All I Want for Christmas is No Bombing
Its almost Christmas. What seems to be different in the last couple of years is that we now have to contend with the joy of violent Christmas plots of one sort or another. Just the other day, some $#%& with a scheme to shoot up San Francisco for the holidays was arrested. Not that the growing terrorism in parts of the West is a seasonal thing, mind you.
Putting up bollards seems to be a growth industry these days. But there has to be a better way than waiting around for the the next group of jihadis to find a better way to slaughter them some infidels. I can think of a few ways cause some real carnage with items most of us have at our disposal provided one is willing to be a $#%&. It is only a matter time before one of those $#%&s stumbles on one of them. Not all of them are stupid, after all.
If waiting around doesn’t work, placating doesn’t either. Heck, even countries that reliably condemn Israel at the UN, haven’t had a colony in hundreds of years, and offer generous assistance to causes and people dear to the average jihadi, not to say to the average jihadi himself (and most are male), find themselves targeted these days. Perhaps, in fact, such countries are disproportionately targeted.
Now, while it isn’t hard to find someone who will complement a pig for its tasteful make-up, the fact is, there are no positives to this state of affairs. And if nothing changes, things won’t get better on their own. But there will be more dead victims.
what i want for xmas is for Israelis and US fundamentalist Christians to stop killing Muslims
and most especially i want provocateurs to go jump in a shredder
Welcome to AB, Jihad Fred. First time comments always go to moderation.
In all seriousness, a) EMichael, is this you? and b) this comment is actual typical for a certain type of person in the West. Simply put, what exactly is the chain connecting the evil Israelis and the evil fundamentalist Christians in the US to some #$#& running down civilians in Sweden? If every last evil Israeli and evil fundamentalist Christian in the US disappeared, would there be no more bombings in Sweden? Would it be unicorns and lollipops in the Middle East? Ask the Kurds or the Yazidis or the Copts or the Bahai. Heck, ask the Zoroastrians, except there are none of them left.
I am reminded of Osama bin Laden’s laundry list of complaints. Among them were the need for the liberation of Al Andaluz. In other words… Spain had once been conquered, and it was an outrage that it hadn’t remained conquered.
psst;
Coptics or Christian Middle Easterners? Perhaps, without all of the fumbling around in the Middle East by white Anglo-Saxons since WWI going forward and after the French and the Brits left leaving them to their own to duke it out till WWII and the formation of Israel in their midst; we might have found an equitable solution.
It was already in disarray and instead we added a version of what was right or wrong disrupting the area even more by adding our own version of western ignorance. Israel can take care of itself and we no longer should be perched behind them as big brothers as they displace tens of thousands of Palestinians through illegal settlement.
And now our jackass-in-chief in Washington will add to the anger by establishing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Merry Christmas Middle East . . . and a silent night.
“The modern use of the term “Coptic” describes Egyptian Christians,”
Coptics or Coptic Christians also reside in Syria and other Middle East countries.
Mike:
Not EMichael.
run,
Dictionary.com that “Copt” is a noun, whose first definition is “a member of the Coptic Church.. I believe the correct description of a member of the Coptic Church is “Copt” or “Coptic Christian.” I do not believe calling a member of said Church simply by the single word “Coptic” is technically correct though I don’t claim any great expertise in this topic and would not be shocked if there were credible counterexamples.
Actually if you go back and read the 5th century history, you find the Copts were the original inhabitants of Egypt who had not been Hellenized since Alexander conquered Egypt. Then most of the Egyptian Church split off from the (to become) Orthodox church over issues related to the nature of christ. (the one versus two nature debate of the Council of Calcedon) this was about 20 years after the Nestorians were kicked out of the church for being on the other side of the debate. (Nestorius was Primate of Constantinople who said that instead of calling Mary mother of god she should be called the bearer of Christ). Thus the biggest schism in Christian history began. So that when the forces of Islam came the mass of the population of Egypt where opposed to the state church which followed the emporor and thought that the Moslem government might be better. The Moslems where better at assimilation than the Greeks so that a far larger part of the population became Assimilated
Whatever the arguments may be, for Christmas to equal cessation of violence would be a wonderful gift and in remembrance of the teacher for whom the holiday is named.
While I am not a believer myself, I am happy to echo your sentiment. Here is hoping for a Merry Christmas.
Funny, the most recent case in the U.S. of a person actually being a $#%& and running down people and killing them was a native born white Nazi in Charlottesville.
Seems that native white terrorism is the bigger threat.
BillB,
Even what about-ism doesn’t work here.
1. Charlottesville was a while ago. There have been several terrorist attacks and attempted attacks that happened more recently. That includes San Francisco (mentioned in the main post) and the actions of Mr. Ahmed El-Mofty just yesterday.
