islamic revolution has awakened all the Islamic countries… …Islam recognizes no borders. We cannot put off establishing Islamic governments and administering the divine laws. The objective of the Islamic Republic and its officials is none other than to establish a global Islamic rule… … Political means and methods may differ, but no revolutionary Muslim ever forgets the objective. {Ahmad Khomeini, in Kayham, Teheran, 11 January 1992}.
“Allah is the only one that must be worshipped on Earth, and the only way to guarantee this is to control all the land masses, air and sea and give Islam the proper channel to be heard by the people.” (Sheikh Abu Hamza Al-Masri, Allah’s Governance on Earth)
“We need to initiate the movement of Islamic revival in some Muslim country in order to fashion an example that will eventually lead Islam to its destiny of world dominion.” (Sayyed Qutb)
“Once the Islamic state is established, the current rulers will be prosecuted, some will flee to the West but the West will not help them.. This is the end of every agent.” (Sermon Al-Aqsa Mosque, Friday, 26 May 2000)
“Jerusalem … the capital of the Islamic Khilafah State … that will tread on the heads of Europe, Russia and the U.S.” (Sermon Al-Aqsa Mosque, Friday 19 May 2000, Hijri 15-Safar- 1421)
material is quoted from “Independant Media Review & Analysis” http://www.imra.org.il. IMRA’s excerpts of Friday sermons (called `speeches’) from the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The text provided on the Al-Aqsa website (www.al-aqsa.com)
“We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again. The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world – except for the Jews. The Jews will not enjoy a life of tranquility under our rule, because they are treacherous by nature, as they have been throughout history. The day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews – even the stones and trees which were harmed by them. Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew.” (excerpts from a Friday sermon on Palestinian Authority TV. Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris. sermon on May 13, 2005)
The Ayatollah in Iraq: “If the objective and subjective circumstances materializing and their are soldiers, weapons and money even if it means using Biological, chemical and bacterial weapons- we will conquer the world so that “ there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah” will be triumphant over the domes of Moscow, Wahington and Paris” (aired on Glenn Beck CNN Oct.9,2006)
MEMRI – TV Monitor Project, Clip No. 1206 TRANSCRIPT – July 21, 2006 – excerpts from an interview with Dr. Muhammad ‘Abd Al-Sattar, Syrian deputy minister of religious endowment, Muhammad ‘Abd Al-Sattar: “Jihad is now incumbent upon each and every Muslim, Arab, and Christian. The time has come for the duty of Jihad” (aired on Syrian TV on July 21, 2006).
The one who says ‘we should fight against terrorism’, he is fighting against Islam. We know very well that USA meant no one else by the term ‘terrorists’ but Islam and Muslims and the one who wants to avoid terrorism is avoiding Islam.” Al Muhajiroun (Bakir School of Thought) 6
On Radio Berlin, March 1, 1944, the Mufti, Arafat’s uncle, issued the following call: “Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God [Allah] and religion [and] saves your honor. God is with you.” (source: The Berean Call newsletter, Israel – Some Historical Reminders 4/1/1991).
Fayiz Azzam in Brooklyn in 1989: “Blood must flow, there must be widows, orphans, hands and limbs must be severed and limbs and blood must be spread everywhere in order that Allah’s religion stand on its feet!” (Dave Hunt’s newsletter The Berean Call (a moment of truth)
6 hours after September 11, 2001, Al-Hayat al- jadida, stated, “The suicide bombers of today are the noble sucessors of the Lebanese suicide bombers who taught the U.S. fines a tough lesson in Lebanon [243 were killed when a barracks destroyed]. These suicide bombers are the salt of the earth, the ties of history …the most honorable people among us.” (Dave Hunt, Judgment Day, p.17)
Shi’ite theologian al-Amili (d.1622) wrote the following (p.213) about jihad war in the Jami-i-Abbasi, his seminal Persian manual of Shi’a Law: “Islamic Holy war [jihad] against followers of other religions, such as Jews, is required unless they convert to Islam or pay the poll tax.” (Atlas shrugs website)
“The ultimate objective of Islam is to abolish the lordship of man over man and bring him under the rule of the one God (Allah). To stake everything you have – including your lives – to achieve this purpose is called Jihad. Prayer, fasting, alms giving and pilgrimage, all prepare you for Jihad” (Let us be Muslims, Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi, The Islamic Foundation (Leicester) 1985 page 285)
The Indonesian Islamist cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, after having been charged with complicity in the Bali terror attacks of 2002 was released from prison in July 2006, gave an interview to Al-Jazeera in which he outlined his plans for establishing an Islamic state in Indonesia–“This is the Islamic view of things. We must never compromise, relent, give up, submit to our kafir enemies. We must always keep to the Islamic path, jihad in the name of shar’ia, and never be apologetic…
“Remember that jihad is what brought Islam to power and built our community. There can be no Islam without jihad….” (September 8, 2006 Indonesian Islamist Abu Bakar Bashir: ‘It is Not Democracy That We Want, but Allah-cracy!’)
