The voice on the phone was a mere whisper. The spokesman for al-Qaeda’s most notorious affiliate, AQAP, sounded nervous.
The man who scores of reporters around the world came to know over the last year under the alias of “Muhannad Ghallab” was not what I expected. One of the pictures he sent me showed him with long hair, dressed in a blue T-shirt with the words “Men gone surfing” printed across it.
Muhannad first contacted me in 2012 when I was living in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, working as a freelance journalist. I became, as he later joked, his personal “experiment” as AQAP’s initial attempt to reach out to the international media, putting up an English-speaking voice to counter the Washington and Western media narrative. Eventually, Muhannad would be quoted widely in international media outlets — usually just as a nameless spokesman — providing a rare insight into AQAP.
Muhannad told me he had once worked as a journalist for one of the region’s “leading news agencies” after graduating in media studies from college. The 35-year-old Egyptian’s path to Yemen had started in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the United States invaded Afghanistan. “I saw good Muslim youth making sacrifices for the sake of Islam while I cared about myself only,” he told me. “I started to reflect on what America was doing. I started to pray and read Quran … I let my beard grow. I looked Islamic. I felt Islamic.”
He said he was later arrested, tortured and jailed for three years for planning to travel to Iraq to fight against the U.S. invasion. (A eulogy posted online by a colleague from AQAP said the arrest happened in 2005, just three months after his marriage. Muhannad was “swallowed into the prisons of the tyrants for nearly three years,” reads the eulogy.)
In 2011, during the political uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Muhannad mixed with local and foreign journalists. He wanted to teach Egyptians about about Sharia law and jihad, but the uprising failed to bring about the changes he sought. He left that year for Yemen to join AQAP.
Muhannad was willing to talk about any issue, from the killings of fellow Muslims in Yemen to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. The debates, via encrypted online communications, regularly lasted six hours or more in between Sanaa’s frequent electricity outages and prayer times. He trumpeted the Boston bombings and the Charlie Hebdo killings, yet sent messages of sympathy following the death of journalist Luke Somers, who was killed last December during a failed rescue attempt by U.S. special operations forces.
Somers had been kidnapped by AQAP, but Muhannad said the group never had any intention of killing Somers: Hostage-taking was a business, not a killing program. But after American special operations forces killed seven AQAP fighters in a previous failed rescue attempt in November, he said he felt no responsibility for Somer’s death (the U.S. government claimed AQAP killed Somers during the raid; AQAP claimed he was killed in the crossfire).
Muhannad pursued Western journalists, including many American reporters, reaching out on social media and email, eventually building a wide network of contacts. He tried to humanize AQAP for Western journalists. He was a genuine believer in jihad, but didn’t want AQAP’s actions equated with terrorism. AQAP was conducting a holy war in response to America’s military aggression. Attacking the United States, he insisted, was intended “to make the American people wake up to what their government is doing.”
We would often spend hours online chatting about politics, war, the media, religion, his children (who lived in Yemen, along with his wife), and even his nostalgia for 1990s British pop bands such as Take That and East 17. His views often combined his belief in Sharia law with a more progressive mindset (women should be covered, he insisted, but he also thought women should be allowed to work and be educated).
He also distanced himself and AQAP from the Islamic State, which he described as a group “no real Muslim would join … they’re crazy.” He viewed their brutal tactics against women and the use of beheadings as incompatible with his and al-Qaeda’s interpretation of Islam and jihad. The declaration of a Caliph was illegitimate and laughable, he said.
Yet ISIS was proving more adept than AQAP at propaganda. Unlike ISIS, with its influx of foreign fighters, including many from the West, AQAP had been slow to make its presence felt on social media and in its online propaganda. The group’s English-language Inspire magazine led the way in al-Qaeda propaganda for the English-speaking world when it was launched in 2010. But there had been little else, until Muhanned launched his own campaign to reach out to Western media, resulting in AQAP’s first “remote international press conference” with senior leader Nasser al-Ansi.
He also gave AQAP a voice, literally, in Western media. In addition to quoting anonymous Western officials, media outlets, including The Intercept, began to include an anonymous AQAP source. In essence, Muhannad was playing the same game as officials in Washington, but it came with risk and criticism. On January 15, 2015, FBI Director James B. Comey lashed out at The New York Times for anonymously quoting AQAP. Comey criticized The Times, saying in a letter: “I fear you have lost your way and urge you to reconsider allowing your newspaper to be used by those who have murdered so many and work every day to murder more.”
Days after the FBI rebuke, Muhannad had his first near miss with a U.S. drone in a strike that killed AQAP ideologue Harith al-Nadhiri on January 31. Like with other drone strikes, it’s possible that his location had been compromised by someone within AQAP. But another possible scenario is that a data trail from his communications with Western journalists gave away his geolocation. “Terrorists do not make good cryptographers,” says Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins University.
The Intercept shared with Green some of the communication apps Muhannad asked journalists to use to communicate with him. Green says it is entirely possible the CIA or NSA used those apps to track him. The apps Muhannad used do not “provide protection against tracking,” Green says.
Around 1 a.m. local time on April 22, Muhannad was among six men killed when a missile, apparently fired from a U.S. drone, hit the tree-lined Corniche in the port city of Mukalla, which had been seized by al-Qaeda militants and local tribesmen. As usual after a drone strike, I messaged him, but this time there was no response. By morning I saw the first Tweets mentioning his latest Twitter handle, @bkagn1, and that he had been “martyred.”
After sunrise on Wednesday, a few hours after the strike, local journalists came to take pictures of the scene. All that remained was pools of drying blood, a shattered concrete wall, and what appeared to be the remnants of a missile protruding from a crater in the ground.
From a lover of American culture and a self-described “liberal” Muslim who never prayed, his voyage to becoming AQAP’s international voice concluded more than 13 years later on the edge of a gray sandy beach, the sea-front of Mukalla. Tweets from his friend after his death revealed for the first time his AQAP given name: Abu Hafs al-Misri.
On Twitter, his friends filled in additional details about his life and biography, like the death of his mother when he was 11 years old. Some journalists lamented on social media the loss of a great source last week. But perhaps the real loss is a window — however small — into a way of thinking not as far removed from our own as many would have us believe.
Three days before his death, Muhannad began a series of online posts about one of his favorite subjects: the double standards and poor sourcing of Western media reporting on Yemen. “When US drones burn Muslim women & children in Pakistan and Yemen by its hellfire missiles,” he wrote in one message, “Western media gives a deaf ear because those whom were killed have been dehumanized a long time ago.”
One of the last conversations I had with him was about the recent wave of strikes that had killed AQAP’s front men who regularly appeared in their propaganda videos.
As to the possibility of his own death, Muhannad quoted not the Quran, but the 1995 number-one hit song “Never Forget,” by British boy band Take That: “We’re not invincible, we’re only people. Never forget where you’ve come here from. Never pretend that it’s all real. Someday soon this will all be someone else’s dream. This will be someone else’s dream.”
At the end, he added, “Inshallah” and a smiley.
– Jeremy Scahill contributed reporting to this article.
– Photo of Muhannad Ghallab courtesy Iona Craig. The Intercept has blurred the background.
