interview with a jihadi

[Musopticon?]

And you can totally blame it on on today's USA! Just like you can blame a M

Edited July 29, 2007 by Musopticon?

[Yuusha]

I'm not trying to blame anyone. I'm just pointing out a certain american-related bloody event that happened in the past.

[Yuusha]

This brings me toa further point - can we be sure that all suicide bombers are actually knowingly suicide bombers?

 

Terror is not a spontaneous human action without credence. People just dont hijack planes and commit harakiri (suicide) without any weight of thought to the action. No one here (heck no one in the media) seems to ask WHY DID THESE PEOPLE DO THIS HORRIFIC ACT OF VIOLENCE AND DESTRUCTION?

[Musopticon?]

Ok, why did they?

[Arkan]

This brings me toa further point - can we be sure that all suicide bombers are actually knowingly suicide bombers?

 

Terror is not a spontaneous human action without credence. People just dont hijack planes and commit harakiri (suicide) without any weight of thought to the action. No one here (heck no one in the media) seems to ask WHY DID THESE PEOPLE DO THIS HORRIFIC ACT OF VIOLENCE AND DESTRUCTION?

 

 

They are brainwashed to believe that sacrificing themselves to kill a few enemy soldiers (and dozens of innocent civilians in the process) will send them to the promise land. That's why.

[Yuusha]

An essay by Serj Tankian of the band System of a Down.

 

The brutal attacks/bombings this week in New York, and Washington D.C., along with threats of attacks there and elsewhere in the country have changed our times forever. While the mass media concentrates on the details of the destruction, and the blanketed words of politicians, I will attempt to understand and explain the events from the fence. BOMBING AND BEING BOMBED ARE THE SAME THINGS ON DIFFERENT SIDES OF THE FENCE.

 

Terror is not a spontaneous human action without credence. People just dont hijack planes and commit harikari (suicide) without any weight of thought to the action. No one in the media seems to ask WHY DID THESE PEOPLE DO THIS HORRIFIC ACT OF VIOLENCE AND DESTRUCTION?

 

To be able to understand the answer to this, we must first look at our U.S. Mideast Policy. During most of the 20th century, U.S. businesses have worked on attaining oil rights and concessions from countries in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. After WWI, secret back door deals by our State Dept. yielded oil rights from then defeated Turkey to fields in what is now Iraq and Saudi Arabia, in return for looking the other way at a crime against humanity, the Genocide of the Armenians by the Turks. Oil profits have been the motivating factors behind many attempts at counterinsurgency of democratic regimes by the CIA and the U.S in the Middle East (such as Iran in the 1950s, where the Shah replaced the Prime Minister who refused to give up oil rights to the U.S., and since the people couldnt deal with the Shah, an extremist government headed by the Ayatollah Khomeini ultimately prevailed). During the Iran-Iraq war, America supplied both sides with weapons and advice. These are not the actions of a rich superpower wanting peace. Lets not forget that Saddam Hussein, before being Americas vision of the Anti-Christ, was a close ally of the U.S., and the CIA. So what was the firm belief system of consecutive American administrations that caused all this to occur ? PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST WILL LEAD TO HIGHER OIL AND GASOLINE PRICES. Lets not also forget the power of the Arms industry, disguised as defense, that still sells billions of dollars of weapons to the area. Therefore it has not been in the short-term economic interest of the U.S. to foster Peace in the Middle East. Using the above reasoning, the U.S. has encouraged extremist governments, toppled democracies, as in the case of Iran to replace it with a monarchy, rigged elections, and many more unspeakable political crimes for U.S. businesses abroad. Lets not also forget the Red Scare. During the war between the then Soviet Union and Afghanistan, the U.S. armed and supported the Taliban, a fundamentalist Muslim organization, and allowed them to export opium and heroin out of their country to pay for those weapons. Therefore the Taliban rose to power and control with the help of the U.S.A. Today, the bombing of Iraq still continues, no longer covered by the media, the economic embargo still remains, killing millions of children, and recently, while the world and the U.N. General Assembly have cried out to bring in peacekeeping forces into Israel and Palestine, to end the escalated war and recent assassinations, the U.S. has vetoed the rest of the Security Council and has halted the possibility of peace, there, in the most volatile place in the world.

 

People in Serbia, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan to name a few have seen bombs fall, not always at military targets and kill innocent civilians, as the scene in New York city yesterday. The wars waged by our government in our names has landed smack in the middle of our living room. The half hour of destruction closed down all world financial markets, struck the central headquarters of our military, and had our leaders running into bunkers, and our citizens into fear and frenzy. What scares me more than what has occurred is what our reactions to the occurrences may cause. President Bush belongs to a long generation of Republican Presidents who love war economies. The media has only concentrated on the bombings, if you will, and what type of retaliations are looming for the perpetrators. What everyone fails to realize is that the bombings are a reaction to existing injustices around the world, generally unseen to most Americans. To react to a reaction would be to further sponsor the reaction. In other words, my belief is that the terror will multiply if concrete steps are not taken to sponsor peace in the middle east, NOW. This does not mean that we should not find the guilty party(s), Bin Laden, or whoever they may be, and not try them. Put simply, as long as a major injustice remains, violence precipitates to the surface of life.

