Worldwide pattern of Islamic extremist attacks

[ul][li]Russia – Chechen attack on Moskow theatre[]Bali – Nightclub bombing[]Kuwait-- Attacks against American troops[]Yemen – Bombing of French ship[]Algeria – gunmen ‘kill 21 family members’[]Europe – attacks on synogogues and other Jewish targets in various countries[]United States – 9/11[]Washington D.C. sniper attacks []Los Angeles – Airpot shooting kills three []Afghanistan – various horrible actions committed by former Taliban/al Qaeda rulers.[]Israel – routine mass killings of innocent civilians.India – terrorist attack by Pakistanis (I’ve forgotten the details.)[/ul]No doubt I’ve missed some. Posters are invited to supply other examples.[/li]
The point of the debate is that the world is undergoing a Fatwa. It should not be looked at in terms independent responses to Dutch misdeeds, Russian misdeeds, Swedish misdeeds, American misdeeds, French misdeeds, Indonesian misdeeds, Afghani misdeeds, Algerian misdeeds, etc. It should be understood as a war against the rest of the world by a segment of Islam. The threat should be dealt with on that basis.

:smack:

Not again!

I had a guy step on my toe today. I’m pretty sure he was islamic

Are you calling for a crusade against Islam?

Many of these attacks are related to al Qaida and their asociated groups. So what? What are we supposed to do different than we are doing (aside from getting Dubya to concentrate on al Qaida and stop trying to avenge his daddy’s foolishness in Iraq).

You have, by the way, thrown more in here than can be legitimately considred part of a “movement”:

  • The Chechen’s have been unruly rebels from the time of the Czars.
  • The Muslim and Hindu Indians have been at odds for so long that after the British-imposed single colony construct fell apart, it took three (so far) separate nations to handle the disputes.
  • The LAX attack and the Washington sniper still appear to be the works of individual loonies who have been spurred on as much by the anti-Muslim propaganda that you enjoy embracing as much as by any connection to an organized Islamist movement.

Algeria and Israel probably now have connections with (generalized) Islamist terrorist movements, but each had its roots in specific local conditions.

Go ahead, call for your crusade. On youir head be the victims.

december, I’d find your arguments more convincing if you were to enlist. If the situation is as dire as you believe it is, don’t you feel compelled to take up the fight yourself, rather than just asking other people to do it for you?

december if you’re going to be inflammatory, at least get your terms right. A fatwa is just a legal ruling on an issue of religious law. Any ruling on any issue. For example a ruling on whether withdrawing life support for a braindead individual is permissable or not, would be a fatwa.

Saying that ‘the world is undergoing a fatwa’ doesn’t make sense as a statement unless you are more specific and tie all terrorist attacks to a single declaration ( or multiple declarations framing a single issue from a single source ), which should then be specified. In this case tieing Chechen attacks to to Indian clashes, for example, almost certainly does not spring from a single such source. al-Qaeda bombings may.

At any rate, what tomndeb said. I’m all for the campaign against terrorist organizations and I agree we are in a war of sorts with the most radical jihadist-salafists. But tieing sectarian clashes in India ( which are multi-sided in areas like Gujarat ) with the sniper in Washington is casting your net a bit too wide IMO.

  • Tamerlane

The usual.

Among which have been skinheads of decidely non-Muslim orientation.

The DC sniper, I fail to see an “Islamist” connection. The whacko changed his last name to Muhammed, big fucking deal. The name John Allen Muhammed is decidedly non-Halal and hardly indicative of “Islamist” leanings at all. It conjuction with the monetary demands and various ranting, it is indicative of a paranoid loon grasping at ways to lash out at society.

Again, individual loon.

And shall we note the Hindu led attacks on Muslims. The sub-Continent’s problems are not Islamism per se.

A list of unconnected examples is nothing more than that.

I fail to grasp how the world can “undergo” a fatwa, insofar is a “fatwa” is simply a declaration by a “religious authority” whose only weight is the audience that listens. The statement is simultaneously illiterate and meaningless.

No, it should not.

There is an actual problem of course, and that is al-Qaeda having gelled a terrorist network together, but your list is nonesensical in its composition and coherence.

No, that’s probably the worst way to get at it, as it ignores the local motivations of most of the footsoldiers, so to speak.

There are threats, plural. The threat that should be dealt with on a global basis is the narrowly defined al-Qaeda network, with a rigorous attention to them versus local grievances, else one makes the same mistakes as in the Cold War of mixing locally driven problems in with an international problem and coming up with fundamentally inappropriate solutions. The Tchetchen situation is precisley one of these instances, where Russian brutality has clealry been a very large driver in the radicalization of the population. Israel is another, etc.