@Louise Cypher 30 Apr 2015 at 9:30 am
The Arabic term jihad, usually translated into European languages as holy war, more on the basis of its juridical usage in Islam rather than on its much more universal meaning in the Qur’an and Hadith, is derived from the root jhd whose primary meaning is “to strive” or “to exert oneself”.
To many traditional Muslims, a true Jihadi is one who strives to groom his/her self so that it moves away from the lower self (aka consciousness) that reflects the qualities, such as anger, selfishness, vengeance, hatred, injustice, love for power, control and resources, arrogance, us vs them mentality, etc., so that it reflects the higher whose attributes are the opposite of those of the lower self, qualities, such as peace, selflessness, forgiveness, love, justice, no desire for power, control and resources, humility, not doing unto others what one doesn’t want done unto oneself, etc.
No!
Violence is the result of succumbing to the lower self.
Any religious and non-religious document will produce good results if it is to be read, interpreted and applied through the higher consciousness.
It will produce negative results, if it is read, interpreted and applied through the lower consciousness.
You are making a few errors when quoting this verse:
1. You are presenting it out of its historical setting.
2. You are presenting it out of its textual context. The Qur’an is to be treated like an integrated whole. Every part of it must be examined in light of what else it has stated.
3. You are misunderstanding the word that has has translated as “those who disbelieve”. A more accurate translation is “those who are bent on denying the truth.” It is implied that this denial is conscious and deliberate. That is, these are people who recognize something to be true, but reject it consciously for selfish reasons.
4. You really don’t understand the allegorical nature of the Qur’an.
The historical context was that the Muslims — a tiny minority in Makkah — were persecuted — a few were killed — and some went to Africa to flee their persecution while the remaining went to Madinah — then known as Yathrib. But the Makkans (those who persecuted the tiny Muslim minority) came after them. The Muslims were given permission to defend themselves and God told them that He would be on their side.
Would you rather God took the side of those Makkans — those who persecuted? You can say there is no such thing as God, but that’s not the issue here.
The inner meaning is that there’s a clear distinction between the higher and the lower self.
The term “messenger” is evidently generic in this context. By “waging war on God and His messenger” is meant a hostile opposition to, and willful disregard of, the ethical precepts ordained by God and explained by all His apostles, combined with the conscious endeavor to destroy or undermine other people’s belief in God as well.
In classical Arabic idiom, the “cutting off of one’s hands and feet” is often synonymous with “destroying one’s power,” and it is possibly in this sense that the expression has been used here.
Alternatively, it might denote “being mutilated,” both physically and metaphorically – similar to the (metonymical) use of the expression “being crucified” in the sense of “being tortured.” The phrase min khilaf — usually rendered as “from opposite sides” — is derived from the verb khalafahu, “he disagreed with him,” or “opposed him,” or “acted contrarily to him”: consequently, the primary meaning of min khilaf is “in result of contrariness” or “of perverseness.”
This verse is talking about those who deliberately “strive to make mischief in the land”.
Are you suggesting that the Author of the Qur’an should just let them cause mischief, as the terrorists of today?
You also need to look at this verse together with its previous one, which says this:
“Because of this did We ordain unto the children of Israel that if anyone slays a human being – unless it be [in punishment] for murder or for spreading corruption on earth – it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind…” (Qur’an 5:32)
The entire discourse in these verses (see also verses preceding this one) is about the contrast between Cain and Able who represent two different consciousnesses.
This moral truth in 5:32 is among those to which the first sentence of verse 15 of this surah alludes, and its succinct formulation fully explains the reason why the story of Cain and Abel is mentioned in this context. The expression “We have ordained unto the children of Israel” does not, of course, detract from the universal validity of this moral: it refers merely to its earliest enunciation.
You may or may not fully comprehend what these verses are actually saying. However, I’m sure an honest reader will see that their meanings are not as simple as you are trying to convey.
First of all, Islam is not monolithic. So which Islam are you referring to as “an imperial project”? The Islams of al-Quida, the Taliban, The Western supported Saudi Salafis/Wahhabis, etc., are not the same as the Islams of the Sufis and the ordinary traditional Muslims, who has absolutely no imperial ambitions whatsoever!
But, more importantly, if there are Islams that are “imperial projects”, they are clearly not doing a good job of it, since the West has been far more superior for several centuries. Many Western powers even colonized much of the land governed by the Muslims and ruled over them for centuries, and when they “left”, they broke the Muslim lands into pieces.
The West is still far more superior in just about everything than any Muslim entity — individual groups or countries.
So, now you reveal your conflict: Above you refer to “Islam”, but here, you are referring to “radical Islam”. So which is it?
Thanks, ‘Sufi Muslim’ for explaining!
-Mona-: I see no REPLY button on your response, so I will put it here.
“Finally, and again, I asked you: Do you reject all attempt to understand what just grievances might be motivating Muslim extremists? Do you rule out the possibility that they might be angry about something(s) that would anger a reasonable person?”
No. No.
By the way, and still on the topic of understanding terrorists, well done on your “let’s counter the very pertinent Quranic quotes which Islamic State is currently bringing to life one crucified, murdered, butchered innocent at a time with some other quotes nobody invoked in a million years – or ever – to serve as a foundation for a world-wide imperial project”, and on your laughable attempt to shut down the debate by using the terms “bigots” and “hatred” when all I did was propose to you that Quran, which is a holy book for these savages just as it is for “moderate Muslims”, may be the actual foundation for their actions.
I nominate you for the “2015 Glenn Greenwald Excellence In Whataboutery Award”.
Your attempt to see what you see in the Qur’an is also laughable.
These savages’ actions are not entirely based on the Qur’an.
Moderate Muslims do not read into the Qur’an what you’ve read in it. However, the Qur’an speaks for itself. You need to treat it as an integrated whole and see how some parts of it elaborate on its other parts, so you can’t produce verses in isolation of other verses.
Beyond that you need to learn how universal and timeless principles are derived from it, and how certain verses address certain human conditions and situations.
Your saying “may be the actual foundation…” means you are not sure. So there’s no need to try to show that you are sure in other parts of your comments.
“Your attempt to see what you see in the Qur’an is also laughable.”
Thanks for that. But In spite of your very interesting attempt at an exegesis above, you will surely admit that your reading is only *a* reading of this text, and that there can and most certainly are other readings, and you can repeat that Islamic State and other Muslim terrorists are “misinterpreting” it until you are blue in the mouth, it still won’t change the fact that they *are* interpreting it, and *are* using it as a foundation for their murderous acts. The various fatwas issued by Islamic State’ are all the proof we need – every single atrocity they perpetrated, including the burning of the prisoner of war, was justified by religious reasons.
So, your claim
“Moderate Muslims do not read into the Qur’an what you’ve read in it”
and
“However, the Qur’an speaks for itsel”
coupled with your claim above that
“Islam is not monolithic. So which Islam are you referring to as “an imperial project”? The Islams of al-Quida, the Taliban, The Western supported Saudi Salafis/Wahhabis, etc., are not the same as the Islams of the Sufis and the ordinary traditional Muslims, who has absolutely no imperial ambitions whatsoever!”
are mutually exclusive. If Quran was actually “speaking for itself”, there couldn’t be more than one interpretation. Contrary to that, you yourself claim that there are IslamS, plural.