 

Native American folklore, the Bible, Nostradamus, and many other major religious beliefs point to this era with the visuals of yesterdays disasters, and conditions of ecological disasters we experience daily in our lives today. War, rumors of war, famine, long burning fires, etc., are at our doorstep. We can prevail over this possible vision with the power of the human spirit, understanding, compassion, and peace. ITS TIME TO PUT OUR NEEDS FOR SECURITY AND SURVIVAL, ACHIEVED ONLY THROUGH PEACE, ABOVE AND BEYOND PROFITS, ESPECIALLY IN THESE TIMES.

 

SOLUTION:

 

The U.S. should stop sidestepping the U.N. Security Council, and allow U.N. Peacekeeping troops and missions to the Middle East. Stop the violence first.

 

Stop the bombing and patrol of Iraq.

 

With todays gains in the use of alternative fuels, develop them to full usage with autos and other utilities, to make the country less dependant on an already depleting natural reserve, oil.

 

By initiating peace, we would have already shaken the foundations of support for Bin Laden, and/or all those that sponsor activities like those we saw yesterday, and break the stronghold of extremists on the world of Islam. On the other hand, if we carry out bombings on Afghanistan or elsewhere to appease public demand, and very likely kill innocent civilians along the way, wed be creating many more martyrs going to their deaths in retaliation against the retaliation. As shown from yesterdays events, you cannot stop a person whos ready to die.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Im sorry, I was too busy pondering this rocksingers unshaven facial hair to pay any attention to any supposed message in this text. Thus, Im going to take the liberty of summing up what I think was the meaning of this text I didnt actually read: terrorists hate freedom.

 

I would therefore suggest a strategy in which we repeatedly freedomize the middle east until its so darn chock-full of freedom that the terrorists willingly surrender themselves, begging to be whisked away to the unfreedomesque safety of Gitmo.

[Yuusha]

@Kaftan Barlast: Yeah you do that. Ignorance is bliss after all.

[Meshugger]

Bringing out the 'ole fat boy', what a cop out. Let's call on those Germans, feckin' nazi and stuff. Terrorizing freedom-loving Europe back in the 30's and 40's. Oh, and lets not forget the Japanese themselves, standing tall and mighty, driving out the evil white devil from Asia and giving the other Asians the freedom and liberty they wanted.

 

Yeah, right.

 

But you forgot one major thing, dear yuusha. The Presidents and generals later greatly regretted 'dropping the bomb', labeling it one the of the greatest tragedies of mankind. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not one bomb was used against any enemy or civilians. NOT ONE. Even Stalin and the commies were vary of using the great bomb. STALIN, remind you. But will those people who send their men, "whose great sacrifice for Allah will bring peace to earth", regret their wrongdoings? Will they acknowledge that hatred only leads to more suffering? Do they have the strength to what Ghandi, Luther King and similar have done? Resist without violence? I see no such thing.

 

Face it, you can't compare ones suffering to the other. Especially when it comes to death. You have no moral superiority if you want to prove by death that one is the greater tyrant than the other.

 

 

 

 

P.S. If you bring in Bush, Iraq, Israel and Palestine as an answer, then you missed the point entirely.

Edited July 30, 2007 by Meshugger

[Yuusha]

@Meshugger: Umm... What was your point again?

 

Ok I'll play along, I won't mention the a bomb no more. You know what they say about hindsight. But I will say this: America is being targeted by terrorists for a reason. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that terrorism can be justified in anyway. But it CAN be understood and possibly prevented, providing the US government is willing to alter their immoral and aggresive foreign policy. What gets me though, is the fact that the average American don't know the real reason as to why the US is hated by more and more people everyday.

 

"Oh they hate us because they hate freedom."

 

"Oh they hate us because we're powerful."

 

"Oh they hate us because we are the champion of justice."

 

Yeah right....

[Krookie]

Okay, so why do they hate us? Cause our president choked on a pretzel? Do these guys worship the almighty pretzel?

[Meshugger]

Now you are on the right track. But the points you are making about the roots of terrorism are not unfamiliar at this forum. Everyone here knows about the actions of the CIA and the American foreign policy can make people a bit angry at best. We also know that Bin Laden-esque terrorism (or any form of terrorism and warfare) only makes things more unstable than they already are. The British certainly know it with their encounters with the IRA. Kaftan was just messing with you since you provided a somewhat fuzzy source, a lead singer of a rock band. Balancing on the fine line between knowing your enemy and sympathizing with it can lead to great confusion as well.

Edited July 30, 2007 by Meshugger

[Yuusha]

@Krookie: LOL! Pretzels huh? LOL!

