A secret FBI study found that anger over U.S. military operations abroad was the most commonly cited motivation for individuals involved in cases of “homegrown” terrorism. The report also identified no coherent pattern to “radicalization,” concluding that it remained near impossible to predict future violent acts.
The study, reviewed by The Intercept, was conducted in 2012 by a unit in the FBI’s counterterrorism division and surveyed intelligence analysts and FBI special agents across the United States who were responsible for nearly 200 cases, both open and closed, involving “homegrown violent extremists.” The survey responses reinforced the FBI’s conclusion that such individuals “frequently believe the U.S. military is committing atrocities in Muslim countries, thereby justifying their violent aspirations.”
Online relationships and exposure to English-language militant propaganda and “ideologues” like Anwar al-Awlaki are also cited as “key factors” driving extremism. But grievances over U.S. military action ranked far above any other factor, turning up in 18 percent of all cases, with additional cases citing a “perceived war against Islam,” “perceived discrimination,” or other more specific incidents. The report notes that between 2009 and 2012, 10 out of 16 attempted or successful terrorist attacks in the United States targeted military facilities or personnel.
Overall, the survey confirmed the “highly individualized nature of the radicalization process,” a finding consistent with outside scholarship on the subject.
“Numerous individuals, activities, or experiences can contribute to an extremist’s radicalization,” the report says. “It can be difficult, if not impossible, to predict for any given individual what factor or combination of factors will prompt that individual’s radicalization or mobilization to violence.”
The report is titled “Homegrown Violent Extremists: Survey Confirms Key Assessments, Reveals New Insights about Radicalization.” It is dated December 20, 2012. An FBI unit called the “Americas Fusion Cell” surveyed agents responsible for 198 “current and disrupted [homegrown violent extremists],” which the report says represented a fraction of all “pending, U.S.-based Sunni extremist cases” at the time. The survey seems designed to look only at Muslim violent extremism. (The FBI declined to comment.)
Agents were asked over 100 questions about their subjects in order to “identify what role, if any,” particular factors played in their radicalization — listed as “known radicalizers,” extremist propaganda, participation in web forums, family members, “affiliation with religious, student, or social organization(s) where extremist views are expressed,” overseas travel, prison or military experience, and “significant life events and/or grievances.”
Among the factors that did not “significantly contribute” to radicalization, the study found, were prison time, military service, and international travel. Although, the report notes, “the FBI historically has been concerned about the potential for prison radicalization,” in fact, “survey results indicate incarceration was rarely influential.” The report ends with recommendations that agents focus their attention on web forums, social media, and other online interactions, and step up surveillance of “known radicalizers” and those who contact them.
The study echoes previous findings, including a 2011 FBI intelligence assessment, recently released to MuckRock through a public records request, which concluded that “a broadening U.S. military presence overseas” was a motivating factor for a rise in plotted attacks, specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That study also found “no demographic patterns” among the plotters.
“Insofar as there is an identifiable motivation in most of these cases it has to do with outrage over what is happening overseas,” says John Mueller, a senior research scientist with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University and co-author of “Chasing Ghosts: The Policing of Terrorism.”
“People read news reports about atrocities and become angry,” Mueller said, adding that such reports are often perceived as an attack on one’s own in-group, religion, or cultural heritage. “It doesn’t have to be information from a jihadist website that angers someone, it could be a New York Times report about a drone strike that kills a bunch of civilians in Afghanistan.”
Perpetrators of more recent attacks have latched onto U.S. foreign policy to justify violence. The journals of Ahmad Rahami, accused of bombings in Manhattan and New Jersey last month, cited wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. In a 911 call, Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people in an Orlando nightclub earlier this year, claimed he acted in retaliation for a U.S. airstrike on an ISIS fighter. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated his and his brother’s attack on the Boston Marathon.
In many of these cases, pundits and politicians focus on the role of religion, something Marc Sageman, a former CIA officer and author of “Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century,” describes as a “red herring,” citing a history of shifting ideologies used to justify terrorist acts.
President Barack Obama speaks during the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism on Feb. 19, 2015, in Washington, D.C.
Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
The U.S. government has announced plans to spend millions of dollars on “Countering Violent Extremism” initiatives, which are supposed to involve community members in spotting and stopping would-be extremists. These initiatives have been criticized as discriminatory, because they have focused almost exclusively on Muslim communities while ignoring political motivations behind radicalization.
“Politicians try very hard not to talk about foreign policy or military action being a major contributor to homegrown terrorism,” Sageman says, adding that government reticence to share raw data from terrorism cases with academia has hindered analysis of the subject.
The limits of the CVE focus on community involvement are clear in cases of individuals like Rahami, whose behavior did raise red flags for those around them; Rahami’s own father referred him to the FBI. In his case, authorities did not find enough concerning evidence ahead of the attack to arrest him, underscoring the difficulty of interdicting individuals who may be inspired by organized terror groups despite having no obvious actual connection to them.
Sageman says that the shortcomings of CVE models reflect a misapprehension of what drives political violence.
“Terrorism is very much a product of individuals identifying themselves with a group that appears to be the target of aggression and reacting violently to that,” he says. “Continued U.S. military action will inevitably drive terrorist activities in this country, because some local people here will identify themselves with the victims of those actions abroad.”
Correction, October 15: This article originally misstated the name of the brother who spoke with investigators about his motivations for the Boston bombing; it was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, not Tamerlan.
Top photo: A member of the U.S. Air Force looks over flight paperwork inside a KC-135 Stratotanker flying over Iraq on March 17, 2016, in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.
“perceived war against Islam,”
Given Islamic history, the word “irony” springs to mind.
America’s crusade against Muslims has cost Americans $5,000,000,000,000.00 so far.
Weapons manufacturers, and the politicians they own, CREATED the enemies with which they coerced a cowering American public into submitting to this never-ending, perpetually escalating, multi-trillion dollar protection racket.
The fact that these wars were started by war profiteers, SHOULD be enough reason for even the most stubbornly uninformed to LOOK at how brutally dishonest these wars are.
First, America’s war-mongers did what was CERTAIN to create enemies (invade countries full of innocent people).
Then, America waited for the rest of the world to tell it that it was wrong, before finally acknowledging that arbitrarily slaughtering people – and treating the victims, and their loved ones, as if THEY are the murderers – causes people to FIGHT BACK.
Now, despite undeniably KNOWING that our hostilities only INCREASE the number of enemies America has, America just keeps doing the same thing anyway.
In a domestic context, it’s the FBI that provides the persistent oppressive threat, necessary to make enemies of innocent Muslims.
The FBI is so suffocating, that it not only prevents Muslims from having a place to pray without being watched by malicious spies, but it even infiltrates student-groups. The FBI layers emotional isolation on top of oppression.
One certainty: This ‘study’ – and the decades-late ‘revelation’ it resulted in – will not improve the FBI’s perspective, and will not correct the FBI’s overbearing provocation.
America’s ruling class has no interest in decreasing terrorism. War profiteers capitalize on every ounce of fear they can squeeze out of the American population.
The only way America makes enemies is by producing weapons. And the only reason terrorists hate America is because America created them.
Terrorists > America
No America=no terrorists
No America=no problem
Muslims vs. America
Easy as one two three.
No. We can’t keep provoking the Islamists so recklessly anymore. Cease resisting and all will be well.
If you want blood so badly, then PAY YOUR OWN COSTS. While you’re at it, DO YOUR OWN CRIMES.
There is no justification for using the US military (OR the FBI) to serve the interests of a tiny circle of plundering billionaires.
Americans gain NOTHING by attacking innocent Muslims (OTHER than to become targets of revenge).
I don’t want anybody’s blood. The terrorists on the hand, want ours very, very badly. And of course we gain nothing by attacking innocent civilians.
But, if you have a magical solution that allows us to strike at groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda while risking zero innocent civilian lives, I am all ears.
Also, groups like ISIS attack innocent Muslims on a much larger scale.
America is being financially strangled to death, by the same circle of profiteers who are directing the slaughter of innocents in the Middle East. Despite that fact, there are Americans who support the savage profiteers, just because they enjoy bigoted war propaganda.
1) America is NOT ENTITLED to murder every human being who hates America.
2) America is NOT CAPABLE of murdering every human being who hates America.
3) America’s murderous savagery is what CREATED ISIS.
4) More murderous savagery can ONLY result in more retaliation.
5) Naming people who hate America “terrorists” changes NOTHING.
There is no “magical solution” to the fact that people fight back when hostile criminals invade their countries and slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
The fact that there is no “magical solution” to mass-murder, DOES NOT serve as an excuse to KEEP murdering people.
If you are honestly so morally retarded that you can’t understand that (even after having had it explained to you, at length, repeatedly, over the course of weeks), then why should anyone react to your ‘opinion’ with anything other than contempt, monster?
Again. America did not invent the ideology of political Islam, nor did it create the ideology of offensive jihad. And of course America is not entiteld to murder. The problem with the murder allegation is that the US sees its conflict with groupls like ISIS and al-Qaeda as a war—which happens to be the same way these groups alos view it. And, again, as has been explained to you, groups like ISIS do not NEED American “provocations” to wage jihad or commit atrocities. Just look at ISIS’s own statements.
There is a difference between wartime action and peacetime law enforcement. Nor is the US murdering “every human being that hates America.” I guess you think the West should just sit back and take whatever attacks terrorists inflict?
Also, “war profiteers”? You actually think wars are good for the economy? That’s funny.
Sadly, this isn’t the first incident:
2004 Pentagon-commissioned report specified in listing the causes of terrorism: “American direct intervention in the Muslim world”; our “one-sided support in favor of Israel”; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, “the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.” The report concluded: “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies.” Countless individuals who carried out or plotted attacks on the West have said the same.
Nobody should need official reports or statements from attackers to confirm what common sense makes clear: If you go around the world for years proclaiming yourself “at war,” bombing and occupying and otherwise interfering in numerous countries for your own ends — as the U.S. and U.K. have been doing for decades, long before 9/11 — ……..The Chilcot Report, the U.K.’s official investigation
That is either from the intercept – or – Global Research
….BUT the TRUTH is our government is not interested in P E A C E …
The West is far more interested in peace than groups like ISIS.
really? Then why are we always at war and debating about the next country to bomb? As far as I know the US’ been at war consistently for far longer than ISIS has even existed, and on foreign soil.
That’s not to say that ISIS is pacifist. That’d be dumb. But I find it pretty hard to look at the nations that have colonized the world and still are constantly at war in an effort to retain their power and influence, and to proclaim that they’re are “more interested in peace” than anyone.
It would be an oversimpligfication to say that the “US” is not interested in peace, or the “West” is not interested in peace.
The US pulled out of Iraq in hopes of ending a war that the Obama administration viewed as follish and that the US populace was tired of. Peace there would definitely have been in the interests of both Iraqis and Americans, obviously. Did the US decide to immediately jump back into Iraq follwoing the 2011 withdrawal? Nope. It took about three years for us to jump back in, at a time when both the preisdent and the American people hoped to find a way to stay out of the conflict.
Unfortunately for Americans, Iraqis, Syrians, and civilization, groups like ISIS are not interested in our version of peace.
It’s not like the United States president can just wake up one morning and say, “Well let’s have peace. I have a simpele solution: isolationism. Afterwards, let’s just pretend that groups like ISIS don’t even exist.”
It’d be nice, though, right? And one would be hard-pressed to describe the modern United States of the 21swt century as a colonialist power.
the US tried to withdraw from Iraq mostly because of the cost of it, and because it thought the puppet standing army it had raised there would be able to manage.
I mean of course the US would prefer to be able to dominate the world without having to pay the bill that comes with it. That colonial powers would prefer it to be easy doesn’t mean their interest is in peace. The point is probably just to secure some stability in order to allow investments and exploit resources. That the war itself is a means and not an ends doesn’t change anything. If war is favored and perpetuated by a country to further its interests then it’s not interested in peace.
Any country would be interested in peace after a disastrous mess like the Iraq war. And of course the war is a means to an end.
” If war is favored and perpetuated by a country to further its interests then it’s not interested in peace.” In theory, yes. But, of course, not all American citizens or even poliycmakers were in favor of a war with Iraq.
There aren’t many things about which I’m totally sure in this life. But one of them is that worldclass and neuro-scientist hack Sam Harris will not read or acknowledge these reports the next time he decides to shit on muslims.
meant “worldclass idiot”, sorry about that.
Ron Paul said it in 2004, and Rudy Giuliani demanded he apologize for saying so.
Paul was not nominated for the presidency, and neither was Giuliani. The nominee, McCain, wasn’t elected.
In 2009, British journalist, Johann Hari, wrote an investigative piece on former Islamic radicals. Though these ex-militants have very diverse backgrounds, they all stress two critical facts: (1) the more the foreign policy of the West is seen as aggressive, violent and oppressive to the Muslim world, the easier it is to convert Muslims to violent radicalism, including ISIS, and (2) the most potent weapon for undermining Islamic extremism is the efforts of Westerners to work against their own governments’ belligerent policies, my emphasis:
It matters what Muslims see you say, what they see you do, what they see you advocate. If you are a Westerner — especially an American or Brit– young Muslims know very well that your country has committed great crimes against many Muslims and Muslim nations. They know many of you disdain their religion in its every manifestation.
The single best things you could do to prevent recruits into Islamic radicalism is to 1. cease saying anti-Muslim things, and 2. own your country’s history of violence against Muslims and be conspicuous in your apologies for it.
Clarification: I meant to put this in parentheses: ” including ISIS.” ISIS did not yet exist; my point is that the same dynamics facilitate recruitment into that group.
If only the legions of Intercept commentators and writers had been in political office from 2001 to 2014.
I can guarantee that the Middle East would have been a peaceful, blooming paradise for decades as a result.
Non sequitur. Misdirection. Ad hominem.
A collection of fallacies does not address the findings of the report Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld commissioned from the Defense Science Board.
Nor does a collection of fallacies rebut the findings of the report from the Brennan Center for Justice, (which in turn cites the UK’s intel service, MI5). Terrorism cannot be adequately dealt with unless its causes are actually understood. You, and many like you, prefer to reject the overwhelming, credible findings about the causes because they do not comport with your bigotry.
Therefore, you are an actual danger. Willful ignorance is virtually always dangerous.
As opposed to your ignorance of ISIS’s explicit insistence that they view this as a religious war?
I’ve said nothing evincing “ignorance” about ISIS, but rather have demonstrated more knowledge of it than you possess.
ISIS exists on multiple levels. There are the leaders who founded the group in the cauldron of war and devastation in Iraq; they are nihilists who thrive on the horrors they commit. Then there are the malleable and ignorant recruits, including some Western ones. Most recruits are lured into ISIS for the same reasons all Islamic terrorist groups attract recruits — actual political grievances. (A few are simply mentally ill.)
You can dismiss every single expert study as merely the stuff of “theory,” or you can consider ending Western policies that make terrorist groups attractive to young Muslim males. But you will have to overcome your preconceived notions to get there. You are not alone in that.
That ISIS sees this as a religious war doesn’t mean that the root cause for ISIS is religious, let alone that this idea of religious war is the proof that there’s something wrong with the religion they derive their own ideology from.
The concept is pretty simple, really: people who get bombed for decades tend to get pissed and want to fight back. I really don’t see what’s so hard to understand in that.
Why did they get “pissed off,” though?
