If you want to know what kind of man could commit the grotesque act this week in butchering a man on a London street while posing for cameras, you might want to meet his teacher. In Tripoli, Lebanon, Syrian-born cleric, Omar Bakri, founder of banned British Islamist group Al Muhajiroun, saw the same video that we saw. While we recoiled at the savagery, Bakri rejoiced in what he called the “courage” and faith of Michael Adebolajo in murdering Lee Ridgy. Our disgust was matched by the cleric’s delight in seeing a former student murder in the name of Islam. He gave the interview as his son, Osama, played at his feet . . . yes, named after that Osama.
Bakri said that “When I saw the footage I recognized the face immediately . . . A quiet man, very shy, asking lots of questions about Islam.” He describes the killer as “standing firm, courageous, brave. Not running away. Rather, he said why he carried (it out) and he wanted the whole world to hear it.”
He assured everyone Adebolajo is now in paradise since “The prophet (Mohammad) said an infidel and his killer will not meet in Hell. That’s a beautiful saying. May God reward (Adebolajo) for his actions.”
He added the question “was he a man or not?”
No, he hit an innocent man with his car and then butchered his body. He is a murderer, and you, Mr. Bakri, you are the mentor of a murderer.
davidm2575 1, May 24, 2013 at 5:53 pm
Dredd, I hope you understand that not all hatred is bad. We should hate evil. That is the good kind of hatred. Not only is it good, it is our civic duty to hate evil. To be indifferent to evil or to love evil, that in itself is evil. To hate evil is a good thing.
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You are quite wrong and without any authority for such an assertion.
The problem with your assertion is that you define “hate” and “evil” as you will, but so does everyone else.
Thus, the cacophony of self-authentication results in confusion.
One side defines “evil” one way and the other side does likewise, thus a hate filled person in Afghanistan can say:
and at the same time a hate filled person in the bible belt can say:
The only thing remaining for them to add is “god is own our side” and “kill the evil ones.”
More blood, more ignorance, and more hatred flows.
Hate solves nothing by having sex with itself in order to produce more hate.
Thus, in this context, “hate” is the fundamental foundation of evil, love is the fundamental foundation of good.
Hate distorts the mental processes in a manner that is obvious to all but the one whose mind is impaired by it.
Hate is and has always been the main fuel of tyranny and propaganda:
(Guardian, Saturday 25 May 2013). A book written in 1944 confirms that this trance like state has been perpetuated for a long time in western culture:
(On The Origin of The Bully Religion – 2). Furthermore, the law in the U.S. which makes hate part of the dynamic of “hate crimes” further erodes your self-proclaimed honor of hatred.
The issue I was addressing was whether this murder was an act of terrorism or not, and, again, it goes to intent. When the attacker issued his warning for the camera, it became an an act of terrorism.
You’ll get no argument from me about the stupidity of the Iraqi war or the numerous ways in which it was botched. And the crew that shot up that group in the video – war criminals; it was pure evil to open fire on the rescuers in the van. But that’s not the thread I was addressing. It was a simple question: was this brutal murder an act of terrorism. I believe it is. Whether the attackers had their justifications is another question.
OK, David, you asked for it. A Hellfire missile or 30mm chain gun does not discriminate. No one is saying collateral casualties are deliberate, but it happens. There is a little glitch in the human eye-brain connection that causes one to see what one wants to see. A camera with a telephoto lens may look like a weapon, if one is looking only for weapons.
If a some guys in a helicopter kill or injure your family members, then all green helicopters are your enemy. As are the people in them. It is human nature.
Not quite. I am My Lai-ing.
Jay and Michael Murry are arguing that 2 + 2 = 4. The various rejoinders by Davidm, mespo, and RTC argue that 2 + 2 = 4 only when they say it does. And if they want the answer to be more than 4, or less, then everyone else must simply accept their position. Because they’re good people, after all, and if they’re conclusions owe more to ideology than to facts and logic, well, that’s one of the benefits of being a good person: your goodness will overcome any evidence or reasoning that might get in the way of the esteem in which you hold yourself (and insist that we hold you in as well).
Like miscellany101 and Michael Murry, I too have been troubled by the numerous postings to this blog in which Turley seems to go out of his way to present and condemn as savagery acts he attributes to religious (often Muslim) extremism. If only he could show the same disgust when considering the U.S.’ willful and wanton destruction of Iraqi lives and society, to cite but one recent example. Violence is violence, regardless of what article of faith has motivated its perpetrators. In the minds of its adherents, American exceptionalism is no less an article of faith, and thus motive, than any interpretation of the Quran.
