Condemn Terrorist Attacks, No Matter Who the Perpetrator Is

         I’m going to talk about the one thing that no one is talking about when it comes to the story of Malala Yousufazi, the 14 year old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban. 

          Before I get into that, I am glad that so many governments, so many news channels, and so many people from all over the globe are united in their condemnation and utmost disgust of this attack. With it being hard for people of different faiths or races to agree on anything now in days, it is heartening to see such a diverse group of unified people on such an important issue. But, once you look closer at this, with historical context, you notice that there is something very wrong about this.

          No, I’m not saying we should not condemn this act of terrorism, that’s not my point at all. We should condemn it. My problem with it is: Why is that when a Muslim injures or kills someone in a terrorist attack, Westerners are quick to condemn that attack, but when a Westerner does the exact same fucking thing to a Muslim victim, the number of Westerners condemning the attack sharply decreases to very few people?

          Every single major U.S. news station has reported on Malala’s story, (CNN, FOX, CBS, MSNBC, etc). So why haven’t they expressed the same amount of outrage or given the same amount of coverage say when, American soldiers have shot unarmed Iraqi civilians on purpose? (Sometimes they’ve shot children in the head, the exact same thing that happened to Malala.) Why aren’t they disgusted when American soldiers bomb unarmed Afghani civilians? Why aren’t they repulsed when American drones bomb a funeral procession in Somali, or a wedding in Pakistan, or students in Yemen? Why why why why? No American has ever been able to answer me this question. No one. 

 

An Afghani child that was shot in the head by American soldiers

          This is very disturbing. The majority of Westerners, particularly the majority of Americans, have no problem with one of their fellow citizens, (Read: someone who “looks like them,”) murdering an innocent civilian that is not American, especially if that innocent civilian is Muslim, (Read: the mysterious, foreign, dangerous “Other,”). Our current culture hypes up people’s egos so much, turning them into megalomaniacs, that they honestly believe that Americans are genetically superior to every other nation in the world, so, we can do things that everyone else can’t. The rules that apply to everyone else in the world, don’t apply to us. We’re just that fucking special. 

          Now, not everyone who gives Americans a pass on terrorist attack is a self-absorbed prick. I’ve met some good, honest, nice people who do the same thing. Now why is that? Simply, it makes them feel too awkward, or too uncomfortable, to admit that their soldiers do such things. They don’t want to face the facts of all of the millions of civilians American soldiers have murdered over the decades, (centuries actually, if you want to go back to colonial times, but let’s not overwhelm ourselves here). So, they simply never talk about it. They never admit it. If someone brings it up in a debate or an argument, they physically cannot say anything else; they just sit there.

          An American being the villain and a Muslim being the victim simply cannot compute for many Americans. That is not the official narrative of the government and their media lackeys. That is not what they hear when they are growing up. So, if anyone says otherwise, (like me), I’m simply an American hating terrorist. They completely disregard all my facts, charts, graphs, testimonies, history books, etc, etc, etc, i.e. all the overwhelming evidence that I have, with name calling. How immature.      

                                            An Iraqi civilian killed by American forces       

          If we can’t condemn our own terrorists, then why do we expect every other nation in the world to condemn their own terrorists? You can’t tell someone to do something that you are not willing to do yourself. The answer goes back to the megalomaniac point earlier: “We’re Americans, we don’t have to condemn Americans for anything, because we don’t commit any terrorist acts. We are only hard workers and heroes. However, you Islamic countries, you guys are all terrorists, so you have to condemn each and every terrorist attack a Muslim commits.”

          Don’t think other nations get a pass on this either. It’s not just Americans that do this. Every single other nation has the exact same sick problem. They condemn terrorist attacks right and left, but as soon as someone of their own nation commits a terrorist attack, they fall deathly silent. Israel, Palestine, Russia, Syria, Nigeria, Mexico, Burma, etc, etc, all of them do the exact same thing.

          We, as Americans, need to get over the awkwardness and the stigma that comes with condemning our own soldiers. I have no fear of walking up to an American soldier and saying “American soldiers kill innocent civilians on purpose.” Because it’s true. Look at history, YouTube, the news, etc. The facts are on my side. No one should be afraid of saying the truth. There is nothing un-American about calling a blatant terrorist attack, a blatant terrorist attack ,even if that terrorist is an American soldier. If you are a truly principled person, then race/nationality should have no role in whether you condemn a terrorist attack or not. If it does, then that means you are truly not against terrorist attacks. You’re only against terrorist attacks, as long as the terrorist is not an American. That’s right. You support terrorism. What does that say about your morals, your character, your values? 

                                 The site of a Pakistani wedding bombed by a U.S. drone

          Think on it, and you’ll see why so many people around the world hate America. And, you’ll see that hate is not stemmed in ignorance, or jealously, no, it’s because they want us to stop killing them! Wow, who would’ve thought that killing unarmed civilians would piss people off?!    

