Terrorism in Christchurch – some thoughts

A peaceful, tranquil place to sit and contemplate in the Hagley Park/Botanical Gardens area of Christchurch. It is obscene that this terrorist act occurred only a short distance away from here.

Like most New Zealanders I am badly shocked by the brutal act of terror and mass shootings in Christchurch today (March 15). As our Prime Minster Jacinda Adern said, this is not us.

I feel particularly emotional as only a few days ago I spent a very pleasurable morning walking in Hagley Park and the Botanical Gardens just a short distance from the Mosque where most of the deaths occurred. The tranquillity and peacefulness of the area impressed me. A place for rest and quiet contemplation – and then this happens.

Remembering that tranquillity with my photo above underlines to me the obscenity of this act of terror. This should not have happened in New Zealand, let alone in such a lovely city and peaceful area.

Problems with censorship

The censorship around this incident concerns me a little. I support any attempt to suppress the terrorist’s live video of the shooting. It, apparently, is just too much like a video game and could appeal to people who might be influenced into copycat acts.

But the terrorist’s Manifesto has now also been removed from social media – and that worries me. I had a brief read before it was removed and got the impression the writer was influenced by the British Fascist Oswald Mosley and the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik who murdered 77 people in a 2011 car bomb explosion in Oslo and a shooting spree at a Workers’ Youth League summer camp on the nearby  Utøya Island.

Pages from the Manifesto of the Christchurch terrorist

My impression is that Christchurch mass shootings were not acts of home-grown terrorism – just that the terrorists chose New Zealand because it was an unlikely place for this. They wanted to show that this could happen even here. No one is safe.

Unfortunately, by censoring the manifesto the field is left wide open for erroneous speculation and politically motivated pointing of fingers. Already I have seen one overseas report describing New Zealand First as a local neo-fascist group presumably with members like this terrorist. A Twitter account well-known for promoting Russophobia retweeted descriptions of the Cyrillic writing on the shooter’s ammunition clips – presumably to raise the Russia bogeyman. And several posts on social media have been quick to blame this act of terror on Donald Trump and the supposed increased confidence of white supremacists by Trump’s election.

Such speculation and opportunist partisan use of the horrible event is not helpful. It diverts attention away from the specific causes and makes it harder to find solutions. Those censoring this manifesto may be driven by the desire not to allow this terrorist to communicate his beliefs. But, in denying us the ability to identify those beliefs, censorship is only encouraging erroneous conclusions which lead to other groups and people receiving unwarranted blame. Perhaps I am biased, but if this act of terrorism was not home-grown then let’s ensure that people understand that.

I believe that knowledge of the beliefs of the Norwegian terrorist Breivik was essential to his prosecution and imprisonment. The manifesto of the terrorist responsible for what happened in Christchurch today will be essential to his prosecution and I believe that the manifesto should be exposed for what it is. Censorship does not help that.

 

Sometimes I think the world has gone mad

Well, at least that part of the world I live in. Or more specifically, the news media my part of the world is exposed to.

There have been big events in Syria in the last few days – specifically the liberation of parts of the city of Aleppo that has been held by “rebels”/”terrorists” for 4 years. In that time the civilians have been held captive and used as human shields by the militia. Those attempting to leave via the humanitarian corridors set up during the ceasefires this year have been shot at. Ambulances and buses waiting at the humanitarian corridors have remained largely empty with only a few families able to escape. People demonstrating about this, and the way the militia forces have hoarded food and medical supplies, have been shot at and the demonstration organisers killed. The “rebel”/”terrorist” groups have denied entry to humanitarian aid convoys.

Now, at last, video reports from Syrian reporters on the ground are showing thousands of civilians finally leaving. They are being helped by Syrian soldiers and they are clearly happy to be liberated. People are chanting, kissing the soldiers and reporters. and describing their suffering during the occupation.

The video below is an example.

Unfortunately, this good news does not seem to be getting into our mainstream media which is hardly covering the liberated citizens and their relief.

