by Jack
There comes a time when people have had enough and their frustrations, grief and anger are galvanized into an effective force of resistance. As sad and tragic as the Manchester bombing may have been, much good is now coming forward. One very visible gesture came from Qari Asim, an Imam from a popular mosque based in Leeds (UK). He took a public stand against terrorism done in the name of his religion. In his press release he said, “The victims of the horrific attack on Manchester Arena are very much in our thoughts and prayers. This was an attack on all of us. We absolutely condemn the barbaric acts of an individual determined to spread hate and prejudice across the world. The senseless murder of innocents is utterly deplorable. With each mass murder, the terrorists deliberately seek to foster hatred and suspicion. They hope our societies restrict the very values and freedoms that define our democracy. Through their vile actions, the terrorists have yet again shown no regard for any religion or humanity.”
Immediately after the bombing a Manchester cabbie said what so many Brits are feeling, “We’re like glue, we stick together”. I’m sure this was not the desired effect the bomber had in mind. Terrorism seeks to divide and cause fear and panic. We’re not seeing that in the UK, we’re seeing a determined resolve to bring those responsible to justice.
Muslim religious leaders are by no means unified against those among them who use violence as a political weapon, but progress is being made. We’ve seen the fiery hate rhetoric coming from a few Muslim leaders and Muslim protestors in the past, but freedom of speech has it’s limits and the UK is fining out. Britain’s Home Secretary May said, “Incendiary comments deliberately designed to inflame fraught situations should be investigated.” Due to ongoing threats, the UK has deployed a limited number of military personnel to assist the police protecting high-risk targets. New vetting procedures for immigration are also being explored and improving their terrorist watch-list that missed the Manchester bomber.
I hope our government is keeping a close watch on events unfolding in the UK, but that task is made more difficult by our own security leaks that have caused the UK to say they won’t be sending us any more secret information until we get our CIA and NSA people under control.
If there’s a bottom line to be learned here, it is this: When it comes to a fighting terrorism, for once we ought do something smart, something proactive, something well planned, coordinated and unifying. We can’t allow ourselves to scramble around after the fact, wasting time and resources and wondering what we should have done? By then it’s too late and the terrorists have moved on to another tactic, another target, and we’re foolishly trying to fix what’s not likely to happen again.
Trump’s administration is looking into (reasonable) ways we can prevent radicals from entering the US and that’s a good start. Next, we should also have a clearly defined limit on what constitutes hate speech and poses a grave threat to our internal security. When these haters pop us we need to get on it and investigate. I absolutely believe this one is long overdue. Once we’ve identified a problem we should be able to expedite either arrests or in some cases, deportations of any non-citizens.
We have a virtual infinite number of options at our disposal to fight (efficiently and effectively) against the threat of terrorism, while not allowing ourselves to fall into the traps terrorists intend; like foolishly squandering our assets on bureaucracy or passing draconian laws that undermines our rights. Forcing us to violate our values and overreact to an incident is a key objective of terrorism! So, we better be careful. We can’t compromise our idealism and weaken our founding principles for the sake of security. Sometimes you just have to take what comes and consider it the price of freedom.
“Our values” are at times at odds. How do we uphold freedom and religious tolerance and at the same time face down forces of evil, forces of oppression and religious intolerance? Making the correct decision is not always easy.
We are well grounded in the values of freedom and tolerance. That grounding only prevents people from standing with great intolerance against forces of evil if they are confused. The intentional mass murdering of innocent children at a concert in the name of religion, for instance, is not something a well grounded individual would tolerate. The terrorists wage their war on religious grounds but their so-called religion is not one that any civilized nation would, or should, acknowledge, much less tolerate. In fact it’s because of their intolerance, their refusal to live in peace, their determination to terrorize, torture, murder, and oppress that they give us no alternative other than their complete and utter destruction. It is a sad reality but a reality none the less and it’s imperative that we make this reality a firm, uncompromising fact to the enemy so there can be no doubt. They must end their war with us or we will. This declaration, this certainty about our values, confirms the only way out. It affords the opportunity to surrender an evil value system. It’s improbable that the leaders will take this way out but at least the door is there. In contrast they offer nothing but total submission, something that would be a complete betrayal of our values.
It’s tough when even people within our own country use our values as talking points to undermine efforts to destroy the terrorists and their ideals. Most are putting politics and the desire for power above the safety of our people and the ideals we value…above the universal ideals of freedoms and rights that our Constitution guarantees.
President trump has managed in a very short time to form a broad coalition of nations who happen to agree that we must stand firmly against this enemy and drive it out. More than 50 nations of the ME came together to stand in solidarity with Trump.
Isn’t it time to end the political divide, at least on this issue, and stand firmly for our values and against the enemy? Isn’t this at least the one issue that demands we put politics aside?
It is gratifying to finally hear some condemnation of the jihadist terrorists from the muslim community. They have been deafeningly silent for far too long. And by their silence, they have been portrayed to be sympathetic to the jihadists. Not so.