They view this as a religious war; thus they do not NEED excuses or “provocations” to slaughter minorities, other Muslims, and countries that have no history of Middle Eastern military interventions.
Again, your argument relies on a willful ignorance of ISIS’s own clarifications that this is not about “grievances.”
“Terrorism cannot be adequately dealt with unless its causes are actually understood.” In theory, yes. In reality, this threat is here for the long haul. Solving the “root problems” is a practical impossibility.
Especially with a group like ISIS.
Well that’s a bit of a strawman. I don’t think anyone here is positing that there is absolutely no terrorist on earth whose actions were primarily driven by religion. That will always happen. So whoever wrote their “6 reasons why we hate you” or whatever it was may very well think that. Or it may just be another pawn on the board to quiet a growing narrative that we might start looking at what our governments are doing in the world instead of simply vilifying muslims. After all, it’s been known for a while that ISIS aims at eliminating the “grey zone” of cohabitation between the west and muslims.
But then even if these claims to hate were genuine, that speaks for a few people. There are many documented examples of young men enrolling in these groups were in fact not very religious and had never even read the quran. They went there to fight against perceived injustices and atrocities.
Bottom line is, sure there are some actual religious extremists out there. They may even be driving the whole thing. But religion and the specific tenets of Islam isn’t hwo they get their power and support, how they motivate numbers of people to enroll with them, how they get their money and weapons, etc. There are a bunch of nuts out there, and right here as well, who if they were given the same opportunity to rally up populations behind their sick plans might do just as bad or even worse. Who’s Hitler again?
@Zhang Wei
Are these terrorist apologists?:
1. The FBI study written of above;
2. Defense Science Board Studies procured by the Pentagon; and
3. Academic studies (that cite MI5 studies) on the causes of radicalization such as the Brennan Center for Justice study, “Rethinking Radicalization.”
I’ve dealt with bigots such as Mac McAcoy, Zhang Wei, Hans Weiler, and Owen Broder before, including in the context of opposing antisemitism.
It’s very common for Neo-Nazis and not-quote-that-extreme bigots to single out Talmud excerpts to argue that Jews are: dishonest liars, thieves, and anti-gentile manipulators and connivers. There are many verses these bigots can and do cite, such as:
I assure you, there are many, many more.
One can always lift such commentary out of context, ignore how few Jews even still adhere to it (or ever did), how many have repudiated it, the historical reasons that might have given rise to it & etc. One can refuse to consider what experts in hermeneutics and the history and culture of Judaism find about such passages. And if one does all that, one is an antisemite and racist.
Indeed, today one can easily find heinous rabbis publishing horrible (but some what popular among Zionists) books arguing that Jewish life is far more precious than any other kind and that enemy babies may properly be slaughtered. These rabbis invoke their scripture and sacred writing to justify their views.
And anyone who holds up these passages, and these rabbis, as typical of Jews — as what “Judaism is — is an antisemite and racist. In this thread we have anti-Muslim racists operating in the same way: they “know what they know,” and no studies or expert analysis are going to change their preferred, bigoted narrative.
Quoting ISIS’s own words does not make one a bigot. Duh.
No, because I’m not a bigot and I quote ISIS. You are a bigot. You absolutely will not address or deal with the extremely credible sources that undermine your preferred, bigoted narrative:
You are also a bigot because, quite incredibly, you claim that if a party was bombing your city, you would not want to harm that party because, you absurdly insist, your religion does not “explicitly” teach you to do that. Neither does Islam, and you absolutely would want to reach out and harm anyone bombing your city. Denying it is to deny human nature, and is literally unbelievable.
But you deny it because you must make Muslims and their religion uniquely awful. Because you are a bigot.
You quoted ISIS? So did I.
Apparently, papers written by Westerners are credible because they seemingly support your argument. But actual statements by jihadists themselves can be dismissed out of hand, because they don’t. Got it, thanks.
Also, the thing about Islamic teachings is that they could, arguably, be used to justify violence. If I was steeped in that culture and taught to hate infidels and view life as a war, then sure, I would want to harm the party that is bombing my hometown. According to you, any human put into a situation like that will automatically retaliate, all the time.
Now if I was steeped in Islamist and jihadist teachings, maybe I would. But, of course, not all religions encourage its adherents to retaliate for injustices. Christianity, for example.
I don’t want to make Muslims “uniquely awful.” I never even called any Muslims awful. I was just explaining the religious justifications for what jihadists do.
Interesting. I didn’t know westerners invented the concept of offensive jihad.
More non sequitur and misdirection.
What racists? The people here are just using ISIS’s own words to explain their motivations. How is that racist?
Also, what does the Talmud have to do with anything? I don’t know about the other commentors, but I myself am not a neo-Nazi. Also, not all Jews or Christians consider the Talmud to be “inspired,” in the sense that the 66 canonical biblical books are inspired.
Nobody here ever claimed that the practices of people like ISIS are “typical of” most Muslims.
Comments such as:
And comments like this:
Like others have said, groups like ISIS interpret their Qu’rans literally.
Meh, leave her be. Along with all of the other terrorist apologists.
And comments like this, my emphasis:
That last is from an author published at the well-known anti-Muslim hate site, Frontpage magazine.
Actually, the last is from one of bin Laden’s PRIVATE LETTERS. It was not written by Ibrahim.
I’m not sure, but…Mona’s argument here sort of seems more Craig Summers than Craig Summers. Or maybe just deep cover IDF embedded narrative that on one hand castigates zionists in one breath, and redeems the entire ethnocentric zionist narrative in the next? Yes- some of us are old enough to remember how Jews were themselves the ‘mad bomber’ anarchists and terrorists they now create.
So, Mona: how do you suggest the ‘anti-semites’ in the crowd address the gross dialectic privileged narrative of ‘Jewishness,’ or the gross and distorted- sickening, deafening, stifling influence in American speech and politics? Or income inequalities that exist between Jews and gentiles as ‘groups’ of people?
I mean- Jewish genius, right? Luck? Good genes? Coincidence? Maybe “G-d” is working behind the curtain in the Jewish high court? Or are the dying people of every war of the last several centuries that were primarily for the benefit of “Zionists” really a eugenic, racist narrative themselves?
Or- dialectic privilege, and the Holocaust industry? Or? But either way, you come off sounding a bit double edged these days.
Ending US military operations in the Middle East will not prevent jihadists from waging terrorism. There is a much better, much more effective way to prevent jihadist terrorist attacks:
Have every single person in the world convert to Islam. Simple.
The world acording to The Intercept:
http://markhumphrys.com/Images/939.jpg
Well, that graphic does illustrate a basic truth of human nature. But “the world” according to this site, certainly vis-a-vis Islamic terrorism, is understood by sources such as:
1. FBI studies;
2. Defense Science Board Studies procured by the Pentagon; and
3. Academic studies on the causes of radicalization such as the Brennan Center for Justice study, “Rethinking Radicalization.”
Basing arguments and conclusions on such empirical findings and expert analysis is displeasing to bigots. They generally prefer to have their anti-Muslim hatred left undisturbed by facts and sound analysis, of the kind needed by those charged with preventing terrorism.
Facts such as the statements by jihadists themselves that reveal they view this as a religious war.
Do you think the FBI, the Defense Science Board, The Brennan Center (and all the sources they cite, such as the UK’s MI5) don’t know that? Are they wrong about how to interpret that?
Or is it, perhaps the case, that this site is safe relying on such sources?
If it weren’t “retaliation” for US “military aggression,” it’d just be something else. Jihadist groups do not wage defensive wars or kill civilians merely for “retaliation.”
Just ask the Belgians or the huge number of Muslims that these groups feel obliged to terrorize. Or jihadist leaders who have explicitly stated that they attack for religious reasons, rather than just “retaliation.”
You have repeatedly refused to address all of this:
You are, then, almost certainly a bigot who is unwilling to let facts and reason stand in the way of his preferred, racist narrative. History is littered with bigots like you who do not fare well when historical judgment is rendered.
Only one problem with your precious studies: Islamist leaders THEMSELVES have explicitly laid out the religious reasoning for their terrorist strategy.
I am not a racist: I am using the very words of Islamists to explain their thinking. According to you, the reams of paper produced by Western academics are more authoritative than the clear statements of Islamists themselves.
they are not “my” studies, precious or otherwise. They are the studies relied upon by those charged with preventing terrorism. The UK’s MI5, the FBI, and the Pentagon.
You sure do a good imitation. For you privilege your own take on select writings over the facts adduced by, and reasoned analysis of, the experts relied upon by agencies charged with combating radicalization and terrorism. Why is that?
Nah. ISIS executing Yazidi girls for refusing to become sex slaves is clearly the sign of a political grievance against US military operations. As are the crucifixions, massacres, and beheadings, of course, and the use of child soldiers, obviously.
Dabiq number 15 clearly spells that out, right?
“This is a divinely-warranted war between the Muslim nation and the nations of disbelief. Indeed, waging jihad—spreading the rule of Allah by the sword—is an obligation found in the Quran, the word of our Lord, just as it was an obligation sent in the Torah, the Psalms and the Gospel.”
Hmm. Are jihadist “grievances” based on universal standards of justice and equality? Or a supremacist worldview? Clearly the latter. Also interesting from reading the issues of Dabiq: it becomes clear that the primary targets of ISIS are apostate Muslims (who, of course, make up the vast majority of the group’s victims)
When speaking to Western audiences, jihadists claim that their attacks are just byproducts of Western foreign policy. However, when speaking to Muslims, they stress that jihad is obligatory.
Even bin Laden was pretty clear about that:
“Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue — one that demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice — and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?”
(https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4353/ny-times-al-qaeda)
Jihad al-Talab appears to be the ultimate problem. But of course, Islamist allusions to offensive jihad will continue to fall on deaf ears.
The biggest grievance of the average ISIS fighter is probably that his knife has gotten dull from so many beheadings.
Does the above-cited FBI study apply to all global jihadist networks? No, it does not.
The notion that religion and politics have separate roles in our personal and social lives is a distinctly Western idea. This concept is not found in Islamic tradition, and modern jihadists do not recognize it.
When people claim that these are just political grievances, they are ignoring the statements of jihadists themselves. These groups love to tell us how their motivations are religious; they talk about the caliphate and sharia law all the time. They cite the Qu’ran and the hadith all the time.
Some Westerners argue that their interpretation of Islamic texts and tradition is not shared by most Muslims, and that their aims are merely political. That these groups just use Islam to legitimate a political agenda. The explanation is a lot simpler: they really do believe what they say they believe. That the jihadists’ interpretation of Islam’s religious texts and tradition is not shared by the majority of Muslims, and that their aims look “political” to Western eyes, is NOT evidence that those interpretations are not genuinely held and that religious belief is not a key motivation for their actions.
The notion that religion and politics have separate roles in our personal and social lives is a distinctively Western idea. It is not a concept found in Islam’s theological tradition, nor one recognized by today’s jihadists.
For Muslims, Allah’s law extends into domains considered secular in the West, such as criminal law, inheritance law and treaties. This helps explain why the actions of jihadists can appear “political” to the Western observer and at the same time be conceived as “religious” by the actors themselves.
Jihadists tell us at every breath that their goals and motivations are religious, whether the aspiration to revive the caliphate or the desire to implement sharia. They incessantly cite passages from the Qu’ran, the sayings and actions of Muhammad, and classical and contemporary commentaries on those texts to support their claims.
Some commentators maintain that jihadists are cynically using Islam to legitimate their exclusively political agendas. But the evidence points to a far simpler explanation: jihadists really do believe what they say they believe. That the jihadists’ interpretation of Islam’s religious texts and tradition is not shared by the majority of Muslims, and that their aims look “political” to Western eyes, is NOT evidence that those interpretations are not genuinely held and that religious belief is not a key motivation for their actions.
If terrorism is just a natural response to political grievances (political oppression, poverty and alienation, etc.) then we would expect to see a world full of terrorists from all faiths, nationalities and political ideologies. For grievances of this type are not exclusive to the Muslim world.
It is difficult on the basis of grievances alone to explain why one particular religious community generates a set of violent threats to Western interests and their own societies that NO OTHER religious, ethnic or ideological community currently does. It is also difficult to explain why the majority of Muslims who confront the same grievances DON’T respond with terrorism and violence if the link is so strong and natural.
Islamist ideology has its own dynamic, and is not necessarily based on any rational or logical grievances. Hell, there is no logical or coherent reason behind most of history’s mass killings. Look at bin Laden. Did he turn to Islamist extremism because of poverty and oppression? No. He was pretty damn rich, and he was never oppressed, unless you count the Saudis revoking his passport as oppression. The idea that hatred HAS to have a good reason is absurd.
Another argument may be that some Islamists are just plain ignorant. Just look at the November 2010 poll in which 92% of Afghans never heard of the 9/11 attacks. (https://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/11/92-of-afghans-have-never-heard-of-911-think-us-is-in-country-to-destroy-islam) But somehow, real crimes by Western countries are the reason Islamist extremists slaughter Christians, other Muslims, bomb girls’ schools, etc. Remember how the Muslim World reacted to Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses”? Islamists are obsessed with the past: they want to restore the Caliphate but can’t come up with a better way than mass beheadings, rape, terrorist attacks, etc. Islamists are not victims of aggression. They are the perpetrators, and their ambitions are global.
If you accept the legitimacy of Islamic “grievances,” then sooner or later you’re probably going to start accepting the legitimacy of the violence that follows. Grievances in this case are the stories Islamists tell themselves to justify their violence against innocents. These “grievances” are unique because of the definition. To a Westerner, injustice refers to things like a lack of representation. To an Islamist, however, injustice just means a lack of Islamic law; thus, a non-Muslim state is always unjust. Their main grievance is not being in power. A devout or extremist Muslim cannot view a secular or non-Muslin society as just.
Islamist violence is self-perpetuating. If Muslims win a war, they’re heroes; if they lose, they were betrayed, and their grudges will fester for centuries. To an Islamist, conquest equals justice. The problem with the grievance narrative is that it assumes the jihadist is innocent until he is provoked. You know, like “I was minding my own business until he came up and hit me and then I had to burn his village and kill the inhabitants.” Or “I was minding my own business and was offended by a cartoon, so I killed the artist.” Legitimizing the grievance means accepting the Islamists’ innocence narrative. Islam was an ideology of conquest when it originated, which undermines parts of the grievance narrative.
If we legitimize their grievances, then we feed their violence, and convince well-meaning Westerners that “Well, maybe they have a point, and just have their own unique way of making it.” Accepting the grievance makes it harder to resist the violence.
Ever heard of Omar Hammami?
“”They can’t blame it on poverty or any of that stuff. They will have to realize that it’s an ideology and it’s a way of life that makes people change.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31Jihadist-t.html?_r=0
Or Al-Qaeda:
“Our enmity towards Hindus is not due to the Kashmir issue; our enmity towards America is not due to Iraq and Afghanistan; the enmity between us and the Jews is not due to the Palestine; the real cause is that they do not accept our system and Islam. Our enmity towards them (the non-believers) will continue even if they renounce all their crimes.”
(https://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/09/our-friendship-and-enmity-should-only-be-for-allahs-causeenmity-towards-infidels-is-a-must?