“means you are not sure.”
Of course, that is why I said that I *proposed* an explanation. I leave certainty to brainwashed religious people.
And to answer your question about “which Islam are you referring to as “an imperial project””,I have this in mind:
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6XFWUaCIAA_OE6.png
Islam’s entire history is nothing but a history of imperial conquest.
It’s truly funny to read Muslim apologists saying that war in Islam is permitted only in defense; it must be the only cult in history which managed to spread from Spain to India and from France to central Africa by merely “defending itself” from attacks.
By the way, I loved reading your posts in The Guardian several years back.
You said this: “Greenwald is willfully blind to the fact that Islam is an imperial project comparable to *every other imperial project* he is condemning in his work.”
If you had stated “…fact that there are versions of Islam that are an imperial project…” it would’ve been accurate, for the fact of the matter is that Islam is not monolithic and there are those versions of Islam that do not have any imperial ambitions.
I’ve known many Muslims who have absolutely no desire for imperialism.
If you read the works of ibn Arabi, Rumi, the heads of various Sufi Orders, Frithjof Schuon, Martin Lings, William Chittick, Kabir and Camille Helminski, SEYYED Hossein Nasr and Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri, you won’t find any imperialism in them. Which is a clear evidence that there are currents within Islam that are not interested in imperialism.
Yes, there have been rulers who politicized Islam and got busy with conquests and empire building, but there have also been those Muslims who opposed it.
As far as the Quran is concerned, I don’t think you quoted the verses within their textual context let alone historical. And if you suggest that there are Muslims who also read in them what you do in isolation, then I’m fine with it, though I’m fully capable of presenting them in their proper textual context to show you how parts of the Quran elaborate its other parts.
I don’t think it’s being apologetic. I think it’s quite reasonable, accurate and rational.
There’re methodologies developed to interpret the Quran, and one of them is understanding the Quran by the Quran, which makes reliance on other secondary sources, which are less authentic, unnecessary.
One of the things that is part of this methodology is to understand its words by diving into their root meanings.
“If you had stated “…fact that there are versions of Islam that are an imperial project…” it would’ve been accurate, for the fact of the matter is that Islam is not monolithic and there are those versions of Islam that do not have any imperial ambitions.”
Agreed, I could cave been more precise there, but I used the shorthand “Islam” just like Greenwald uses the shorthands “the West” or “USA”. Guilty as charged. I should have said “Islam as originally practiced by their so-called prophet, which is being emulated today by Islamic State.”
There may be Islams today that reject it, but to be in a position to reject something at all, that something *must have been there in the first place*.
So, as far the imperialism itself goes, the proof is in the pudding as they say. You may repeat until the last hour of the last day (on which as that lovely hadith says, stones and trees will say: “Oh Muslim, oh the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him”), that they are not essentially connected, but that map speaks volumes.
That’s your understanding of the original Islam.
I disagree.
I see an accurate representation of the original Islam in the writings and practices of the masters I’ve listed.
For example, Rumi’s Mathnawi and ibn Arabi’s reflections are considered as esoteric commentaries of the Quran, and the leaders of the Sufi Orders and many of their students reflections of the Muhammadi Light.
I’m fine if someone disagrees with me.
As I’ve stated before, when someone, including me, says, “Islam is this,” or “Islam says/does this…”, what they are really saying is “Islam, as I understand, is this/does/says this.”
This is factually wrong, and you know it.
“entire”! “Nothing but…”!
No, no educated and informed person sees it that way.
Islam’s history includes the times when they were colonized by a few Western powers. The British ruled India for a few centuries. Were the Muslims there and then carrying out imperial conquests?
No!
There were other parts of the Muslim world in the Middle East that were under colonization.
Were the Muslims there and then engaged in imperial conquests?
No!
Are the Muslims of today living in Afghanistan, India, Israel, the Gaza, UAE, the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and in many other parts of the world carrying out imperial conquests?
No!
Anyone can see that you are wrong, unless the history of Islam ended in the pre-colonization times.
There were Muslims who were brought to the U.S. as slaves. Did they do any imperial conquests?
No!
Moreover, when there were Muslim rulers engaged in imperial conquests, there were a lot of Muslims who not only did not participate, but there were many who criticized the rulers.
So, how can you proclaim this universal declaration?
Moreover, there were many parts of the world where Islam spread because of the good works of the Sufis and traders.
Islam’s history is complex and mixed.
==========
Re: Taking Quranic verses out of textual context.
If your mother tells you: “if you eat too much chick peas, chick peas will upset your stomach,” is it accurate to say that she said, “chick peas will upset your stomach.” as if it’s a universal and timeless declaration?
No,
The second part of her statements needs to be examined in light of the first part. And it’s not her fault if you just look at the second part.
This simple example should be sufficient for one to understand how some misinterpret the Quran, something that’s not the Quran’s fault — it’s the fault of the person who looks at certain verses or parts of verses in isolation, ignoring what else it’s saying, often even ignoring the preceding verses and even ignoring the beginning of a verse quoting only part of it.
If people misinterpret the Quran, the responsibilities is their’s, especially since there’re those who are correcting their mistakes.
You have the patience of a, er, well, a Sufi!
-Mona- 01 May 2015 at 12:57 am
You have the patience of a, er, well, a Sufi!
————————————————
Louise Cypher made two obvious errors:
1. Overly simplify and generalize the history of Islam by stating (emphases mine): “Islam’s entire history is nothing but a history of imperial conquest.”, and
2. Quote a couple of verses from the Qur’an in isolation without their historical and textual contexts. A lot of the time, a verse of the Qur’an can be easily understood by analyzing its preceding verses or taking them within the context of other verses elsewhere in Qur’an, without any need to understand its historical setting.
So, it wasn’t difficult for me to refute Louise, who decided to stop responding to me and not show me where I made any mistakes.
But it’s relatively rare for someone to come here and hurl Qur’anic verses to demonize all of Islam. I see it on other websites’ comment sections, but not here. Here, most commenters are very well educated and informed. They may vehemently disagree with each other, but they are not ill-informed, save a few here and there.
It’s not whataboutery. It’s goose, gander.
The IS would exist with or without cherry-picking ancient texts for support. Those freaks have nothing to do with 99.99% of the worlds’ 1.7 billion Muslims. They are as representative of Islam as these genocidal rabbis and their supporters in Israel are of world Jewry:
And these are really special bits:
Ok, with correct formatting that last part should be:
—————————–
And these are really special bits:
See that Louise? Dov Lior believes the Torah teaches that genocidal tripe — and he was once the Israeli Defense Forces chief rabbi. So, according to your logic, it would be fine to pillory all Jews with those views and applications of the Torah, right?
Goose, gander, Louise.
Let me repeat:
“with some other quotes nobody invoked in a million years – or ever – to serve as a foundation for a world-wide imperial project”
There simply isn’t a concept comparable to caliphate in Judaism or Christianity. Some crazy rabbis “suggestions” and “may be”s aren’t comparable – if you want to be taken seriously, that is – with *actual* Islamic State with its *actual* Shura Council and their *actual* fatwas justifying their *actual* atrocities with Quran quotes and hadith examples.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7Q9qQ8CQAAFEtT.jpg
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_Killings_Ordered_or_Supported_by_Muhammad
” Those freaks have nothing to do with 99.99% of the worlds’ 1.7 billion Muslims.”