Al Jazeera still interviews its tame “activists” (polite term for the spokesperson of a militia group) to describe how bad things are and that the world must do something to save the people of Aleppo. It twists the obvious movement of civilians away from the arms of the “rebels”/”terrorists” with headlines like Fleeing Aleppo civilians forced back by gunfire and claim

“Dozens of civilians tried to flee rebel-held east Aleppo but were forced to retreat by gunfire, as the Syrian army and its allied militias on Wednesday pressed on with an offensive to recapture the whole city.”

What they don’t say is that the gunfire is coming from the “rebel”/”terrorists’ who are attempting to prevent the exodus.

France 24 attempts to create a picture of Syrians fleeing the Syrian army instead of the “rebels”/”terrorists.” It presents the headline  – Nearly 10,000 civilians flee east Aleppo amid regime offensive and claims

“Government forces retook six rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo over the weekend, forcing nearly 10,000 civilians to flee as they pressed their offensive Sunday to retake Syria’s second city.”

And The Independent  produces similar coverage with their headline Russia claims Aleppo is being ‘liberated’ as more than 16,000 people flee city’s ‘slow descent into hell’, claiming:

“After four months of siege and a bombing campaign which has brought rebel-held east Aleppo to its knees, civilians are fleeing across the frontline in their thousands to escape President Bashar al-Assad’s attempts to crush the city’s rebels for good.”

Yet, strangely, these Syrian citizens are escaping from the “rebels”/”terrorists” – not the Syrian Army. In fact they are welcoming the army, blessing and kissing the soldiers.

The liberation of this part of Aleppo should be something to be happy about, not sad. The people now have access to the buses and ambulances denied them by the militia controlling the occupied areas. They now have access to humanitarian aid which has been waiting for them – and denied to them by the “rebel”/”terrorist” militia.

The “concern” and crocodile tears of the politicians

Contrast the relief and happiness on the faces of the Syrians who have been liberated in Aleppo with the “concern,” crocodile tears and indignation of politicians in France, the UK and the USA. Apparently, this liberation was the last thing they wanted. They are now calling for UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions to retaliate against the Syrian and Russian forces responsible for the liberation.

After months of hand-wringing over the problems of getting humanitarian aid to suffering civilians, they are condemning the very people bringing that aid to them. And after all the concern about the “last hospital in Aleppo” that the Russians or Syrians have bombed over twenty times this year they are confronted with the fact that it is the Russians, not the French, the UK or the USA which will provide mobile hospitals to the Syrians in the Aleppo region (see Putin orders mobile hospitals to be sent to residents of Aleppo, Syria).

Fake news

Even the mainstream media is talking about fake news these days – which is ironic considering they seem to be the main purveyors of fake news. This current example from Syria just reinforces the need for people to be more critical with the media. And to be prepared to look for themselves, find other news sources and check out what is being claimed.

As for Syria, and the liberation of the parts of that city held by terrorists, the news is out there – you just have to look for it yourself – our mainstream media probably won’t help you.

Here is another example showing how Syrians are fleeing from the terrorists, escaping with the help of Syrian soldiers – while being shot at by the very people our media seems to trust as news sources.

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Syria & the fog of war

BBC’s Radio 4 has talkback on Syria – the mainstream media message doesn’t fool everyone.

I believe our media is currently feeding us biased propaganda – formulated to tweak our emotions – on the war in Syria. One would think that the Syrian government and the Russian aerospace forces were fighting only civilians, hospitals and, especially, children. There is hardly any mention of jihadist terrorists.

If that scenario were true the war would have been over in days. Instead, Syria and its allies are fighting extremist Islamist jihadists, armed to the teeth and funded by external countries, and using foreign fighters. The emotions raised by videos showing children being pulled out of the rubble (notice how this only happens in areas controlled by terrorists according to our media) is diverting attention away from the real causes of the conflict. And hence we have a “fog of war” which blinds us to the political actions necessary to bring an end to this conflict.

So – I was pleased to hear this discussion on  BBCs Radio 4 programme Any Answers. If only our talkback programmes could be this sane.