Or ISIS’s official announcement on the Brussels attack:
“First we want to make it clear to all that what makes the kafir’s blood permissable to spill is not him fighting the Muslims, rather it is his “KUFR” that necessitates his killing. So if one asks, can you kill a Kafir (who does not fight Islam and Muslims)? the answer is a big YES.”
http://heavy.com/news/2016/03/official-isis-announcement-state-on-belgium-attacks-bombings-attack-brussels-paris-attacks-france-amaq-news-agency-terrorism-bombs-tweet-twitter-english-translation/
Jihadists believe what they say they believe. Why is this so hard to understand?
Scholarship finds Islamic terrorists are “religious illiterates,” not devout
The above article links to a report from the Brennan Justice Center of New York University Law School titled: Rethinking Radicalization. The heavily footnoted reports finds that most Islamic terrorists know little about the religious doctrines of the faith and that the truly devout and knowledgeable in the faith are less likely to be terrorists. (Terrorists of all varieties are also likely to be young males.)
The entire report repays reading, but especially Section II: “The Path to Terrorism: Neither Predictable, Nor Religious.” Excerpt:
It. Is. Political. Grievances.
Young males are the vanguard of all militant political movements, and the most likely cohort to choose violence. Angry young males wrap their political grievances in religions, isms and ologies — from Islam to nationalism to Marxism to Zionism to Hinduism.
Intelligence services, both domestic and foreign, study the radicalization process for obvious reasons — they are charged with preventing terrorism. If it were as easy as simply finding the people who believe the most literalist version of a religion, they’d know it. That isn’t what they find..
Of course this is always the case. Their hatred doesn’t come out of nowhere. The mainstream media just never ever give a voice to the terrorists after they’re arrested etc. and the reportage just assumes they’re some demented lunatics or something. Pathetic but that’s how things currently are in the US.
If Middle Eastern terrorism is not about religion but about Western provocations, why are all of the groups that launch these attacks Islamists?
Have you ever heard of Christian or Druze Middle Easterners organizing into these groups to wage terror against Western targets?
Because 99% of the population is Muslim, moron.
What a selectively ignorant question.
Well. It must have nothing to do with religion, then.
In Islam, religion and politics are intertwined. Thus, separating political grievances and religious grievances IN THE MINDS OF ISLAMISTS is not really applicable.
That’s true of all three Abrahamic religions if one were to go by their religious texts. In any event, the Palestinian angry about U.S. foreign policy vis-a-vis Israel who shot Robert F. Kennedy is a Christian. Indeed, one of the more active and angry Palestinian-American political activists I know is Steven Salaita, a Christian.
It’s not true, strictly speaking. Christianity, for example, does not conflate its belief system with a political ideology.
The connection in Islam between the two is far stronger. Likewise the Palestinian cause has attracted many activists around the world. Not all of these activists are jihadists.
It is true, speaking “strictly” or otherwise, that Christians have behaved politically via invocation of religious justification or mandate. And it depends on which Christianity one means.
Which Islam? And what “connection?” A “conflation” of “belief system with political ideology?” Who is doing such conflation, and what does that even mean?
Islam is both a religion and a political ideology.
Which Islam? And by what metrics is the Islam(s) you mean any more both a religion and a political ideology than some Christianities, some Judaisms, or some Hinduisms?
The American anti-Muslim crusade has quite a lot to do with religion.
Demonizing Muslims is meant to justify America’s hostile efforts to control THEIR land and THEIR resources.
America’s propagandists even muse openly about stealing THEIR oil, to cover the cost of brutally invading them.
But – so the propaganda goes – all of America’s savage criminality is good and moral, because Muslims are violent, and we should be utterly shocked by them, no matter how much WORSE we are.
American anti-Muslim crusade? American control of Muslim land? Maybe in your fevered imagination. Isn’t that just a repetition of ISIS propaganda?
Still, I guess I can see how waging war on ISIS amounts to “savage criminality.” Lol.
Oh no, a retard lolled.
That has entirely overpowered my facts.
Facts/fevered imagination
You’re reduced to nothing but a muttering stump, yet STILL you return just to grunt a redundant grunt.
THIS fact that you’re too delicate to allow yourself to see – the fact that when America starts wars, that causes people to fight back – is so plainly evident that even the FBI could see it.
So could multiple other American organizations.
It has been acknowledged a million times by now, including by the president, on numerous occasions.
This OTHER fact that you daren’t acknowledge – that we’re 15 years deep into an American crusade against Muslims – borrows “crusade” DIRECTLY FROM the former president. “Against Muslims” is just ‘inferred’ from everything America has said or done.
Who cares how YOU prefer to describe George Bush’s crusade?
It’s not “ISIS propaganda” that you have to worry about; it’s the fact that people can see, hear and think.
Once again, jihadist terrorism is not purely a response to Western militarism. The jihadists themselves have acknowledged as much.
They do not need American “provocations” to target Americans. Or other Muslims (their favorite targets)
Saying, “once again,” failed to magically conceal your change of argument; all it did was temporarily shift the spotlight from your stupidity to your dishonesty.
It shifted back quickly.
Your new contention – where you try to rescue your imagined credibility by adding the word “purely” – is STILL moronic.
There is no exculpatory value – and not a SPECK of moral absolution – in asserting that we’re ‘only’ responsible for NEARLY all of it.
ONCE AGAIN: I don’t subscribe to your crudely self-serving propaganda, which condemns Muslims as violent and demands that we be utterly shocked by them, no matter how much WORSE we are.
I never condemned all Muslims all violent, actually. And, as both ISIS and al-Qaeda leaders have made clear in their own statements, they do not NEED provocations or excuses to wage jihad.
Funny how think the West in its current state is “much worse.” When’s the last time Western soldiers conducted mass beheadings of women and children, and indiscriminate, DELIBERATE attacks on civilians?
Attacks on civilians? World War II. Oh, wait, Islamist extremists have never cited that as a major grievance. My bad.
Ask someone to HELP you read what I wrote, moron.
99% ? Where’d you come up with that?
If it’s not 99%, that’s close.Druze are a drop in the bucket compared with the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims.
Look it up, moron.
What’s wrong with you, that you consider, “Duh, I dunno nothin’,” an adequate rebuttal to a fact?
So 99% of Middle Easterners are Muslims. And jihadist terrorists are Muslims.
Political grievances. Got it. Their rhetoric seems to confirm that.
Aggressive stupidity is not an argument.
Scholarship finds no link between ardent belief in “fundamentalist” Islam and radicalization
In the above article, the authors embed a link to study undertaken by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law: Rethinking Radicalization. The data there supports what has long been known and supported by other reasearchers, to wit: the typical radicalized individual is relatively religiously illiterate (and ususally a young male).
Young males are the vanguard of all militant political movements. And they typically package their political grievances in a variety of ideologies, in this case radical Islam. (But it can be Marxism, nationalism, Zionism, Hinduism etc.) But the attraction generally is not to the religious faith per se.
The entire Brennan Center report repays reading, but especially Section II: “The Path to Terrorism: Neither Predictable, Nor Religious.” Excerpt, my emphasis:
It’s politics. It’s legitimate and profound political grievances, to the extent it’s anything rational that is identifiable. Where ISIS is concerned it’s still young males, but that cohort is also often drawn to violent nihilism per se, especially when incubated in a “Mad Max” war zone. ISIS is distinct in that regard from Al Qaeda and virtually all other militant Islamic groups — but its young males also tend to be religiously illiterate.
As the Brennan Center report says: “Instead of promoting radicalization, a strong religious identity could well serve to inoculate people against turning to violence in the name of Islam.”
So ISIS does not see itself as Islamic?
Jack Green, as I posted below, is a hasbara troll who infests comments at this site anytime Israel comes up, no matter how tangentially. He posts the same (repeatedly debunked) material, verbatim, over and over, in thread after thread.
Rather than continue to answer him here and let him hijack this thread, I will simply refer interested readers to this article: U.S. Admits Israel Is Building Permanent Apartheid Regime — Weeks After Giving It $38 Billion
I am a bit of an expert on the Israel-Palestine issue. If one uses the “Ctrl F” function on my name in comments to that article, many, many well-documented and informative posts are there. My comments there will more than answer and rebut any points Mr. Green might raise here.
This thread is not about that issue. But the two comments he’s made so far will probably not be his last. (Israel, and U.S. military and diplomatic support for it, are a major Muslim grievance. Therefore, keeping all mention of Israel out of this discussion would be very hard.)
Unfortunately for humanity and civilization, Islamist ideology predates any American military operations in the Middle East.
Which Islamist ideology?
And which U.S. military operations?
Do you imagine that Muslim grievances pertain only to American military operations?
Have you read the conclusions of the Defense Science Board? Are those experts missing something of which you would inform them?
“Do you imagine that Muslim grievances pertain only to American military operations?” Apparently, you seem to think so.
Ever heard of Sayid Qutb? Or Wahhabism? Or the Muslim Brotherhood?
Irrelevant, and not what I asked: “Do you think Muslim grievances pertain onlyto American military operations?”
That’s a non sequitur. Please return to my comment and substantively address my questions, others of which were: “Have you read the conclusions of the Defense Science Board? Are those experts missing something of which you would inform them?”
“Do you think Muslim grievances pertain onlyto American military operations?”
No, as Islamists themselves have made clear.
Then why did you write: “Islamist ideology predates any American military operations in the Middle East?”
The Defense Science Board established myriad other righteous political grievances Muslims have against the West, especially the U.S. Which brings us back to the questions you still have not answered, to wit: “Have you read the conclusions of the Defense Science Board? Are those experts missing something of which you would inform them?”
I would also refer you to this comment about the low levels of religiosity among Islamic terrorists.
Looks like Islamist fanatics are just fanatics then. Nothing Islamist about them. Just like the legions of Middle Eastern militants who aren’t Muslims.
Your comment is meaningless. It does not address the findings of the Defense Science Board or the findings of the Brennan Center Study (which, in turn, cites the findings of the UK’s MI5.)
According to you, the very words of Islamists are less accurate than those of Western academics and pundits.
<blockquote.According to you, the very words of Islamists are less accurate than those of Western academics and pundits.
Nope. They are accurate for a particular group of ISIS members at that time and place, if by accurate one means that is the thought those particular people meant to communicate; it is not a fabrication of the words.
You continue not addressing the findings of the Defense Science Board or the findings of the Brennan Center Study (which, in turn, cites the findings of the UK’s MI5.) They address who would write the words you falsely claim I ignore, and why they would write them. (Altho, ISIS is something a bit different from other Islamic terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda. It is more of a nihilistic cult born in a “Mad Max” world the U.S. created in Iraq.)
Why is it that you will not directly and substantively address the findings of he Defense Science Board and of the Brennan Center Study?
Um, ISIS and its ilk have been pretty clear about their religious motivations. It’s nobody’s fault that you choose to ignore these clarifications.
What is ISIS’s goal, again? To establish a caliphate governed by an extremist interpretation of Islamic law. That seems like enough motivation to me.
To call it simple revenge for US foreign policy is absurd. Its is much, much more than that. Hence, ending US military operations is no guarantee of less extremism int the future.
Still, everybody loves some good old reductionism. I get that.
That’s a pile of straw men, and ironically, reductionist in the extreme. Ignoring, as it does, the history and sociology of ISIS’ formation and growth.
Moreover, you steadfastly decline to address the findings of the Defense Science Board. (A pre-ISIS study. ISIS, as I’ve written several times, is sui generis. More nihilistic than anything else, and rejected even by Al Qaeda.)
“The history and sociology of ISIS’ formation and growth”? As has been explained in ISIS’s own words, the group does not NEED any Western “provocations” to ply its trade.
They made this clear in their own public statements; so obviously they wanted us to know this. Maybe you should e-mail them some time, ask them to clarify.
But they have them, whether they “need” them or not. ISIS was forged in the murder and chaos the West imposed on Iraq. In that grossly dystopian environment, they emerged as a nihilistic movement not seen before in the history of Islam, and condemned by even Al Qaeda. That the West incubated them is yet another grievance Muslims have against the West.
Below, @Hans Weiler makes a (really rather dumb) error that I’ve often seen before:
It’s as common as it is illogical. Indeed, Glenn Greenwald has addressed this inanity multiple times, including here:
Indeed, Western anti-Muslim bigots frequently hurl this accusation, apparently thinking it makes logical sense. Which it does not. Greenwald again, his emphasis:
Please, enough of this illogical accusation — one that merely serves to avoid addressing that the West has long committed acts which justly, and understandably, infuriate Muslims.
Why do Islamists feel justified in committing atrocities? Because they interpret their Qu’rans literally.
Apparently, Western foreign policies are the only reasons that Islamists murder Western civilians and other Muslims.
“That some Muslims attack the West in retaliation for Western violence (and external imposition of tyranny) aimed at Muslims is so well-established that it’s barely debatable..”
The problem here is that 1) Islamists extremists target civilians DELIBERATELY and that 2) the vast majority of Islamist extremists’ victims are other Muslims.
Greenwald’s statement: “That some Muslims attack the West in retaliation for Western violence (and external imposition of tyranny) aimed at Muslims is so well-established that it’s barely debatable.”
So, Muslims are upset that Westerners are killing Muslims and imposing tyranny. Their response? Kill both Muslims AND Westerns and impose THEIR OWN form of tyranny.
That’s disputable (certainly as to most who are labeled “terrorists”), and I could address it. But the point is that you at least appear to be seeing that Muslim extremists who attack or kill Westerners do it out of anger at actual harms done by the West to Muslims — the reasons identified by the Defense Science Board.
Not according to the Defense Science Board, as commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld. (Nor is there are scholarly support for it.)
No one on this board has argued that. You are studiously ignoring what they have argued, as well as the findings of the Defense Science Board.
So did some in the Irish Republican Army. So did some in the African National Congress. So did some Zionist terrorists while securing the founding of Israel. So did…well, I think you get the idea.
As Greenwald wrote: “Most people need some type of fervor to be willing to risk their lives and kill other people: It can be nationalism, xenophobia, societal pressures, hatred of religion, or religious convictions. “
“No” scholarly support? So, apparently Islamist extremists never rely on extremist interpretations of the Qu’ran. That’s a bit of stretch.
Anti-Muslim bigotry causes violence against Muslims
Sadly, a number of commenters in this thread exhibit the deeply wrong and harmful beliefs about Muslims allow both the foreign policies that fuel much of the Muslim anger and terrorism against us, and which also put our Muslim citizens at great risk of harm. Hate crimes against Muslims have never been higher: Right-Wing ‘Crusaders’ Militia Group Plotted Terror Attack On Muslim Immigrants, FBI Charges
When Muslims are “othered,” when they are talked about as if the usual understandings of human nature do not apply to them, when their religion is demonized beyond the understanding of any scholarly (sociological, anthropological, or historical) understanding of the faith, they become prey to bigots. This should not happen in America.
Nor should this:
Those promoting the filth about Muslims are also those whom future children will read about in our history books, and wonder what kind of unenlightened bigots their forefathers were. Much as we contemplate our Klan forebears with utter disgust, notwithstanding that at one time they ran many states and their bigotry about blacks, Catholics and Jews was considered conventional wisdom.
People who claim that the rise of ISIS is purely America’s fault are unwitting students of the same school of American exceptionalism that they criticize America for.
Nothing in human history is ever the cause of only one factor. It is a fact, however, that ISIS came to exist primarily because of the U.S. and other Western nations. After long refusing to do so, George Bush’s good friend, Tony Blair, finally admitted it:
Why does no one listen to those voices who warned that Iraq wold splinter into warring factions and likely become extremely unstable — which is exactly what happened? Why do those who rejected these predictions — which were completely accurate — instead continue to command respectful hearings?
