Massacre in Amman
Last night, triple terror attacks on hotels in Amman left 57 dead and 115 wounded. Apparently, many of the casualties were Jordanians, attending a wedding reception in the Radisson SAS hotel. The fathers of both the bride and the groom were among the dead.
While everybody is condemning the atrocity in the strongest possible terms, I believe that we should look at ourselves with more scrutiny than we are comfortable with. The truth is that while who the actual perpetrators are is not yet known, what has happened follows a pattern that continues from New York, Madrid, London, Jerusalem, Riyadh and Baghdad, to name a few. The extremist ideology driving the terrorists is well known, if not totally comprehensible.
The uncomfortable fact is that while we nurse our historical grievances, we have allowed ourselves to lose ourselves in a culture of victimization and self pity. Thus, Arab and Moslem discourse typically finds room for justification for such horrors, especially if it happens somewhere else. In some cases, people who do such things are considered to be heroes. Heroes, indeed. Just yesterday I had a post pointing to the fact that some elements of the IAF are looking to Zarqawi as a potential leader for their movement. People dance and give sweets when this happens in Israel, and if it happens in Iraq, well, they deserve it because they are Shiites and Shiites are not fighting the occupation as we think they should. Of course, we felt that 9/11 was a big victory. Now we have one of our own. Let us think about this.
Religious extremism is a major driving force for the young cannon fodder who are still too young to know any better. This is a fact. Our governments tolerate and enable all sorts of forms of religious intimidation and indoctrination. We pretend it is all benign. Well, it is not all benign. When you walk the path of extremism, some people are going to take it its logical conclusion. Talk all you want about tolerance in Islam, but the fact that we must face is that religious discourse is what is driving these young men to blow themselves up in crowds of innocent victims.
We owe it to the victims, their families who grieve and ourselves to learn the lessons of this, and to take stock in them. This is not a trivial matter.
May God rest the souls of the victims, alleviate the suffering of the families and shield humanity from future outrages such as this.
May God protect Jordan.
posted by Khalaf @ 7:53 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Spot on man, spot on! Couldn’t have written it any better.
I find it a shame that some people think violence appealing once it is "out and beyond".
Any such double standards would, and have indeed, been proven illogical and incoherent with Islam or any self-respecting line of faith.
Dear sir, it is up to us to help mend the distorted image people have of us. Nobody will do it for us, you see.
we will never submit for such cowards....long live jordan and its people......and may the souls of those innocent people rest in peace.....
I condemn the outragous attack and its perpetrators, but I also want to say that it was the most expect one, not because of the recent attempts but moe so because of the record of the Jordanian official policy in cozying with the US policy of war and domination in the Arab region. this is in no way to justify the crime that just happened but to be aware of things to come.
The attempt by the government-regime right now to exonerate itself, and to rally the people behind its banner-the US banner of war on terror- will make us leave with worst conclusions.
[qoute] Of course, we felt that 9/11 was a big victory. [/quote]
Please refrain from over generalization, personally i see tht Amman's bombing was equal of tragedy at best compared to 9/11.
Feeling joy for other ppl's loss is simply sick, and i feel tht the word 'we' is 'imprecise' at best!
Thanks for your time.
Yesterday, the man they call the videoconferencing el Presidente delivered his long-awaited Veterans Day speech on the fight against terrorism at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania- see link to official Federal News Service transcript below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/international/11bush-transcript.html
This turned out to be a fascinating speech full of true-blue Trotskyite/Noecon clichés about the eventual collapse of the Islamic Al-Qaeda “system” from the burden of “its internal contradictions” and the firm presidential belief that its leaders will soon be “joining the dustbins of history”…beyond the irony of listening to a right-wing Republican leader using 19th century vintage Marxist metaphors, Dubya’s delivery was clearly below (his own already sub-par) personal average, and the rehearsed hurrahs sounded less enthusiastic than usual- maybe because Karl and Scooter were busy elsewhere and didn’t have enough time to prepare properly for this staged show of martial masculinity.
Anyway, the following 2 points in Bush’s speech caught my attention as they perfectly capture the essence of “Neo-conservative” Pharisaic propaganda:
1) “…the militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments”
This type of talk is particularly racist and offensive: 1.4 billion Muslims around the world will be glad to learn that the US government has officially segmented them into two broad categories: “Radical/Al-Qaeda types” and “Non-radical Muslims” [sic]
2) “…our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life”
That’s an outright lie, which has been propagandized on a massive scale since September 11th 2001 by Wolfowitz, Perl, Libby, Sharon, Cheney & Co.
As veteran Middle-East experts such as former senior CIA officer Michael Scheuer have said repeatedly, this canard about “Bin Laden’s alleged desire to shatter the American way of life” was (and still is) the ultimate justification of the invasion of Iraq…simply because it was “market-tested” extensively by the White House and proved to fly well with focus groups and folks in the heartland.
See link below for more on Mike Scheuer’s sharp criticism of the Bush administration
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/12/60minutes/main655407.shtml
Dubya’s mass repetition of the same failed arguments ad nauseam now threatens to unmask the dirty secrets of Neocon statecraft: in the future, he should keep his advanced Pharisaic talking points algorithm under wraps lest he reveal his intellectual edge to the enemies of freedom/democracy/Zion/McDonalds burgers/Philadelphia cheese/Alabama banana pudding/you name your favorite American dish and call the PR & Public Information Management department at the Israeli embassy in Houston so they can add it to the list of heartland gastronomic liberties that constitute the bedrock of culinary freedom on which this great nation was built!
We won’t let Jacques Chirac and Saddam Hussein destroy our way of life with their poisonous Gallic Gaullist soufflés and other radioactive “yellow cakes” cum hummus sauce cooked in the dirty Baathist/terrorist/evil/satanic/Islamo-fascist kitchens of Damascus and Tickrit.
Vive le Liberty!
Vive el Presidente!
kinzi said...
Very well said, Khalaf. Somehow I missed your blog, and another American friend told me she thought you did the best job of all the jp citizens in summarizing the problem and linked your site in an email to friends in the US.
Keep your voice strong and may God bless you
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