Clearly, the contributors were chosen to provide balance – but most of them are rational, thoughtful people. This suggests that many people in the UK are not fooled by this “fog of war” promoted by the media.

It’s worth listening to – for the whole 28 minutes. It’s also worth listening to soon as it is available for only 28 days.

Source: BBC Radio 4 – Any Answers?, Syria

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Syria UN Ambassador makes sense of the war in Syria

A brief interview with the Syrian Ambassador to the UN Dr Bashar al-Ja’afari.

With the breakdown of the US-Russia brokered the cessation of hostilities in Syria we are now being bombarded with claims and counter claims of who was responsible. There is also a propaganda barrage coming from the US and its allies suggesting to me they are more concerned about the impending defeat of the “rebels”/”terrorists’ in east Aleppo than they are with humanitarian suffering.

Dr Bashar al-Ja’afari  impresses me with the clear and concise arguments he makes. It is a pity  he is not given the coverage on our main stream media that his position should demand. He makes a lot more sense than the US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power.

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Permission to have that conversation

In May, Maajid Nawaz presented this important talk at the 2016 Oslo Freedom Forum. It’s important because he attacks the concept that religion, and especially Islam, should be protected from criticism. And especially he attacks the concept that we should not talk about the problem of Jihadism, or Islamic terrorism. We should not avoid calling a spade a spade.

Maajid says the West, and particularly the USA, has it all wrong. The policies of intervention, imposing “democracy” and the killing of terrorist leaders and civilians via bombing and drones, will never solve the basic problem – that extremist jihadism appeals to many Muslims, even western born Muslims.

He is advancing the need to counter jihadist ideologies with alternative moderate policies – but points out this is hardly happening. And how can it happen if people are too “politically correct” to discuss and condemn actions like the stoning of women, female genital mutilation, imposed marriages, etc.

Maajid has the right credentials to back up his message. He is a former member of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir and used to advocate jihadism.  He was imprisoned in Egypt from 2001 and 2006. His experience led him to change his thinking and he left Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 2007, renounced his Islamist past and called for a “Secular Islam“.

Now he is a co-founder and chairman of Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank that seeks to challenge the narratives of Islamist extremists.

Maajid wrote about his experiences and changes of thinking in his book Radical: My Journey Out Of Islamist Extremism.

More recently he discussed these problems with the atheist Sam Harris. Their discussion is published in the book Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue.

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Victory Day celebration of defeat of terrorism in Palmyra

Victory over terrorism in Syria is still a long way off. But the liberation of Palmyra was an important and symbolic step towards that. This concert on Thursday, in the historic amphitheatre of the ancient city of Palmyra, was dedicated to the 71st anniversary of the defeat of fascism in Europe as well as an expression of gratitude to all those who fight terrorism today and memorial to the victims of terrorism.

During their occupation of Palmyra, Daesh committed public executions by beheading in this amphitheatre. One of the most prominent people beheaded in the city at this time was Khaled al-Asaad, a Syrian archaeologist and the head of antiquities for the ancient city. The New York Time reported the murder (see Syrian Expert Who Shielded Palmyra Antiquities Meets a Grisly Death at ISIS’ Hands):

“After detaining him for weeks, the jihadists dragged him on Tuesday to a public square where a masked swordsman cut off his head in front of a crowd, Mr. Asaad’s relatives said. His blood-soaked body was then suspended with red twine by its wrists from a traffic light, his head resting on the ground between his feet, his glasses still on, according to a photo distributed on social media by Islamic State supporters.”

According to Wikipedia:

“A placard hanging from the waist of his dead body listed al-Asaad’s alleged crimes: being an “apostate”, representing Syria at “infidel conferences”, serving as “the director of idolatry” in Palmyra, visiting “Heretic Iran” and communicating with a brother in the Syrian security services. His body was reportedly displayed in the new section of Palmyra (Tadmur) and then in the ancient section, whose treasures ISIS had already demolished.

