Weissman writes: "Just as Washington's open and covert interventions
destabilized Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and triggered the worst refugee
crisis in Europe since the end of World War II, Obama's latest 'success'
against ISIL leadership has created collateral damage that could prove even
more devastating."
People walking away from the Brussel's airport after last week's terrorist
attack. (photo: AFP)
Who Are the Terrorists and Why Are They Winning?
By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
28 March 16
Je suis sick of this shit, read the twitter hashtag following last weeks
bombings in Brussels, the capital of an increasingly dysfunctional European
Union. Sick of terrorist attacks not just in Europe and the United States,
but also from Pakistan, India, and Indonesia to Turkey, the Middle East, and
Africa. And not just by Muslim jihadis, but also by Americas Christian
nationalist and white supremacist groups who are now supporting the
presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
Who are the terrorists and why do they continue to spread their terror? For
Trump and Cruz, as for many American evangelicals, the answer is too many
Muslims, and the refusal of authorities to police them aggressively. Or, in
Trumps view, to use more waterboarding and even harsher forms of torture
against them.
Know-nothing Muslim-bashing, this plays right into the hands of terrorists
who want to turn us against one another; who need a reason to recruit more
people to their hateful cause, warned President Obama in his weekly address
after the bombings that killed 35 people at the airport and on a metro in
Brussels. Obama knows, as does New York City police commissioner William
Bratton, that they need Muslim cops and communities to provide the
intelligence to stop terrorist plots.
In his address, Obama wanted us to believe that he was playing a winning
hand. Weve been taking out ISIL leadership, and this week, we removed one
of their top leaders from the battlefield permanently, he boasted. A
relentless air campaign and support for forces in Iraq and Syria who are
fighting ISIL on the ground has allowed us to take approximately forty
percent of the populated territory that ISIL once held in Iraq.
But just as Washingtons open and covert interventions destabilized
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and triggered the worst refugee crisis in
Europe since the end of World War II, Obamas latest success has created
collateral damage that could prove even more devastating. On the same day he
made his boast, The Guardian connected the dots, based on interviews with
two ISIL activists. Other observers have confirmed the articles general
thrust.
Nine days before the November 13 terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in
Paris, ISIL leaders risked allied airstrikes to bring their senior officials
together in the Syrian town of Tabqah, west of Raqqa. There the leadership
laid out a decisive shift in strategy. Instead of putting all their efforts
into holding the Iraqi and Syrian land in their self-proclaimed caliphate, a
task they saw as militarily hopeless, the leadership had already sent
hundreds of their European fighters back home to wreak havoc in Belgium,
France, Germany, Spain, and the UK.
ISILs leaders believe that European societies are easily weakened through
savagery, wrote The Guardian. One of the groups members said its senior
officials had a deep understanding of the European political architecture
and of the fears of its people.
At the meeting, they talked about which societies would crumble first and
what that would mean, said the ISIL activist. They thought big attacks
would lead to pressure on the European Union and even NATO.
ISILs new threat depends on its European jihadis, making it vital to
understand what motivates them in their suicidal, homicidal, and ultimately
nihilistic Götterdämmerung. At the time of the Paris attacks the best
available information came from French scholar Olivier Roy, as I reported in
late November. He had systematically studied the publically available
information on thousands of Muslim radicals, including Abdelhamid Abaaoud
celebrated by ISIL as Abu Omar the Belgian one of the main organizers of
the Paris attacks.
The main motivation of young men for joining jihad seems to be the
fascination for a narrative: the small brotherhood of super-heroes who
avenge the Muslim Ummah, Dr. Roy concluded. This remains global and
abstract, unconnected to real people either in Europe or the Middle East.
They build their narrative using schemes taken from the contemporary youth
culture: video-games (Call of Duty, Assassins). And they stage their
super-hero fantasies using modern techniques and very contemporary
aesthetics, with a special role for aesthetics of violence.
These young rebels had a loose or no connection to the mosques, or to
extremist imams. Many have a past of petty delinquency and drug dealing,
he wrote. Before turning born-again or converts, they shared a youth
culture which had nothing to do with Islam.
The terrorists who attacked Paris and Brussels largely fit the pattern Roy
observed. Most grew up in the heavily Muslim Molenbeek suburb of Brussels.