Jordanian Dictator Doesn’t Get the Memo: Jordanians Want Democracy, not Appeasement

          First of all, before we go into the story at all, let’s get one thing straight. “King” Abdullah of Jordan is a dictator. The Western media calls him a king, to somehow make him look better than and not as cruel as the word “dictator” sounds. They do this because Abdullah is an ally of the U.S., (a.k.a does whatever the U.S. tells him to do in exchange for political, economic and military support), and as per U.S. policy, our allies never do anything wrong, ever.

          Let’s not kid ourselves here. Abdullah has absolute power over Jordan. He can dissolve anyone in the government at any time for any reason. He is not elected; he inherited his title. He is not held accountable for anything he does; neither the parliament nor the constitution can check or balance his powers at all. He received $1.02 billion dollars from the U.S. in military aid in 2009, $843 million in 2010, and an estimated $682 million in 2011, (calculations are not completely done yet for 2011). 

         

          Guess what he does with all that military aid we give him every year? If you follow my blog at all, you will know the answer to this question, and you will know that this answer fucking infuriates me more than anything else related to U.S. policy. He uses that money to pay and arm his police thugs, who violently beat up peaceful protesters, kidnap political opposition members, (often torturing them), rape women, and assassinate anyone who he deems is a “security threat,” (a.k.a. anyone who disagrees with him). 

          He uses that money to buy weapons and military vehicles from many developed countries, to completely dissuade anyone from taking up arms against the dictatorship. The military oppresses the Jordanian people, taking away their most basic human rights, leaving them at the mercy of the government. They can’t vote for their leader; Abdullah has that title for life, and then when he dies, the title just goes to his heir. They have no say in how they are governed. Sure, they “vote” for the parliament, but the parliament is completely subservient to Abdullah. They have no power, save what he feels like giving to them at a moment where it is convenient for him.

          Now that we have that established, let’s go to the main part of this post. There have been recent protests in Amman demanding political reform and that the dictator has less power.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/05/world/jordan-protest/index.html

 

           Abdullah is trying to appease them, dissolving parliament and calling for new elections. But the protesters are not satisfied with that, because that does absolutely nothing. Abdullah doesn’t want to face the fact that Jordanians want him OUT, and to bring in fair and free elections to elect their own leaders. Some of them want a liberal democracy based on Western governments, others want a constitutional monarchy, and still some others want a Sharia-based government. Whatever type of government they choose in free and fair elections will be a democracy because that is the type of government the people rightly and legitimately chose. It doesn’t have to be a liberal, Western-styled democracy to be a democracy.  

          The Western media has been largely mute on the Jordanian protests since the start of the Arab Spring. That is because reporting on the protests would make our U.S. ally look bad, so they ignore it, as the Western media is not allowed to make our “allies” look bad. They also point to the fact that there have not been as many protests in Jordan as say, Egypt or Yemen. Their conclusion is that most Jordanians are content with the government since they are not coming out in large numbers.

          But that’s not the case. The reason why there have not been as many protests is because the Jordanian security forces have a stranglehold on anyone who opposes them. They kidnap and torture protest organizers before they even get onto the streets. They snuff out any opposition before it can get anything going. They buy off people who would oppose them. They brutally crack down on the small amount of protests that have popped up, to scare other people to not oppose the government. The government has been quite effective in keeping a tight lid on dissatisfaction, because they know that if they let things grow too much, they’re going to end up like Tunisia or Egypt, or maybe even Libya or Syria, if the opposition decides to take up arms against them.

          Other bigoted, xenophobic Americans are saying that these protests are only a radical Islamic ploy to overthrow the Jordanian government and start an extremist jihadi government in its place. That statement is delegitimizing the rightful and logical complaints that the Jordanian people have with their government. It’s saying that if you are a Jordanian and you oppose the government, you are not standing for freedom or democracy. You are not demanding your basic human rights. Your claims are not legitimate. Instead, you are a radical Islamic terrorist who just wants to kill Americans.

          These Americans do not believe that Muslims are human enough to deserve human rights; therefore, they do not deserve to choose their own leader and government, so they’re perfectly fine with giving millions of dollars to Abdullah so he can rule Jordan with an iron fist. Then they act all surprised when Jordanians show hostility to them: “What? Why do you hate us so much? All we did was finance a dictator that has been oppressing and torturing you guys for decades, so what? No big deal, stop protesting for democracy and freedom, and start doing everything we say!”

          We, as principled Americans, should not just stand by and let this happen. We must support our Jordanian brothers and sisters who just want the same basic human rights that we enjoy every day. We must help make their voices heard, as they have many powerful governments and medias working against them. We must counter the bigoted statements that our fellow countrymen say about them. We must demand an end to U.S. military aid to Jordan, because that “aid” is being used in actions that are in direct violations of our principles, morals and beliefs.