Face it folks, we completely destroyed Iraq, and in doing so ruined the lives of many millions. And we didn’t do it because Iraq had WMD, or any connection to Al Qaeda, or to the attacks of 9/11. Nor did we do it to bestow democracy, or because we truly value the inherent human rights to life, safety and security of those victimized by depraved tyrants. If invading countries were the way to advance any of these goals, and we had the courage of our convictions, we would have bombed Riyadh or Tel Aviv a long time ago. And we would have bombed ourselves while we were at it.
As for the terrorism meme, it’s usefulness as rhetoric and propaganda is self-evident. Numerous posters here labor under the illusion that somehow violence does not terrorize as long as it’s being wielded by state actors, and is aimed in the general direction of one or more combatants. What utter nonsense. Tell it to the survivors, who no doubt will sleep much more easily after being assured that the decapitated, dismembered, eviscerated and burned bodies of their children, siblings, parents, neighbors, co-workers, et al, now decorating the rubble of what used to be their homes and streets, were a gift from the greatest democracy in world history.
rsmatesic wrote: “Tell it to the survivors, who no doubt will sleep much more easily after being assured that the decapitated, dismembered, eviscerated and burned bodies of their children, siblings, parents, neighbors, co-workers, et al, now decorating the rubble of what used to be their homes and streets, were a gift from the greatest democracy in world history.”
Maybe I am ignorant of something here. Can you show me any evidence, something like the evidence we see with this British born Nigerian with bloody hands, knives, pointing to the corpse he just mutilated, that any Americans or Brits ever decapitated, dismembered, eviscerated and burned bodies of children?
If you do show me such evidence, then I will agree with you that those Americans or Brits are terrorists. If you can’t, then you are lying.
I can see why a lot of the clerics wear the tent head thing when photographed. Bald guy here looks like a perp who would counsel the less bright to go kill for some guy named Akbar.
It is HOLY WAR. There are a lot of bright people on this blog, but many seem to be just a delusional as the murderer topic of this thread. Abolish (begin treating) ALL insanity related to the belief in invisible monsters in the sky and the rest of us will breathe a giant sigh of relief. Please, all you god people, just GET IT ON , kill each other, and get it over with so rational people can go about rebuilding a world based on reality. There are 530 (supposed) Christians in Congress, and people are still going around asking what is wrong with Congress. Could it possible be more %&*$#! clear?
A cleric is like a preacher and somewhat like a teacher. The old adage applies:
Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, preach.
Those who cant preach, teacher preachers.
Never trust a cleric named Eric. Which gets us back to the more recent topic on the blog.
@ Jay who oh-so-plaintively asks: “Which murderers do you speak of? Do you mean the ones who don western costumes and push buttons to kill shadows on a computer screen, which often turn out to be perfectly wonderful, innocent and harmless women, children, and other human beings? Or the ones who have ‘scary’ names, long beards and say things you don’t like about your country’s ‘representatives’ invading their country?”
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Nice try, Mr. Modern-Day Moralizer. 1) as if those “shadows on a computer screen” were merely randomly-selected like on a BINGO card and 2) just a few decades ago, Belgian, French, Dutch, Czechs, Poles, Ethiopians and Chinese populace suffered far, far more death and destruction from invaders not hesitant in the least to employ brute force.
But Tom, if an estimated 500 to 800 civilans have been killed by drones then obviously some incompetent targeting is being done? Might as well be random.
While I don’t agree that Greenwald is a “mushhead”, I do think he is wrong on this issue, as is anyone else who doesn’t think this was an act of terrorism. It matters little what the motivation may have been (religion, personal revenge, military tactic, etc), it has more to do with intent, which was to incite fear among the British public in the hope that they would put pressure on their government to change its behavior.
Terrorism is defined as acts intended to create fear, or terror, among a populace. These acts can range from the murder of a single individual to the crashing of a power grid or computer network. Or a drone attack. You want to accuse the US of engaging in terrorism, I’ll go along with that; any reason a military can’t strategically engage in terrorism? Isn’t that what Sherman did on his march through Georgia?
The claim is that they knew the man and knew he was a soldier – prove it! This time it was a soldier, next time it might be a civilian food service employee for the base. Again, I don’t see that it matters that they targeted a soldier. The terrorist intent can be seen in the brutally spectacular way they committed this crime, and the moment one of the attackers issued his warning for the camera, this became an act of terrorism.
Agree with mespo. They were both terrorists and murderers. Anyone who tries to excuse this kind of act is beneath contempt. There is no excuse. As for a reason they did it? They are murderers and terrorists.
pete9999:
“they are not terrorists, they are murderers.”
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They are both.
