Also see What is Terrorism? by Mojoey
Posts Tagged ‘terrorism’
Through the Lens of Righteousness [StOP Comic 20]
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
Only Muslims can commit terrorism
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009Prepare yourself for an interesting and heinous contradiction.
As we all know by now, on Sunday, May 31, 2009, Dr George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas was murdered as he was engaging in church services in a Kansas church where he was a member. The alleged perpetrator of the murder is Scott Roeder, and his ex-wife, Lindsay Roeder, claims that he is “crazy”.
Is Scott Roeder “crazy”? If so, what caused it? If he did murder Dr Tiller, what caused him to do so? Was it merely a case of diminished mental capacity, or was it something more? Was the murder of Dr Tiller an act of terrorism?
I won’t bother trying to define terrorism as it seems too many people have different definitions of what comprises terrorism. Is a single heinous act terrorism? Perhaps. Are multiple acts toward the same target terrorism? Definitely. For many years, Dr Tiller was the target of multiple inflictions of personal injury and destruction of property. So were Towers 1 & 2 of the World Trade Center in New York City. Dr Tiller was not the first provider of abortion to be injured or murdered, and he probably won’t be the last. Neither was the World Trade Center. Abortion providers (physicians) have taken increasingly drastic steps to protect themselves, their employees, their clinics and their patients. The providers and their clinics have repeatedly been the subject of threats, bombings and shootings — all at the hands of perpetrators with a “pro-life agenda”. That irony is quite illogical but quite true. Even our government, by order of Attorney General Eric Holder, has dispatched US Marshalls to provide additional protections to abortion clinics throughout the United States. Why? Could it be that these abortion clinics are engaging in lawful activities? Yes, indeed they are. Could it be that the perpetrators of violence against abortion clinics are engaging in lawful activities? No, indeed they aren’t.
There are many cries that this act of murder is an act of terrorism. Just google it to read them. While I agree that the perpetrators of violence against abortion clinics are also engaging in terrorism, so are the pro-life supporters that encourage the perpetrators. The rhetoric the religious right uses to aid and abet these outcomes are acts of terrorism. They are no different than the IRA or the Taliban or Al-Qaeda gleefully taking responsibility for their latest acts of terrorism.
Here is the hypocritical contradiction of the United States . . .
Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 24, a convert to Islam, is under arrest for allegedly murdering Pvt William Long and injuring Pvt Quinton Ezeagwula at a military recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas. Is Mr Muhammad being charged with murder and attempted murder? Yes, of course, but guess what else? He is being charged with “15 counts of engaging in a terrorist act” as “investigators believe there were ‘political and religious motives‘ in the shooting”.
I don’t know if Mr Muhammad has engaged in multiple acts of violence toward the same or similar targets, but with at least this one episode of violence toward these two men, Mr Muhammad is labeled as a terrorist. Really? Is it because he is a “darkie”? Is it because he is Muslim? Is it because he objected to the actions of the US military? Is it because he used to be named Carlos Bledsoe and likely engaged, although unclear and unknown, in some form of Christianity before converting to Islam?
How is Abdulhakim Muhammad a terrorst but Scott Roeder isn’t? How is Osama bin Laden a terrorist but Randall Terry isn’t?
This is yet another example of the religious and ethnic double-standard America has allowed the religious right to perpetrate upon the world, and continues to allow people like Randall Terry and Bill O’Reilly (and many others) to repeatedly make remarks, with impugnity, that inflame the issue and encourage people to act out in criminally terroristic ways. They are all terrorists.
So, terrorism is for Muslims only? It makes me sick.
Addendum: Frank Shaeffer has provided a mea culpa, a public apology, for his actions that contributed to the spawn of hatred for and violence toward abortion providers. Although Mr Shaeffer does not condone the act of abortion, he appreciates that it is a legal right for a woman to choose an abortion and believes that it is immoral to attack women who seek such services. He describes how this was not his position 30 years ago when he assisted the Religious Right (aka the Moral Majority) in spawning hate for anyone associated with an abortion.
