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Like
zombies in a horror movie, or Freddy Krueger in the “Nightmare on
Elm Street” movies, every time we're told that the Somali
Islamofascist group al-Shabab (“the Youth”) is on the ropes, they
suddenly lash out with maximum surprise, striking from the grave,
attacking the court building in Mogadishu (Somalia's capital) where
they killed two dozen people, hitting the UN, hotels, restaurants,
anywhere where people are trying to live normal lives. [1]
Now they did it again, more
spectacularly than ever, with the murderous assault on the Westgate
Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. An estimated 12-15 thugs jumped out of
vehicles and immediately started slaughtering shoppers and people
socializing. So far, the official death toll is over 60, with an
equal number missing and possibly killed, plus a couple hundred
wounded, ranging in age from 2 to 78. (Maybe “the Youth” should
change their Brand Name to “No Mercy!”)
The BBC carried a story based on an
interview with a witness who described a young child shot by the
terrorists, who then quizzed his sister and mother on some bit of
Muslim trivia. They answered correctly, and then the Shabab butchers
killed them anyway. When the boy screamed WHY?, they replied
that they objected to their dress. (Well that's a good
reason.)
Throughout the four day atrocity and
seizure by the al-Shabab terrorists of Somalia, starting on the
second day the Kenyan rulers issued daily claims that the battle was
over. These assertions proved to be, shall we say, premature. There
were also various claims about Americans and Brits being among the
assailants, and one or more women. There was reason to be suspicious
of the claims about American and British terrorists, due to the lack
of specifics presented, and the obvious desire of the Kenyan elite to
enlist more support from the U.S. and Europe.
“Intelligence reports had suggested that a British woman and two or three American citizens may have been involved in the attack,” Kenyatta* said. “We cannot confirm the details at present but forensic experts are working to ascertain the nationalities of the terrorists.” Well maybe you could at least determine their genders? How hard could that be? [2]
Kenyatta* mentioned that three floors of the mall had collapsed, without explaining how or why.
Kenyatta* also claimed that five terrorists were killed and eleven others were in custody. He left murky if the eleven were attackers or accomplices rounded up elsewhere, as has been suggested by media reports.
Various witnesses reported that some terrorists managed to escape by blending into fleeing crowds. “Western security officials” also thought this may have happened. If so, that is indicative of grossly incompetent policing and lack of control of the crime scene. [3]
Kenyan official ineptness has been on jarring display throughout the terrorist siege. Like something out of a lurid Hollywood agit-propaganda movie, a handful of terrorists (no more than 15 at the top end of estimates) seized a 5 story mall including 80 stores, killed probably 130 or so people once the full death toll is properly tallied, and held off hundreds of “elite” Kenyan soldiers (with their Israeli, American, British, and French advisers in the background to hold their hands) with armored personnel carriers and helicopters, for four days. And not because hostage-rescue teams were conducting negotiations. It was combat all the way. What a pathetic performance by the Kenyans.
No surprise there: this is a country that recently had a fire at its international airport that civilians with buckets of water had to put out since the airport lacked even a single fire engine. Typical African country ruled by a selfish, feckless, greedy elite. (But all the blame goes to Western Imperialism, don't you know.)
Nor can this attack really be considered a surprise, as various secret police agencies have known for several years that Westgate Mall was a potential terrorist target, and had been scouted by the terrorists previously. [The CIA has a large station in Nairobi.]
And there have been plenty of previous terrorist attacks in Kenya, such as the truck-bombing of the U.S. embassy in 1998 attributed to al-Qaeda, which killed 200 people (almost all Kenyans), a 2002 attack on an Israeli hotel in Kenya, and a failed attempt to shoot down an El Al airliner with a surface to air missile. (The Shabab also like to attack churches and mosques in Kenya. That's because they're very religious, you see. Other ways the Shabab and their ilk prove how religious they are is by murdering people who they deem out of conformity with their dress code, cutting off the hands of musicians, destroying all art, and burying teenage girls up to their necks and throwing rocks at their heads until they're dead. And they're big on chopping off people's heads, just like their Saudi paymasters- and Wahhabism, the official religion of Saudi Arabia, is the ideological wellspring of jihadism.) [4]
It's obvious that two things the Islamofascists would like to totally extirpate from all of our lives are pleasure and freedom.
Al-Shabab also punished Uganda for contributing troops to the African expeditionary force in Somalia, with multiple bombings of the crowds gathered to enjoy the World Soccer Cup in 2010, killed 76 people. (A fine way to prevent people from enjoying sports. Sports are “UnIslamic” anyway.)
One of the people al-Shabab murdered in the Mall Massacre was the leading poet of Ghana- a great “victory” for them, in their eyes, I suppose. (Maybe they heard of Hermann Goering's quip “Whenever I hear the word 'culture,' I reach for my gun,” and took it to heart.)
“Kenya will not get peace unless they pull their military out of Somalia,” ranted Ali Mohamoud Rage, the all-too-appropriately-named Shabab spokesman, in a screed broadcast over the radio. Al-Shabab has also been blasting out giddy boasts via Twitter about their terrorist massacre at the Mall. (Despite their hatred for modernity, and a desire to recreate their demented version of an eighth century society, the various Islamofascists are perfectly happy to avail themselves of such modern technologies as radio, the Internet, automatic firearms, powerful explosives, internal combustion engine motor vehicles, jet planes, and so on- all things that if goons like them had been running the world all these centuries, wouldn't even exist. But one item of modern technology they do reject- vaccines. And in Pakistan for example they enforce a ban on them by murdering health care workers.)
At the same time, President Kenyatta called the terrorists “cowards,” an absurdity parroted by his fellow-ICC-defendant, deputy president William Ruto. (We heard the same inanity in the U.S. after the airliner kamikaze attacks on 9/11/01. What, aren't words like terrorist or monster or evil scum insulting enough? Is “coward” the worst thing someone can be? Anti-human nihilist is much worse, in my book.)
They are certainly no heroes to any normal human being, as they are not admirable, but obviously they did not lack courage, unfortunately. I wish they had been cowards, in which case they would have been unable to pull off their four day long carnival of carnage.
Both Kenyatta and al-Shabab declared themselves victors. That's a matter of perspective. (To the rest of us, neither look good.) But there's no question who the losers are in this round: humanity, decency, civilization are. [5]
* I wonder, will we ever have an American president named Americaman?
[1] The current New Yorker has a poignant article about a Somali chef who left a successful life in London (where he owned restaurants and has a wife and children) to return to Somalia to open restaurants and a hotel there to return life to the country. Needless to say, his businesses have been bombed repeatedly and al-Shabab has announced their intention to murder him. (“Letter From Somalia: Now Serving,” New Yorker, Sept. 30, 2013.)
[3] Ibid.
[4] “Gunmen Kill Dozens in Terror Attack at Kenyan Mall,” New York Times, September 21, 2013.
[5] If we refer to the notional terrorist playbook the terrorism “experts” like to cite, I guess we have to chalk this one up as a win for the terrorists. Using a small number of attackers, they caused great economic damage to Kenya, striking its tourism industry, probably scaring off investment, and also scoring a political blow, making the Kenyan government appear weak and unable to defend the country. The terrorists appear strong, able to strike at will, in a fashion that generates great worldwide publicity for them. So they maximize their impact with a small, expendable force, upending an entire nation.
Time to wipe them out already. But pay compensation when you kill the wrong people with your drones or whatever, U.S.! That's both the moral thing to do and the pragmatic thing to do, if you really want to win your “War on Terror”TM and not multiply your enemies, like in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. You see how “realism” and morality are generally one and the same, in the long term, on the fundamental level?
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