The U.S. created the conditions in which ISIS was born. Muslims are furious at us for that (and much else). It’s past time we began listening to Muslim criticisms of U.S. policy.
“Nothing in human history is ever the cause of only one factor. It is a fact, however, that ISIS came to exist primarily because of the U.S. and other Western nations.”
How contradictory.
Is English not your first language? If that’s not the explanation for that error, it is likely you have a cognitive impairment.
You claim that American action is the “primary” cause behind the rise of ISIS. This ignores the agency of ISIS’s leaders, recruits and supporters.
The ideology of offensive jihad and political Islam was not invented by Westerners. Free will and the capacity for evil has plagued humanity for millenia.
No American ever forced ISIS to do what it does. They do not need American provocations to ply their trade. All they need to do is to interpret select portions of the Qu’ran and certain radical commentaries on it literally.
Islamist extremists are interpreting the Qu’ran literally? It must be the West’s fault.
The anger driving them is mostly the West’s fault. They package their opposition movement in a particular twist on Islam — just as religionists have done all throughout history: Christians, Jews, and currently Hindus in India.
Moreover, even among scriptural literalists, there are different schools of interpretation in religions. Human beings tend to fashion interpretations — of both religions and political ideologies — to fit what it is they need the passages or concepts to do.
Correct. Islamist extremists rely on 1)extreme interpretations of the Qu’ran and 2) grievances to justify the use of suicide bombers, genocide, etc.
The vast majority of their victims are other Muslims. And they do not need a “provocation,” real or imagined, to conduct a terrorist attack. Islamist extremists do not limit their attacks to countries that are militarily involved in the Middle East.
Like Christians, Jews, nationalists, socialists, and myriad other isms and ologies vis-a-vis their normative writings and foundational myths.
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. So yes, where there is civil unrest, much of the violence is Muslim on Muslim or other political opponent. The Christian West has entered a different phase of its history, and Jews are too small a portion of the world’s population to garner significant attention when their extremists go violent.
This is largely false:
For reasons I’ve already addressed, ISIS is new and sui generis, but even there, they were forged in, and are driven by anger over, actual and grievous Western harms.
On the one hand, maybe people like ISIS aren’t motivated by hate. The driving impulse is religious in nature.
It’s more about honor and righteousness than hate (see Sura 9:14 and Al Bukhari vol. 1:35) These are acts of religious war. What we Westerners fail to recognize is that for Muslims, there is no separation between the religious and the political.
Crimes like Orlando are not hate crimes or simple tragedies. They are part of an ideology and a military strategy. Groups like ISIS are not motivated by our policies and actions, no matter how much they reference them to manipulate us. They are motivated by who we are: We are unbelievers. We are offensive to them by nature.
Remember what ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al Adnani said: Kill infidels “in any manner or way, however it may be…Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict.Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling.”
(http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-says-no-2-leader-mohammad-al-adnani-dead-n640171)
These fanatics will not be satisfied once US military operations end. To think otherwise would be naive. According to ISIS, they can do whatever they want in this war, and dying for their cause will, of course, be welcomed. How they feel about infidels doesn’t really matter.
Assimilate or die. Pretty simple. I can get why Westerners might fail to understand it, though. It’s one thing for Western leaders to accept and disseminate al-Qaeda’s lies concerning “grievances,” and another thing for them to continue doing so now, in light of ISIS’ open confessions concerning the true nature of the jihad.
Remember what Baghdadi said last May? “Islam was never a religion of peace. Islam is the religion of fighting. No-one should believe that the war that we are waging is the war of the Islamic State. It is the war of all Muslims, but the Islamic State is spearheading it. It is the war of Muslims against infidels… There is no might nor honour nor safety nor rights for you except in the shade of the caliphate.”
(http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32744070)
Acquiescing to political grievances will not alter the fundamental incompatibility between Enlightenment precepts of tolerance and current interpretations of Islam: Arguably, only Islam’s fundamental reform will resolve the conflict.
But, nah. Let’s continue with the hand-wringing and question all of the things we have done to provoke these poor souls.
It’s creepy that you don’t distinguish between your imagination and reality.
You began your wilfully blind suppositions with a “maybe” and by the time you got to your second sentence, you had already started to narrate your hate propaganda, in DEFINITIVE terms.
All you are is regurgitated bigotry, baseless defamation, and bloodlust.
You’re a truthless monster.
I guess that’s why ISIS massacres aid workers, religious minorities and other Muslims. Because those groups are too provocative.
And you’re angry about “hate propaganda” and “bloodlust”? You seem to excuse and defend these whenever it’s being conducted by groups like ISIS.
Just like Islamic extremism must be the motivation for all of America’s internal savagery, retard.
Maybe you should find a broken down car somewhere, and extrapolate that if America isn’t to blame for THAT, then America must be innocent of everything.
All you are is regurgitated bigotry, baseless defamation, and bloodlust.
So you tell yourself that I’m ‘angry’.
Because you imagine that seeing YET ANOTHER hostile retard, demonstrate hostility and retardation – in the same formulaic manner that his hostile, retarded sect has made a religion of demonstrating – is enough to make a person ‘angry’…
… at the same time as you proffer the notion that mass murder is NOT sufficient to cause anger.
You’re a truthless monster.
Regarding your mewling accusation, “You seem to excuse and defend…”
I’ve never “defended” any such thing, moron.
You’re just one of those retards that imagines that saying “we’re intolerable” is the same as saying “they’re infallible.”
Because you can’t tell the difference between reality and your feelings.
I can tell the difference between reality and your speculation. And between Islamist and Western motives, strategies and tactics.
What “internal savagery”? And, apparently I’m a bigot for quoting Islamists and taking their beliefs seriously.
Reread my FIRST reply to you.
Fifteen years into a habit of unjustifiable invasion and mass-slaughter – which has now become so routine that the US no longer bothers to even PRETEND that there is any excuse, when it invades yet another country – the FBI has noticed a connection between America attacking people, and Americans getting attacked BACK.
As a power structure which purports to be stupid enough to be SURPRISED by the most foundational elements of human nature – like the fact that when you mass-murder innocent people, at least SOME of the survivors will fight BACK – the FBI should be defunded.
As a white supremacist power structure that supports white supremacist terrorism – with a director that has abused his position to provide material support for confederate terrorism – the FBI should be defunded.
HUMAN BEINGS understood that “people fighting back” was an inevitable consequence, the moment we witnessed our insane ‘leaders’ starting wars against multiple countries full of innocent people who hadn’t done anything to us, as collective punishment for a crime that was perpetrated by a couple of dozen people, who were mostly already dead.
If we are to accept that this ‘study’ is what comes of the FBI genuinely TRYING to be useful, then we must accept that the FBI is incapable of doing anything more useful than to consume public funds and harass/provoke innocent Muslim-Americans.
Likewise, by now we SHOULD understand that the arms industry is comprised of a collection of racketeers who are using offensive wars to CREATE enemies, with which to coerce a cowering American public into continuing to succumb to a multi-trillion dollar protection racket.
You’re right. Let’s defund the FBI.
The FBI does, you know, have a pretty long and bad history of gross civil liberties abuses. It is the nature of police powers to seek yet more power and expansion. The American Founders knew this.
An American Muslim told us why he is so angry at the United States
To quote Glenn Greenwald, “Tarek Mehanna, an American Muslim, was convicted… in a federal court….He was found guilty of supporting Al Qaeda (by virtue of translating Terrorists’ documents into English and expressing ‘sympathetic views’ to the group) as well as conspiring to ‘murder’ U.S. soldiers in Iraq (i.e., to wage war against an invading army perpetrating an aggressive attack on a Muslim nation).”
Mehanna’s sentencing statement, delivered in open court, is amazing. Many here desperately need to read it and understand that Muslims all over the world feel exactly this way. A lengthy excerpt:
He’s a normal human being. Arabs and Muslims are goddam normal human beings. Demonizing one of the three major Abrahamic religions rather than examine WHY these normal human beings might be justly furious with the West — and with America in particular — feeds Western egos, but does nothing to address the real problem.
And the real problem is OUR POLICIES. Not their religion.
Finally: ISIS. They are sui generis. Even Al Qaeda condemns them. They are a nihilistic death cult that grew out of the chaos and carnage we inflicted on Iraq. They spread to the chaos and carnage we caused in Libya. And now they are in Syria. Muslims all over the world are furious with us for creating a Middle East cauldron in which a nihilistic murder cult like ISIS could and did take root.
@Hans Weiler
You and those like you no longer phrase it like that; that’s how you put it in 2004, when the Defense Science Board Report — commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld — was issued. Nor is that relevant.
What is relevant is the rest of the paragraph to which you were replying, quoted from the DSB Report (which I heavily excerpt in two comments here), to wit:
All those flocking here to argue that “jihadis” are a huge menace driven almost solely by some awful religion are ignoring the DSB study. As well as the large amount of other disconfirming evidence.
Why is that?
Once the US reverts to isolationism, the poor jihadists will no longer have any excuse to conduct terrorist attacks and genocide against their sworn enemies.
ISIS has made it pretty clear why they hate the West. Just look at their response to Pope Francis’s statements.
Daesh does not necessarily hate the West because of anything Westerners have done in the past, as leftists claim. They just plain hate infidels, apostates and freedom-loving states that resist the Sharia. In fact, this the most important reason provided by the Islamic State document on why they hate the West:
“Even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.”
Duh. How is that so hard for people to understand? I mean, they clearly wanted us to understand this reason.
These jihadis follow a non-negotiable, literal interpretation of the Qur’an, Hadith and Sunnah. Their hatred is understandably difficult for us Westerners to understand; hence we desperately cling to the drivel that such hatred could only have somehow been “provoked.” ISIS’s ideology is a doctrine, not a set of demands. This means they cannot be appeased.
And sure, groups like ISIS might complain about Western imperialism that is history now, even though the Muslim world also conducted violent conquests of its own.
See Qu’ran 8:55: “Surely the vilest of animals in Allah’s sight are those who disbelieve.”
Still think we can concede our way out of trouble? Or win them over by empathy? If so, I wish you luck.
The progress of the modern world and the advance of civilization has infuriated Islamists for decades.
Right?
It must be frustrating for Islamic jihadists to have their views and motives not be taken seriously by the societies they terrorize, even after they have explicitly and repeatedly stated them.
Is it the West that tells Islamists to utilize sex slaves and wage war against non-Muslims (something Muslims have done for generations)?
But, no. Islamic terrorist groups abducting women to sell as sex-slaves or “wives;” conducting mass crucifixions and forced conversions; beheading innocent people en masse; trying to extinguish religious minorities and demolishing irreplaceable archeological sites—all of it must be the West’s fault.
The historical and current troubles in the Muslim world are not purely problems “imported” from an outside source; they are internal cultural and political problems, which Islamic regimes and peoples have reproduced for centuries.
Your wilful retardation is not a defence for America’s mass-murderous crusade.
Groups like ISIS are way better at waging mass-murderous crusades than the US.
You do know the definition of “murder,” right?
Your wilful retardation is STILL not a defence for America’s mass-murderous crusade.
Good thing ISIS is so much more discriminate when it comes to murdering and crusading.
What else do you want to compare America to, retard?
How about cancer? Does it make you PROUD, to imagine that you’re a bit better than cancer?
And that IS your imagination, retard. Their death toll is imperceptible next to ours.
Once we stop killing Muslims and Islamists, everything will be fine.
No, bimbo, everything DOESN’T become “fine” after you perpetrate a mass-murderous decades-long crusade against Muslims, just because you finally stop.
If I spent a decade and a half systematically murdering the people in your life, would stopping make everything “fine” with you?
Would the fact that you weren’t going to be “fine” about it, be an adequate excuse for me to KEEP murdering your acquaintances, relatives and friends, on an indefinite basis?
Are you REALLY so morally retarded that you need it explained to you in this fashion? If so, why should anyone have any interest in the opinions of a monster?
Lisa- stop arguing with these nyms- they are not people, they are a very sick element of our military industrial complex, driven by Zionists, the same Zionists who manufactured Hitler, using the New York financing, and the tools of Bernays and Lippmann- does this sound like a Christurd-Zionist-Jewish plot? It’s because it is. Pinky and the Brain, Spongebob and Patrick, Hitler and Freud/Bernays/Lippmann/Goebbels.
You know- those intergenerational predators like Madeline Albrights/Clintons klavern, or Chertoffs/Bushies brigade; Feinsteins baby foreskin consuming cabal and so on.
I mean– Usreal created Isis- it was written about 20 years before they leashed them on the ME. These trolls that you argue with are not people in the real sense. They are psychopaths raised on Ritalin, video games, and no empathy, lot’s f suburban apathy, and huge doses of “poor Jews died in the gas chambers!” Note the operative word there…poor.
Human beings do not say “Groups like ISIS are way better at waging mass-murderous crusades than the US.,” while sitting in cowardly pulpits of Americas new churches of the intelligence community.
It is these that I am certain that so-called terrorists would kill if they could, and….. I personally laugh every time some clever hacker doxxes these NSA/CIA/FBI/ JTRIG cowards, and leaves them open to harm of exposure to the public’s wrath. Or the Chinese, the Russians- whoever can compromise them in ways that we can’t.
These are not Americans- they are cowards, baby bombers, and corporocrats, working from within American institutions in the name of the people but not in the spirit of same, and planning their retirements elsewhere after they destroy America.
Correct. I’m not a person. I’m a Zionist Spongebob, head of the military-industrial complex. What a compelling counter-argument.
Lol.
No American wars=no Islamist terrorist attacks. Simple.
The FBI study that was released made the following conclusions:
1.Anger over U.S. military operations overseas was the most often cited reason for individuals getting involved in cases of “homegrown” terrorism.
2.Radicalization of homegrown terrorists follow no perceptible pattern.
3.Radical terrorist believe the U.S. military commits atrocities in Muslim countries, and so homegrown terrorists justify their desires to retaliate.
4.Online relationships with terrorists overseas (like Anwar Al-Awlaki) is a contributing factor driving extremism.
5.Exposure to English-language militant propaganda is also cited as key factor driving extremism.
6.Displeasure with U.S. military action was by far the most common factor in homegrown extremism found in 18 percent of the surveys taken.
7.The U.S. being perceived to be at war against Islam and other factors associated with discrimination were also factors.
Logically, let’s just ignore numbers 2, 4, 5,6, and 7. And ignore the fact many of these grievances are simply based on the “perceptions” of Islamist fanatics, who must be entirely rational actors.
And, of course, Islamist will gladly take American humanitarian and relief supplies one day and murder us the other; just look at how we oppressed Pakistanis with tons of relief supplies following their earthquakes, or abused the Afghans by building schools for them.
Remember how one of bin Laden’s justifications was that Spain had retaken ”Andalusa” from Islam and become a Catholic land once again. You know, 900 years before bin Laden was born?
Jihadists will say and do anything. That’s how bad they want Dar al-Islam.
Still, appease the poor Islamists’ grievances and end all overseas involvements now. It’ll just get rosier from there.
Drone strikes: tears in Congress as Pakistani family tells of mother’s death – Translator brought to tears by family’s plea as Congress hears from civilian victims of alleged US drone strike for the first time
Just read it. Then tell me that if this was happening in your city, neither you nor your neighbors would feel any itch to harm the perpetrators.
