Debate: Islamic Terrorism or Extremism with no connection to Islam?

In the last couple of days, folks are having a conversation about radical groups professing their Islamic faith.
A large number of Muslim (let’s call them mainstream) believes that the terrorist group like ISIS/ISIL has nothing to do with Islam. These extremists may claim to be Muslims but their actions show otherwise.

"There's no such thing as radical Islam," Awad said. "There's no violent extremist ideology within Islam. Islam is one. Some people become extremists, but it's not because of the religion — it's because of themselves as individuals. I think people get entangled in terminology when, in fact, we are dealing with criminality. Criminals are criminals." [1]

Obviously the terrorist group ISIS/ISIL would disagree. According to ISIS/ISIL, most of the mainstreams Muslim are not really Islamic based to their own interpretation and legal judgment (theology). Only the ones who join their cause and accept their hardcore version of Islam can truly be considered a true believer of Islam.

The main dilemma is that both sides think they have the correct version of Islam worthy of representing all Muslim while the other sides are misguided.

Yesterday, I was watching this discussion on TV [2]. David Brooks get invited to a lot of these programs. You cannot always believe what he says because a lot of time his opinions are flatly wrong, but sometimes he makes an interesting point, like yesterday

DAVID BROOKS: Well, are we allowed to called the Islamic State Islamic?

They are. In some sense, it’s a stupid debate, because is it true Islam, is it perverted Islam? The fact is, religion is all interpretation. God doesn’t come down here and tell us exactly what he means. We have interpretations within Christianity, within Judaism and within Islam. If you call yourself a Muslim, you’re a Muslim.

They have different interpretations, but it’s all interpretations. So, one is a perverted or a sick form of Islam. A lot of people fortunately have a much more peaceful form of Islam, but it’s all an interpretation of a faith. What’s the real one? It’s all a matter of interpretation.

I think they should probably call it Islamic extremism. It is Islamic extremism. The second, I think, and more important issue is how we diagnose the problem. And there are three elements to this sort of terrorism, as we just saw in the segment about that Egyptian young man.

First, there’s economic and political dysfunction. So that young man wanted to be a personal trainer and he couldn’t. So he was alienated from that and marginalized from society.

But, second, there’s a spiritual ardor. A guy wants to be a hero. The guy wants to be seen as strong and a hero, like that young man.

And, third, there’s theological conviction. And Islamic State has theology to it, real, substantive theology. We’re comfortable talking about the economics and the politics because we live in a secular society and we’re comfortable talking about that stuff.
But if we don’t talk about the spiritual call that they feel and the theological content, then we’re missing the core of the thing. And if we’re going to fight it, you can’t just say we’re going to give you a higher standard of living. You don’t need to go to the Islamic State. That isn’t going to work. You have to have a spiritual, better alternative. [2]

References
[1] http://www.npr.org/2015/02/20/387611455/more-muslim-groups-voice-willingness-to-combat-extremism-in-their-faith
[2] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-brooks-fighting-islamic-extremism-giuliani-obama/

End of the Islamic State?

Nowadays, the whole world is very much focused on the militant radical Islamic organization called the Islamic state; tracking the growth of the organization, the source of funding, their immediate and also long term goals, group movements, their supporters, the key players (internal and external to the organization) and the fights against them.

Many of the arm-chair supporters of the Islamic state on social media have gone quietly in recent times; perhaps some have lost interest after realizing that the much-hyped concept of a glorified worldwide ‘caliphate’ may not materialize in their lifetimes.

I’m reading this article about the demise of the Islamic State.

Suddenly, Islamic State just can’t fall fast enough. All summer, the press has been saying IS will soon be accepting the keys to every city on earth, an unstoppable jihadi juggernaut.

And now, after six weeks stalled out against a local militia in Kobane and going exactly nowhere in the over-hyped drive on Baghdad, even the mainstream press, represented by America’s paper of record, the New York Times, is saying what I said months ago: IS is just a Sunni Arab militia that will never take serious turf from the other powerful groups in the region, the Kurds of the north or the Shia of the south.

