Anatomy of a Terrorist

I don't want to flog a dead horse but I've been taking a bit of flogging myself from friends over here who insist that the Charlie Hebdo incident was all about Islam. If they were, I dunno, out of work drone pilots or in the internet surveillance racket I'd understand but they're mild mannered teachers like me. I'm also noticing that I get very few people commenting or liking my posts about this issue. Am I being ignored? I will not be ignored! (Fatal Attraction? Probly not let's move on). Being on what I'm calling and employment semi-hiatus right now, I realize that I have more time, and maybe more interest, to do research on this matter but is it that big of a leap to think these guys didn't just go from reading the Quran to suddenly slaughtering 17 people? If that's what the general perception is, and if the general perception is right, I'm in big trouble over here in 90% Muslim Indonesia! So why am I not the least bit worried? Let me splain:

It would be like a person in a Christian country getting nervous about THESE whack jobs.

Or take a look at this: It's Fox News, vaunted and respected giant in the industry, ahem, appologizing for having an "expert" on the state of Islam in Europe saying that there are "No-go zones" where non-Muslims fear to tread. Since they could find no evidence for it, (after they'd aired it), it's time to appologize to the court, have it stricken from the record and tell the jury to give it no weight in their verdict. Just another example of massive overreaction. I have a friend who plays professional soccer in England and he tells me that there ARE no-go zones, but that they have nothing to do with something as silly as religion. No they are about the far more important matter of which football, (soccer), team you support. If you walk down the wrong street wearing the wrong colour, you can be beaten up or even killed! "Football firms they're called. Soccer holliganism. But I don't see any news reports blaming the entire sport of soccer or the various rules in it's rule book.

I got to thinking as soon as I heard about the Charlie Hebdo attack and could not imagine any Muslim who didn't want the image of Allah to be seen, committing a high profile act of terrorism, in the name of Allah, (that's important because it makes it way MORE high profile), and expecting the cartoons of Allah to NOT be seen by hundreds of millions of people instead of maybe tens of thousands. But apparently I'm less apt to think of these guys as absolute drooling pussheads than a lot of people. I'm so rarely the positive thinking one!

First let me clarify my parenthetical remark: Have a guess at the percentage of terrorist attacks in all of the E.U. that are perpetrated by Muslims. Go ahead and see if you are within 20 or 30%. Bet you're not. I wasn't. Now I know the introduction of statistics will create all kinds of doubt. Well founded doubt and otherwise. And there will be people criticizing saying, "What do you define as a terrorist attack?" or other such things. Valid points. So take these stats with a grain of salt if you like. But know that there are plenty of other sources that show the same thing: the Muslims are responsible for a small minority of terrorist attacks in Europe and the U.S. The present state of fear and anti-Muslim sentiment and suggestions to prepare our countries for Muslim attacks just doesn't seem to be consistent with these numbers. Why are things this way? The simple answer is the media. Another word for terror is fear and it sells. Islamaphobia is real and it is being nourished by the media. But there are more complicated answers too.

And then when something happens like Charlie Hebdo that makes Islamaphobists say, "Finally! Now do you see what we're talking about?" guys like me, Jimmy Carter, Jon Stewart and some others in this post and in the news start saying things like there were other factors that contributed. It wasn't just a religious attack. This was a group of extremists. And you get people in high positions in the Islamic church condemning the actions and saying these were not real Muslims. I understand. It can get pretty frustrating for those looking to disparage and defame Islam. Nonetheless, I like the truth and I had a feeling this incident had more behind it than some crazed kids with visions of virgins dancing in their heads trying to uphold what they thought was the Holy Islamic law. I thought they were radical Muslims and I wanted to find out what or who had radicalized them.

Amity Coulibaly, the 3rd gunman who shot up the Jewish supermarket said, "The target was France in particular because of its obvious war on Islam and oppressed nations." I won't show all the research but they are involved in Syria, Ivory Coast, Libya, Nigeria, Mali, Algeria and the Central African Republic to name some. They did not, however, support the Iraq invasion. Remember how because of that France was hated so much in America that "freedom fries" were created and pro wrestling had a few French bad guys? Well all they had to do was agree to bomb the shit outta Syria with the U.S. and suddenly they were America's "oldest allies." French fries could be eaten again and wrestling bad guys lost their French accents.