If that’s what my religion explicitly taught me, maybe I would.
1. Islam doesn’t “teach that” any more than the other three Abrahamic religions do, and
2. I don’t believe you wouldn’t want to no matter your religious views. You don’t believe it, either. If that was happening in your city, to your neighbors, you’d be enraged and wanting to get your hands on the criminals doing it to your people.
Your’re saying Christianity and Judaism teach its followers to wage offensive wars against unbelievers? That’s interesting. Where’d you come up with that?
“If that was happening in your city, to your neighbors, you’d be enraged and wanting to get your hands on the criminals doing it to your people.”
Again, if that’s what my religion taught me, sure I would.
Some of them, yes. There are multiple Christianities, and multiple Judaisms. There are also countless Islams. However, the vast majority of “jihadi” violence against Westerners is not “offensive.” That is, it is catalyzed by what we did, and have long been doing to Muslims.
And you are lying about your reaction to my hypothetical. You know you are lying. You, and virtually everyone, would want to reach and harm those responsible for bringing what that article describes to your city and neighbors. It is human nature. No one reasonable is going to believe your denial on that.
Ah, I see. All Islamist terrorist attacks are just a perfectly understandable, justifiable reaction to even worse Western crimes. Even though they attack countries like Belgium (not known for its aggressive militarism) and other Muslims (the most popular target for Islamist extremists)
But, OK, got it. Appease the demands of perfectly reasonable, aggrieved Islamists and all will be well.
You continue to evade what the Defense Science Board reports about why many Muslims are justly angry at the West — some enough to attack Westerners — and the U.S. in particular. Additionally, you pretend not to understand a fundamental of human nature. Glib sarcasm and straw man restatements of my arguments is not a substitute for addressing the facts and reality.
Interesting how you revere the precious Defense Science Board as the only reliable authority on the matter, yet ignore the statements of ISIS’s own leaders.
This is false:
1. The DSB was tasked by the Secretary of Defense to apply its expert knowledge. It did so. There is no apparent reason not to take those findings very seriously — especially given that they comport with human nature and with what many angry Muslims say themselves.
2. I have not “ignored” the statements of some ISIS leaders. Indeed, I have myself posted material about ISIS that includes their salient quotes.
And ignored their statements about how they view this as a religious war, rather than merely a set of specific political grievances that could easily have been prevented if only the West had been a LITTLE bit smarter.
Nope.
I simply had an answer for it that you do not like.
“We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah – whether you realize it or not – by making partners for Him in worship, you blaspheme against Him, claiming that He has a son, you fabricate lies against His prophets and messengers, and you indulge in all manner of devilish practices.”
Why is this so hard to understand?
I understand it. You simply have not remotely demonstrated that it supports what you invoke it to support. The meaning you would impose on a singular ISIS declaration does not begin to trump:
1. FBI studies;
2. Defense Science Board Studies procured by the Pentagon; and
3. Academic studies on the causes of radicalization such as the Brennan Center for Justice study, “Rethinking Radicalization.”
Arguments and conclusions should be based on such empirical findings and expert analysis. After all, those charged with preventing terrorism do have a strong and vested interest in accurately understanding its causes .
Oh, so Islamist leaders can’t be trusted when they clearly state their aims and “grievances.” Instead, Western pundits and academics are much more reliable.
Funny.
Jihadist groups are opposed to Western foreign policy, so I suppose in that sense their grievances are “political.” What is often overlooked, however, is that their political grievances come FROM their religious convictions.
Here’s an example: bin Laden’s stated opposition to the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia. Sounds like a political grievance, right? Actually, the basis is religious, since Muhammad declared that “there not be two religions in Arabia.”
Jihadist groups’ political behavior can consistently be traced to their beliefs about what the Qu’ran, hadith, and Islamic teachings say they have a divine injunction to do.
Just look at one of al-Qaeda’s strategies under bin Laden: that group would mostly frame its “grievances” in political terms when broadcasting its message to the West (so as to suggest that once the West withdrew, peace would come). Yet when speaking to the Muslim world, the group would make sophisticated religious arguments, explaining why its actions, however barbaric, were in fact justified by a closer reading of Islamic teachings.
Canonical interpretations of the Qu’ran, hadith, and other Islamic texts do, in fact, justify much (though not necessarily all) of what ISIS does. Just look at what Sharia law and the ahadeeth have to say about women, or the punishment of crimes. Or just look at Qu’ran 4:74, 8:39, 8:60, 9:5 , 9:29 and 47:4.
ISIS’s interpretation of Shari’a is literalist, especially in regards to establishing an religious state and fighting against rulers who do not impose shari’a. The debate over whether ISIS terrorist attacks are motivated by religious or political grievances is misleading, since according to ISIS’s interpretation of Islam, there is no difference between religion and politics.
Whether it is the stationing of American troops on sacred Saudi soil, the liberation of East Timor from Muslim Indonesia, the support of secular Middle Eastern governments,, or the fight against these groups themselves, EVERY ONE of these seemingly” political” grievances is borne out of a RELIGIOUS belief that jihadist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS have a duty to resurrect the caliphate, expand its borders, and fight anyone who opposes them.
Acknowledging the connection between countries’ foreign policy and their vulnerability to terrorist attacks is merely descriptive, not prescriptive. The argument that such military involvement may or may not increase the likelihood of experiencing a terrorist attack says nothing about whether or not these countries are justified in bombing ISIS.
Bin Laden had the following to say: “The removal of these governments is an obligation upon us, and a necessary step to free the Islamic umma [and] make Shari’a law supreme […]. Our fight against these governments is one with our fight against you.” A policy of non-intervention will not spare the West from the wrath of Islamist jihadists.
And, again, this might seem redundant, but the 15th issue of Dabiq is worth quoting again (pages 30-31 and 75):
“What’s important to understand here is that although some might argue that your foreign policies are the extent of what drives our hatred, this particular reason for hating you is secondary, hence the reason we addressed it at the end of the above list. The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.”
I see.
Have you written to the Defense Science Board to tell them that when they conclude this:
That’s all because objections to stealing Palestinian land and occupation — as well as to tyrannies in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states — are all driven by wacky religious beliefs? Have you let them know that the carnage and chaos we caused in Iraq only infuriates them because of their inscrutable religious beliefs?
(Normal, regular people like Americans would be fine with death and destruction of our homeland. We don’t follow some weird religion that makes a big deal out of stuff like that.)
When did I say they “hated our freedom”?
It is true that jihadists express hatred for American support for Israel and Middle Eastern dictatorships.However, you seem to be under the impression that these causes are the only ones.
Why do jihadists hate Western support for Middle Eastern dictatorships? Because many of these dictatorships are secular. Why do they hate US support for Israel? Because a literal reading of certain Islamist teachings would teach them to hate Jews for religious reasons. Again, Islamists liberally cite Islamic teachings when justifying their attacks. They do not exclusively focus on their foreign-policy grievances, as you seem to believe.
Why did Islamists flock to Iraq to fight American invaders? Because they saw Americans as religious enemies. Why was Iraq such a tinderbox, other than the presence of US invaders? Because of the Sunni-Shiite conflict and the meddling of the Iranians.
Likewise, opposition to US drone strikes in Pakistan may be potent, but it is not universal. At one point, a Pakistani journalist did his own investigation of the drone war in the FATA. He concluded that the majority of casualties were militants. And again, regarding Yousafzai: Yousafzai is widely hated in Pakistan, where many accuse her of being a foreign agent. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-do-pakistanis-hate-malala_us_56174cede4b0e66ad4c74739) Also, she is not an expert on the matter at hand. She did not even live in the FATA. According to your line of reasoning, her argument is credible because she won a Nobel peace prize. So did, Obama, who, ironically, did so much to escalate America’s drone wars.
(https://soundcloud.com/bbc-world-service/why-do-so-many-in-pakistan-reject-nobel-peace-prize-winner-malala-yousafzai)
(https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-impact-light-drone-wars-death-toll-150321926.html?ref=gs)
A simple change of American foreign policies will not cause Islamists to change their ideology. If only they were that reasonable.
Well no shit , Sherlock! Enough people hate her that they shot her in the face!
She is an extremely impressive and intelligent young woman who is very active in the current affairs of her nation, Pakistan. What she reports is wholly corroborated by the Defense Science Board, the FBI and what we know of human nature.
It is inconceivable that stories such as these — Drone strikes: tears in Congress as Pakistani family tells of mother’s death – Translator brought to tears by family’s plea as Congress hears from civilian victims of alleged US drone strike for the first time — could not create individuals willing to kill and harm those who caused it.
Is she an expert on drone warfare and militant recruitment? No. She did not become a celebrity for her “special insights” into these issues.
That’s all irrelevant. She lives there, and is known to be very bright and politically active in good causes. Her testimony is not without value. And what she reports is corroborated by human nature and the Defense Science Board.
Most hilariously, you dismiss Malala for not being an expert on militant recruitment, but you wholly ignore the DSB experts.
It’s not land theft. It’s a land dispute. The settlers believe they are exercising their right of return. They are just taking back their own land that was stolen from them during the Arab conquest of the Middle East in the seventh century. The settlers believe that the Jews have a deed to the land. There’s a Torah that’s over a thousand years old. You don’t have to believe in God, but this ancient document lists the names of the owners of the land (the 12 sons of Jacob [aka Israel]) & the boundaries of the land. In other words, it’s a deed to the land naming the children of Israel as the owners. If you dig in Palestine, you will find ancient synagogues & Jewish ritual baths & Jewish coins. Settlers see this as further proof that it’s their land.
Palestinians say that it’s Palestinian land because Palestinians have lived there for centuries.
Jack Green is a long-time and well-known hasbara troll at this site.
There are always a number of accounts who make it their mission to post vacuous, misleading and disruptive Zionist bullshit. Often, they are following talking points issued by both formal and informal “hasbara” projects. (Hasbara means “explaining” in Hebrew; in practice it means “propaganda.”)
Max Blumenthal has described these annoying pests and their programs thus:
Hasbara trolls have also been assigned to comments sections, such as at the Guardian. They are likely here as well. One of their tactics is to flood a site with enough comments that it drowns out the others, the ones they don’t want people to read.
Of course, sometimes the Zionist zealot is representing no one but him or herself and is independently behaving like a hasbara troll. But this site is sufficiently high profile and influential that it’s highly probable many of these nuisances are formal hasbara trolls.
As for this, and only about the group quoted, ISIS:
Even Al Qaeda condemns the Islamic State. They are a nihilistic band of zelaous young males, primarily incubated in war zones. They didn’t exist until the United States destroyed Iraq; they were born and grew in the chaos there. They spread to the carnage and chaos in Libya and Syria.
They thrive and grow on chaos and slaughter. They seek to sow it everywhere as a recruitment tool. They are beyond terrorists; they are a literal, war-spawned death cult.
Now that we’ve created them, it truly is hard to know how to kill the monster we made.
Nobel Prize winner Malala told Obama U.S. drone attacks fuel terrorism
Ms. Yousafzai is a courageous young woman. She is not, however, representative of Pakistani thought. Yousafzai has been widely reviled in Pakistan, where detractors accuse her of being a tool in a foreign plot to defame Pakistan. Yousafzai is no expert on the matter at hand, her good intentions notwithstanding. Leaving aside her personal tragedy, Yousafzai lived in Malakand, not in the FATA where drones exclusively operate. She did not become an international celebrity for her knowledge of drones or militant recruitment.
Her Nobel Prize may be well deserved, but it is beside the point.
Ms. Yousafzai is an extremely impressive and intelligent young woman who is very active in the current affairs of her nation, Pakistan. I’m going to take her word over that of some unknown, usually anonymous, guys on the Internet.
Especially given that what she reports is wholly corroborated by the Defense Science Board, the FBI and what we know of human nature.
The idea that terrorists are MAINLY motivated by Western foreign policy is absurd.
Most of the of the ISIS terror scares last year lived int he West and seemed to enjoy it. These ardent young “Muslims” are blasting the decadence of the West between bong hits while watching porn, listening to hip-hop, and playing video games on the Devil’s Box known as “a computer.”
So what can we give them to make them stop? Nothing. They want nothing from us. There is no policy we can change, no political accommodation we can make, no demands to appease.
These jihadists are fueled by the most intense kind of hatred there is: self-hatred. There is no accommodation with self-hatred. Remember when ISIS attacked Paris? They actually called it the “Capital of Adultery.” You, know at the same time that their leaders were writing down rules about who to rape:
(http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/12/29/isis-issues-rules-for-raping-enslaving-women.html)
The favorite target of Islamist terrorist groups has always been other Muslims. Islamist terrorists don’t just hate America or the West. They hate the modern world, and they particularly hate Muslims who are trying to live in the modern world. And, of course, they hate Middle Easterners who would dare convert to Christianity; just look at Pakistan.
And no, changing our foreign policy or ending our military involvement in the region will not solve the problem. ISIS has never claimed this to be their ultimate goal or grievance. If we suddenly decided to pull out of the region, they would still try to launch attacks on the West.
What white-supremacist terrorist training camp taught you that imbecilic hate-propaganda / excuse-for-permanent-occupation?
And is it stockpiling weapons?
Ah, yes, name-calling. Always the sign of a winning argument.
You’re an imbecile.
NOW I’m name-calling.
Given that you haven’t wrapped your brain-spot around the concept, I’m demonstrating the difference between name-calling, and calling your hate-propaganda /excuse-for-permanent-occupation, imbecilic.
You’re welcome, stupid.
Permanent occupation? Of what?
And, once again, your name-calling proves my point.
You expect me to try to explain America’s wars to you?
You’re still clinging to your inability to understand “name-calling,” stupid.
You can’t be communicated with.
See what I mean?
Yes, stupid.
You are entirely wrong, but extraordinarily simple, so “seeing what you mean” isn’t the problem.
If there is anyone who isn’t repulsed by you, ask them to HELP you understand what I mean.
Yes, the Dabiq article is quite interesting. It is worth quoting again:
“What’s important to understand here is that although some might argue that your foreign policies are the extent of what drives our hatred, this particular reason for hating you is secondary, hence the reason we addressed it at the end of the above list. The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.”
And once again:
“The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.”
So is the Defense Science Board report that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld commissioned:
“They hate our policies.”
OBL quite rationally asked: “Is it in any way rational to expect that after America has attacked us for more than half a century, that we will then leave her to live in security and peace?!!” Well?
Further requoting the Defense Science Board report:
Hate crimes, discriminatory laws, vile and abusive commentary from fellow citizens and much, much more anti-Muslim behavior is coming from Western non-Muslims directed at the Muslims in their countries. ISIS wants this, and commits atrocities to cause it.
In February of 2015, they wrote in their official magazine that they seek to “eliminate the grayzone” of coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims in the West. In this way they expect to turn Western Muslims into recruits.
At this site, Murtaza Hussain wrote of this ISIS strategy almost a year ago:
We created the conditions for ISIS in its birthplace of Iraq. Now we and other Western nations oblige them by manufacturing more recruits from among us.
In a sub-thread a bit below, Adrian Klauser ignores two of my questions. One of those questions is as follows:
Does anyone have a direct answer for that? If so, please state it.
Actually, I did answer your question.
People should care about both conflicts. Also, I am not dishonest, You claim that Western actions are the only reasons behind Islamist violence. As I have demonstrated, this is false.
You asked me for the reasons ISIS gives for its violence. I have quoted them below. I will repeat their quotes here:
“We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah.”