Yeah, about that silly claim about 99.99% supposedly non-violent, peaceful, nice people:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7jJ6sOCUAELob6.jpg
Seriously, drop it. It makes you look ridiculous.
Large majority of Americans believed that Saddam had WMDs and was involved in the evil acts of 911.
These polls only prove the effectiveness of orthodoxies’ propaganda.
The reality is much more complex and nuanced than these polls suggest.
If the majority of Americans could support the killings of innocent civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and believe the lies about Saddam, and still be considered reasonable, rational and nice people, then the same can be said about the Muslims who have developed such beliefs propagated by the orthodoxies.
Moreover, acceptance of Shariah in itself isn’t bad when you look at the fact that it’s not monolithic and includes things such as how to pray, fast, do charitable acts and obey the laws of the land.
P.S. I see that you have no rebuttal of my analysis of the two Quranic verses that you presented to give them meanings that don’t exist.
On those verses, I simply do not think that your interpretation has any relevance in the context I quoted them: as something used by Islamic State to justify atrocities on religious grounds. It’s completely beside the point what a “Sufi Muslim” posting on The Intercept thinks; what is relevant in real life is what a hundred thousand Islamic State Muslims butchering their way to their caliphate think, and what millions of Muslims supporting them, financing them, recruiting for them and yes even tweeting support for them worldwide think.
As for the stats, they are real, and they speak for themselves. The fact that *a third* of Muslims worldwide would murder a fellow Muslim for “apostasy” shows that *Islam* is the problem. Not just “radical” Islam – that supposed “very small percentage of bad apples”, but *Islam of this 1/3 of Muslims worldwide*. And the fact that *half of Muslims worldwide* would murder for adultery shows that Islam is the problem – not just “radical” Islam, but Islam of this 1/2 of the Muslim population.
@Louise Cypher 01 May 2015 at 5:47 pm
You presented those verses to show that the basis of terror is in the Qur’an.
I clearly showed you that the meanings you were trying to give to them were wrong, and I showed it to you from the Qur’an.
This proves that the basis of terror IS NOT the Qur’an.
I also gave you a link to an article by Juan Cole, in which he clearly stated that the Qur’an is against murdering innocent.
So, all of that clearly refutes what you were trying to convey, and you had no come back. You could not deny the clear meanings of those verses. If you could, you would have. But you don’t. Why? Because the meaning you tried to give isn’t there.
It is not.
It proves that Muslims are not monolithic. You tried to generalize the stereotype the Muslims, and tried to show that the basis of terror is the Qur’an, and I showed you that the meaning you were trying to give to those verses of the Qur’an isn’t there at all!
Whatever they do, the Qur’an is not the basis. This is the premise you were trying to establish and you failed miserably!
They only show a very small part of the total reality. What they prove is exactly what the polls that indicated the 2/3 of Americans thought Saddam had WMDs and was linked to the evil acts of 911.
This does not make those Americans un-civilized. It just proves that the propaganda of the orthodoxies can have a profound effect on otherwise reasonable and peaceful people.
I’m sure if the poll of Americans was taken after the two atomic bombs were thrown on the innocent civilian populations majority of them would’ve approved.
This doesn’t make them un-civilized. They would’ve accepted the rationale for it.
Islam is not monolithic. It has various strains within it. There are many, many, many Muslims who do not accept the apostasy laws. Many are speaking out against it.
You present a simplistic, but a very negative picture of the world of Islam. The reality is much more complex and nuanced.
Sure, there are Muslims who accept that, but how many stonings have been done in the entire 1400 year history of Islam?
Do you know that at least in Egypt, there was no stoning for over a thousand years!
The reality is very complex and it looks like you are not capable of grasping it.
Yes, there are problems within the universe of Islam; there are currents within it that are horrible. But a lot of goodness is also happening and there are a gazillion reasons for what’s currently going on.
Are you even aware of the reformation that the Muslim scholars are doing? Why don’t you acknowledge that? Do you not see that?
Read Dr. Abou El Fadl’s “Reasoning with God” and see how people like him, and many others, who are doing some excellent work.
Did you read that 600+ page fatwa on terrorism yet? Read it, reflect on it, and come back with questions or a rebuttal of it.
I tried earlier, but my post hasn’t shown up–to thank you for sharing your insight.
“ISIS was proving more adept than AQAP at propaganda”
This is very interesting.
Who helps ISIS develop and put out its brand and messaging?
What is SITE? Who is Rita Katz?
His picture has a nice 1960s look but that is an AK-47 not love-beads hanging from his shoulder. No matter side and motivation when you strike the war-post and play the game the Eights & Aces are in the deck.
I worry about any innocent that might have been nearby. As for this guy he knew about the hell-fire missiles when he signed up.
General William Tecumseh Sherman on the burning of Columbia “I did not order it and never wished it, I have never shed any tears over the event.”
It may be harsh to criticize the dead but ultimately I must conclude Mr. Ghallab was not very good at his job. The public opinion polls I have seen always give the lowest popularity ratings to the US Congress, but AQAP surely can’t be far behind. The US has been conducting drone campaigns in Yemen since back in the mists of time when some people still believed that President Obama would honor his campaign promises. And now the entire Arab world seems to have joined in, bombing everything into rubble. So Yemen, even though it’s never attacked anybody, is a country which is seriously unpopular. I’m sure there are many causes, but someone who trained in public relations (which for PR purposes is called journalism) is responsible to improve his country’s image. He failed to accomplish that task.
His “country” is Egypt, not Yemen. His responsibility wasn’t to improve the image of Yemen, it was to improve the image of AQAP. Yemen does not equal AQAP. The Saudis are bombing Yemen to kill Huthis not AQAP. Both the Saudis and the US are bombing these groups at the behest of the internationally recognized government of Yemen.
I must admit I’m not totally clear on who is in charge in Yemen. It seems a little odd for the legitimate government to be sitting in another country and cheering as Yemen is reduced to rubble by foreigners. I can’t imagine that endears them to their own people.
All well and good, but at the end of the day, no matter how much you humanize him, he and his buddies want to kill you.
Now This Addendum :
At the National Academy, the fbi trains all law enforcement leaders in the nation and in many parts of the world * to kill, beat, imprison and torture the innocent suspect, while the SCOTUS authorizes the police to kill innocent suspects fleeing in their cars. So, most of the police/fbi brutality and killings of our people is the result of a macabre culture in all law enforcement as inculcated by your beloved f b i.
http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/f.b.i.certified.html
*http://neworleans.media.indypgh.org/uploads/2014/11/kill.pngthumb.png
In evaluating the “terrorists” of the various Al Qaeda branches, consolidations, and names; I think Americans should understand the role the United States and NATO allied nations have had in creating, funding, manipulating, and arming these groups of “terrorists.”