And Kudos to Egypt for bombing known terrorist camps after the Coptic Christian bus attack. Good Hunting, Egypt!
It’s gonna take more than just non-muslims to defeat and eradicate the jihadists!
Muslim faith leaders need to organize a reformation like Christians did.
Liberals and the media must stop treating climate change, which MAY alter the world’s temperature by a fraction of a degree 50 years from now, as the #1 threat to our survival and life as we’ve known it. They must support and report about those who oppose the terrorist that have spread their Caliphate world wide for decades, since the first bombing on the Trade Center.
More children will die tomorrow if they don’t.
Out of nowhere Daesh, also commonly referred to as ISIL or ISIS, spontaneously formed, a group that perverts aspects of Islam for its own violent ends.
Daesh soldiers have tanks, Humvees, advanced weaponry, and sophisticated communications methods That requires significant funding.
U.S. taxpayers are spending $615,482 every hour to fight a “war” in which the “enemy” is being well-financed by countries with whom the U.S. has full diplomatic relations.
Does this not make it appear that “victory” over this enemy is not the goal?
Dewey, you have taken a set of facts, then lined up a whole lot of wild speculation to take those facts in the opposite direction from where the narrative should be. For example, “Daesh soldiers have tanks, Humvees, advanced weaponry, and sophisticated communications methods That requires significant funding.”
You left out the part where President Obama precipitously withdrew from Iraq causing a power vacuum that led to ISIS obtaining those weapons.
Anyway, the power vacuum allowed the rise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 04. He was already a terrorist, but now he organized and he formed what we now call ISIS. Iraqi’s were totally incapable of handling the rise of fanaticized insurgents led by al-Zarqawi and trained up by Iranian specialists.
hen they (ISIS) gained a toehold in Iraq, it was a game changerin favor of the terrorists. They were able to recruit from around the world. With fresh fighters, they were able to pillaged soft targets, this gained them money and military gear. They also had funding and training from Iran. But, most of all they had highly motivated fighters and they operated without any concern for the rules of war.
On the other side were the weak Iraqi national guard, who were at best regional soldiers, poorly paid, lacking leadership and a very iffy will to fight. Is it any wonder that when ISIS came calling they dropped their weapons and fled? The millions of dollars the US taxpayers paid to equip Iraqi national guard fell right into the hands of a determined enemy and for a moment it looked like a rout where Baghdad would fall and then it would be game over. However, US advisers returned (albeit by a reluctant president) and they bought the Iraqi’s time.
Since those days we’ve never fully committed to taking on ISIS and instead we are letting the Peshmergera and other resistance fighters, plus the Syrian Army to do it.
Meanwhile the Iraqi guard has been slowly reconstituted and they’ve finally started to perform and gain some confidence after defeating ISIS in several key battles and pushing them further away from Baghdad. Now ISIS is trying to hold a smaller region near Syria and some territory within Syria, but they are being slowly ground down and continue to lose battle after battle. You can argue this war could have been over long ago if the US returned with front line combat soldiers, but for political reasons, we didn’t want to take that costly step. It was a case of “been there and done that” where we saw Obama’s politics ruin 95% of all our hard fought gains for a free and independent Iraq. So, rather than to continue that Obama policy error, we’re trying to let the locals do it, give them the support and confidence they need with US advisers and hopefully this will have a better outcome…but, no guarantees, after all this is the Middle East.
Dewey, most of this story is now history, but in your last post you’ve totally jumped off the freeway of facts and taken some back country dirt road into the woods, but for what reason? So it fits your eternal conspiracy theory of subversives in the White House or wherever? I’m sure the Bildeburgers and Rothchilds fit in here somewhere, right, 9-11 was an inside job, right?
What are you assuming?
I do facts. You just do not want to believe what goes on.
There are so many whistleblowers and documents you ignore.
Sorry but these State Secret Gag orders?
You are wrong.
You believe in some kind of unicorn and fairies world.
DC is rotten to the core.
I am not referring to the banksters they are always involved somehow that is just a given. Make no mistake Soros network. Koch/Mercer Network are always too. But I am talking about what we know.
THE CIA> FBI
DC lives on Blackmail. It is Bipartisan
I stated some facts and you twisted it.
We do business with the top Sponsor of Terrorism. Saudi Arabia. What do they do with all these arms we sell them. Time to get real Jack.
You refuse to believe facts.
Nothing has changed with Trump.
Agenda of balkanisation.
Supports my point.
http://ijr.com/the-declaration/2017/05/883563-dana-loesch-identifies-whos-culpable-violence-reporters-sends-left-hysterics/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Owned&utm_term=ijamerica&utm_campaign=ods&utm_content=Politics
Meanwhile, in Manchester, USA there’s a democrat who wants to throw the elderly out of his city.
Democrat Alderman Wants The Elderly To GET OUT Of His City [WATCH]
http://thefederalistpapers.org/us/democrat-alderman-wants-the-elderly-to-get-out-of-his-city-watch?utm_source=COTR&utm_medium=COTR&utm_campaign=COTR