“We hate you because your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited while banning many of the things He has permitted.”
“In the case of the atheist fringe, we hate you and wage war against you because you disbelieve in the existence of your Lord and Creator.”
“We hate you for your crimes against Islam and wage war against you to punish you for your transgressions against our religion.”
ISIS may not have existed before the US invasion. But Islamist ideology and violence predates the US invasion.
Again, to repeat:
“We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah.”
See how they said “first and foremost”?
Islamist extremists groups do not limit their targets to those countries that are involved in the Middle East.
You did not, and you still have not. It is this: “Which should a rational American/Westerner care more about?” You either cannot or will not answer.
Never. Not once. Ever. Which is why you cannot and do not quote me doing so.
Yes, and the Defense Science Board found that to the extent there are Muslims who dislike Western “moral laxity” and irreligion that would not be sufficient reason to turn them into fanatical killers of us. What does that is the same thing that does it to any group of humans, to wit: endlessly attacking and meddling with them,
The Defense Science Board honestly listed all the killing and meddling we really have done over many decades that has long been justly infuriating Muslims. No people would passively accept that, including Americans. Some of us would wrap our anger and objections in bellicose Christian rhetoric, but anger at the attackers would not be per se about their non-Christian status.
Your question: “Which should a rational American/Westerner care more about: 1. Muslims slaughtering innocents in Muslim nations, or 2. Muslims slaughtering American/Westerner innocents in our nations?”
It depends. Obviously, Western nations will have a more direct interest at stake if Islamist groups are targeting Westerners. The West does not have unlimited patience and resources at its disposal; hence it will concentrate on Islamist groups that pose a threat to its interests, naturally.
And, again:
“We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah.”
People who claim that this is all about Muslim grievances against the West and that religious motivations are secondary are just naive. Simply changing this or that foreign policy will never appease the jihadist movement.
Then why doesn’t the West stop wasting blood and treasure on activities that both the FBI and the Defense Science Board — as well as what is known of human nature — say manufacture Islamic terrorists who want to harm us?
Tell that to the Defense Science Board, to the FBI, and explain how human nature is not such that killing Muslims and gross meddling in many of their nations wouldn’t make many of them want to hurt us? You act as if all that we know of human nature is suspended in this area.
I love how we Westerners always rush to excuse the behavior of terrorists by blaming ourselves. People do realize that a huge number of Islamists’ victims are other Muslims, right?
ISIS may have grown out of the chaos on Iraq, but it also grew out of the chaos in Syria, which was a result of the popular uprising against Assad. Many Syrian fighters were simply looking for an excuse to exercise religious fundamentalism that predates both the conflict in Syria and the Iraq War.
If groups like ISIS are reacting solely to Western “provocations,” why are the vast majority of its victims practicing Muslims? ISIS has targeted the people of Turkey, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen, for example. Are the foreign policies of the these countries also to blame? How did they provoke the ire of ISIS? Also, how is ISIS’s genocide of the Yazidis “blowback” for Western policies? Or ISIS attacks in India?
The vast majority of ISIS’s victims have been Muslims who have nothing to do with western foreign policymaking. This isn’t by accident, but by design: the Islamic State’s main aim is to conquer all territory in the Middle East and “unite” Muslims under its banner. It is happy to do so through the infliction of terror. And these political aspirations exist with or without Western foreign policies.
ISIS does not attack targets in revenge for Western actions. It attacks as a strategy to cause chaos, instill fear, and attract recruits. Revenge is merely a thin justification. Have you ever read ISIS’s magazine? Is it full of editorials recommending that the West change its foreign policies? No, it is full of predictions of a global clash between its caliphate and the West. See especially its Dabiq article “Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You.”
Among the group’s grievances:
“We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah.”
“We hate you because your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited while banning many of the things He has permitted.”
“In the case of the atheist fringe, we hate you and wage war against you because you disbelieve in the existence of your Lord and Creator.”
“We hate you for your crimes against Islam and wage war against you to punish you for your transgressions against our religion.”
In this same article it has this interesting point to make: “What’s important to understand here is that although some might argue that your foreign policies are the extent of what drives our hatred, this particular reason for hating you is secondary, hence the reason we addressed it at the end of the above list. The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam. Even if you were to pay jizyah and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you.”
(http://www.clarionproject.org/factsheets-files/islamic-state-magazine-dabiq-fifteen-breaking-the-cross.pdf)
ISIS’s ultimate aim, according to its own statements and publications, is global conquest through jihad. The idea that we can avoid conflict if we mind our own business is utterly naive.
You are GROSSLY DISHONEST. You left off the other two of the six reasons ISIS recently gave for despising the West:
ISIS did not exist until the Unites States destabilized Iraq; ISIS incubated and grew to power in that chaos and violence *WE* caused. They are now slaughtering Muslims throughout the Middle East because we created the environment in which they were born. They saw us destroy that Muslim country, and their existence is the result.
Moreover, ISIS is not the only or the first, Islamic extremist group. But what they all have in common is hatred of U.S. policies — as the Defense Science Board found when Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, commissioned their study.
I extensively quote from that study in a sub-thread below, here. If you have quarrels with identifying those causes of terrorism, take it up with the Defense Science Board.
ISIS is not a new phenomenon. Wahhabi armies have been attacking Iraq in order to wipe out Shiites for over two hundred years. ISIS is doing the same things that Wahhabi armies have been doing for centuries. And Sunnis and Shi’ites have been killing each other for over a thousand years.
The Caliphate is a utopia which can only be created through the mass murder and repression of all those who do not belong. This isn’t a new vision. It’s the founding vision of Islam.
ISIS has become more popular and more powerful than Al Qaeda because Muslims hate other Muslims even more than they hate America.
Once the US reverts to isolationism, everything will be fine.
@Marcus Tullius Cicero
You cited an author whose primary place of writing is David Horowitz’s Frontpage Magazine. Among sensible people, nothing more need be said than that to know the author is unreliable and almost certainly bigoted.
Yes, and the Defense Science Board Report was about Islamist terrorism against the U.S. anywhere, and why Muslims in general are so angry with America. Both studies find essentially the same reasons in play.
You get this entirely wrong:
Bin Laden was a rational actor. He was not known to be mentally ill or to have a sub-part intellect. He held to extremist political and religious views; many rational actors, past and present, do. You mistake “rational” for either “reasonable” or “moral.”
Moreover, he was not so much expecting the United States to accommodate his requests as answering an outraged American public that was asking: WTF?
Some of his characterizations are, at best, tendentious. But there’s no avoiding that it is American policies that have him pissed off. Most of his accusations about American behavior are entirely accurate.
To quote from the Defense Science Board report that Donald Rumsfeld commissioned:
“They hate our policies.”
And to return to the issue of of rationality, OBL quite rationally asked: “Is it in any way rational to expect that after America has attacked us for more than half a century, that we will then leave her to live in security and peace?!!” Well?
Admiral Thrawn makes a ninny of himself
1. Glenn Greenwald did not write this article. It is co-authored by journalists Murtaza Hussain and Cora Currier.
2. If anyone in this piece is denying the agency of those who commit what is called “terrorism,” it would be the FBI, with the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board having also done so.
3. Establishing the actual reason(s) a person or group commits Act X does not deny the agency of the person or individuals in the groups. Duh.
I can’t take anyone seriously who sincerely denies that the subject matter of this article is obvious. The behemoth wreaks havoc in pursuit of an aggressive, imperial foreign policy the end game of which is world domination and it comes as some sort of surprise when some people, even if they are not directly affected by the juggernaut, hit back? Give me one reason such scrofulous degenerates are worth listening to.
Murtaza:
Ask the right questions : 1) what forms of internet ‘surveillance’ take place after the targeted individual is referred to the CVE? 2) What type of information is released by the FBI to local police ABOUT these individuals ( how can a citizen acesss that database of speculation)? And what type of covert war is waged against these unlucky souls then, by cops with a teen locker room mindset, and cultish secret alliances with ‘community organizations.’? 3) what type of electronic devices are used in the surveillance of that particular individual-and what records are kept of the use of those devices? 4) What type of social media response is directed at these individuals by LEO’s, Fusion Centers, and what records are kept of those constant, covert, online interactions? When these ‘investigations’ end- who does the FBI kick the case to to continue the harassment? 5) those wonderful moments when agents and agencies redirect a targeted CVE ‘suspects’ to fake Google, and cuts, or delays the connections repeatedly, and so on, or returns searches with white screens that hang a browser for minutes at a time; or that somehow, constantly redirects to the jihadi recruitment pop up ( that’s a famous one in Minneapolis) or the “when should you shoot a cop” one from Copblock, that was directed at Gavin Long-ask those caring professional social workers, homeless shelter ‘volunteers’ and caring psychologists what they know about THAT little bag of bigassed loopholes in the ‘crazy-making program’ that CVE et al really are.
Ask these ‘professionals’ in the CVE program what their ‘clients’ say about these and dozens of other daily exploits of these individuals.
The combination of online manipulation, psychological manipulation and pure harassment ( Psyops, for instance, subtly threatening an individual by infering intimate details of their sex life will be revealed if they don’t conform, or decist in dissenting, etc); threats to make them homeless, being constantly buggered and followed by ‘Ctizen Corps’ who sit outside their houses on bicycles, and so on; constant badgering by agents that have a net negative psychological effect on the individual, etc)-ask what records are kept of THOSE interactions with LEO’s and those armies of paid disinfo trolls that are subsidized by homeland security.
These are good starting points to keep in mind when debating the value of “assessments” of any kind. Is radicalization in the “homeland” a cause or an effect, in part or in total of these targeted smear campaigns and extra-legal, para-judicial bullying? I’m sure the next study will ask THAT question( not.)
Neocons can’t face the fact that the religious aspects of Islam are irrelevant to “islamic terror”, they need islamophobia to justify their hateful and white supremacist wars and “military interventions”. Islam is “different”, dontcha know! They NEED to get bombed, that’s the only solution.
It’s not a coincidence that all those new atheist assholes support such monstrous uncivilized barbarity.
Apparently terrorists have no agency anymore. Per the logic of people like Greenwald, the killing of Muslims by the West is what – quite understandably, of course – inspires the wrath of Islamists in the West to commit lethal terror attacks against innocents.
And, apparently there is no significant moral difference between reactionary Islamist movements and liberal Western democracies.
Funny. If homegrown terrorists are so upset about the killing of Muslims, why don’t they just join a militia to fight the Taliban or ISIS? Those groups are way better at killing Muslims than the US. Grioups like ISIS are not interested in living in peace with neighbors; just ask the Yazidis. According to the Intercept, Islamist terrorists are just scientifically predictable products of their environment: If America leaves the Middle East alone, it will leave us alone.
Whatever? We had it coming, right? Who are we to judge the Islamic State?
The West in its current state is way better than a cowboy caliphate built on sand and insanity. I can get why The Intercept staff may disagree, though.
And, an inconvenient truth—Islamist extremists have been far more violent to other Muslims. This was true before 9/11 and remains true today with ISIS.
According to the Intercept and the legions of faithful commentors here, it appears we have a simple solution to the ISIS problem.
Just be nicer to Muslims, you greasy Islamophobes. Simple, huh? Oh, and don’t resist jihad. If you really want to defeat it, don’t fight back. Anything you do to defend youself will just provoke those poor souls more.
Just surrender, and all will be well.
At first glance, the FBI assessments merely confirm what should be intuitive. But there are more far-reaching implications. Just as US policies (of which the military is an extension) created the fertile ground on which ISIS/ISIL was spawned (the process following along these lines: arming & training mujahedin + underwriting Saddam Hussein+Iraq War), so also kickback implications on home turf seem likely. From this, we can ultimately conclude the Federal Government has recklessly created a climate which has placed the lives of US citizens at greater risk, both at home as well as on foreign soil. The “Globalist” paradigm is one in which welfare of common citizens (both economically and physically) has become a distant second.
Islamist fanatics are hereby relieved of all responsibility for their crimes. So let’s let their demands dictate our foreign policy. Hell, let’s hire them advisors. I’m sure the world will be more stable after that.
Come on. How does ISIS, which subjects women to abnormal sex acts through forced marriages, executes children for watching soccer and beheads Christians using cinder blocks and machetes have “legitimate grievances?” No non-Muslim country has ever reliably made peace with Muslim terrorists inside its own borders. Even the Muslim countries have a shaky track record.
ISIS’s main grievance: obey Sharia Law or be brutally executed. Compromise with Muslim terrorists is impossible because the issue is not really about Jerusalem, oil revenues in Nigeria, Kashmir, or Syria. It’s always about Islam. The territorial claims are unlimited because they are backed by Islam. No concession can ever suffice because Islam promises its followers the entire world.
What reasons does the Islamic State give for attacking Westerners, specifically Americans? Do you know?
Which should a rational American/Westerner care more about: 1. Muslims slaughtering innocents in Muslim nations, or 2. Muslims slaughtering American/Westerner innocents in our nations?
Do you care if the reasons for 1 & 2 are generally quite different?
The reason ISIS does what it does is to establish a global caliphate. It will not change its behavior if the US simply changes its foreign policy. Again, did ISIS attack Belgium for that country’s aggressive, militaristic foreign policies in the Middle East?
If only they were that rational.
You did not answer my question. To repeat: What reasons does the Islamic State give for attacking Westerners, specifically Americans?
You don’t have a clue, do you?
I did answer it. To establish a global caliphate.
How predictable. An Islamist decides to interpret his Qu’ran literally and commits a terrorist attack. An attack that, apparently would never have happened if the West or the US hadn’t done this or that.
It’s not a response to a US action; it’s part of the belief system. A belief system that allows adherents to beat their wives and kill unbelievers, among other things.
See Sura 9:14 and Al Bukhari vol. 1:35. Or what Mohommed Bouyeri said after killing a Dutch filmmaker: “What moved me to do what I did was purely my faith. I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his Prophet.”
Sura 9 is actually pretty interesting: “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem [of war]; but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: for God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful” (Sura 9:5). Also in Sura 9, “Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, [even if they are] of the People of the Book [Christians and Jews], until they pay the jizya [tribute] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Sura 9:29).
Or what Mohammad Sidique Khan said after bombing a London subway: “Our driving motivation doesn’t come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam—obedience to the one true God, Allah, and following the footsteps of the final prophet and messenger Muhammad… This is how our ethical stances are dictated.”
It’s all part of the doctrine. We can’t do anything to appease them; changing our foreign policy will not appease them; they’ll just find a new “grievance” to invent. Just look at what happened in Belgium—what exactly did Belgium do to piss of ISIS? Wage an aggressive war in the Middle East? Again: they are not motivated by Western policies, words, and actions, no matter how much they reference them to manipulate us. They are motivated by who we are: we are unbelievers.
How is that so hard to understand? Islamist fanatics do not need grievances against the West in order to carry out attacks. They don’t even need marching orders. All they have to do is read a Qu’ran.
People love to claim that all Islamist terror attacks are just the natural result of the Muslim world’s legitimate grievances against the West.
The problem with that is that Islamists who carry out these attacks also claim to adhere to the doctrine of killing infidels through jihad. And, besides, Islamists kill way more Muslims than they do Westerners. Why? Because they take the Qur’an literally.