2. As I have stated many times before, the fact that we have a group of bad actors doesn’t excuse other groups of bad actors.
3. ” the most recent case in the U.S. of a person actually being a $#%& and running down people and killing them was a native born white Nazi in Charlottesville” Sayfullo Saipov was a native born white Nazi? And he ran people down in Charlottesville? You might inform the press, because I think most people aren’t getting that particular set of facts right at all.
4. “Seems that native white terrorism is the bigger threat” Really? The rabid right wingers at Slate comes up with 77 murders since Timothy McVeigh’s OK City bombing which killed 168 people. Put together the terrorism by Islamic Extremists in that time and what do you get?
FWIW I wasn’t limiting my concern to Islamist Jihadis violence. Killing is a bad thing.
Emichael got banned? The bear finally got angry.
Bill:
You signed in differently this time rather than other logon. No one got banned to my knowledge.
Welcome to AB. All first comments go to moderation to weed out spammers and advertising.
BillB
December 23, 2017 10:11 pm
Funny, the most recent case in the U.S. of a person actually being a $#%& and running down people and killing them was a native born white Nazi in Charlottesville.
Seems that native white terrorism is the bigger threat.
Gee Bill, you must have memory issues? Did you forget
the five at where kill with an Arabic driver, a month ago in
Gotham City .
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/domestic-terrorism-white-supremacists-islamist-extremists_us_594c46e4e4b0da2c731a84df
“Bill:
You signed in differently this time rather than other logon. No one got banned to my knowledge.
Welcome to AB. All first comments go to moderation to weed out spammers and advertising.”
Thank you, Run.
Welcome . . .
Joel,
Your study leaves out the data from 9/11/2001 where 3000+ were killed by Islamic terrorists.
Add this to the study and it is clear which group is more dangerous.
One group may be “more dangerous” than another but that leaves both of them dangerous.
@Sammy,
How often has that happened since then? What is the likelihood of another similar multi-plane hijacking? Where is the director of 9/11 now and what sort of planning is he engaged in?
I understand your (and Mike’s) impulse to misdirect to teh swarthy terrorists, but the data point to our fellow (white) Americans as being the bigger threat for random terroristic violence.
And, of course, you are far more likely to die in a traffic accident. But that wouldn’t allow you to attack Muslims, would it?
Feh.
@Sammy,
If you actually, you know, read the link, you’ll find this:
“However, the sheer number of people killed by Islamist extremists ― a total of 90 people killed ― was higher than the death toll at the hands of right-wing extremists ― 79 people killed.”
That’s without counting the 58 victims of the white Las Vegas shooter,
The sheer number of people who die from the flu dwarfs both numbers. But the flu isn’t brown or Muslim.
Joel,
1. I’ve already commented on how statistics of this sort or shaded.
2. As I’ve stated many times before, the fact that we have one group of bad of actors doesn’t mean its a good idea to have a second group of bad actors emigrate. A doctor doesn’t tell his patient: “Well, you’ve got diabetes so it would be great if you started smoking six packs of cigarettes a day so you could get lung cancer too.”
Joel,
OK, let’s add the 3,000 killed in 9/11. You end up with:
Muslim jihadis = 3,090
White supremacists = 79
Just exactly how are white supremacists a bigger threat than Muslim jihadists?
To follow up…. if white supremacists really are a problem, how does it help matters to add jihadis into the mix? Does having multiple groups of violent extremists somehow create an environment where its easier to catch not just the original group of bad actors, but also the group of newly added bad actors? Or do we expect them to be fighting it out and killing each other?
Also… I understand that people flee parts of the middle east to escape the violent actors. If the bad actors already over here are more of a threat than the bad actors people are fleeing, shouldn’t we warn them that things are even worse over here? If we believe the neo-Nazis or the skin heads are killing more people than ISIS, shouldn’t the rest of us being fleeing to somewhere safer… perhaps like Syria?
MK is right that members of Coptc churches (there is also a major branch in Ethiopia) are called either “Copts” or “Coptic Christians,z’ not “Coptics.”
OTOH he is wrong that there are no Zoroastrians. The most famous group of them are descended from people who fled to India, mostly Mumbai/Bombay, and are known as “Parsees.” They have been one of the most economically successful groupd in India, with the very wealthy and powerful Tata family members of that group
There are also still small numbers of them in Iran itself, with most of them in the city of Yazd. I happen to personally know one who left Iran many decades ago and lives in Harrisonburg, now an emeritus professor at James Madison University.
I also note that Iran has the largest Jewish population of any predominantly Muslim MENA nation, with them having a designated seat to represent them in the Majlis. This does not mean they are all that well treated in Iran, but they (and the Zoroastrians and Sunni Muslims and Christians) have more official status than the severely oppressed Bah’aias, who are viewed as heretics from Shia Islam.