After being shown up in Kobane, IS has now been truly humiliated by US airstrikes that hit a meeting on the Syria/Iraq border and a big convoy near Mosu

Even without nonstop decimation via air attack, a universal caliphate is a doomed, dumb idea. Remember what Al Baghdadi said: “Syria does not belong to the Syrians, and Iraq does not belong to the Iraqis”? You know who would beg to differ? The Syrians. And the Iraqis. And it’s not even that simple, because the territories in which this war is being fought are fractal as sci-fi dream scenes, which means that “Syrians” devolves into dozens, maybe hundreds, of groups that hate each other and will fight to the death for their local turf. Kobane is a part of one turf, “Rojava” or Syrian Kurdistan; but it’s also a local turf on its own, and you can bet that the Kobane people have a few stereotypes of their Kurdish neighbors in the other evolving cantons like Afrin. You can bet that not all of Assad’s Alawites are fond of each other, either, even if they’re forced to stick together now against the Sunni who want to annihilate them. And those Sunni have never managed to make common cause for any length of time, even against a common enemy.

The rest of the article is also equally interesting, so please consider reading all.

Another related article is this" Study: Westerners join Islamic State because of peer pressure, not social media "

Today, the Guardian reports on an upcoming study from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Science (ICSR) which finds that British Muslims who join Islamic State fighters in Syria do so more often because of peer pressure than social media propaganda.

“While online recruitment plays a role, people go because they know people who are in Syria,” ICSR director Peter Neumann told the Guardian. “It’s all about networks in the real world.”

References

http://pando.com/2014/11/10/the-war-nerd-farewell-islamic-state-we-hardly-knew-ye/
http://pando.com/2014/11/06/study-westerners-join-islamic-state-because-of-peer-pressure-not-social-media/

Britain has finally came to her senses

We’ve been reading a lot of news about British residents travelling to middle-east countries like Iraq and Syria to cause havoc and promote instability. A lot of them have been radicalized by Internet Mullahs who are encouraging young men to go there and fight. Women are also encouraged to join the cause (only god knows for what).

Recent news from England

Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said arrests for suspected fanatics heading to or from Syria as well as fund-raisers are running at five times the rate of last year.

The warning came as he said “significant progress” was being made in the hunt for “Jihadi John”, the Briton who is believed to have beheaded American journalist James Foley.

Intelligence and security agencies in the UK and US are said to be close to identifying the man who was seen apparently murdering Mr Foley in a video broadcast by the terror group Islamic State.

It is believed the murder took place in Syria and had reignited concerns over the level of involvement by young British extremists in the conflict there and in Iraq as well as the risk they pose if they return.

It is estimated that at least 500 Britons have travelled to Syria to fight alongside extremists there, of who around half are thought to be from London.

In one of my post, I asked why the western governments (like France and UK) are not doing more to stem or stop these radicalized individuals. It’s as if the authorities in those (western) countries are turning blind eyes because violent/terror acts are committed in someone else’s backyard.

Perhaps, some may think that these men are doing everyone a favor by fighting Assad of Syria even though extremely brutal tactics (which are sadistic and completely against human nature) are employed against civilians and many innocents are deliberately targeted/killed in revenge.

One of the things I find lacking the most, not only in Muslim but also in western communities, is ethics. Everyone is looking after their convenience and their self-interest with no regards to greater good of humanity. And every method, no matter how unethical, is okay (halal) and can be used as long as it for our self-interest, goal and objective…

For the past three years, these same people have been committing extreme brutality against Syrians and Iraqis but the world has just started to notice it now? Did no one take note of the barbaric human-liver eating man?

If you read some of the profiles of some of the Jihadists, they all seem to be very sinful people and complete losers.

Choudhruy in 2010;he conned them (family) out of £25,000, under the false pretence of needing treatment for cancer, to go to Singapore, not once but twice for surgery. Once there, Choudhury, who was in perfect health, spent the money on prostitutes costing £200 a night, his penchant for young women revealed in text messages discovered by police. Back in Portsmouth, he resumed the habit. He went on what he called “lads’ holidays” to Morocco three times and twice more to Singapore in 2011 and 2012, while at the same time downloading lectures by extremist preachers, extolling the virtues of an Islamic caliphate. To atone for his sins, Choudhury decided to embark on a holy war.