“Jihad is here. We must wage Jihad against the enemies of Allah here. The enemies of Allah are in our midst. They claim to be Muslims, although they are as far as can be from Islam. They call themselves “reformists” or “preachers,” and say that we support the West. They are hostile to us on these grounds. .. My brothers, the danger is even greater. Even those people have become tools in the hands of the enemies. Unless we face reality with truth, courage, and evidence, and if we do not stop all the transgressors, who try to distort Islam with their claims of reform and their corrupt progress – this will be dangerous. These people have been tempted by the West, and have been employed in its service. We are familiar with their relations with foreign elements. We are fighting them and will continue to fight them, and we will cut off their tongues” (9/25/2006 Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abd Al-‘Aziz)
“There is fury, fury everywhere … Islam is escalating and cannot be resisted. I pray that Allah may tear apart America just as the Soviet Union was torn apart …” (Sheik al-Tamimi)
“We have not reached parity with America. We have the right to kill 4 million Americans – 2 million of them children – and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons, so as to afflict them with the fatal maladies that have afflicted the Muslims because of the Americans’ chemical and biological weapons” (Ayman Zawahri, leader of Qaeda-Egyptian Jihad)
They’re not dancing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback (Greenwald update)
“In the Guardian today, former British soldier Joe Glenton, who served in the war in Afghanistan, writes under the headline “Woolwich attack: of course British foreign policy had a role”. He explains:
“While nothing can justify the savage killing in Woolwich yesterday of a man since confirmed to have been a serving British soldier, it should not be hard to explain why the murder happened. . . . It should by now be self-evident that by attacking Muslims overseas, you will occasionally spawn twisted and, as we saw yesterday, even murderous hatred at home. We need to recognise that, given the continued role our government has chosen to play in the US imperial project in the Middle East, we are lucky that these attacks are so few and far between.”
This is one of those points so glaringly obvious that it is difficult to believe that it has to be repeated.”
Link to Joe Glenton piece:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-british-foreign-policy-role ( “Woolwich attack: of course British foreign policy had a role, While nothing can justify the killing of a British soldier, the link to Britain’s vicious occupations abroad cannot be ignored.”)
Anyone know the dynamics involved when Pavlovian responses beget Pavlovian responses?
What kind of reproductive dynamic is that?
Are we talking pure memetics or something more like a Cultural Amygdala circuitry relay?
Or what?
A couple of articles:
Terrorism is Terrorism
We whitewash history when we ignore the fact that states sometimes engage in terror, too.
BY RÉMI BRULIN | AUGUST 20, 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback
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WikiLeaks cables: Bangladeshi ‘death squad’ trained by UK government
Rapid Action Battalion, accused of hundreds of extra-judicial killings, received training from UK officers, cables reveal
by Fariha Karim and Ian Cobain, Tuesday 21 December 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/21/wikileaks-cables-british-police-bangladesh-death-squad
Stop the wars ! And this horrific incident will cede ! ” If God is great ” you will rot in hell, Amen
Shades of the crusades … their claim of religion is just a front … so it would mean just as much if they yelled that they were atheists clearing the world of religionists.
The operative dynamic at work is hatred.