In addition to al-Asaad, Qassem Abdullah Yehya, the Deputy Director of the DGAM Laboratories, also protected the Palmyra site. He also was killed by ISIL while on duty on 12 August 2015. He was 37 years old.”

Portrait of murdered Khaled al-Asaad at concert in Palmyra ampitheatre.

Given the religious basis of terrorism in Palmyra, and Syria as a whole, I am a little put off by the title of this concert “Pray for Palmyra. Music Revives Ancient Ruins.” Sure, “prayer” can have a secular meaning – but to me it brings up pictures of terrorists chanting “Allah Akbar” – “God is great.” This chant seems to accompany the launching of all mortars, rockets and almost every bullet fired by jihadists.

Maybe the chant “Allah Akbar” also accompanied each beheading in Palmyra.

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Nadine gives a necessary message to her fellow Muslims

TV host Nadine Al-Budair made this statement on the Saudi Rotana Khalijiyah TV on April 3. I hope she survives to say more.

We need more, much more, voices like this among Muslims.

Here are some extracts from a recent article of hers.

“Imagine a Western youth coming here and carrying out a suicide mission in one of our public squares in the name of the Cross. Imagine that two skyscrapers had collapsed in some Arab capital, and that an extremist Christian group, donning millennium-old garb, had emerged to take responsibility for the event, while stressing its determination to revive Christian teachings or some Christian rulings, according to its understanding, to live like in the time [of Jesus] and his disciples, and to implement certain edicts of Christian scholars…

“Imagine hearing the voices of monks and priests from churches and prayer houses in and out of the Arab world, screaming on loudspeakers and levelling accusations against Muslims, calling them infidels, and chanting: ‘God, eliminate the Muslims and defeat them all.’

“Imagine that we had provided an endless number of foreign groups with visas, ID cards, citizenships, proper jobs, free education, free modern healthcare, social security, and so on, and later a member of one of these groups came out, consumed by hatred and bloodlust, and killed our sons on our streets, in our buildings, in our newspaper [offices], in our mosques and in our schools.

“Imagine a Frenchmen or a German in Paris or Berlin leading his Muslim neighbor [somewhere] in order to slaughter him and then freeze his head in an ice box, in a cold and calculating manner… as one terrorist did with the head of an American in Riyadh years ago.

“Imagine that we visited their country as tourists and they shot at us, blew up car bombs near us, and announced their opposition to our presence [there] by chanting: ‘Remove the Muslims from the land of culture.’

“These images are far from the mind of the Arab or Muslim terrorist because he is certain, or used to be certain, that the West is humanitarian and that the Western citizen would refuse to respond [in this manner] to the barbaric crimes [of the Muslim terrorists]. Despite the terrorist acts of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, we [Muslims] have been on [Western] soil for years without any fear or worry. Millions of Muslim tourists, immigrants, students, and job seekers [travel to the West] with the doors open [to them], and the streets safe [for them].”

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Life for women under Daesh (ISIS)

This video was taken in the Syrian city of Raqqa – the Daesh (ISIS) capital and stronghold in Syria. It portrays the life for ordinary women under the tyranny of these Islamic terrorists.

Fortunately, this situation may soon be reversed. Armed forces of Syria and its allies are currently massing to retake the historic city of Palmyra.

The ruins at Palmyra are shown here in 2009. Source: PETER RAYNER/AXIOM/ZUMA

Battles are also occurring around Deir ez-Zur. The capture of these cities well enable liberation of Raqqa.

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Can world leaders learn from the Paris terror attacks?

This photo of Presidents Obama and Putin in serious and intense discussion  at the current G20 meeting symbolises what could be a positive change in international politics. Perhaps the Friday 13th acts of terror in Paris precipitated this particular meeting – or perhaps it is a culmination of geopolitical changes since the 2014 G20 conference in Brisbane.

Or perhaps I am just being  far too optimistic. After all, the problems facing the world today are pretty intractable.

“What have you done?”