One key figure was missing: Jaman, a former worker in a Sky customer service call centre, whose parents owned an Indian takeaway restaurant in Portsmouth. He had studied at an Islamic boarding school in London, but life in a call centre proved boring and un-demanding. In May last year, he went to Syria and began recruiting his eager friends. In messages posted on Twitter and other internet sites, he painted a romanticised version of life on the front line, boasting of a “five star jihad”.

References
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11053444/Portsmouth-jihadists-from-Primark-worker-to-enemy-of-the-state.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11057026/Arrests-of-would-be-British-jihadis-increase-five-fold.html

The Anonymous Group Promised More Hacking Against the Islamic Jihadist

The Anonymous Hacker’s group is promising to expose the nations that support the Islamic Jihadist Terrorist organization (ISIS/ISIL) by launching a web attack very soon.

Sources within Anonymous told me the campaign will be called Operation NO2ISIS and will target three states suspected of offering support to the Islamic State of Syria and al-Sham (ISIS). Government websites will be blasted with DDoS attacks with Anonymous planning to “unleash the entire legion” upon its enemies.

I’m generally against any form of hacking or internet ‘attacks’. They are not nice and a waste of time.

The article mentioned Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey as possible targets for their support of the Islamic extremism.

“We plan on sending a straightforward message to Turkey, Saudi Arabia Qatar and all other countries that evidently supply ISIS for their own gain,” the source said. “In the next few days we will begin defacing the government websites of these countries so that they understand this message clearly.

“We are unable to target ISIS because they predominately fight on the ground. But we can go after the people or states who fund them.”

I’ve observed that the Islamic Jihadists are only interested in cutting up people living in countries like Iraq, Iran and the Alawite Kingdom of Syria. Why doesn’t the freedom loving jihadist cross over and try to free the majority of Sunnis living under Sunni’s dictatorships of the Middle East in countries likes Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Yemen and other significant and non-significant countries of the Middle East and Africa). Don’t Sunnis deserve democracy from their own tyrannical governments and a chance to form the Utopian Islamic caliphate?

References
[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html
[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasperhamill/2014/06/27/anonymous-hacktivists-prepare-for-strike-against-isis-supporters

The mess in Iraq

I’ve been following the messy situation in Iraq closely since last week after the Islamic Extremists (ISIL) announced the takeover of the city of Mosul. I think this was not entirely unexpected. Most people would agree that Iraq is not only a failed state but that the politicians over there are mostly sell-out.

Most of us would probably not care about the mess in Iraq…(something bad is happening in Nigeria, something bad is happening in Pakistan, something bad is still happening in Syria, something bad is always happening somewhere..)

except Iraq has something everyone loves…oil and lots of it. So the situation in Iraq becomes extremely serious and requires global intervention.

I’m summarizing what I saw/read on the news and what I think about it:

Maliki’s right-hand man embarrassed himself (and possible his boss) by whinnying about how the US was still responsible for Iraq’s safety and should at least help in sending a few missiles towards the terrorists’ hideout. I was actually happy when Obama said No. Whatever messy situation Iraqis find themselves in, they need to learn to take care of it. If you can’t do it then it’s probably time to leave the office and let someone else do the job.

The US wanted Iraqi politicians currently dominated by the Shias to be more insular and less sectarian. The timing of the request is a little bit late because now, after seeing what the barbaric Sunni Extremists are capable of, most of the Iraqis will naturally gravitate towards sectarianism. If someone was not sectarian before, he/she is now. I also think the US had ten years to do something useful in Iraq (in regards to Nation Building) but they didn’t/couldn’t do much. Now, that the US is out, I don’t think they are in a position to order someone to do what they want; furthermore they should not even expect the Iraqi to listen or obey them, unless the US can provide Iraqi some incentives..which I can’t think of any.