But seriously man, you really wanna know?

[Meshugger]

Bin laden and alikes are using the frustration and sense of injustice caused by the foreign policy of the US and the western world to justify their own means. But that's not the only thing, throughout the middle east, propaganda against anything western and Israel has created a generation of people of hating everything of the non-muslim culture. The corrupt regimes of Egypt, Syria (Jordan to a somewhat degree), Iran and previously Iraq have used the jews and pretty much everyone else to blame for every problem that they are exposed to.

 

Bush isn't the only one to blame. Hell, even before 9/11, he pretty much did nothing to anyone, domestic or foreign.

Edited July 30, 2007 by Meshugger

[Yuusha]

@Meshugger: Sun Tzu once said, and I qoute: "A diamond is still valuable even if it did come out the rear end of a flea ridden dog." Meaning that even if I were to reference a homeless bum for my arguement, what does it matter so long as what he/she said is true.

 

Believe it or not, I DON'T hate the american people. At least not all of them. The only reason I keep replying to this thread is because of the seemingly biased views of some of the members here. As a Muslim, I feel obligated to kinda set the record straight.

[Meshugger]

Why are you offended as a muslim? That was interesting. I thought that you were talking about the phenomenon called terrorism, why personally be affected by it? No one here said that the terrorists where loopy because they were religious, more like they were f*cked up beyond recognition in their heads to begin with and how silly their reasoning is. If they were of Buddism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, Scandinavian Paganism or radical (insert political affiliation)-ism we would still mock them.

[Laozi]

 

 

[Walsingham]

Housewives and children were incinerated instantly or paralysed in their daily routines, their internal organs boiled and their bones charred into brittle charcoal.

 

Now that's terrorism!!!

 

Yeah, and the firebombing of Dresden. Don't forget that.

 

I'm too hungover to really get to grips with this, but if you really equate organised warfare, however disgusting, with the random _and pointless_ deliberate slaughter of civilians _and not military personnel_ then I suggest you get back to studying.

[Musopticon?]

Preaching to the choir is considered out of the norm anyway in here.

 

We know where you are coming from.

[Walsingham]

Why are you offended as a muslim? That was interesting. I thought that you were talking about the phenomenon called terrorism, why personally be affected by it? No one here said that the terrorists where loopy because they were religious, more like they were f*cked up beyond recognition in their heads to begin with and how silly their reasoning is. If they were of Buddism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, Scandinavian Paganism or radical (insert political affiliation)-ism we would still mock them.

 

 

Good point. In fact we have. Aum shinrikyo, the provos, and loyalists all get short shrift.

[Yuusha]

I never said I was offended. I was just saying that from a Muslim's point of view, you're understanding of Jihad is only half true.

 

But believe whatever rethoric you wish. It does not matter in the end. :sad: It's not like I can defend myself here.

[Walsingham]

Actually, I believe you aren't giving the members the credit they deserve. Not only do we have several muslims here, who have generously explained the complexity of jihad, and who might feel you are assuming a lot by claiming to be a victimised muslim. There are also several unbelievers who have made independent study of the subject. We know that jihad is taken in many different ways, and that is why I for one encourage use of the term jifascist. It's fascism with a jihad twist. Howevrer, plenty of people don't know what the hell is ment by a jifascist, so I titled the thread jihadi.

 

Back on topic, if you've read the initial linked article I'd be interested to hear your comments on the woman's view of jihad.

[Tale]

I find it awkward that anyone from a country who has been attacked by Jihadis more recently than the US can try and find a position to claim that the US is being attacked for a reason. It just seems kind of a weird to sympathize with people who are attacking you by villifying their other victims. Unless of course, you also villify your own country.

 

Edit: On the topic of the article, how old is that woman? I kept getting the impression that she was a child. The constant references to getting parents to take others away. Or is that typical for women in that culture or particular sub-culture?

Edited July 31, 2007 by Tale

[Walsingham]

Yes, it does have to be said that we the US and UK were under threat before the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, and will be after we leave. I hate to sound like George Junior, but the simple fact is that radical fascist islamism is naturally going to want to destroy the West because we fundamentally oppose what they want. They despise democracy as weak and corrupt. They regard freedom as irrelevant to the true believer. We stand in their way.

 

However, what I do think is interesting is the extent to which radicalism promises an end to secular corruption. Because in many ways this was what the Chritsian puritans used in England and elsewhere. Cromwell was vital for the development of the UK, but he was a bit of a bastard.

 

A point? erm... I find jifascism boggling, but at the same time, not impossible to empathise with.

[Kaftan Barlast]

On the topic of the article, how old is that woman? I kept getting the impression that she was a child. The constant references to getting parents to take others away. Or is that typical for women in that culture or particular sub-culture?

 

 

The idea is that a woman is the responsability of her parents until she gets married, after which she is the responsability of her husband. Obviously there are exceptions, and I think that a American family would try to get their daughter back aswell if she'd joined some weird cult.