They got involved in drugs and petty crime. They became radicalized in a
small network of friends and relatives, often brothers, or they found
radical Islam in jail. And they went on jihad to Syria, where they joined
ISIL or affiliates of al-Qaeda and learned how to use arms and explosives.
But, contrary to Roys expectation, Abu Omar and many others were very much
involved with a very extremist imam.
Belgium officials estimate that some 500 of their citizens have gone to wage
jihad in Syria and Iraq, and the biggest recruiter was a Moroccan-born
preacher called Khalid Zerkani, who was jailed last year. Mr. Zerkani has
perverted a whole generation, particularly the youth of Molenbeek, said
Belgian prosecutor Bernard Michel at an appeals hearing in February.
Preaching at underground mosques in Molenbeek, Zerkani ran a network of
petty criminals and used the proceeds to send jihadists to Syria, recalled
France 24. His long beard and habit of allowing thieves to keep part of the
spoils earned him the nickname Father Christmas.
Zerkanis network included Abu Omar, Najim Laachraoui, the bomb maker who
blew himself up at the Brussels airport, and Reda Kriket, whom French
authorities arrested Thursday and accused of planning yet another terrorist
attack. The Zerkani network also appears to have been involved in several
other recent terrorist attacks.
Scholars like Roy or the University of Michigans Juan Cole may argue that
Zerkanis preaching, or that of ISIL, do not truly represent Islam. But, the
evidence from Belgium and France suggests that the jidhadis make it a key
part of their narrative. ISIL is a monstrous child of our world and of our
epoch, argues French anthropologist Alain Bertho. But, in the absence of a
political alternative like Marxism that attracted earlier generations, it
offers a mission to rage, a meaning to death, a divine legitimacy to good
and evil.
How far will this motivation go?
In February, the aptly named Belgian daily Derniére Heure reported that the
jihadis had been spying on the countrys director of nuclear research and
development. The authorities denied that any real threat existed. The paper
then reported on Saturday, March 26, the killing of nuclear security agent
Didier Prospero and his dog. Authorities insist that the killing had a very
different motive. But, given their mission, why would the jihadis not attack
a nuclear facility if they could?
________________________________________
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly
Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a
magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France,
where he is researching a new book, "Big Money and the Corporate State: How
Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently
Break Their Hold."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
People walking away from the Brussel's airport after last week's terrorist
attack. (photo: AFP)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Who Are the Terrorists and Why Are They Winning?
By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
28 March 16
e suis sick of this shit, read the twitter hashtag following last weeks
bombings in Brussels, the capital of an increasingly dysfunctional European
Union. Sick of terrorist attacks not just in Europe and the United States,
but also from Pakistan, India, and Indonesia to Turkey, the Middle East, and
Africa. And not just by Muslim jihadis, but also by Americas Christian
nationalist and white supremacist groups who are now supporting the
presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
Who are the terrorists and why do they continue to spread their terror? For
Trump and Cruz, as for many American evangelicals, the answer is too many
Muslims, and the refusal of authorities to police them aggressively. Or, in
Trumps view, to use more waterboarding and even harsher forms of torture
against them.
Know-nothing Muslim-bashing, this plays right into the hands of terrorists
who want to turn us against one another; who need a reason to recruit more
people to their hateful cause, warned President Obama in his weekly address
after the bombings that killed 35 people at the airport and on a metro in
Brussels. Obama knows, as does New York City police commissioner William
Bratton, that they need Muslim cops and communities to provide the
intelligence to stop terrorist plots.
In his address, Obama wanted us to believe that he was playing a winning
hand. Weve been taking out ISIL leadership, and this week, we removed one
of their top leaders from the battlefield permanently, he boasted. A
relentless air campaign and support for forces in Iraq and Syria who are
fighting ISIL on the ground has allowed us to take approximately forty
percent of the populated territory that ISIL once held in Iraq.
But just as Washingtons open and covert interventions destabilized
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and triggered the worst refugee crisis in
Europe since the end of World War II, Obamas latest success has created
collateral damage that could prove even more devastating. On the same day he
made his boast, The Guardian connected the dots, based on interviews with
two ISIL activists. Other observers have confirmed the articles general
thrust.