          The Jordanian government is not our “ally.” They do not care about us. All they care about is getting as much as our money as they can so they can further cement their despotic rule over their own people. They are opposed to democracy and freedom, which makes them our enemies. We have no right to tell the Jordanian people what they can or cannot do. All we can do is support them in their endeavors that agree with our principles, morals and beliefs. And what they’re working towards is the exact same thing that our founding fathers worked towards: democracy, freedom, liberty and justice for all.

Car and Suicide Bombs Are the Weapons of Oppressed People

           I follow the Syrian revolution pretty closely, through the news, videos, activist websites, etc. The Syrian rebels have used a wide variety of guerrilla attacks on government forces, (and to surprising effectiveness, I might add. Since March of 2011, the government has lost over 7,200 troops while the rebels have only lost around 1,100, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: http://www.syriahr.com/. But again, I digress). These guerilla attacks range from ambushing convoys, to IED attacks, to hit and run attacks on checkpoints and bases. Another tactic they use fairly often is car bombs and suicide bombings. 

I separated those two out because those two are going to be the focus of this post. Just one example is the most recent high-profile attack as of the time I am writing this: 

          http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/26/world/meast/syria-civil-war/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

          What I have a problem with is some of the comments on this article, and on other similar articles as well, that describe Syrian rebel attacks. Here are some of the insults I read often, that go generally along the lines of:

          1. Just like a Muslim, blowing each other up cowardly with car bombs. What dogs.

          2. Those FSA, (Free Syrian Army), terrorists cannot even fight decently, fucking       low-lives.

          3. At least our American boys fight better than this.

          Blah blah blah, etc, you get my point. All of the people who write ignorant comments like this are fucking idiots. There, that’s the summary of my post. But let’s dive deeper as to why they’re so blatantly bigoted.

          People, specifically Americans, are once again confusing terrorism and terrorist attacks with guerrilla warfare and guerrilla attacks. Here are the distinctions I would like to make:

          1. A group or organization can be a guerrilla group but not be a terrorist group. For example, the Filipino rebels, who fought against U.S. occupation from 1899-1902, overwhelmingly attacked U.S. soldiers and military buildings. By definition, they were not a terrorist group, because a terrorist group overwhelmingly attacks civilian targets. Guerrilla attacks on military targets are legal as per international law and conventions.

          2. A group or organization can be a guerrilla group as well as a terrorist group, but not necessarily. For example, Hamas, a Palestinian resistance group, launched attacks against Israeli civilian and military targets during the Second Intifada.

          3. A group, organization, or state can be a terrorist group but not a guerrilla group. For example, the U.S. military launched numerous attacks on civilian targets during their invasion and occupation of Iraq, on purpose, knowing that they were going to kill lots of civilians. The overwhelmingly majority of their causalities were civilians, so by definition, the U.S. military is a terrorist organization. Same thing with the Israeli military. During their 2008-2009 Cast Lead operation, the overwhelmingly majority of Palestinians that they killed were civilians. Israel repeatedly, literally thousands of times, has targeted Palestinian civilians on purpose throughout the many wars. So by definition, the IDF is a terrorist organization.

          Some thugs and gangs operating under the banner of the Free Syrian Army have killed civilians on purpose. This I freely admit because it is sad but true. But this is not coming from the FSA leadership; they are not out to kill Syrian civilians. The vast majority of the FSA’s targets have been military and government targets. This is their goal: to topple the Assad dictatorship. They have the right to attack the government under international law and laws of war, (as well as in all major religions such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc, and also in American law). This is a legitimate goal; these are legitimate targets. Therefore, the FSA is a guerilla group, not a terrorist group.

          Now that we’ve got that established, let’s move onto the fact that many Americans, Assad supporters, and other 1^st world people look down and criticize the way that guerilla groups, specifically the FSA in this case, fight an insurgency against a conventional state military. It is sickening that these pompous, arrogant, and often racist people insult the Syrian rebels, who are fighting against overwhelming odds. They have limited foreign support, and fight with mostly Kalashnikovs, RPG-s, and IED’s. And they’re up against: A conventional military with tanks, helicopters, and jet fighters. Not only that, but Iran and Hezbollah have freely admitted that they have sent troops to reinforce the Assad military. So that’s 2 countries and one guerrilla group that they’re up against.

          Against all that, and people have the nerve to slur the FSA, thumbing their nose at a people who are fighting the only way that they can. They don’t have foreign countries giving them billions of dollars in military aid, like Israel does. They don’t have the money or technology to have Predator drones or armored APC’s, like the U.S. They are fighting with what they can capture, smuggle or make.