“The Covert Origins of ISIS?”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39603.htm
War on Drugs….War on Terror….these are wars that the United States empire started for the ultimate economic benefit of the 0.01% of elite puppet masters of the International Central Banking Cartel and their minion corporate entities. The rule of divide and conquer (religious and/or political national sects of local populations), is the primary tactical means to topple nation after nation for access to energy (oil) or strategic land assets. The combined national intelligence agencies and mercenary forces have been instrumental in accomplishing both short and long term objectives.
American citizens would be wise to keep that in mind because it is a tactic that the US Federal government is using right now within the United States to strip constitutional rights and enforce economic slavery on their own citizens.
“terrorists”
“terrorists”
Anyone capable of effectively denying that the label terrorist *can* be applied with *complete* justification to someone like “Muhannad Ghallab” by using scare quotes around the term is beyond help (yes, that includes Glenn Greenwald). No wonder you give credence to the mad rantings of a conspiratorial mind like the one behind “Information Clearing House”, a site far outside the realm of reliability, and that you view this pathetic piece of jihadi fangirl fluff as “a refreshing glimpse”.
Speaking of ones “beyond help” you certainly qualify as a closed minded bigot in that category.
Based on your comments on this article, your act is weak and your trolling technique is transparent at best.
Spread your biased, spoon-fed MSM propaganda, ideological hatred somewhere where it won’t be clearly recognized as such.
Your posts speak for themselves, dear, just as mine speak for themselves. Let’s leave it to the readers to judge who is “closed minded”. My bet is on someone whose entire line of “thinking” can be summarized with: “International Central Banking cartel with their corporate minions in the military industrial complex (LOL) is to blame for everything, “terrorism” isn’t real, millions of people supporting butchery in the name of their invented sky friend and hundreds of thousands of terrorist Muslim jihadis who perpetrate countless acts of terror are not the real problem”.
To which anyone sane needs simply to look here:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com
“2015.04.29 (Mosul, Iraq) – Ten oil workers are forced to their knees and shot in the head by the Islamic State.
2015.04.27 (Baghdad, Iraq) – Children are among the casualties when a brutal bomb blast in a shopping district claims ten lives.
2015.04.27 (Bayda, Libya) – Six journalists are found with their throats slit months after being taken by the Islamic State.
2015.04.27 (Zvornik, Bosnia) – A man yelling ‘Allah Akbar’ opens fire on a police station in the Serbian area, killing one person inside.
2015.04.27 (Nineveh, Iraq) – Two are stoned to death for adultery as children look on.
2015.04.27 (Mekran, Pakistan) – Three Shiites are shot to death by Sunnis while waiting for a bus.”
Your link is pure propaganda designed to demonize a religious belief system and all of it’s adherents or practitioners into a politically convenient posture of inferiority under some preconceived one of superiority.
All terror, regardless of who commits it (this includes state sponsored terror) on an unwilling population, is morally wrong but that does not mean that all entities which comprise any given religious or sociological population are necessarily inflicting that terror.
There are no chosen ones on Earth with regard to internally generated belief systems pertaining to communication with higher perceptions of self or external entities.
All Muslims are not guilty of terrorism by virtue of religious belief systems, manner of dress, cultural beliefs, or skin color.
By professing otherwise you admit your own very narrow bigoted view.
How convenient that it conforms so neatly with MSM government propaganda.
I repeat, your tactics are transparent and your arguments are weak.
Here is cipher for you to evaluate: “Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/twenty-five-rules-of-disinformation.html
You have used numbers 5,6,7,8,11,15,18,19 & 20 thus far in your comments on this article.
I am not obligated to tolerate your prejudices nor your adhominem attacks.
And do not assume with false verbal platitudes that I am “dear” to you as I am most certainly not.
So take your self-annointed superiority complex elsewhere. I don’t deal with bigots.
You present only a small part of the total reality. Many, many Muslims have been doing a lot of good works for 1400+ years, though the followers of every Prophet and Messenger of God are considered Muslims by the Quran, so there have been a lot of Muslims doing good since human beings roses to the Adamic Consciousness.
Why are you focusing on the negatives only?
There are more Muslims killed or maimed, than non-Muslims, by the terrorists who claim to be Muslims.
So, if you want to stereotype Muslims and Islam, you should say that Muslims/Islam are the victims of terrorism.
Do you get my point?
None of your anecdotal exampes contradicts Lyras claim that ultimately these muslim terror groups are created and/or manipulated by an “International Central Banking Cartel” (true or not). Uneducated christians and jews have done horrible things in history believing in “invented sky friends”, most often serving some larger geopolitical agendas. Like the crusades, or the zionist terrorism in Palestine/Israel. How come both AQ and IS rose from the ashes of US intervention/support in Afghanistan (1978) and Iraq (2003) respectively ?
I agree – but George Bush’s perpetual war means there will never be peace.. The New CRUSADES
> > > The Republicans talk a balanced budget – 57% of every tax dollar goes to the military industrial compile
> > > an increase in military spending of 45% since 9/11
BUT THEY TA LK CUTS to the citizens benefits. . . . .
The perpetual “War on Terror” and the International Central Banking cartel with their corporate minions in the military industrial complex who profit from the promotion and continuation of it — are the problem.
The politicians, regardless of party, are just their puppets.
The remaining masses of people, all over the planet, are the victims of their collective greed.
This could stop if the mass of victims would recognize that they are economically and ideologically enslaved to false concepts and unjust domination by self-appointed dictators.
Who would fight their wars for profit if the greater objective was a collective battle for peaceful existence for all on Earth?
BE happy nice…
STOP TERRORISM
”STOP THE TERRORISM”… give ”JUSTICE TOTHE VICTIMS”, FUCK IT OUT THE TERRORISM… my GOD…!
He joined the murder and it visited him.
With the support of the general population the fbi and all law enforcement in the USA (their agents / operatives & informants) cause , enhance , benefit from and enjoy extreme human suffering that they by their employment pursue 24/7/365 for all their careers and thereafter .
See my main website and the following synopsis thereof for compelling and uncontested evidence of my assertions.
https://www.academia.edu/12103536/Explication_Of_Salient_Events_fbi_As_Criminal_Sovereignty
I would have chosen have a beer with this guy over having one with his joystick-wielding killer.
Having a beer with a guy who the vast majority of even the most conservatively pious Muslims find extreme? #doubtful
Did you even read the article? He says himself that the islamic state is crazy.
And? From *that you deduce he’d consume alcohol?
I have mixed feelings about this article. The guys does want to kill us, after all. The tone just seems to have a jarring “reporting on the boy next door” vibe. On the other hand, it is very important to understand what the grievances are and which may be legitimate.
I dunno. Like I said, mixed feelings.
I appreciate the non-conformism of this article, and the putting of a human face to an angry and perhaps understandable mindset, but feel the need to stress that proactive violence (whether committed by frustrated individuals or corporatist/militarist institutions of Western corruption) is morally wrong.
There is a saying (I saw it in a James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only”): “When going out for revenge, dig two graves.” The Coen Brothers remake of True Grit showed the cost of revenge subtly but brilliantly, by quietly revealing the embittered heroine’s lost limb at the end of the film.
While she could do that, and other journalists here at The Intercept would probably do that, is she under any obligation to add those types of disclaimers?
