22 March 2016

Religion strikes again

It's not officially determined who was responsible for the apparent suicide bombings at Zaventem airport and the Maelbeek metro station in Brussels today, but there's not really any serious question about it.  This was the work of Islamists acting on a deep belief -- and remember, we're always told that we must "respect" religious beliefs no matter how insane -- that God would welcome them into Heaven if they slaughtered a bunch of random people to express outrage or take revenge about something or other that those random people had nothing to do with.  It has happened before and will happen again, an ongoing plague afflicting civilization.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

First, in Iraq and Syria, events like this -- or other forms of religious violence similar in motive if not in execution -- happen often enough that they barely make the news in the West.  In fact, an organized gang of murderous thugs very similar in mentality to those who attacked Brussels (and previously Paris, Beirut, the Russian airliner over Sinai, etc., etc., etc.) is trying to take over both of those countries and has seized control of large parts of them.  Is it any wonder that millions of people are fleeing those countries?  What would you do if you were in their position?

Second, we must be prepared for some even bigger and nastier attack, specifically targeting Americans, as our November election approaches.  A Trump (or other Republican) Presidency would be the greatest recruiting tool the jihadists could dream of, and they are perfectly capable of plotting to panic and stampede American voters into bringing it into existence.  Within hours we will hear Trump and other wingnuts calling, not for the kind of targeted retaliation against jihadist leaders and resources that we and our local allies have already been carrying out for months, but for "bombing the hell out of" vaguely-defined things, less intelligent strategy than emotional catharsis.  In other words, kill another bunch of random people who have nothing to do with the terrorist threat, presumably once again with God's blessing.  Americans like to think that we shape events in the Middle East, but in this case it's the jihadists who are attempting to manipulate Western thinking and behavior toward the result they want -- the full adoption here of the idiotic "clash of civilizations" world-view that they themselves already embrace.

[Image at top:  Blown-up metro train, Maelbeck station]

5 Comments:

Blogger Ahab said...

The Brussels attacks received generous media attention this morning. As I watched the news, I was puzzled that similar bombings in Turkey received so little attention.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-blast-idUSKCN0WM0I1

Is it because the Brussels attacks took place so close to NATO headquarters? Or because the U.S. media largely treats violence in the Middle East as normal and violence in western countries as abnormal?

On another note, we can expect anti-Muslim hate crimes and anti-refugee hysteria to increase in the wake of these attacks, which makes my heart sink.

22 March, 2016 08:53  
Anonymous NickM said...

The Trump has spoken. I won't link it is easy enough to find and was everything you expect from a man of such gravid-arse

So have certain members of the British public.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3504372/Fans-fury-Jeremy-Kyle-pushed-aside-Brussels-attacks.html

22 March, 2016 08:53  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Ahab: Interesting point. I guess because Turkey is in the Middle East, and does suffer from terrorist violence somewhat regularly (though nothing like what goes on in Iraq), the US media consider such events there "normal" and less newsworthy.

Those who thrive on that hysteria will certainly exploit this to whip it up -- some of them, unfortunately, being prominent Republicans.

Nick: Trump is already fulfilling his role as a Dâ'ish recruiter, I see. As for the Daily Mail article, those are the kind of people who would vote for Trump if they were American.

22 March, 2016 18:29  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

American media do not consider Turkish and other Middle Eastern people as true caucasians - that is they don't have white skin like a small majority of Americans.

They therefore don't seem spend a lot of time on incidents where non-whites are killed or maimed by terrorism, such as happens regularly in Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, Libya, Israel (anti-palestinian only). Religion is another factor - if Christians are not involved, only a minimum of information is reported.

With the election of President Obama in 2008, the US right wing, and a lot of those identifying politically as conservative or Republican, began to allow their covert racism to become quite overt.

The media quickly followed suit, championed by right-wing radio (Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, etc.), right-wing television (specifically Fox News, but at times by CNN and increasingly by MSNBC, and right-wing blogs on the internet.

I hope things change in my country soon. Otherwise, I fear for the future of our democratic republic.

24 March, 2016 07:12  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Anon: It's quite odd. Most people in the Middle East are as "white" as most people in places like Greece or Italy or Spain are. It's an imagined racial difference based on cultural differences.

24 March, 2016 19:28  

Post a Comment

<< Home