Major Hijack-

Collounsbury, since you’re around, what’s your opinion re: the ‘Hashemi Arabia’ thread? Granted it is just fantasy-land speculation, but I’m curious what your take is on how far-reaching the implications would have been of a complete Saudi defeat in the 1920’s and the subsequent conquest of the Nejd by the Hashemites, vis-a-vis modern Islamic fundamentalism.

  • Tamerlane

What’s the difference between “crusade” and “jihad”? Muslims go ballistic upon hearing at the term “crusade” and then turn around and “jihad, jihad, jihad”.

OK, but I was thinking of this particular fatwa from OBL.

Note that this fatwa calls on Muslims to attack:

– American
– Supporters of Americans
– The pagans all together

Collounsbury, although some attacks on European Jews and Jewish institution have been perpetrated by skinheads, would you not agree that many of the perps were Muslims?

The Islamist connection of the D.C sniper is that he converted to Islam. Also, he had some connection with Louis Farrakhan.

These are minor points. The real key is whether attacks that ere not coordinated by al Qaeda are nevertheless connected to al Qaeda or to Islamic extremism. Of course, nobody can be certain. It’s possible that al Qaeda and the various Palestinian terrorist groups may have inspired hate crimes by unstable, unconnected Muslims, like Muhammad and the LAX shooter.

To summarize:[ol][li] A popular Muslim leader calls on Muslims to attack Americans, Amercan supporters and pagans. Various Muslims all over the world attack Americans, Amercan supporters and pagans.[/ol]Coincidence?[/li]
One thing is sure. We aren’t seeing a worldwide spate of terrorist attacks against other religions by Jews, Roman Catholics, Buddhists, Presbyterians, or even atheists.

december
Did you accidentally forget to read the previous posts which clearly make the case that the Muslims in India, DC/LAX, Chechenya and even in Palestine are not Osama “The Popular Muslim” Bin Laden followers? How can you continue to reiterate what you said earlier with little consideration to the responses to your OP?

Let’s take it one step at a time, litost. There have recently been a lot of terrorist attacks by Muslims against infidels. Some were organized by al Qaeda. Some are a part of the war against Israel by its neighbors. Some were anti-Semitic attacks in countries other than Israel. But, then we come to the ones that don’t have one of these obvious connections:

– Pakistani terrorism against India
– Bali
– Chechens in Moscow
– D.C. sniper
– LAX shooter (this looks to me like an anti-Semitic attack)

I agree that there’s no clear connection between these terrorist activities and OBL. Still, it’s striking how many there are. Teh world isn’t experiencing attack against mosques and other Moslem institutions by Christians, Jews, or Buddhists. Other non-Muslim disaffected factions in Russia aren’t committing terrorism. We haven’t seen a recent convert to Baptist kill a dozen random Americans.

You are right that these acts are not all tied to al Qaeda. OTOH it doesn’t look random, either. What’s the connection?

yeah, i can’t go three feet without being attacked by all the muslims that work here. Oh, wait, i CAN, because none of them are Loonies!! but there is a Loony in this thread, can anyone spot him?

Maybe this is a clue.

Bali may very well be al Qaida related.

The Pakistanis and Indians have been fighting since you were in short pants (and before I was born) over Kashmir.

The Chechens spent almost 20 years fighting off the czar, only to be overwhelmed. As soon as the the 1917 revolution broke out, they declared independence, only to be re-subjugated by Soviet troops. During WWII a many of them were deprted to Siberia as Stalin feared they would support the German invasion. As soon as the Soviet Union broke up, they again declared their independence and began an on-again-off-again war of independence that has been marked by incredible brutality on both sides.
Yep. Muslim conspiracy.*

The sniper and LAX shooter are nuts. The LAX shooter was certainly anti-Israeli and possibly anti-Jewish, but you can say the same thing about the poster sionnach and I doubt that she is part of an Islamist conspiracy.

I ask again: So what do you think we ought to do about your hodge-podge of incidents? Do you recommend that we eliminate all Muslims from the face of the Earth?
*I would not be surprised to discover that they have accepted support from al Qaida. People in desperate situations will often band together with anyone who will offer “help”–just as the IRA used to routinely accept aid from Gaddafi and Libya despite having no cultural ties.

Another clue

[quote]
In an article titled “A Guide to the Perplexed Regarding the Permissibility of Killing Prisoners,” which appeared in the column “Jihad News from the Land of the Caucasus(1)” the author suggests that the Islamic religious scholars present five different alternatives, drawn from the various interpretations of the Koran: [ol][li] A polytheist prisoner must be killed. No amnesty may be granted to him, nor can he be ransomed.[] All infidel polytheists and the People of the Book (i.e., Jews and Christians) are to be killed. They may not be granted amnesty, nor can they be ransomed.[] Amnesty and ransom are the only two ways to deal with prisoners.[] Amnesty and ransom are possible only after the killing of a large number of prisoners.[]The Imam, or someone acting on his behalf, can choose between killing, amnesty, ransom or enslaving the prisoner. [/ol][/li][/quote]

December, I think you need to ask your doctor to lower the dosage.