So, just to get this straight: An Islamist watches a YouTube clip of an American or Israeli atrocity, which then radicalises him to…commit an atrocity! I guess that relieves him of all responsibility for his actions and state of mind. Parts of India have become Pakistan and Bangladesh. Yet we don’t see Indians going around trying to blow themselves up to regain their “lost land.”
See how it’s all our fault, all the time?
The FBI is a grotesquely white supremacist organization.
When a white supremacist terrorist slaughtered nine innocent black Christians, in explicit service to his confederate indoctrination, the director refused to acknowledge that it was an act of terrorism.
The director of the FBI is a white supremacist terrorist sympathizer, and there are (demonstrably) no consequences to that behaviour.
“……..The FBI is a grotesquely white supremacist organization…….”
That’s ridiculous although I agree that this was an act of domestic terrorism based on what I know.
“That’s ridiculous” What’s ridiculous is that useful idiot kids kneejerk deny the existence of white supremacy.
It was 50 years ago today that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover made headlines by calling Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the “most notorious liar in the country.” Hoover made the comment in front of a group of female journalists ahead of King’s trip to Oslo where he received the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest recipient of the prize. While Hoover was trying to publicly discredit King, the agency also sent King an anonymous letter threatening to expose the civil rights leader’s extramarital affairs. The unsigned, typed letter was written in the voice of a disillusioned civil rights activist, but it is believed to have been written by one of Hoover’s deputies, William Sullivan. The letter concluded by saying, “King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. … You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.” The existence of the so-called “suicide letter” has been known for years, but only last week did the public see the unredacted version. We speak to Yale University professor Beverly Gage, who uncovered the unredacted letter.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/11/18/the_fbi_vs_martin_luther_king
No one is interested in whether or not a rabid Zionist is willing to acknowledge the existence of white supremacist power structures.
That particular Zionist is a Trump-voter who is deeply hostile to Black Lives Matter. Most anything he dismisses as “ridiculous” should be considered as possibly true.
I’m aware of the anti-human puke-stain, but thank you.
As for the FBI being a white supremacist power structure, the facts speak for themselves:
Despite categorically meeting every criterion for classification as an act of terrorism, the head of the FBI (James Comey) refused to call it terrorism.
When the HEAD is a white supremacist terrorist sympathizer, so is the body, whether every part of it wants to be, or not.
James Comey, may not explicitly state:
When white people engage in, “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives,” and non-white people are the victims, then we make an exception, and disregard the definition of terrorism.
But actions speak louder than words, and that is exactly what he did.
Um, no.
Perhaps it isn’t so simple, because this narrative is you, running the pre-game show for the FBI’s eventual ever-changing goalpost, which is complete narrative control, and pre-emptive censorship of crucial narratives of the victims of these invasive, quasi-legal at best, psychologically damaging programs (and it curtails the necessary conversation about how these CVE targets are potentially owed actual damages BEFORE they are recruited, framed, or tossed away if they resist recruitment.)
And you have essentially bought the pre-game koolaid, by overlooking the loaded message of the CVE program here: “authorities did not find enough concerning evidence ahead of the attack to arrest him”
Ask the right questions : 1)what forms of internet surveillance take place after the targeted indivdual is referred to the CVE? 2) What type of nformation is released by the FBI to local police ABOUT these individuals? And what type of covrt war is waged against these unluky souls then by cops with a teen locker room mindset? 3) what type of electronic devices are used in the surveillance of that particular individual-and what records are kept of the use of those devices? 4) What type of social media response is directed at these individuals by LEO’s, vi Fusion Centers, and what records are kept of those constant, covert, online interactions? 5) those wonderful moments when agents and agencies redirect a targeted CVE supect to fake Google, and cuts, or delays the connections repeatedly, and so on-ask those caring professional social workers, homeless shelter ‘volunteers’ and caring psychologists what they know about THAT little bag of bigassed loopholes in the ‘crazy-making program’ that CVE et al really are.
Etc. I could go on, but simply put, the combination of online manipulation, psychological manipulation ( Psyops, for instance, subtly threatening an individual by infering intimate details of their sex life will be revealed if they don’t conform, or decist in dissenting, etc); threats to make them homeless, and so on; constant badgering by agents that have a net negative effect on the individual, etc)-ask whst records are kept of THOSE interactions with LEO’s and those armies of paid iinfo trolls that are subsidized by homeland security.
A decade and a half after the US launched a mass-murderous crusade against Muslims, the FBI has completed a ‘study’ that finds that some people are motivated to fight back?
That’s unacceptable.
How do we tolerate the continued existence of this short-bus of tax-consuming ass-clowns? Is the FBI LAUGHING at the public? Is this ‘study’ MEANT to be sarcastic?
HUMANS understood that “people fighting back” was an inevitable consequence, the moment we witnessed our insane ‘leaders’ starting wars against multiple countries full of innocent people who hadn’t done anything to us, as collective punishment for a crime that was perpetrated by a couple of dozen people.
If we believe that this ‘study’ is what comes of the FBI, genuinely TRYING to be useful, then we have to acknowledge that it serves no purpose but to consume public funds and harass innocent Muslim-Americans.
You can drink the koolaid of racial/religious motivation all you want, Lisa, but don’t leave whitey out there in the cold-all those white, Euro-descended, Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Atheist, activists and anti-war activists who have also had their lives become virtual shit swamps of constant surveillance, arrest, and/or chronic ‘community policing,’ online mobbing and narrative distortion. And BLM, of course.
Sure, it’s about the Muslims, as if others haven’t pitched in. Are you a white, middle to later aged, middle to upper class ‘progressive’ woman by any chance? Fite4UrRites, eh? Meh-I noticed the Gaians haven’t done much but talk alot, on blogs, primarily about fakerape, and cockblock copblock.
It’s problematic that you assume people know nothing more than what they mention within the confines of a single comment, about a specific subject.
That’s really boneheaded.
Likewise, it’s problematic that you imagine that you know anything AT ALL about a random online commenter.
You don’t, and you’re not invited to.
Moreover, it is problematic that you imagine accusing people of “drinking the koolaid” is a prelude to being taken seriously.
The only reason I’ve bothered to point any of this out, is because your facts about the FBI are basically correct. In contrast, your ability to assess people is nonexistent, and your derisive delivery repels any impulse to take you seriously.
You really took the circuitous route to say that I was basically right about your identity, and politics.
Thank you, thank you indeed! Other then that, it is noted tat you feel that my ability to assess people via a single comment is all butthurtz and balderdash. Noted.
Meanwhile, yes, my assessment of the FBI et ass is also, demonstrably correct: mere moments after I posted that comment above, my internet was DDoS, and went down for hours. Then, a cable truck was shortly thereafter in my alley.
Sometimes, Lisa, it isn’t all about you, or me. Sometimes, it’s about the bigger picture, and the more noble “fight” if you will- the one that doesn’t use physical weapons, and that seeks allies amongst those who love dear words, and speech, and association online with whoever we wish to associate with, WITHOUT some asshat out there creating a profile or a mind map of the speaker.
Yes, some of us also are aware that all constitutional rights depend from these two alone, and that the process of protecting those rights is subverted at the switch point in Israel, and then too, the Five Eyes nations that route illegally gleaned data about Americans who use words back to American agencies who detest the use of words, whereupon massive personal attack campaigns are waged in secret upon speakers of words.
And, sometimes, yes, race is used horribly to indoctrinate some at the expense of others. Race is a privileged narrative, as is religion and religious supremacy ((( the trojan stalking horse in this non-discussion. Not uncoincidentally, religions hate words too, unless they come from a 4,500 year old fairy tale)))
In this case, it was you who brought the issue as a “Muslim” issue, and hence it’s other subtle inference- that of racial categories.
So, your dialogue is predictably SJWWW ( social justice white woman warrior), and strikingly devoid of insight into the bigger picture of the massive disruption of American civil rights ( you know, the ones some of us have been here fighting for all along, without the WFP).
So, perhaps your assessment- that I cannot identify traits of a speaker is correct, what with all the hasbara and paid intel trolls out there doing online drag shows every day in the comments section, but I think I am more or less correct, at least in the viewpoint you espouse.
But yes, we fundamentally agree on these asshats that are subverting the Constitutional guarantees.
Regarding your first paragraph:
What kind of an idiot INSISTS on being wrong – in a manner that REFUSES to distinguish between imagination and reality – just to cling to the delusion that he/she is in a position to condescend to someone, whom he/she “fundamentally agrees” with?
Regarding “In this case, it was you who brought the issue as a ‘Muslim’ issue”:
THE FBI’s STUDY made it “a Muslim issue,” moron.
Do you even REMEMBER that there was an article? About a study? By the FBI? Which purported to be on “domestic terrorism,” but which only ‘studied’ Muslims?
FUCK, you’re an obtuse little defamation distribution machine.
Ask someone to HELP you read my previous response to you; you clearly didn’t understand ANY of it.
Sure, but the F-bomb? Now I know you are someones bad teenager.
Sure, very philosophical, but aso F-bombie, in the way that Kant would want. But- don’t be a Kant, o.k.? Think outside your box, or nym, or whatever your handler has you doing today.
Condescend? I would say you hit bottom here with the F-bomb, but ok, whatever ( and how Freudian, lol).
Bye Bye! You are starting to sound like the tag team half of Spy-vs-Spy, but which one? They are so individual and all; mirrors of those other NSA type asshats up there ( almost like a Craigsummers)
(deliberately NOT re-reading Lisa’s previous masterpiece.)
Lisa feelz that being called a white female is defamation. Oh shit! Now I might get psued in pseudonym court!
What’s worse: being harassed ad infinitum because of secret courts, secret profiles, secret laws, and secret agents in the real world because, some drug addled informant sayz, or FISA and CVE; OR, being psued in pseudonym court? It’s a tuff call, but I’ll take pseudonym court every time.
Being profiled as a white woman is defamation? That’s not a bad thing at all. They could use a general kick in the Kantian imperatives. Progress!
Most people couldn’t imagine being narcissistic enough to freak out at people for discussing a “massive disruption of American civil rights,” just because they wanted to discuss a different aspect of it. You, on the other hand, are so hostile and self-obsessed, that you feel entitled to ATTACK people for having a discussion that isn’t focused on YOUR issues.
I’m not surprised that you’re still crying about the fact that I didn’t compliment your hissy-fit. Even by comparison to other trolls, you’re a psychotic prick.
You’re also a PREJUDICED prick, compulsively labelling people, in the attempt to pre-dismiss every possible point of view. You’re also a DELUDED prick, imagining that your defamatory ‘profiles’ are correct, even while you’re reversing them.
Is that your REAL problem with the FBI? You’re a pitifully inept failure, of a wannabe-profiler. So, did you apply and get laughed at?
If “my internet was DDoS…” was an attempt at humour, then you’re inept at that, too. If it was just more of your insanity, then stop pointing your crazy DIRECTLY AT people. It’s rude, you stupid fuck.
Conversely, if your tale of persecution and pursuit is true – and you thought your best course of action, under the circumstances, was to be aggressively retarded at a random stranger online – then I’m rooting for them.
Regarding: “Lisa feelz that…”
Talking to an imaginary friend, fuckwit? Even he doesn’t care for your demented fairy tales.
@Marcus Tullius Cicero
Your are posting discredited nonsense, and quoting a writer who posts at the grossly unreliable Frontpage magazine, run by embittered crank David Horowitz. Both the Pentagon Study commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld, and the FBI study written of above, are at complete oddswith your Islamophobic claims and sources.
I can, and likely will, quote at very great length from individuals convicted of terrorism in the United States; their reasons virtually always pertain to American policies toward Muslims and Muslim nations, especially our violence and killing of Muslims all over the world. But let’s start with Osama bin Laden’s Open Letter to Americans, my emphasis.
I shall post it right below this comment.
OBL:
That’s just the first part. And I can provide many, many, many more from various Muslim militants also citing U.S. policies toward Muslims and Muslim nations as the reason for their militancy and attacks on us. (This includes Muslim-Americans convicted on terrorism charges and their sentencing statements, which are deeply eloquent and full of authentic anger and pain.)
Muslims do not hate us for our freedoms — they hate us for our policies.
Oh, my. Another apologist for mass-murdering, head-chopping Islamist fanatics. You know, the rational ones, with perfectly legitimate grievances. The ones who will stop as soon as we realize the very real error of our ways. The ones who are so averse to making peace.
Also, quoting bin Laden’s protests of other people’s crimes, real imagined, is pretty rich, coming from him.
This quote is rather interesting: “When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islam, the religion of all the Prophets peace be upon them.”
What Romans?
Guess I’m an Islamophobic for quoting the very words of Islamists.
Regarding: “Guess I’m an Islamophobic for quoting the very words of Islamists.”
Given the state of your reasoning skills, I guess it shouldn’t surprise people that you’ve failed to make the connection between dropping bombs on innocent people, and having their friends and family FIGHT BACK.
Is there someone who can HELP you?
Oh, great. Once the US ends its overseas involvement, everything will be fine. You should write to your Congressman about that.
No, bimbo, everything DOESN’T become “fine” after you invade a country, and slaughter innocent people, on an ongoing basis, for a decade and a half.
If I spent a decade and a half systematically murdering people in your life, and then stopped, would everything be “fine” with you?
Would the fact that you weren’t going to be “fine” about it, be an adequate excuse for me to just CONTINUE murdering the people around you, forever?
Are you REALLY so morally retarded that you need it explained to you in this fashion? If so, why should anyone have any interest in the opinions of a monster?
Systematically murdering? Huh. Maybe the West should find a way to wage war in a way that puts exactly zero civilians at risk. I think I might get to work on that idea soon.
Again, jihadists target civilians DELIBERATELY, unlike the US. Maybe you want to try work up some outrage about that practice, instead of excusing it.
Then again, maybe you’re spending to much time surfing jihadist Internet propaganda.
How do you imagine it helps to answer a charge that you are a monster, by insisting that you are worse than I think?
Of course the US targets civilians DELIBERATELY. It ROUTINELY bombs a crowd of civilians, in order to murder an individual. It ROUTINELY bombs weddings and other gatherings, using the DELIBERATELY inadequate ‘reasoning’ that crowds are potentially scary.
And your first paragraph boils down to:
“If starting unjustifiable offensive wars, on an ever-expanding number of fronts, only serves to cause retaliation against the American public (and, of course, extract wealth from the American public), then HOW ABOUT MORE WAR?”
TRY to think:
No, bimbo, everything DOESN’T become “fine” after you invade a country, and slaughter innocent people, on an ongoing basis, for a decade and a half.
If I spent a decade and a half systematically murdering people in your life, and then stopped, would everything be “fine” with you?
Would the fact that you weren’t going to be “fine” about it, be an adequate excuse for me to just CONTINUE murdering the people around you, forever?
Are you REALLY so morally retarded that you need it explained to you in this fashion? If so, why should anyone have any interest in the opinions of a monster?
By your definition, all civilian casualties in wartime are deliberate murders,all the time.
If there was a way to target the enemy with zero risk to civilian casualties, then, duh, we would use it. But there isn’t. This dilemma is hardly unique to America’s drone wars.
How much do you even know about modern warfare?
You may as well have saved your time and skipped everything other than “duh.”
“Starting unjustifiable offensive wars, on an ever-expanding number of fronts,” does not legitimize mass murder.
Ask someone to HELP you read (if anyone with a brain can stand your company).
Before Israel, Palestinians living in what is now Israel had no freedom of speech, the press, assembly, religion, etc.
Israel gave them those freedoms.