Nine days before the November 13 terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in
Paris, ISIL leaders risked allied airstrikes to bring their senior officials
together in the Syrian town of Tabqah, west of Raqqa. There the leadership
laid out a decisive shift in strategy. Instead of putting all their efforts
into holding the Iraqi and Syrian land in their self-proclaimed caliphate, a
task they saw as militarily hopeless, the leadership had already sent
hundreds of their European fighters back home to wreak havoc in Belgium,
France, Germany, Spain, and the UK.
ISILs leaders believe that European societies are easily weakened through
savagery, wrote The Guardian. One of the groups members said its senior
officials had a deep understanding of the European political architecture
and of the fears of its people.
At the meeting, they talked about which societies would crumble first and
what that would mean, said the ISIL activist. They thought big attacks
would lead to pressure on the European Union and even NATO.
ISILs new threat depends on its European jihadis, making it vital to
understand what motivates them in their suicidal, homicidal, and ultimately
nihilistic Götterdämmerung. At the time of the Paris attacks the best
available information came from French scholar Olivier Roy, as I reported in
late November. He had systematically studied the publically available
information on thousands of Muslim radicals, including Abdelhamid Abaaoud
celebrated by ISIL as Abu Omar the Belgian one of the main organizers of
the Paris attacks.
The main motivation of young men for joining jihad seems to be the
fascination for a narrative: the small brotherhood of super-heroes who
avenge the Muslim Ummah, Dr. Roy concluded. This remains global and
abstract, unconnected to real people either in Europe or the Middle East.
They build their narrative using schemes taken from the contemporary youth
culture: video-games (Call of Duty, Assassins). And they stage their
super-hero fantasies using modern techniques and very contemporary
aesthetics, with a special role for aesthetics of violence.
These young rebels had a loose or no connection to the mosques, or to
extremist imams. Many have a past of petty delinquency and drug dealing,
he wrote. Before turning born-again or converts, they shared a youth
culture which had nothing to do with Islam.
The terrorists who attacked Paris and Brussels largely fit the pattern Roy
observed. Most grew up in the heavily Muslim Molenbeek suburb of Brussels.
They got involved in drugs and petty crime. They became radicalized in a
small network of friends and relatives, often brothers, or they found
radical Islam in jail. And they went on jihad to Syria, where they joined
ISIL or affiliates of al-Qaeda and learned how to use arms and explosives.
But, contrary to Roys expectation, Abu Omar and many others were very much
involved with a very extremist imam.
Belgium officials estimate that some 500 of their citizens have gone to wage
jihad in Syria and Iraq, and the biggest recruiter was a Moroccan-born
preacher called Khalid Zerkani, who was jailed last year. Mr. Zerkani has
perverted a whole generation, particularly the youth of Molenbeek, said
Belgian prosecutor Bernard Michel at an appeals hearing in February.
Preaching at underground mosques in Molenbeek, Zerkani ran a network of
petty criminals and used the proceeds to send jihadists to Syria, recalled
France 24. His long beard and habit of allowing thieves to keep part of the
spoils earned him the nickname Father Christmas.
Zerkanis network included Abu Omar, Najim Laachraoui, the bomb maker who
blew himself up at the Brussels airport, and Reda Kriket, whom French
authorities arrested Thursday and accused of planning yet another terrorist
attack. The Zerkani network also appears to have been involved in several
other recent terrorist attacks.
Scholars like Roy or the University of Michigans Juan Cole may argue that
Zerkanis preaching, or that of ISIL, do not truly represent Islam. But, the
evidence from Belgium and France suggests that the jidhadis make it a key
part of their narrative. ISIL is a monstrous child of our world and of our
epoch, argues French anthropologist Alain Bertho. But, in the absence of a
political alternative like Marxism that attracted earlier generations, it
offers a mission to rage, a meaning to death, a divine legitimacy to good
and evil.
How far will this motivation go?
In February, the aptly named Belgian daily Derniére Heure reported that the
jihadis had been spying on the countrys director of nuclear research and
development. The authorities denied that any real threat existed. The paper
then reported on Saturday, March 26, the killing of nuclear security agent
Didier Prospero and his dog. Authorities insist that the killing had a very
different motive. But, given their mission, why would the jihadis not attack
a nuclear facility if they could?
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly
Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a
magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France,
where he is researching a new book, "Big Money and the Corporate State: How
Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently
Break Their Hold."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