I think the author is being unfairly criticized in the comments. For one, I don’t see evidence that she’s mourning the subject of the story. Second, people here act as if they know stuff they probably just don’t know. What was Muhannad’s operational role in AQAP, if any? Was he just a spokesman and propagandist? Of course, he wouldn’t be the first guy a lot of people thought deserved to die, without having a clear idea of what he actually did, or simply because of his membership in a group.
I wasn’t criticizing the article, or saying the writer should say what I want, I was just adding my 2 cents.
Get along home…
And I wasn’t referring to you specifically.
I think the point of the article, or what I took from it atleast, is that the USA is alot more corrupt than Al-Qaeda.
Sad that ISIS are making Al Qaida look like moderates by comparison.
I think it’s worth understanding how people are won over to violent extremist groups, but this article may have seemed too sympathetic. Hardly a capital offence though.
Well, he’s in paradise now. A martyr for all time.
Sorry, I don’t see him here. I even asked MLK, Mandela, and Gandhi, but they haven’t seen him anywhere either.
Yup. Living in the body of a green bird, surrounded by 72 virgins… all of whom seem to get a frequent hankering for fried chicken. :)
Yeah, but all 72 are men.
Sufi grrl, you are a hoot! ;)
A little while ago, a picture of a would-be suicide bomber was passed around. The authorities caught him before he could detonate his explosives. They were surprised to see that he had fully covered his male-organ with metal, apparently to prevent it from being blown into pieces.
The conclusion to be drawn from this is obvious.
I do not know where I can find that picture again.
The terrorist with a heart of gold.
*Sniffles*
Indeed. We should all chip in and buy a big box of Kleenex for dear old Glenn and his merry band of terrorism-appeasers, he’s having such a tough time these days. First the American PEN honoring Charlie Hebdo for bravery in the face of Islamofascist murderous violence – slaughtered because they refused to cave in to threats by death-cultists determined to avenge their so-called prophet’s “honor”, and now this, a complex, beautiful, chatty boy killed by big, bad West?
Hope he manages to pull through these difficult times, poor thing.
Do you reject all attempt to understand what just grievances might be motivating Muslim extremists? Do you rule out the possibility that they might be angry about something(s) that would anger a reasonable person?
The contribution of this unintentionally (?) funny piece of fangirl jihadi fluff to our level of understanding of what motivates murderous, misogynist, brainwashed terrorists like this “self-described “liberal” Muslim” (LOL) to engage in acts of terrorism is precisely zero.
Hint: a huge part of that motive is the vile, despicable, “holy” book written by their so-called prophet, which contains gems like these:
Quran (8:12) – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”
Quran (5:33) – “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement”
And while we are on the topic of “understanding”, Nick Cohen mercilessly dismantled the stupidity and mendacity of these current PEN protesters, who are using the same dumb “arguments” that Greenwald has been peddling for years now as supposedly contributing to our understanding of why these murderers do it.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/nick-cohen/2015/04/charlie-hebdo-the-literary-indulgence-of-murder/
Greenwald is willfully blind to the fact that Islam is an imperial project comparable to *every other imperial project* he is condemning in his work, and his repeated attempts to justify his refusal of calling the murderous Islamofascist imperial spade a murderous Islamofascist imperial spade by incessantly wheeling out that dumb Chomsky quote are laughable.
For example, there is nothing marginalized, disenfranchised, and discriminated about radical Islam which was the object of Charlie Hebdo ridicule, and the representatives of which murdered these people in Paris, the same murder this chatty “liberal” condoned. Power relations are fluid and contextually determined.
But be that as it may, you do *not* get to force an entire free society to submit to your irrational internal blasphemy codes about the depiction of your so-called prophet, regardless of your social status, which is precisely what these terrorists including this dearly departed “liberal”, may he rest in pieces, have as a goal – submission of the entire civilized world to their insane beliefs.
Now, now, let’s not be bigots. I’ve made my peace with Jews even tho their bible contains gems like these:
And you really want to take care not to piss off their Man Upstairs:
It would be wrong to take ancient texts — reflecting a sociopathic, sadistic deity — to promote Jew-hatred, don’t you agree?
Finally, and again, I asked you: Do you reject all attempt to understand what just grievances might be motivating Muslim extremists? Do you rule out the possibility that they might be angry about something(s) that would anger a reasonable person?
You should qualify your disdain; it could be misconstrued for the joy you’d feel after learning of the death of an American terrorist.
Think further than your own nose.
If I dwelled on his cheerful support for the Charlie Hebdo and Boston bombing attacks ( http://www.hstoday.us/industry-news/general/single-article/charlie-hebdo-s-jihadi-attackers-tied-to-aqap-more-attacks-may-be-planned/86188f230f35c011700b6288b9b3c757.html ), I could go off track, because while I find his ideas loathsome, that’s not why he died.
From what you say, he died because he was in a war zone, i.e. Yemen, and more specifically, in the process of taking over Mukallah, a city in it, and most specifically, at a genuine military target within it. Now the accounts I’m reading don’t make the seizure of territory, prisons and a central bank from the Yemen government sound especially difficult for military operations; nonetheless, this is not the silencing of someone for their beliefs, however repulsive. It is simply the fortune of war.
The Intercept rightly criticizes many aspects of the U.S. government that desperately need to be criticized, but I’m seeing too many pieces that seem far too accommodating of the opposing position. The U.S. is only one of many bastards fighting on the international stage, and not the cruelest. If we believe that the NSA spying on us is wrong, then ISIS’ summary executions based on its “Crusader database” should really bother us. If the U.S. boots on the ground and avoidable civilian casualties enrage us, then what can we think of Al Qaida’s ground war? Our goal as readers is to find a way to put an end to the constant war, not to join the other side. As the Beatles used to sing, “If you go carryin’ pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow!”
Now I’m not a journalist who dares to try to meet with terrorists! So I should have some understanding that a person in that position might try to sound very sympathetic as a matter of outright survival. And there is even something to be said about a campaign of humanization when there is so much effort to dehumanize. But how far can that rapport go before the reader bails out because he just wants to hurl? Well, about this far.
I couldn’t agree more. Am I supposed to sympathize this guy? Some of us are happy to condemn the US Military and AQAP. Jesus.
“The U.S. is only one of many bastards fighting on the international stage, and not the cruelest.”
I’ll wager the US has the highest body count. Do you need a bucket for that, too?
Trying to measure American global culpability is a tricky thing. Yes, I know about the many and terrible involvements of American schemers – the Shah, Suharto, Somoza, so many others. And I know of a more direct and unambiguously culpable role in monstrosities like the Vietnam War (see http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/22/vietnam-40-years-on-how-communist-victory-gave-way-to-capitalist-corruption ). And I know about Iraq casualties. But a lot of these things are fuzzy on examination. Do we really know that all those people in Indonesia spilling blood for Suharto were purely pawns of American power, with no decision making power of their own? Do we really know that Iraq wouldn’t have ongoing massacres, even sectarian violence as Saddam repressed the Shiites without American involvement? And the U.S. has competition from things it didn’t have a hand in, like Pol Pot or Russia’s campaign in Afghanistan. So I don’t know how many of the bodies are “really” ours, except that it’s too many, and I don’t know who has the biggest bucket of blood, only that it’s too much.