Before Israel, Palestinians were ruled by the Sultan & then by the Prime Minister of the UK.
Israel gave them the vote.
Again, the above-,mentioned FBI study refers to homegrown terrorism specifically. You also accuse me of Islamophobia but do not critique any of my arguments; you basically just repeat bin Laden’s. Are the sources I have cited “discredited nonsense” just because you say so?
You also seem to take bin Laden’s arguments at face value, as if the man was a completely rational actor who was just waiting for America to accomodate his reasonable requests.
I never claimed that they hated us for our freedoms. You write that they hate us for our policies: the implication being that if we simply change these policies, Islamist fanatics will somehow become more accommodating and less murderous.
Sure, let’s try it sometime. You make it sound so simple.
…while ignoring political motivations behind radicalization.
Well duh, if it didn’t the tender embrace of the imperial establishment would have to come up with a new gig.
Be careful what one wishes for here, based on the current view, can anyone know the capability or depth of depravity the corporate state and their surrogates can unleash…just ask Greece or any number of teetering, floundering and failed nation states.
The study itself refers to homegrown terrorism, specifically. So, does the same logic about US military operations apply to foreign jihadist groups?
Whenever an Islamist terrorists does what he does best, everyone always scrambles to figure out their grievances vis-a-vis the West. They love killing two birds with one stone: 1)distracting the world from both Islamic and Islamist ideology and 2) gaining concessions for Islam.
Also, if Islamist extremists are terrorizing and murdering Americans due to nothing more than “political grievances,” then why are they terrorizing and murdering non-Muslim minorities who do not even have the power to inflict “grievances” on anybody? Just look at how much these groups love to harass and slaughter Christians in their homeland: are they doing that because of their “grievances”? Radical Islam is in many ways a problem unique to the religion it originates from. Also, why did ISIS attack Belgians? Because of Belgium’s aggressive, militaristic policies in the Middle East?
From one of bin laden’s private letters:
“Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue … and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?… The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die.”
(Raymond Ibrahim’s “Al-Qaeda reader”, page 42)
Also interesting is the writing of bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri: according to him, Muslims must always bear enmity for all non-Muslims.
http://raymondibrahim.com/2013/09/18/muslim-husbands-must-hate-non-muslim-wives/
See also the Islamic doctrine of wala’ wa bara’
But, whatever. It just has to be America’s fault, somehow. Because Islamist fanatics somehow have to be rational actors who just have their own special way to vent their “grievances.” The list of things that non-Muslims can do to “provoke” Islamist violence seems to increase every day.
Is there a way I could read the actual report or is it unavailable?
As I note below, the FBI report affirms the findings of the 2004 Pentagon study by the Defense Science Board. The FBI study:
The Defense Science Board study is entirely available, and includes passages such as:
More from the DSB report in replies.
The DSB report continued:
Upon good faith request, I can and will post from Islamist documents and the courtroom statements of Muslims convicted on terrorism charges, which entirely echo and support what the FBI and the DSB report both find, to wit: our policies, military and otherwise, infuriate Muslims ands are the leading cause of terrorism.
Theyget upset if anyone becomes aware of their illegal activities and interventions even if it is in the NYT and bothers to write or think about it. They hate our freedoms so they don’t want us to be upset when our own country is doing things that are against our own interests, which is idiotic. terrorists are irrelevant, the authorties want to prosecute me for having a brain and opposing them ideologically. Its not religion, they are wasting my tax money. They should stop bombing where they have no authority under international law. They don’t want any discussion of anything beyond sports. They fear the courts as much as the Constitution. All since I was in high school. fools on an errand. Reagan did Peace with Russia, not these FBI creeps.
More of the obvious criminal & warmongering…neocon problem that we have and suffer from in this country. Arrest them and jail them all and this kind of home-grown madness and non-sense will cease. Morally and financially the country (and the world) would be better off and we could all get back to peace and prosperity minus these psychopaths that for the most part belong in a cage someplace terrible for their many crimes…
I wonder if this FBI report ever made it to Obama’s desk. I don’t suppose it matters; the WOT has always been about destroying democracy anyway.
We need to start making the legal consultants/minds clearing these violations of humanity accountable. None of this happens without lawyers clearing it. They are perfect turds!
Who would have thought… So that’s 10 out of 16. The other six cases are presumably the ones where the FBI did the radicalization themselves.
Right John, and I am certain that it was the FBI which radicalized the 5000(+) Muslims making the pilgrimage from Europe to join ISIS in Syria.
This is great to have, and I’ll make use of this information. But it only confirms what prior study — and common sense based on what is known of human nature — already told us. This is true, but basically known:
Those of us who’ve long been reading Glenn Greenwald learned 7 years ago of the 2004 Defense Science Board Study — commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld — which concluded essentially the same thing, only with greater specificity.
Mona
Obviously, you are dipping into your 5% again. Anything in this article about our support for Israel, Mona? The 2004 Task Board blamed US foreign policy entirely. Now it is down to less than one in five. Additionally, this article also makes it plain enough even for you to see that online propaganda from radical Islamists like the (deceased) Awlaki should be the focus of attention for domestic terrorism – and without really saying so indicates that by assassinating Awlaki, the US government saved lives.
A survey of Arab youth further indicated that US foreign policy and support for Israel were far down the list for ISIS recruitment. In that study, unemployment, dispair and chaos were cited as the biggest factors for radicalization. Additionally, the 5000(+) Muslims that have traveled from Europe to Syria to join ISIS to murder 300,000-400,000 Muslims is further proof that the underlying cause of terrorism is not western foreign policy at all (or at least killing Muslims seems to be an odd way of revenge for a US policy of killing Muslims).
In addition, the disagreement between European and US studies on radicalization indicates that more studies are necessary. The 2004 Defense Science Board Study over emphasized the US role because – like Greenwald (and you) – they simply fell prey to the propaganda of Bin Laden.
According to al-Jazeera (this morning):
“……Shia pilgrims were targeted in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday with at least 14 people killed as they gathered to mark Ashoura, one of the most important days on the Shia-Muslim calendar…….”
Obviously due to our support for Israel.
Thanks Mona.
Readers: 95% of the time I do not reply to authoritarian, pro-torture Republican Trump-voter Craig Summers. Doing so caused other commenters to complain; when I reply to him then Craig posts massive walls of repetitive drivel in response.
Mr. Hussain and Ms. Currier
“………Online relationships and exposure to English-language militant propaganda and “ideologues” like Anwar al-Awlaki are also cited as “key factors” driving extremism. But grievances over U.S. military action ranked far above any other factor, turning up in 18 percent of all cases, with additional cases citing a “perceived war against Islam,”…… The report ends with recommendations that agents focus their attention on web forums, social media, and other online interactions, and step up surveillance of “known radicalizers” and those who contact them……..”
Only one in five can be related to US foreign policy which is actually a very low percentage – and the recommendations are that agents focus on the online propaganda promoted by known radicalizers like Awlaki. Awlaki is associated with numerous terrorist attacks.
“……..Among the factors that did not “significantly contribute” to radicalization, the study found, were prison time, military service, and international travel. Although, the report notes, “the FBI historically has been concerned about the potential for prison radicalization,” in fact, “survey results indicate incarceration was rarely influential.”…..”
Far too little is known about the radicalization process. For example, European and US studies disagree on the importance of prison time for radicalization. This could be related to the amount of Muslims in prison because of the far greater population of Muslims in Europe. According to an article in the Middle East Eye (Oct 11, 2016; “European jails are ‘breeding ground’ for militants warns report”; Alex MacDonald):
“……….Europe’s prisons have become a “breeding ground” for Islamic State and Al-Qaeda militants, with a report finding almost two thirds of European “jihadists” were previously involved in violent crime…….The report, released by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at London’s King’s College, warned of the development of a “new crime-terror nexus” in which criminal networks in prisons and in communities gave way to recruitment into militant groups. Prisons, in particular, are a major hub for such groups……”
It seems that it is still far too early to draw any final conclusions on the radicalization process.
Hope the water protectors at cannonball never see this repor
Once American military operations in the Middle East end, everything will be fine. Right?
Once US military actions in the ME change from suppression of democracy, oppression of dissent, and support of crimes against humanity to the opposite, things will change dramatically. There will always be the folks upset about the end of privilege/escape from discrimination (think Roof, etc) who’ll regard violence as the way to restore the old unjust system, and folks like you will call that a failure, but allowing that to stand in the way of moving in the right direction would be as stupid as not doing preventative maintenance because, in the end, machines wear out and have to be replaced.
Well. Glad things are that simple and straightforward, then.
Gee who could have imagined that the objects, friends and family members of those America targets for its freedom and liberty bombs don’t take it too well when America’s bombs turn said individuals into cherry chiffon without any semblance of legal due process. You know for their own good and because it makes way too many Americans “feel safer” in Iowa or Mississippi.
The survey responses reinforced the FBI’s conclusion that such individuals “frequently believe the U.S. military is committing atrocities in Muslim countries, thereby justifying their violent aspirations.”
Gee, where did they ever get THAT idea? Everyone knows that America is the Exceptional Nation, and that when it bombs weddings and hospitals, it’s all for the greater good.
Well, it’s reassuring to see our .gov overlords are able to see the obvious. More importantly, it’s great to see that this isn’t going to have any effect on their broader policy goals — perpetual warfare.
I guess that explains the ISIS attacks in Belgium.
“The survey responses reinforced the FBI’s conclusion that such individuals ‘frequently believe the U.S. military is committing atrocities in Muslim countries, thereby justifying their violent aspirations.’ ”
The key word, of course, is “believe.” I guess American atrocities, real and imagined, justify the very real atrocities of Islamist fanatics, then.
So let’s just end all overseas American military operations. After that, everything will go back to normal. Right?
Belgian military forces have been involved in the Afghanistan and Syrian conflicts. Do you think that maybe Belgian Muslims might be a little upset about that?
What are they there for, though? To conquer Muslim lands? Only in the fevered imaginations of gullible Islamists.
Hmmmm . . . I don’t know . . . after reading that pile of drivel, called the FBI investigation of the JFK assassination, and another pile of absolute drivel, called the FBI investigation of the RFK assassination, and the recent pile of drivel called the FBI report on HRC’s emails, color me skeptical about any and all further piles of drivel from the feebs of the FBI — all typical g-workers, as useless as a Virgil Bailey!
“Terrorism is very much a product of individuals identifying themselves with a group that appears to be the target of aggression and reacting violently to that,” he says. “Continued U.S. military action will inevitably drive terrorist activities in this country, because some local people here will identify themselves with the victims of those actions abroad.”
What a load of poppycock. All Americans know that only animals and other non-persons react with anger to actual or perceived aggression toward themselves or groups with whom they identify. Look at 9/11 for example. We were attacked, but did Americans react with anger? No. We remained totally calm. We didn’t call for a war of retaliation or get angry at all. We embraced peace.
People get killed by cops practically every day, and cops are killed by citizens. Does that produce anger and retaliation? Never. We always stay totally calm and go about our business.
I think these bits of counter-evidence show that FBI study to be flawed. That’s just not how people react to things.
Even the attack on Iraq was mostly for shock and awe, if the buildings fell and killed people it was Iraqi’s fault for building weak structures. But look at the greater good — we gave them democracy, sectarian wars, great governance and ISIS. The good old US will fight some more on the behalf of the Iraqi people and replace ISIS with PKK. We are good at replacing bad terrorists with good ones.
Well done, Bodhi. For a moment I thought you were serious.
USAID and US State Department operations are the biggest source of terrorist propaganda these days, it seems – like the White Hat BS:
But as long as the terrorists inspired by the White Hat propaganda effort only attack Russian cities, gosh, it’s all good – just like the U.S.-sponsored ISIS and Al Qaeda groups in Syria from 2012 onwards were supposed to restrict their activities to attacking the Syrian government, with the aid of weapons transferred from Libya by Hillary Clinton, including Qaddafi’s sarin gas, tanks, etc., as well as the Saudi sources (Raytheon TOW missiles for ISIS, etc.). And then ISIS seized Syrian oilfields and began selling the oil through Turkey to Israel, and using the proceeds to finance their global Internet propaganda operations.
That’s how ISIS was financed and armed, that’s how ISIS rose to prominence in Syria, that’s how the “homegrown terrorists” were inspired to conduct acts of violence all over the world. Clinton, Obama, the Saudis, the CIA’s training camps in Jordan and Turkey, all played starring roles in this debacle, which of course the Intercept refuses to discuss in any detail, instead choosing to parrot US State Department propaganda lines.
The effort to brand the Intercept as “independent journalism that doesn’t follow government-written scripts” has failed, you can pass that on to the editors and owner.
Domestically the FBI is guilty of same “radicalization” through it’s STASI harassment program. The FSU, Navy Yard and Baton Rouge shooters were victims of Military Grade RF weapons. See: “Moscow Signal” on technology used. DEW’s are covert and lethal over time. The intent is again a reduction of our freedoms and rights. Problem-Reaction-Solution. The Fake war on terrorism.
how to stop terrorism : STOP BEING A TERRORIST
how much did the fbi spend to tell us what we’ve known all along? the u.s. military invasions (and support and propping up of idf and other terrorist organizations) all over the world is what has led to these retaliatory acts against u.s. citizens
So what they’re saying is:
Ron Paul was right. Ron Paul was always right.
Bet they won’t report that in the media. After all, it’s only been said by everyone from the head of MI-6 to the head of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit.
This article is correct.
In Physics, it’s stated this way: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
“Tyrant” and “Terrorist” are interchangeable words… depending only upon one thing: Whether you hold Office or not.
Military deserves the focus, but unless “foreign policy” covers it, why not directly mention the levels or lack of economic opportunity available in areas more prone to this type of radicalization?
Does this study deal with violent terrorists who are not Muslim? Some of those most certainly are radicalized by US military and law enforcement operations.
This is good sense. Thanks for your excellent reporting.
just in case we have to be reminded of the obvious; just so there is no confusion on the bush/obama/congressional wars: the wars have endangered the lives of all american civilians living in the united states, as well as taken the lives of innocent civilians here. even before the current wars, 9/11 was in retaliation for america’s middle east mayhem.
3000 people died for their government’s recklessness in that episode.
the constitution instructs government to promote the domestic tranquility.
ooooops!
As long as the US continues to deny the wisdom of common sense and what is obvious, 2 things will happen.
1. millions will suffer the immeasurable consequences of death, destruction and deprivation of life support and denial of self destiny.
2. hundreds will make millions on studies which show that millions will suffer the immeasurable consequences of death, destruction and deprivation of life support and denial of self destiny.
and by the way, i came to the same conclusion and tossed in some insights for way less than the what, $50 million you paid for the “study”.
https://theintercept.com/2016/10/10/photos-show-fragments-of-u-s-bombs-at-site-of-yemen-funeral-masssacre/?comments=1#comment-294121
And for good measure – here is another conclusion that can save you millions –
I was gonna reference that, how dare u.
So, pretty much just “actually” coming to terms with something a sanders basement supporter could have said 8 years ago.
Actually Ron Paul said it eight years ago in a Republican presidential nominating debate, and Rudy Giuliani insisted he apologize.
I just have one question: are the two of you working for the Russians?
I lied, I have two. Is the FBI working for the Russians?
There are people who accused Radio Free Europe of working for the Russians when they reported on a poll they did which showed that Crimeans wanted to be part of Russia.