Then I heard about Cherif Kouachi, one of the brothers, telling a French TV station just before dying that he had received funding and inspiration from Islamic Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The first thing I thought was, "Hmmm, maybe it WAS just a religious thing if a Muslim imam was a motivating factor. But I looked up the name.

I think the first thing I learned about this guy was that he was targeted and killed by a U.S. drone. That was in Yemen in 2011. Shortly thereafter, his son was also killed by a drone and I believe the article I was reading at the time said that he was "accidentally" killed by a drone. It may have been the NY Times article. They say he was "mistakenly" killed by a drone and leave it at that. "How the hell did that happen?" I thought. So I reckoned I might be onto something. I kept reading and it was like puzzle pieces falling into place. This guy is someone EVERYBODY should read about or study in school! I bet, even though there's no doubt he was complicit in a lot of terrorist activities, recruited and inspired countless young people to be trained in terrorism, there will be a movie made about him someday. His life is a veritable anatomy of a Muslim terrorist.

Seriously, at the time of his death there was little or no doubt of his connection to terrorist actions like Fort Hood, the Times Square bombing, the underwear bombing and others. But his real threat to anti-terror was his powerful oration and his great success attracting young men, even from English speaking countries, the kind of recruits that are most valuable to terrorist factions. I believe I read that he was ranked number two on the American most wanted, or most wanted dead list. So I was surprised when I began reading the chronological story of his life. He was not always that way. In fact he was the guy people talked to if they wanted to know the state of Islam in America. He was on TV shows, in documentaries, even spoke at the Pentagon and other political meetings. But then, shortly after 9/11 when America hastily enacted all kinds of strict anti-terrorism legislation and was able, through SAM's, (special administrative measures), to pretty much throw proper legal due process out the window when it comes to hunting terrorists or suspected terrorists, Anwar al-Awlaki was thrown in jail. No charges laid, no court hearing, he was just thrown in jail.

Try as I did to get any details on the specifics of his imprisonment, I couldn't find them. You'll notice the NY Times article just skips over that part. So does Wikipedia and a dozen other articles I've read. I came across one that said he accused the Jews of perpetrating 9/11 and was put in jail for that, and another that loosely tied it to some tribal conflict, and several that just commented on the whole incident using terms like "ambiguous" or "trumped up." The person who seemed to know the most about the story of Anwar al-Awlaki was a guy named Jeremy Scahill. He reckons al-Awlaki was imprisoned for his magnetic character, his ability to preach using the language of the streets and fluent English attracting a wide variety of young men to his cause, particularly U.S. and U.K. Muslims. Remember, at the time, his cause could not be proven to have anything at all to do with terrorism. Essentially he was put in prison for exercising his right to freedom of expression, but THIS kind of expression was considered an act of war. He stayed in jail for 18 months, 17 of which he spent in solitary confinement. That will mess ANYone up mentally! When he got out, and again I had a hard time finding info on why he was let go, he WAS radicalized! The official explanation for his release had been something to the effect of, "the U.S. no longer expresses a desire to keep him incarcerated." WHAT??? You KNOW if they had anything at all to hold him on they would have. He was railroaded! No doubt about it. I found myself wondering if I wouldn't want to run out and join an extremist faction after going through something similar.

I was sure I'd seen Scahill before on the Daily Show and heard that he had made a documentary called, "Dirty Wars" that dealt in more detail with al-Awlaki. So I got the movie and watched it.