Mike Murry:
“does not even once identify the victim in this particular killing as a British soldier who may or may not have done reprehensible things during a past deployment to Iraq and/or Afghanistan; or who, as a soldier, would gladly do such things if ordered to do so by a “superior” officer during a future deployment abroad.”
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I love a good laugh. Soldier “bad” because of what he MIGHT have done. Terrorist “good” despite what he has obviously done.
Could you donate your brain to science? It’s hard to find anatomical parts from such complete haters of the West.
Jay:
“Translation: “We” only ‘unintentionally’ kill their innocents, over and over and over again, for decades. Therefore, we are morally superior to those mongrels …”
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That’s about right, Jay. It’s called a war and the sad fact is that innocents get maimed and killed. You are judged by your actions fueled by your intentions. You can’t judge one without the other and the examples are so myriad and simple that a sixth grader gets it. One wonders why you can’t.
MIke Murry:
“a British soldier who may or may not have done reprehensible things during a past deployment to Iraq and/or Afghanistan; or who, as a soldier, would gladly do such things if ordered to do so by a “superior” officer during a future deployment abroad.”
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My, how predictable. Soldier “bad” because of what he might have done something or might have been ordered to do. Terrorist Good no matter what he does because he assuages my sense of guilt for things real or imagined that happened over thirty years ago.
Could you donate your brain to science? It’s hard to find such organs from such complete haters.
@miscellany101,
Thank your for your interesting observation about Professor Turley’s lurid, scathing language, fairly dripping with pious invective and which, of course, does not even once identify the victim in this particular killing as a British soldier who may or may not have done reprehensible things during a past deployment to Iraq and/or Afghanistan; or who, as a soldier, would gladly do such things if ordered to do so by a “superior” officer during a future deployment abroad. According to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s notorious “1% doctrine,” if even a one percent chance exists that someone might to a bad thing in the future then that person deserves to die now so that he can’t possibly consummate his potential for harm. This doctrine, fully embraced by President Obama, explains his preference for just killing suspects as less expensive and troublesome than capturing, indicting, trying, and convicting them according to the quaint old notion of “due process.”
At any rate, your comments reminded me of something George Orwell wrote in “Notes on Nationalism” (1945):
If Professor Turley had chosen to phrase his thoughts in less inflammatory nationalist rhetoric,with an eye towards the legal ramifications of “the global battlefield,” “military age Muslm males in a free-fire zone as ‘militants’ by definition,” “preemptive war,” et cetera, then perhaps a more enlightened discussion of real issues might have ensued.
Why is it that The Guardian in its interview with Bakri, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/24/woolwich-murder-influence-preacher-suspect-adebolajo) doesn’t use the same kind of flammable, incendiary language as Turley does?
pete9999:
I agree! Though I must ask for clarification: Which murderers do you speak of? There are so many.
Do you mean the ones who don western costumes and push buttons to kill shadows on a computer screen, which often turn out to be perfectly wonderful, innocent and harmless women, children, and other human beings? Or the ones who have ‘scary’ names, long beards and say things you don’t like about your country’s ‘representatives’ invading their country?
As for escaping the overbearing father; I’m not sure prostitution is a better alternative, but certainly I understand your point about Sasha and Malia seeking a better role model than one who shows no compunction in taking innocent lives and prosecuting vigorously those who merely seek to expose government corruption.
they are not terrorists, they are murderers. let them be tried for murder and if convicted be sentenced to a penitentiary with other murders.
their rhetoric will no doubt keep their new friends amused.
perhaps the “mentors” child will escape his overbearing father and find happiness as a transvestite prostitute in tel aviv.
and make his daddy proud
“To state it expressly, the obvious difference between our country and its enemies is that we do not intend to end the lives of innocents. Our enemies expressly do. And of course, folks who intend the deaths of innocent people are sociopaths.” – mespo727272
Translation: “We” only ‘unintentionally’ kill their innocents, over and over and over again, for decades. Therefore, we are morally superior to those mongrels who respond on occasion with ‘intentional’ violence of their own – always minuscule by comparison in terms of human cost – to the innocent deaths and horrifying destruction we ‘accidentally’ inflict perpetually on their innocents.”
Moreover, upon whose unchallenged determination of innocence and guilt are you relying in the first place? The U.S. government’s?
That’s hilarious.
I bet you’re also upset that anyone would question the benevolent aims of U.S. spying on journalists. They have good intentions!
Nothing to see here folks! U.S. government = good; targets of U.S. government = bad!
Good intentions… Really? That’s the crux of your argument? That’s what you’re going to hang your hat on? In defense of the U.S. government’s violent campaigns of aggression?
There are few arguments in defense of our foreign policy that I can imagine that would be more vapid, silly, and apart from reality than good intentions.
But I do appreciate the Saturday night entertainment.