Islamofascists On The March!

Three ominous items from the morning's Aljazeera broadcast:

In Syria, the messianic and power-mad maniacs proclaiming themselves “The Islamic State of Iraq In The Levant” are systematically seizing territory and control from the loose and disorganized indigenous Syrian rebels, who call themselves the “Free Syrian Army.” (A title that puts a good face on something that is not an army, is not even a single organized entity, but rather refers to a loose coalition of numerous ad hoc bands of mostly civilians with some military veterans and deserters from Assad's army who have been forced by violent repression to take up arms against an intolerable regime. They are united by the cause of overthrowing Assad and nothing more.) In no less than five “incidents” in the last week, the Islamisoids are aggressively trying to seize control of areas of Syria wrested from the Assad regime by the Syrian rebels, in effect attacking the uprising itself and stealing the hard-won fruits of the rebels' paid-for-in-blood victories. (The same thing they did in northern Mali, when they elbowed aside the Tuareg rebels and grabbed half of Mali away from them.) [1]

Thus do the Islamisoids play into the hands of the Assad regime in two ways: they weaken the rebellion and put it under impossible military pressure, and they provide evidence for the Assad propaganda line that the uprising is a bunch of foreign jihadi terrorists coming into the country. It also reinforces the Assad warning that the only alternative to him is another Islamist state like Afghanistan under the Taliban. (Après moi, le déluge, has been one of Assad's propaganda themes, designed to resonate with Western ears.) His pals in Iran aren't an example of an Islamist state, in this propaganda schema. Of course the two regimes are different flavors of Islamic theocracy, Iran being ruled by Shiites, the Taliban being Sunni. Elements of those two religious strains are busy blowing up each others' adherents in Iraq at the moment.

In Iraq, the latest bombings of mosques and cafes kill the observant and those trying to enjoy life. No claims of responsibility, but suspicion falls on sectarian fanatics and Al-Qaeda, (which in Iraq dubs itself “Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia”), resurgent and boastful of late there. (These “holy warriors” aren't so respectful of Islam to refrain from regularly bombing mosques and blowing up processions and busloads of religious pilgrims. Apparently it's not religion but blasphemy if it's not the EXACT DOGMA of the killers.) During the current month so Ramadan, terrorism by Sunni and Shiite “militants” against targets of the other community, including mosques, funerals, and cafes, has increased. A suicide bomber- hallmark of Al-Qaeda- blew himself up in a coffee shop in Kirkuk, killing 39 people for the crime of existing. Since the start of April, over 2,600 people have been slaughtered in terrorist attacks of all kinds in Iraq, almost the same as the 2,900 death toll of “9/11.”

In Nigeria, the boss of Boko Haram, his very own Islamofascist terrorist gang, issued yet another of his countless denunciations of what he calls “western education.” (Boko Haram means “western education is forbidden.” Does that make their demented obsession clear enough for you? “Western education” apparently includes, reading, writing, arithmetic, all those awful foreign UnIslamic poisons.)

He hailed a recent murderous attack on a school dormitory by his goons, who set it on fire, killing 28 students and a teacher. (That'll teach them to stay away from “western education!”)

The Islamofascists are maniacs with a method to their madness. They are power opportunists who roam areas of the globe from Africa, through the middle east, all the way to the Philippines and Indonesia, seeking areas of advanced governmental rot and decay (or of political upheaval such as Iraq) where they can move in and seize control, as they recently did in Mali until France sent in an expeditionary force to stop them from seizing all of Mali. (They'd grabbed the north of Mali previously, including Timbuktu, where they engaged in their usual projects of mutilation, murder- especially of women who they imagine are having sex, and whipping those whose clothes they disapprove of, yet they aren't too puritanical to refrain from rape- and the razing of culture by destroying World Heritage Site shrines, burning ancient manuscripts, banning music and smashing musical instruments, and generally imposing their brutal, crude, and stifling mentality by force. The word “primitive” would do them too much credit. Even primitive peoples have music, art, and culture. Not like these demonic ghouls, who seek to eradicate all art and culture and indeed joy from the lives of others, apparently not content in erasing it from their own. All they have is a bastardized and corrupt version of Islam, designed to justify their incredible lust for power- power to destroy what is uplifting and good, power to make other people miserable with their insane impositions. Really, even to call them fascist insults fascists, who had their own totalitarian fascist art and culture. Not even Hitler sought to eradicate all music- just “Jewish” compositions and “degenerate negro” music, jazz.)