It is, after all, possible to portray other groups as the historical villains, finding ties between them and every misfortune in the world. Traditionally it would be “the Jews” and “Freemasons”, or Communism, or the British royal family. One small thing to count in our favor is that unlike anybody else who has ever been blamed for violence, Americans (the people, I mean, not the elites in charge) love to dig in and help find fault wherever it might be. But we can take such a thing to excess, when we start believing the propaganda about how special and powerful the U.S. is supposed to be, so that we don’t view anyone but one another as credible threats. We ought to know how bogus that is. We couldn’t conquer Vietnam, we couldn’t conquer Iraq, we have only the faintest pretense of power in Afghanistan… if we had a war with China we would literally end up surrendering before it began, because they’d have hacked the computers of the politicians planning it and forced them out before the declaration was past the first draft. America is a power, not a superpower, a frequent villain but not the Devil. You can find connections between all the evil in the world because there is a Devil and he has quite an elaborate plan, but that plan uses America just as it uses Indonesia or Iran or any other country where democracy and freedom have been perverted and denied. It doesn’t end here and it didn’t start here, just goes around and around.
@ WNT
Please link to even one comment from any member of the The Intercept commentariat that has ever “accommodated” the “opposing position” (i.e. that it is ever morally or legally okay for any group to intentionally or recklessly engage in actions that will necessarily harm civilians). I’ll wait.
In fact most take a highly principled and consistent position–it is always legally and morally wrong to do so, whether done by the US Government or organizations of “militant” Muslims.
Your standard rules out things like the Charlie Hebdo articles, or the calls for sparing Tsarnaev’s life, but something like “How the FBI Created a Terrorist” ( https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/?comments=all#comments ) seems far too sympathetic to someone who makes a martyrdom video and intentionally plants what he thinks is a bomb. I also felt like running a story about a “classified” security alert about a possible ISIS attack without waiting for the 48 hours it was supposed to occur in to end was pretty cavalier, even if I do suspect it’s really unlikely there was any truth to it. Domestically there is a parallel tendency of smaller scope, like saying that Ferguson violence was justified and dismissing a murder conviction based on a confession as a “rumor”. Sometimes the Intercept seems at risk of jumping from the frying pan into the fire, you might say.
“far too sympathetic to someone who makes a martyrdom video and intentionally plants what he thinks is a bomb”
Yep.
The term is “fellow traveler”.
Possibly, but not necessarily. What’s interesting is the timing. He became a source for the New York Times and The Intercept, and was killed shortly after. It’s natural to wonder if that’s what precipitated his assassination, and whether the US targets people not just because they are thought to be violent, but in some cases because they are seen as propagandists (which might have been the case with al-Awlaki.)
Yes, the US doesn’t want the “enemy” to have a voice or even to appear human.
The U.S. kind of earns this suspiciousness by not having real soldiers in charge of its drones, making their decisions in accordance with a military sense of honor, and instead resorting to reportedly outrageous hocus-pocus like unspecified “behavioral characteristics” measured by machine. But when al-Qaida makes the world news for expanding its reach into one city, I’m not going to think that a group of people involved in the invasion were targeted because of a news contact. Occam’s Razor, like American drones, is not altogether trustworthy, but it still doesn’t seem like a bad bet.
Hopefully he suffered a little before he died. Imagine interviewing a Nazi trying to “figure out” what makes them tick while they murder their way across Europe. Stupid article. Stupid journalist. Borderline treasonous.
It’s very disconcerting to have journalism and free expression, even types I dislike, characterized as “borderline treasonous”, as if simply writing words down and having certain thoughts could ever be rationally construed as “treasonous”.
Maybe you should try to familiarize yourself with the concept of liberalism and the First Amendment specifically, because clearly you have some very odd notions about western civilization.
“Borderline treasonous.”
The two words go well together. If I happen to be born on one side of a border whose ideology or theology or whatever ology I abhor and choose to cross that border because on the other side of that border a completely different ology, one to which I agree, is the law of the land. I didn’t choose to be born on the side whose ology I disdainned, yet by crossing that border to align my beliefs with my residence, I become treasonous. The way I see our system is you must believe as the government tells you or risk being labled a traitor. We arrest people for attempting to go to Syria to fight with ISIS, yet at that point all that was done was someone tried to leave. Just looking at things without the filters. The bogeyman comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors. We’ve had the Indians, the Mexicans, the Hun(WWI), the Nazis(WWII), the Viet Cong, the commies, and now this amorphous creature we call terrorists. They’re the best ’cause they aren’t constrained by borderlines.
“Borderline treasonous.”
I disagree. I think it’s important to understand what makes those who our country has declared to be an enemy tick, so that we might be able to find some way to end this conflict (although it’s questionable whether the current ruling Establishment, backed by corporations and other interests that profit monetarily from war, actually wants this conflict to ever end). For instance, imagine if someone had managed to get information to the Allies in WW2 that the people involved in Operation Valkyrie were serious, and that they were about to try to overthrow Hitler? The war might have ended months earlier than it did, many lives and many resources could have been saved as a result of the Allies helping to make Operation Valkyrie succeed instead of fail as it did.
Works of journalism like the one we’re commenting about are also important because it helps remind us that the people we’ve declared to be enemies are still human beings, an important fact to remember if we are to avoid becoming the very thing we claim to be against. However, it might well be too late. Our country, through decades of the CIA and the ruling Establishment’s numerous attempted and actual overthrows of democratically elected governments that posed little if any threat to the world, its drone program that hits way more innocent civilians than actual terrorists, its funding of deeply authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes, and even torture programs, is now little better than that which we claim to be against. In essence, the spiritual death Martin Luther King Jr. warned us about decades ago.
http://greenshadowcabinet.us/statements/decline-and-fall-united-states
“those who our country has declared to be an enemy”
You and I are our country and I never declared anyone to be an enemy. My point was that just because someone or some group in the country in which I live decides this way or that way of thinking or behaving to be either treasonous or patriotic means the choice is not mine. There is no dialogue or choice without risking calls of treason by disagreeing.
jgreen, I had wanted to express something like what you said, but I wasn’t sure how exactly to put it into words, so I fell back on that. Thanks for helping me out there. There are times that I just feel as though, despite all of my efforts otherwise (I’m rather active in my area’s local Green Party, for instance), I’m being swept up in a fast moving current, the current being the vast majority of voters who keep on voting for the people who currently run (ruin would be more accurate) this country. Much of the world is starting to view our country as a whole through those 95-98% of voters. It’s just maddening.
“Much of the world is starting to view our country as a whole through those 95-98% of voters.”
I do, and why would anyone have ever viewed the U.S. I any other way? It is a long overdue alignment of perceptions with reality.
You seem to find American voting habits to be at the core of the problems. I hope you are not maddened by others who agree with you. (I don’t think you do, but want more self-proclaimed American Innocents to see my/our point.)
Thanks for letting us know a little about what makes you tick.
And listening to Americans explain what makes them tick while murdering their way across the Middle East and a few other regions would be stupid and borderline treasonous too, right?
You mourn the death of a man who would cheerfully have slit your throat in the name of his crusade. Ponder that for a while.