          These insults are part of a broader scheme to delegitimize the people’s right to fight against their government. They want to make it out to look like fighting with car bombs and IED’s is somehow less legitimate, less honorable, and more barbaric than fighting with a tank or an airstrike. This is absolutely ridiculous. An attack on an army base is no more or less legitimate when it is attacked by a Predator drone or a suicide bombing. On the flip side, a terrorist attack on unarmed men and women in a marketplace is no more or less a terrorist attack when they are attacked by a Predator drone or a suicide bombing. The target is what makes an attack legitimate or not, not the manner of the attack.

          By making types of guerrilla attack seem illegitimate to people, these 1^st world bigots and dictator supporters want it to seem like that only their conventional, government military has the right to use deadly force. Therefore, the people, who cannot afford that, they can only afford cheap, simply guerrilla attacks, don’t have the right to use deadly force to protect their rights or protect themselves and their families. If people view violence as being always illegitimate, then they will not use it to defend their rights and families. Which is exactly what they want!!

          These guerrilla attacks work because they are cheap and simple, so it is completely rational and logical for people to use them against conventional militaries. It’s not because they’re bloodthirsty Muslims, no, they’re in a civil war, fighting for their lives, you ignorant fuckers. Yes, I know it’s an epiphany for some bigoted people, but Muslims are humans who have rights too you know, and that includes the right to life! It shows how pathetic we humans are if we actually have to have a human right dedicated just so people are allowed to live and not be slaughtered because of their race or religion.

          Okay, gotta stay on topic. Back to why using car bombs and suicide bombings makes logical and rational sense for the FSA to use against the Assad government. A car bomb is very simply to make, it’s small, it’s cheap, and can be produced rather quickly. And, when used correctly, it can produce devastating results, killing dozens of soldiers and wounding several dozen others. Why wouldn’t you use that??

          Suicide attacks have been used throughout human history, even before we invented explosives. In medieval battles, a lone warrior or two could stay behind and hold off dozens of soldiers, dying in the process, but allowing their comrades to regroup, get away, set up an ambush, etc. In cavalry charges, the first row of cavalry suffered the most causalities, sometimes serving only to slam into a wall of spears so that possibly the 2^nd or 3^rd guy behind them might have a chance of getting through the enemies’ defenses. In World War 2, the Japanese used to slam their planes into American aircraft carriers. Etc etc, these are just 3 examples I thought of, but you get my point.

          Suicide bombings are logical to use for two primary reasons: 1. Guerrilla groups, on the whole, lack sophisticated training for their fighters. It is very hard to get in a situation where they can train 1 of their members well enough, give him enough weaponry, etc, etc, to be able to kill 15 or 20 enemy soldiers by himself in a firefight. That’s hard for any soldier to do, from any country. But, it is very easy to give an untrained man a suicide vest, and tell him to walk up to an enemy patrol, disguised as a civilian, and blow himself up, killing 15 or 20 enemy soldiers.

          2. It’s a simple numbers game. The guerrilla group’s losses versus the government’s losses makes suicide bombings a great tactic. You lose 1 guy, but you kill 15, 20, maybe even 50 or 100 if you’re really lucky. Why wouldn’t you do that?

          In conclusion, just because car bombings and suicide bombings are sometimes used by terrorist groups, does not mean that every time they are used, it is automatically and without question terrorism. It is no more or less a potential terrorist act than a helicopter airstrike or a battleship firing. We should not look down on people for fighting tyranny the only way they possibly can. Believe me, if the FSA had tanks and jet fighters, they’d use them. It’s a lot fucking easier to kill soldiers in a tank than with small arms. But they don’t have them. So they do ambushes, assassinations, etc. The British did the same thing to us during the Revolutionary War. Documents reveal how the British officers viewed us as savages, uncivilized, wild brutes for ambushing them and not fighting face to face in an open field, as was the custom in Europe. They scorned our guerrilla tactics while they walked towards us all in nice, little neat rows. Do we want to act towards other countries the way how the British acted towards us? Uh, fuck no. The British were imperial pricks back then. I for one, do not want to be an imperial prick to anyone.          

          Useful links:

          Syrian American Council:   http://www.sacouncil.com/

          Their FB page:  http://www.facebook.com/sacouncil

          Syrian Observatory for Human Rights:  http://www.syriahr.com/

          Their FB page, (which is in English, the page above is in Arabic): http://www.facebook.com/syriaohr

          Their FB page in Spanish: http://www.facebook.com/siriaosdh

          Islamic Relief’s Syria Page: http://www.irusa.org/emergencies/syrian-humanitarian-relief/

         

          Useful books:

          Guerilla Warfare by Che Guevara

          War in the Shadows: The Guerilla in History by Robert Asprey

           Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert Pape

          (photo is from usatoday.com)