What a world we live in, blighted with deranged psychopaths who manage to infect others with their violent mental disease.

Meanwhile, the U.S. tries to pick off assorted “militants” who they believe have it in for the U.S. specifically, with drone attacks. The U.S. has no strategy for opposing Islamofascism. It only has tactics, applied to selected countries.

Just because you apply your tactics around the globe doesn't mean you have a strategy. And a strategy is desperately needed.

The U.S. has gone from Bush the Blusterer, who went along with Pakistan's charade of being an “ally” in the “war on terrorism,” to Obama the Ditherer, tactically decisive at times (killing Osama bin Laden, a risky mission, killing Anwar al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, apparently out of fear of him becoming a nuisance in the future by raising a stink about the killing of his father, both U.S. citizens), but strangely aloof and diffident about crises in Mali, where he could have provided drones with missiles (not just surveillance drones) to take out the Islamofascists retreating from the French forces across wide-open desert, and in Libya, where he insisted on sitting in the backseat of the effort to support the Libyan people's Arab Spring uprising against the twisted megalomaniac dictator Qaddafi.

Note the odd inconsistently, It's necessary to kill a non-Jihadist 16-year-old, and also a retired veteran of the Afghan war living in Yemen for another example, the latter case an attack that slaughtered many bystanders and turned an entire village against the U.S., but the Islamisoids wreaking havoc across northern and sub-Saharan Africa are only important enough to motivate Obama to lift a pinkie. I think Obama's political thought processes might tie him up in knots at times. (A native of that Yemeni village who lived in America testified before Congress about the counterproductive effect of that murderous attack, which turned the villagers, who had been indifferent to the Jihadists' attempts to sway their opinions about America, into enemies of the U.S. Jeremy Skahill has also highlighted the bombing in his work, including a recent documentary. Tactics without strategy leads to such self-defeating acts.)

Obama thinks that what he's doing, the tactics, plus changing the rhetoric, is strategy. He says he's “targeting specific groups,” and he presents that as strategy. That's merely a description of what he thinks he's doing. And he wants to retire the “war on terrorism” slogan. That's a rhetorical move. Rhetorical tweaks, which the hyper-manipulative Obama is very fond of, aren't strategy either.

Like the U.S. in general- this is true for its government and its corporations- there seems to be an inability to thing longer term as opposed to being obsessed with the immediate. Unfortunately the ones with the long range plans are the most venal, like the “National Security” Agency, with its well-laid plans (being executed) for massive, permanent, global, ubiquitous surveillance. (They just finished their new $2 billion storage center in Utah where they will stash all the data they plan on stealing in the future.) Or the FBI, which continues to extend its tentacles through U.S. society, deploying ever-more-inescapable means of tracking and surveillance. Their goal is to be able to follow anyone around in public everywhere they go, via the endless number of outdoor (and indoor) surveillance camera and facial recognition software. This will make effective dissent and political organizing virtually impossible.

For humans on this planet, we are too often caught between a rock and a hard place. Venal, oppressive governments (the U.S., Russia, China, and numerous others) and fanatics driven by demented principles who constitute the most potent opposition to those nations. The people of Timbuktu epitomize the dilemma. On the one hand, a useless, corrupt, pseudo-government, and on the other, barbarian invaders imposing an insane new social order that is suffocating to human existence.

It certainly adds credence to one of the arguments of the ardent Second Amendmentites of the U.S. An armed populace is the only (not sure, but possible) defense against tyranny. The hapless folk of Timbuktu did not have weapons with which to defend themselves against the barbarian invasion of Islamisoids, who outclassed both the naïve Tuareg rebels (their erstwhile allies) and the feckless Malian “army,” a gang that is only good for attacking the civilian government of the country. Anti-gun lefties take note.

1] After repeatedly attacking and killing Free Syrian Army fighters, the Islamisoids topped it off by murdering a top commander of the FSA at a “checkpoint” they conveniently established where they intercepted him. An FSA guy meanwhile jabbered on Aljazeera that they would be “watching” the Islamisoids who just murdered one of their leading commanders, and would “take action” is necessary. Lame, guys. Real lame. You need to take out the Islamisoids' boss immediately, if at all possible. (And by “take out” I don't mean go on a date with, or order food to go at a restaurant. I mean the American slang term for kill. I explain this term for the benefit of my numerous non-American readers who may not be familiar with it. And translating that term on the page no doubt only confused you.)