Good riddance to him and his fellow travelers whose ambition is to enslave the women of the Muslim world and force all Muslims under a single totalitarian caliphate.
Good riddance to bad, murderous, terrorist trash. May there be many more strikes, with many more deaths.
Seeing that it upsets Glenn Greenwald and his appeasnik ilk is just an added bonus.
I always like to examine all sides of issues and this piece provides a refreshing glimpse not generally presented elsewhere in the US Media.
It is interesting how this article interplays with others presently running on TI most notably the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev defense and the ones pertaining to the controversy surrounding the PEN America Award of Courage to Charlie Hebdo.
Perhaps a more detailed analysis of Al Qaeda in relation to US empiric Middle Eastern interests would be helpful in the overview of “terror” recognition both nationally and internationally.
“Al Qaeda, U.S. Oil Companies, and Central Asia”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/al-qaeda-u-s-oil-companies-and-central-asia/762
The end game is all about economic domination of humanity resulting in endless wars, death, and destruction of planet Earth for the benefit of the 0.01% elite few at the expense of the many.
Thanks for the article.
Well said, Lyra. I appreciated this article for the same reason.
If we’re ever to break this vicious circle, we need to start listening to all sides of the debate, and there are far more than two.
Glad to hear that I’m not alone in this viewpoint Morning’s Minion.
Amen. I’m with you too.
I read the article because it appeared that, for once, one could hear directly from someone on “the other side” that we claim is a terrorist. It was not too long ago that positive articles appeared about some of the neo-Nazi Organizations that are still fighting in the Ukraine. Many here complained and I really can’t remember what I posted. In any case, if the Intercept is going to produce cutting edge journalism here in the West, then these articles are essential–whether they are about AQAP ‘Terrorists’ or neo-Nazis fighting to smash all Russian Influence in Eastern Ukraine.
Burn in hell you piece of shit!
“But perhaps the real loss is a window — however small — into a way of thinking not as far removed from our own as many would have us believe.”
What “way of thinking” would that be? The one that “trumpeted the Boston bombings” which resulted in the death and maiming of innocent civilians, the very thing he claims to be against?
Fact is, anyone – neocon or AQ – who tries to legitimate the cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians is evil.
So you have no interest in learning how a “lover of American culture and a self-described ‘liberal’ Muslim who never prayed” got converted to the “way of thinking” that “[trumpets] the Boston bombings”, and how US policies may have contributed to that conversion?
I’m already well aware of how he got to be that way, and I am not the least bit offended to hear a differing perspective, even one from an AQ operative, but when the author of the article tries to characterize his murderous viewpoints as “a way of thinking not too far from our own”, I question who, exactly, the author is referring to when they say “our”, as if I’m supposed to identify with someone who celebrates the death of innocent civilians.
“I am not the least bit offended to hear a differing perspective, even one from an AQ operative, but …”
Yeah, you’re not offended; you just wish the differing perspective was more palatable.
The concept is referred to as walking a mile in another’s shoes; shoes that are different from the ones you wear.
Try addressing the entirety of my argument instead of manipulating the context of my statements through selective quotations. Here is the part you decided to ignore: “…when the author of the article tries to characterize his murderous viewpoints as “a way of thinking not too far from our own”, I question who, exactly, the author is referring to when they say “our”, as if I’m supposed to identify with someone who celebrates the death of innocent civilians.”
So what is your response to that? Or don’t you have one?
Would you call Bill O’Reily “evil”?
He legitimizes cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians everyday.
So do all anchors on CNN and MSNBC.
Your point is well-taken, but does he really try to legitimate them? I’m not so sure. Usually, western media figures like O’Reilly will say that the death of innocent civilians – callously and euphemistically referred to as “collateral damage” – is unintentional and sad, whereas this AQ operative seems to revel in the intentional targeting, maiming, and killing of non-combatants, which was the explicit purpose of acts like the Boston bombing.
Of course, the end result of both actions is the same – the death of innocent civilians – so perhaps it is a distinction without much difference, but it is a distinction nonetheless. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Re: kg – Apr 29 @ 4:49 PM –
It does not seem to be a matter of you being either wrong or correct, just a little tilted towards being incurious and unwilling to have your linear assumptions and bias disrupted by the informed opinions and discussion of other equally “innocent civilians”.
Ironically, your earlier use of the word “legitimate”, saying in pertinent part;
seems to be a flawed attempt to accuse someone of trying to legitimize such behavior? Who might that be?
As Usual,
EA
Not sure what you’re talking about. I’m consistent and ardent in my opposition to the murder of innocent civilians by the US government and have no problem confronting the evil inherent in such policies. I simply object to the author’s characterization of Ghallab as possessing “a way of thinking not as far removed from our own as many would have us believe”. I am a classical liberal, which means my “way of thinking” is about as far removed from an Islamic extremist who celebrates the murder of innocent civilians as can be. For some reason, none of my detractors have attempted to speak to this.
I’m sure those on the receiving end of laser guided munitions really appreciate the distinction …
Again, how many Muslim wedding parties have been obliterated by airstrikes?
What does any of this have to do with the author’s characterization as Ghallab’s beliefs – which include the intentional targeting, maiming, and murder of civilians – as “a way of thinking not too far from our own”?
Are you going to address the crux of my argument or are you going to keep dancing around the main point in a lame attempt to mischaracterize my position?
I guess I should have been more precise in my language, because O’Reilly IS guilty of trying to legitimate the cold-blooded murder of civilians. So you are right in that respect.
But am I the only one who sees a moral or ethical difference between advocating and celebrating the INTENTIONAL targeting, maiming, and murder of civilians and someone who says that “collateral damage” is a regrettable but unavoidable component of warfare?
I will concede that both views are evil, but would it be fair to say that one view is MORE evil than the other? At least in theory, if not practice?
Sounds like such a nice and wonderful guy. A gift to humanity. Now, who will Jeremy Scahill depend on for his “deep” AQP “sources?”
I am overwhelmed…
May Allah accept you.
I wish he hadn’t said what he did about the Islamic State, but may Allah forgive him and guide us to His path.
Oh dear. *So* funny. This rag has readers voicing their support for terrorists *in religious terms*, while their entire pathetic lying agenda is “this has nothing to do with Islam.”
And yet, here you are, along with a motley crewe of willfully uninformed naysayers, proudly displaying your ignorance in writing for posterity.
As Usual,
EA
“a motley crew of willfully uninformed naysayers proudly displaying ignorance in writing for posterity”
A perfect description of terrorism-appeasers and “but-brigade” members, as Salman Rushdie so memorably called people like Glenn Greenwald and his ilk – the latest three dozen cowardly PEN protesters included – when they started “but-but-butting” after the Charlie Hebdo Islamist atrocity, making every effort to “understand” and “humanize” the murderous “poor, oppressed, and marginalized” terrorists.
It’s a pleasure to observe this car crash of a “magazine” in its death throes, hopefully going over the cliff very soon.
They also let your comments through, so your complaint is pointless.
Her comments will be cut soon.
*chuckle*
For all we know the “Anonymous” could be your friend..I’m sure some Saudi wahhabi financiers of IS and AQ read WashPost,BBC and NYTimes, btw.