Tuesday 23rd of April 2024

the bushit madrassah .....

the bushit madrassah .....

‘The commonly accepted knowledge in the administration and in the Pentagon is that this is a religious war, that these men blow themselves up for God. Not at all, says Brzezinski: "These are political questions. They may seen religious, but in reality they are directly related to our policies. Look at who they are against: the U.S., the Brits, the Israelis. We are seen as the new British colonialists, just as in Vietnam we were seen as the continuation of French colonialism."

Actually, all the investigations into who the terrorists are and what inspires them are clear about the fact that their primary inspiration is not religious, but political. The study of 300 suicide bombers made by professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago found that virtually none of them was religiously inspired; they were communists, socialists, Muslim Brothers, Arab nationalists, but above all, they were inspired by Western occupation and dominance of their lands.

Last week, at a meeting at the New America Foundation, CNN's seasoned terrorist specialist, Peter Bergen, impatiently told a group of us after someone brought up the old question of Islamic madrassah schools inspiring terrorists: "Of all the terrorists that I have known, almost none were from the madrassahs. If they were educated, they were usually from Western universities; they were engineers ..."

And they are doctors.

Instead of confusing us, the fact that the suspects captured in Britain this last week after attempting car bombings were doctors actually confirms the "political inspiration" theory. We might stop to recall that it was doctors in Hitler's concentration camps who performed the most frightful operations on the inmates (remember the grotesque Dr. Josef Mengele?), and that Soviet doctors stood obediently at the right hand of the communist state, performing every possible horror.

In today's world, for these "doctors" from the Middle East, the craft that they learn in London or Yorkshire or wherever has very little link with their private emotional motivation. Indeed, the Brits who captured them said all had been radicalized by the Iraq War - that same war we think we're fighting to keep ourselves safe from terrorism.’

Political, Not Religious, Issues Are Motivating Terrorists

The oil will run dry before the tears...

US Iraq chief warns of long war
   
The head of US forces in Iraq, Lt Gen David Petraeus, has told the BBC that fighting the insurgency is a "long term endeavour" which could take decades.

Speaking to the BBC's John Simpson in Baquba, Gen Petraeus said there was evidence that the recent troops surge was producing gains on the ground.

But he warned that US forces were engaged in a "tough fight" which will get "harder before it gets easier".

His comments come as US calls for a rapid troop withdrawal gather strength.

Gen Petraeus was keen to emphasise that the ongoing unrest in Iraq is not something he expects to be resolved overnight.

"Northern Ireland, I think, taught you that very well. My counterparts in your [British] forces really understand this kind of operation... It took a long time, decades," he said.

The question is how can we gradually reduce our forces so we reduce the strain on the army, on the nation and so forth.

"I don't know whether this will be decades, but the average counter insurgency is somewhere around a nine or a 10 year endeavour." 

doctoring terrorism .....

‘Pundits and self-appointed experts on Islam are wringing their hands as they try to explain why two Muslim doctors and at least six other medical workers were involved in this week’s failed bombings in London and Glasgow.

It certainly sounds horrific and counter-intuitive. Physicians, trained to heal, turned into would-be mass murders with cars packed full of explosive materials and nails. Since I’m writing a book on why the Muslim world is so angry at the west, let me venture some heretical thoughts.

First, there is nothing sacrosanct about doctors. Behind carefully cultivated veneers of icy detachment, they have the same emotions as ordinary mortals.

The most evil, frightening man I ever met – and I’ve met a lot – was Haiti’s tyrant, "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who was a crusading country doctor before he turned into a Voodoo-crazed despot. 

Second, the amateur, would-be killers who staged these bungled attacks were not, as many western pundits claim, unlikely to have been driven by some sort of homicidal perversion native to Islam. An entire cottage industry of publicity-seeking anti-Muslim writers is at work seeking to confirm the increasingly popular prejudice that Islam is a sick, demented, homicidal faith. These pundits are merely licking the hand that pays them.’

London and Glasgow: Worse Than A Crime, A Mistake