No ism, like atheism, or religion like Islam, Judaism, or Christianity owns or operate hatred exclusively.
Terrorism We Can Believe In?
“I am outraged that we can’t kill people in other counties without them trying to kill us!” -Michael Moore
Glenn Greenwald today:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback
“One last point: in the wake of the Boston Marathon attacks, I documented that the perpetrators of virtually every recent attempted and successful “terrorist” attack against the west cited as their motive the continuous violence by western states against Muslim civilians. It’s certainly true that Islam plays an important role in making these individuals willing to fight and die for this perceived just cause (just as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and nationalism lead some people to be willing to fight and die for their cause). But the proximate cause of these attacks are plainly political grievances: namely, the belief that engaging in violence against aggressive western nations is the only way to deter and/or avenge western violence that kills Muslim civilians.
Add the London knife attack on this soldier to that growing list. One of the perpetrators said on camera that “the only reason we killed this man is because Muslims are dying daily” and “we apologize that women had to see this today, but in our lands our women have to see the same.” As I’ve endlessly pointed out, highlighting this causation doesn’t remotely justify the acts. But it should make it anything other than surprising.
On Twitter last night, Michael Moore sardonically summarized western reaction to the London killing this way:
“I am outraged that we can’t kill people in other counties without them trying to kill us!”
Basic human nature simply does not allow you to cheer on your government as it carries out massive violence in multiple countries around the world and then have you be completely immune from having that violence returned.”
@mespoo You’re ignoring something: The thousands of innocent people who have died in the last decade in Western wars.
To castigate “those violent Muslims” while ignoring the much greater violence our own people inflict on the world, exemplifies myopia.
What’s the common factor? It isn’t religion, at least not in the way you mean. It’s an unwillingness to see all the world’s inhabitants as human beings, just as worthwhile as one’s own tribe, who care about their families and friends. It’s a barbaric faith in the ability of violence to solve our problems.
Most human tribes have this bizarre idea that other inhabitants of this planet, as societies, don’t value human life as they do and won’t react the same way to violence.
My condolences to the family of the murdered soldier. Horrible for what he went through.
I don’t care what these men’s grievances were, they are irrelevant and they should be charged with murder like any other killer.
How did they know the man they attacked wasn’t a Muslim? Was he white? Seems religion may be just an excuse for racism.
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
spacegoat:
“@bigfatmike Do you think the attack would have occurred if the Western countries pursued non-imperialist, non-interventionist foreign policies?”
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It has been happening since the 7th Century.
@mespo727272
My guess, and it is purely a guess, is that any intervention in areas with majority Muslim populations would evoke a similar response.
I think the questions are what are our legitimate national interests, what are reasonable ways to express those national interests, how do we minimize the perception that our actions are against Muslims.
I don’t think those are easy questions.
To the extent that we fail to communicate that our actions have less to with religion than with issues such as human rights or trade our task will be much harder.
The situation seems to be greatly complicated because some issues that we might consider fundamental such as human rights seem to directly conflict with some views of traditional Muslim belief. I am no expert but I think it is a safe bet that in some areas of concern there are no easy win/win answers. For example, It would seem that to the extent that women’s issues advance some traditional Muslim values are threatened.
I think the best we can hope for is to avoid military conflict while modern communications works it magic of changing minds over the next few decades. I am placing my hope for the future on the internet, cell phones and pop music.
spacegoat:
“men reportedly screamed “Allah Akbar”
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That’s not a political statement. The simple fact is that a sizeable self-identified segment of that religion fed by militant members of the clergy of that religion is willing to stoop to animalistic violence against noncombatants to “avenge” their perceived examples of religious discrimination. That makes it religious based no matter how many mullahs in Western countries condemn the actions as not of Islam. A group is judged by its leadership not the attitudes of each of its members.
@bigfatmike Do you think the attack would have occurred if the Western countries pursued non-imperialist, non-interventionist foreign policies?
@Bruce No, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Muslims would be incensed over the brutal deaths of other Muslims, and that some of these enraged Muslims would act deplorably as a consequence. That’s human nature.