It seems to me that a key moment was September UN General Assembly meeting where President Putin warned about the consequences of geopolitical trends. His  question to world leaders – “Do you realise what you’ve done?” – proved tragically prophetic (see the full text of his speech at Putin’s UN address: “Do you realise what you’ve done?”). France is just the most recent country to suffer extreme acts of terrorism and we should not ignore the other recent acts most probably carried out by Islamic State in Turkey, Lebanon and the Sinai Peninsula.

However, Putin’s question was primarily directed at political leaders in France and Turkey, as well as Europe, NATO, the USA, UK and the Middle East. These leaders have pursued policies of regime change which have, at best, downplayed the problems of terrorism, or at worst actually used terrorist groups like Islamic State and its affiliates to carry out regime change.

Now, perhaps, they are starting to realise the consequences of those policies and are becoming  a little more willing to support the concept of an international alliance to counter terrorism.

But only a “little more willing,” and that is not enough.

What right have outsiders to impose “regime change?”

French president Francois Hollande said during the emergency meeting of the French parliament:

“In Syria, we’re looking for the political solution to the problem, which is not Bashar Assad. Our enemy in Syria is ISIL,”

Good – France now supports a political solution to the Syrian civil war – but surely that is a solution which must be put into effect by the Syrian people. What right does the leader of a foreign country have to demand that any particular Syrian politicians must or must not be part of that process?

Western and Middle Western political leaders need to realise that an imposed “regime change’ of the sort that took place in Iraq and Libya will only promote more terrorism – in fact, is the source of the current terrorism. Regime change should be in the hands of the Syrian people – not external countries.

But there is a glimmer of hope. Maybe recent changes were precipitated by the intervention of Russian forces in Syria to prevent an armed overthrow of the government. But the Syrian peace talks in Vienna seem to be making some progress. There is now more talk of a political settlement, a ceasefire negotiated between the Syrian government and selected opposition forces and a timetable for parliamentary and presidential elections. The Syrian leadership is open to this process and hopefully the more genuine opposition  forces can be encouraged to take part.

And, isn’t that a better way to change a political regime?

External political leaders should stop their talk of “Assad must go” – it is arrogant and disrespectful to the Syrian people. What the hell are these western and Middle Eastern leaders going to do if a political settlement leads to democratic and constitutional changes and Assad is re-elected? Are they going to refuse to accept the will of the Syrian people?

Who is backing Islamic State?

Meanwhile, reports from the G20 meeting show that president Putin has provided leaders with evidence of the support helping to maintain ISIS and similar terrorist groups. He told reporters:

“”I provided examples related to our data on the financing of Islamic State units by natural persons in various countries. The financing comes from 40 countries, as we established, including some G20 members.”

He also presented satellite images and aerial photos showing the true scale of the Islamic State oil trade:

“I’ve demonstrated the pictures from space to our colleagues, which clearly show the true size of the illegal trade of oil and petroleum products market. Car convoys stretching for dozens of kilometers, going beyond the horizon when seen from a height of four-five thousand meters.”

Now, it seems to me that NATO and the US have demonstrated great skills in targeting sanctions at individual business and political leaders in the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Crimea. Surely it is not beyond them to destroy the financial and economic support current shoring up Islamic State. They must know who these business leaders are – and they must surely know who is trading the oil Islamic State transports into Turkey.

Surely, all they need is the political will.

Coordinating the anti-terror struggle

Wouldn’t armed attacks on Islamic State be far more effective if they were coordinated. If participants shared intelligence and identified agreed targets? Again, that is surely realistic – if an anti-Nazi coalition was possible during the last world war surely an anti-terror coalition would be a lot easier now. The current US excuses for refusing cooperation seem petty and inappropriate given the seriousness of the situation.

But that requires abandoning a failed policy of “regime change.” That requires a fundamental change in international power – or at least the recognition that a single superpower should no longer be allowed to dictate the political and social arrangements of other countries.

Still, I look at that photo above and it does give me hope.

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The victims of terror

Appropriately, some of the most effective protests against the most recent act of terrorism has come from cartoonists.

Let’s hope the pencil, and brush, are mightier than the weapons of terror.