WOAH! My blood ran cold and hot at the same time! I was chilled by the cavalier dispatching of humanity by the U.S. military and it angered me because again I was carried me down a psychological path I didn't wish to travel. I was forced to imagine just how I'd feel if loved ones of mine were summarily erased like the people Scahill shows in the doc. And I don't even HAVE kids of my own. I was relating to the man who said he wanted to declare jihad on America. There's no way of knowing but it made me wonder if I would't do the same thing in his position. It definitely shed a lot of light on why the terrorist hit list continues to grow and why it seems recruiters like al-Awlaki don't have much trouble finding people to join their radical groups. Could it be that these expensive, intensive and defensive anti-terror tactics were actually increasing terrorism? It seemed pretty obvious that that was the case. Could it be that that was their purpose? Certainly not! Could it? Really?

Is this just a massive make-work project for the U.S. military that will eventually lead to what they call "heightened anti-terror security" in other nations? There are already people speculating that the whole Charlie Hebdo attack was planned and carried out by Israeli or American intelligence to lead to just that. I have to admit to, again, giving the gunmen credit for intelligence enough to not leave their I.D. in the getaway car. That just looks suspicious to me. And THIS looks even more suspicious. Why did he kill himself? DID he kill himself? Where's the report. I don't know if there's fire here yet but I'd say there's smoke.

Heightened anti-terror includes more soldiers, guns, bombs, killing, violence, deterioration of civilian rights and freedoms, deterioration of rule of law and due process, and MASSIVE motivation and proliferation of the terror the anti-terror is designed to stop. Well it's already happening, isn't it? Britain and France are already negotiating for some and we've seen signs of it in other U.S. allied countries like my own, Canada. This post has a much higher chance of being viewed and I just might be flagged because of it. I'm not even kidding about that.

"I know David joins me when I say that we will continue to do everything in our power to help France seek the justice that is needed." Barack Obama said this meaning David Cameron, British Prime Minister. After reading the above and watching "Dirty Wars," this should scare the hell out of you!

Al-Awlaki was imprisoned for 18 months to, as Scahill says in the movie, "shut him up for a while until people forgot him." Then he was killed. Both without any charges laid, trials or due process. Then his son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old who had no ties to terrorism at all was killed by a drone bomb just a short time later. No explanation was ever given, no statement by Obama, no apology. About the only official who spoke about this supposed "accident" was Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary and senior adviser to Obama's reelection campaign who commented the maybe he should have had a more responsible father.

The killing of 17 people in France inspired a million and a half people to take to the streets in protest. How many people do you think a story like this will radicalize or "INSPIRE?" Add to that the increasing number of stories of people who see friends and family killed by anti-terror forces like JSOC, (Joint Special Operations Command, the one Scahill documents in Dirty Wars), and you have a pretty good idea of why that kill list isn't getting any smaller. You also have solid reasons to believe Charlie Hebdo was not just about religion. But if you want one final link that is pretty darn hard to ignore it's this: There was another guy killed along with Anwar al-Awlaki. It was Samir Khan, the creative force behind "Inspire" the militant group's internet magazine. The official American position on killing him was that he was not a significant threat and was not intended as a target. "Whoops. Collateral damage." Muslim magazine man murdered for no reason but the contents of a magazine. Anybody else see a possible connection here?

At any rate, there are way too many articles to link to this about people being falsely imprisoned and rights being trampled on in the name of anti-terrorism. Here's one: Abdulelah Haider Shaye. Just do some surfing, folks. And whatever you do, don't miss the documentary "Dirty Wars."

Oh and by the by, it might interest some of you to research the history of France in Algeria from I think it was 1830 when they just cruised on in and massacred or captured the natives. Why? Do you really need to ask? It wasn't oil or natural gas. Back then the big industry was textiles and France had visions of cotton fields all across Algeria with the locals doiong the work and the French getting rich. Basically they made the, as they called them, "Arabs" their niggers. There was torture, beheading, attempted genocide, mistreatment, millions killed, it's a squalid tale.

And guess where the Kouachi family is from. But I guess that has nothing to do with anything. Please... You know there have been people who were captured by these radical Muslim factions and lived to tell about it. Here's the story of a French guy who was captured by ISIS. He doesn't seem to think they are doing it completely, or much at all, for religious reasons. I think he might know just a little bit better than the average person, no? Oui, oui, mon ami.