MEET A SUICIDE BOMBER

[Tigermike 3,037]

Notes & Comments

By Clifford D. May 

July 19, 2005 

MEET A SUICIDE BOMBER: Al-Arabiya TV has reported on an Iranian movement of 40,000 suicide bombers who plan to target Americans in Iraq and Israelis wherever.

Volunteer bombers have attended organizing conventions, registered for suicide duty -- online! -- and received training. Watch this clip from Iran in which aspiring suicide bombers are interviewed and celebrated.

The clip was sent to me by an Iranian friend, a pro-democracy activist, but credit for obtaining and translating goes to our friends at MEMRI TV.

WHY SUICIDE BOMBERS DO IT: "By pressing the detonator, you can immediately open the door to Paradise -- it is the shortest path to Heaven ... we get to meet the Prophet and his companions, inshallah."

Read this remarkable interview with a suicide bomber who lived to tell the tale. Researcher Nasra Hassan reveals their motivation and the death cult that encourages them.

Hat tip: Roger L. Simon .

LONDON'S FIFTH COLUMN? Naill Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, writes:

"If al-Qaeda indeed carried out this act [the London bombings], it is a great victory for it," declared Dr Hani al-Siba'i in an interview on the al Jazeera satellite television channel the day after the London bombings. "It rubbed the noses of the world's eight most powerful countries in the mud." He went on to say that it was legitimate for al-Qaeda to target civilians because "the term 'civilians' does not exist in Islamic religious law in the modern Western sense. People are either of Dar al-Harb [the domain of war, meaning territory ruled by non-Muslims] or not."

And where are you most likely to bump into Dr al-Siba'i? Why, in London, where he is the Director of the al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies ...

The official line is that this is the work of a criminal minority, and should not be blamed on Islam or the wider Muslim community. Quite so. The trouble is that this criminal minority considers that it is acting on the basis of Islam. And it seems to be hatching its schemes right under the noses of the wider Muslim community.

The Ferguson piece is here. Hat tip: Bob Andrews.

LESSONS OF LONDON: Among the things we should learn from the terrorist attack on London is that it is wrong to believe -- as many still do -- that if we just leave the radical Islamists alone they will leave us alone.

From Charles Krauthammer's most recent column:

"Early news reports of the London bombings mentioned that police found no suspects among known Islamist cells in Britain. Come again? Why in God's name is a country letting known Islamist cells thrive, instead of just rolling them up?

"British Islamists had spoken of a 'covenant of security' under which Britain would be spared Islamic terrorism so long as it allowed radical clerics free rein. Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, for example, a Syrian-born, exiled Saudi cleric granted asylum 19 years ago, openly preaches jihad against Britain. He is sought by the press for comment all the time. And, a lovely touch, he actually lives on the British dole -- even though he rejects the idea of British citizenship, saying, 'I don't want to become a citizen of Hell.'"

The full column is here.

WHAT DO YOU THINK CHURCHILL WOULD CALL THEM? According to the Telegraph: "The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labeling the perpetrators as 'terrorists' ... The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the 'careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments'. Consequently, 'the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding' and its use should be 'avoided', the guidelines say."

PR FOR AL-QAEDA: The following is just below the lede of a p.1 NY Times story from Iraq on Sunday. Notice how it steers clear of saying anything judgmental about the act of mass murdering civilians.

Notice how, instead, the slaughter is described as merely "dramatic" and from these killings no conclusions are drawn about the perpetrators but rather, it is argued, the bombings "severely challenged the American command" and its "claim" that it has been making progress.

"The bombing, in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of the capital, was the latest in an unrelenting string of dramatic suicide bombings that have killed scores of people and severely challenged the American command, which only a month ago claimed that military offensives had sharply undermined the ability of the insurgents to launch attacks and cut the number of suicide bombings in half."

If Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has a communications director, is this not precisely the way he would hope his group's terrorists attacks would be reported by the MSM (mainstream media)?

INFORMATION WARFARE: Austin Bay makes a related point I've long been trying to get across:

"Terrorism as practiced by al Qaeda -- and, for that matter Saddamist killers in Iraq -- is 21st-century information warfare. Terrorists don't simply target London and Baghdad, they target the news media.

"Al Qaeda understands our media crave the spectacular. But don't place all the blame on headline writers and TV producers. Like sex, violence sells, and al Qaeda has suckered audiences by providing hideous violence."

The entire column, worth reading, is here.

IMPORTING EXTREMISM: How did the Muslim Brotherhood implant its poisonous ideology in the heart of Europe? Evidently with CIA assistance.

"If you want to understand the structure of political Islam, you have to look at what happened in Munich," says Stefan Meining, a Munich-based historian who is studying the Islamic center. "Munich is the origin of a network that now reaches around the world."

A story by the WSJ's Ian Johnson is here.

Hat tip: Bob Andrews.

ET TU, TONY? In Tony Blair's speech to Parliament recently, he rattled off the names of victims of Islamist terrorism:

"It seems probable that the attack was carried out by Islamist extremist terrorists, of the kind who over recent years have been responsible for so many innocent deaths in Madrid, Bali, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kenya, Tanzania, Pakistan, Yemen, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco, of course in New York on September 11th, but in many other countries too."

Yeah, in many other countries, too, like ...Iraq and Israel?

It's worth noting that one of the suspects in the London bombing had visited Israel -- and apparently not to take in the sights or sample the cuisine. More here.

Hat tip to Kathryn Lopez who also has noted that less than 24 hours after the July 7 terrorist bombings in London, a Palestinian Authority Television sermon called for the extermination of every single infidel:

"Annihilate the Infidels and the Polytheists! Your [i.e. Allah's] enemies are the enemies of the religion! Allah, disperse their gathering and break up their unity, and turn on them, the evil adversities. Allah, count them and kill them to the last one, and don't leave even one."

- Suleiman Al-Satari, PA TV, July 8, 2005.

More here from Palestinian Media Watch.

SIGN OF PROGRESS? In some key Muslim countries support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence has "declined dramatically," while a growing majorities or pluralities of Muslims surveyed now say democracy can work in their countries and is not just a political system for the West.

Hat tip to Captain's Quarters which has more here.

ANTI-HISTORY: Juan Cole, the President of the Middle East Studies Association, continues to blame Israel for all sorts of strange things, making up the evidence as he goes along, in an apparent attempt to persuade readers to share his antipathy for the Jewish state. But Martin Kramer slices and dices him here. It's well worth reading.

SHAMEFUL TIMES: Not for the first time has the NY Times misrepresented an event so as to reflect badly on Israel. Trey Jackson explains here. Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.

- Cliff May

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