God Hates Co-Ed Sports (And Women)
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009When I get hyperbolic in my ranting against religion, my tirade doesn’t come close to the atrocity that is the manifestation of religion in reality. When people ask, “What’s the harm in non-extremist religious belief?” I reply with reports like the enforcement of the Iranian law that bans any physical contact between unrelated/unmarried men and women. Case and point, an Iranian Co-Ed soccer game arranged in Tehran last week by the Esteghlal football club (yes, it’s “soccer” football) resulted in the punishment of the managers — because the game was between the men’s youth team and women’s first team. The male manager was suspended for a year and fined 50 million rials ($5,000), and the female team’s woman coach was suspended for six-months and fined 20 million rials ($2,000). 1
Apparently, cellphone camera footage provided sufficient evidence of such a sinful deed. I find it despicable that when something like this happens, nations don’t stand up in protest because religious custom must be respected. The oppression of women by Muslim nations needs to be stopped, whether from the inside or the outside or a combination of efforts. Women are intentionally undereducated, segregated, violated, and otherwise mistreated. It’s not always in Muslim countries, of course. All such behavior worldwide should be targeted for annihilation, and given priority over religious deference and political wars.
(Yes, I know the Iranian football situation is not an example of “violence” against women, but it is a good example of how women are oppressed in all facets of some societies, and how that treatment is justified with religion or other superstition (like genital mutilation justifications, none of which are sufficient for what’s done to the little girls who suffer it) )
Thus, Some links:
NOW and Violence against Women
Violence Against Women Online Resources
Parliamentary Campaign: Stop Violence Against Women
The position of women in Islamic countries: possibilities, constraints and strategies for change, Report prepared for the Special Programme WID, Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS), by Sally Baden
Human Rights in Arab Countries, by Mitchell G. Bard
Acid Attacks – New York Times(video) (“Westerners associate terrorism in Pakistan with suicide bombers, but an emerging terrorist threat for Pakistani women is acid attacks, often by their own husbands, Nicholas D. Kristof says.”)
- Details from The Express (from The Washington Post) as well as The Offside [<]
The Time Bomb Torture Test
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
Scenario:
You are leading an investigation regarding a potential terrorist plot to set off a bomb in the middle of Manhattan. You have good reason to believe that the bomb is set to go off on the anniversary of 9/11. The date today is September 10.
You have captured a person whom you have verified as being a member of the terrorist group in question. You have reason to believe that this person knows where the bomb will be planted and knows the location of the other members of the terrorist group.
Your intelligence level of reliability and accuracy is based loosely on past experience and the consistent reliability of the same sources. You would rate the accuracy of your “reason to believe” at about 90% (about a 10% possibility of error).
Based on your information, the bomb would kill around one million people. (There are about 1.6 million people living in Manhattan).
You have some educated guesses as to where the bomb may be located, but you lack the resources and time to be able to cover even a small fraction of those locations.
You have approximately 12 hours before you believe the bomb will detonate.
You have been given special permission by the President of the United States to use any means necessary to prevent the bomb from detonating, and assurance that you will be immune from any criminal or civil liability based on your actions. This guarantee is in writing, and you have no reason to believe it is insincere. It also covers any attempt at extradition by any international courts. (Basically, for purposes of the hypothetical, assume that regardless of what you do, you will not be legally liable).
You have unrestricted access to the prisoner (who speaks English), and unrestricted access to any devices that may be acquired and used within a 12-hour period.
Assuming that the prisoner is adamant about trying not to reveal any information regarding the whereabouts of the bomb or the other members of the terrorist organization,
What do you do to try to extract the necessary information from the prisoner?
Options:
1: Use unrestricted torture devices and methods
2: Use torture devices and methods, but limited in a certain way (which you will explain in your comment)
3: Use only methods authorized by the Human Rights Convention and other applicable humanitarian international and domestic law
4: Only interrogate verbally (including any sort of psychological methods)
5: Only interrogate verbally (without resorting to psychological manipulation)
6: Something else
Also, please consider these additional questions:
a. Would you allow the prisoner to have a personal legal representative (attorney) present?
b. Depending on which option you chose, would you perform any of the interrogation/torture personally, or would you delegate that duty?
c. Would you video tape or otherwise record any or all of the interrogation?
d. Would your answer to the original question (level of torture) differ depending on the gender of the prisoner?
e. Would your answer differ if the prisoner were a white, U.S.-born anglo-saxon? Male? Female?
f. Would you use forms of mutilation? Genital mutilation?
g. Would you consider rape (either for a male or female prisoner), or the threat of rape to be an acceptable form of torture in this scenario?
h. If you had access to the prisoner’s 10-year-old daughter, would you consider torturing the daughter in order to extract information from the prisoner? If so, what’s the extent of torture you would use against the daughter (in terms of the options above)?
i. If you had access to two otherwise equal prisoners, would you kill one in order to extract information from the other?
j. If you had not gotten the requisite information by hour 11, what would you do?