Hardly any of the perps are muslims. This kind of thing is generally done by racist white nutjobs. I know a LOT of muslims - they don’t much like Jews, it’s true (because of the Palestine issue) but they understand the importance of holy places because the mosque is so important to them.

Attacking synogogues isn’t their style.

  • don’t worry about OBL’s fatwa, most muslims don’t take any notice of OBL.

  • the Chechen struggle for autonomy has nothing whatsoever to do with OBL

  • the DC sniper was just a loon who “converted” to Islam after Sept 11, but he’d still be a loon whatever religion he followed. I wouldn’t describe him as a muslim, myself.

  • the Bali bomb was odd, I’m still not quite sure what that was all about (although it seems that one may have al-Q connections)

  • Pakistan and India have been at each others throats for decades, nothing to do with al-Q

  • the Israel thing has nothing to do with al-Q either

You’re seeing connections where they don’t exist and can’t be justified. Believe me, I understand paranoia (since I’m pretty paranoid myself) but I think you’re pushing the paranoia envelope too far.

These kind of things were going on before 9/11, it’s just that since 9/11 we’re all ultra-sensitive to Islamic terrorism. Everytime something happens we all wonder whether it’s tied in to al-Q’s war on the west. The fact is - most of the time it’s not. Most of the time it’s just some local disagreement that happens to involve muslims.

From talking to muslims I’ve discovered that one of the things they fear most is what you are now doing - blaming them for everything that happens in the world. They often bring up the fact that the Oklahoma bombing was attributed to muslims at first before the truth came out.

I know a lot of muslims and I know a lot of Jews and they seem pretty similar to me (as a non-muslim and a non-Jew). I dunno why they seem to dislike each other so much. They get on with each other on a personal level but they do seem to have ridiculous caricatures of each other on a general level.

December is asking a valid question. I’ve noticed these days that when he asks anything at all, he gets jumped all over and nitpicked to death.

Take those first few snotty messages attacking him for his supposed misuse of the word ‘fatwa’. It was clear to me what December was talking about. We don’t need to hammer him because of nitpicking details about what ‘fatwa’ really means. In this case, it was clear that he was speaking about the specific fatwa that Osama Bin Laden issued, calling on all Muslims to attack Americans and others.

Let me re-state the questions, and see if we can’t actually have a real debate instead of yet another December pile-on party. The questions are:

  1. How many of the terror attacks going on right now are directed by al-Qaida?

  2. Of the ones that aren’t, how many are by ‘free-lance’ radicals, who are directly responding to OSB’s fatwa? In other words, is that fatwa having an effect?

Now, to me those are fair questions, and deserve serious answers. Take the case of the Washington DC snipers. Here we have a guy who claims to be a convert to Islam, who changes his last name to Muhammed, and who expresses sympathy with al-Qaida’s goals. He buys the license plates for his murder vehicle on the anniversary of the WTC attacks.

And this guy isn’t acting alone. Not only does he have a 17-year old accomplice, but a 3rd person is arrested who was co-owner of the car. That suggests that this spree was not a ‘nut’, but someone motivated either by ideology or money.

Given all of this, the default assumption to me should be that this IS a case of radical Islamic terrorism. Yet people are doing flips and twists trying to paint these guys as something else - a disgruntled soldier with svengali powers over a young person, or a nutcase with charisma like Manson, or something similar. Why not just accept the fact that the evidence points to this guy being motivated by hatred for the United States and being incited by the actions of al-Qaida, or maybe acting explicitly to fulfill the fatwa issued by OSB.

Certainly it’s a debatable position.

Are you French, Jojo? France seems to be the worst European country for antisemitic attacks. It’s reached a point where Jews are afraid to go out in the street with symbols of their religion visible. It si generally agreed that Muslim Arabs are behind most of the attacks, although I believe that many of the crimes are unsolved.

What do you make of fact that Muslims in many countries publicly cheered the 9/11 attack?

I agree. And yet, the similarity of method (ruthless terrorism) is striking.

Why wouldn’t you describe him as a Muslim?

I agree, but again note the tactic of terrorist attacks used by some Pakistanis.

Right, but again there’s the similarity of tactic.

think part of the connection may be something about the culture.

PBS did a pretty scary show a few months ago that dealt with what is being taught in some of the Islamic religious schools. Not all, but quite a few Muslims have already declared war on all infidels, and certainly have America as the “Great Satan.” I personally see nothing wrong with the OP. It wasn’t criticizing all Muslims, only the extremist portion of Islam, and that’s precisely how it was worded in the title: “Islamic extremist attacks.”

JZ