Saddam’s daughter was cheering the terrorist takeover of Mosul and Tikrit and praised one of her father’s ex-general. Lots of angry ex-Baathists still sees violence as a mean to show their dissatisfaction. That’s how things used to work in Saddam’s Iraq. Regime change doesn’t really change the psychology of the people.

The ISIL (Sunni Extremists Group) has unleased unimaginable horrific violence. Thanks to technology, you can now watch human getting dismembered and butchered in high definition and almost real time.

I’m again reading about this stupid suggestion about how Iraq should be divided into three segments: one for the Shiites, one for the Sunni Arab and the last segment for the Kurds who are mostly Sunni. I don’t think the Sunni Arabs would like to be ‘contained’ in rat-holes like Tikrit and Fallujah. How about Baghdad? Who gets it? Both Sunni and Shia live there. What about many of the Iraqis who are in mix-marriages like a Sunni Arab married to a Shia Arab, a Sunni Arab married to a Sunni Kurd or a Shia Arab married to a Sunni Kurd– how do you resolve such situations? And what if someone has in them 1/2 Shia Arab blood, 1/4 Sunni Arab and 1/4 Kurd blood..so what are you and which segment of Iraq do you get to live?

I’m also observing Sunnis on social networks; trying to see their reaction and what they think about the latest takeover of some of the Iraqi cities by the Sunni Jihadist. A lot of people are surprisingly silent! The same bunch of people who used to cheer the Syrian Jihadists (the exact same folks of the ISIL) for their ‘bravery’ in fighting Hafeez al-Asad is strangely quiet. Is this Sunni hypocrisy at play here? Yes, No?

I believe the difference in attitude is because most of the propagandas video was able to point Hafeez al-Asad of Syria as a Kafir Shia Dictator (he’s not actually Shia by the way) who is running a country of a majority of the Sunni population and oppressing them.

Saudi Arabia the biggest supporters of the Syrian Jihadists who hates the Shias and their leadership in Iraq and Iran are okay with seeing ISIL mischiefs here and there but they are also not keen to see ISIL becoming a powerful entity. After all, the ISIL fantasy of a global Islamic Caliphate would probably get rid most of the Sunni dynasties of many of the Arab kingdoms in the Gulf including Saudi Arabia.

I was reading something interesting today about how Iraq may never become a stable democracy. :(

I hope the author of the article is wrong, unfortunately most of the things he's saying about Iraq can be corroborated. I'll talk about this in the future, time permitting.

Reference

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2014/06/20/war-without-end-why-iraq-can-never-be-a-stable-democracy/

Extremist Buddhists

Most people would consider Buddhism a peaceful religion. But in the recent time the image of Buddhism as a peaceful religion is being shattered by none other than their own followers through numerous acts of violence.

This week saw

Hard-line Buddhists hurled gasoline bombs and looted homes and businesses in attacks in several Muslim towns in southwestern Sri Lanka, killing three Muslims and seriously wounding more than 50 people, authorities said Monday.

Sectarian violence is not unusual in Sri Lanka. Some of the Sinhalese ethnic of Sri Lanka (which is the majority of the population) wage a genocidal war against some of the minority Tamil ethnic of the population. Both sides in this conflict became blameworthy eventually in the extreme lengthy civil war.

As for the most recent conflict between the Buddhist and Muslim, I think you can guess how it started/was manufactured.

A bunch of stupid, hardcore angry folks (the Buddhist Group by the name of Bodu Bala Sena ) reached a boiling point in their hateful ideology. After receiving much support from like-minded individuals and politicians they were further emboldened to publicly provoke violence against others. Next is what you see happening on Monday.

Anyway, this is not a lone event of a group of Buddhists displaying extreme hatred and intolerant towards people of other religions especially Muslim. The other incident is the Buddhist violence against the Burmese Muslim population (of ethnic Rohingya) that has been ongoing on more than half a century now in Burma/Myanmar and current event.

So, it’s not all good with Buddhist/Buddhism.

References
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/sri-lanka-muslims-killed-attack-buddhists-24152664
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_people#Burmese_juntas
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Rakhine_State_riots