Warming Up
The French made quick work of the murderers. The one that ‘got away’ may have already fled before the siege at the Kosher supermarket, and is being hunted in Syria.
The group calling itself Al Qaeda in Yemen is taking credit for the attacks, although one of the whackos claimed to be associated with the Islamic State movement in Syria and Iraq. The Yemen conflict is actually tribal in nature has been going on since the 1960s. Fundamentalist groups use the conflicts like Yemen, Syria et al. for recruiting and have no real interest in the reason for conflicts. It is about power, not ideology.
The French police officer killed while trying to stop the attack on Charlie Hebdo was also a Muslim, which is a bit of a problem for the right wing hate groups in France, as is the fact that the murderers were all French citizens.
In other news closer to my home, the high climbed above 40 yesterday, above 50 today, and is forecast to hit 60 tomorrow. I’ll get a picture of one of the pathetic frost-bitten camellia blooms.
6 comments
When even the head of Hizballah has come out and said that these terrorist attacks have done more damage to Islam than any cartoon, well, that’s when these folks ought to stop and re-think what they’re doing. They won’t, of course. They never do. Especially since Nasrallah, while leading an organization whose official name translates to Party of God that probably had something to do with the Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 Americans and whose anti-Israel credentials are without peer (having led the only army in history that managed to stop the IDF in its tracks), has a reputation now as a pragmatist willing to be conciliatory towards other ethnic groups and religions as necessary in order to govern Lebanon and defend its borders. Hardly the kind of reputation that’s going to make these firebrands think twice about what they’re doing. Sigh.
Yeah, Badtux, but that’s a Shi’ia group and ‘everyone knows’ they’re heretics and not adherents of the ‘one true faith’. They are as bad as the Alawites or Yazdis. 😈
That is going to have as much effect as the Pope’s opinion to Calvinists. There is no more uniformity in Islam, than there is among Christians, and less than among Jews. It is never about religion, it is about politics and power. Religion is a justification, not a reason, and as long as the focus is put on religion there is no possibility of a solution.
Okay, so today Hamas came out and said basically the same thing. They’re a Sunni organization. The PLO is a secular organization, but also condemned the attacks today.
But like I said, it doesn’t matter how many “mainstream” organizations (even those with a history of terrorism like Hamas and the PLO) condemn attacks like these, they’ll just ignore all that and do what they want anyhow. Sigh.
These groups have no interest in anything but self-promotion. Hell, even Stalin opened the Churches when he needed support in World War II. Siding with religion has been a popular dodge of dictators well before Machiavelli wrote about it in The Prince. “God’s will” was the excuse used by the Jews when they massacred people in Palestine after escaping from Egypt in Exodus, as was enslaving women and children as ISIS has done.
This is an ancient evil justified by religion, not caused by religion. It’s what sociopathic narcissists do.
Indeed. I came across the following on the web site of a Islamic institute in Canada (the stuff in parenthesis is mine):
“Q: Do Muslims believe in the 10 Commandments (including that pesky “thou shalt not kill” one)?
A: Yes. All are incorporated into the Koran except the 4th Commandment (about observing the Sabbath), which Islam believe applies only to Jews. ”
In other words, what these ISIS terrorists are doing, having a child execute prisoners, has nothing to do with Islam. And having a ten-year-old child execute prisoners? That’s about indoctrinating a future generation, not about Islam.
The reason that Khamenei declared that nuclear weapons were un-Islamic was that they indiscriminately killed innocent people no matter how good the delivery system was. Islam is no more or less violent than any of the religions based on the Torah.
Salman Rushdie was targeted because he was/is a Muslim. The religion is not kind to Muslims who stray from the orthodox view and are considered heretics.
ISIS is political, not religious. They are using religion to further their power grab, an attempt to create their own state. They are using terror just like the Mongols did when they seized Russia, it has nothing to do with religious belief, beyond using it for cover to hide behind.