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ISIS Assumes We’re Stupid — And Our Useful Idiots Keep Proving It

ISIS Assumes We’re Stupid — And Our Useful Idiots Keep Proving It

To the delight of ISIS propagandists, our homegrown useful idiots never stop being usefully idiotic. Today, the Center for American Progress posted a bracing column by Sally Steenland and Ken Gude that demonstrates politely but unmistakably how anti-Muslim and anti-refugee conduct by Western politicians fits into the strategic vision of the jihadist leadership.

The enemy has showed us quite clearly what not to do, expecting that we will continue to do it anyway because we’re bigoted and stupid. So far, they’ve been proved right.

Given the recent video threats by ISIS against New York City and Washington, the following is timely, especially concerning the foiled plot to detonate a car bomb in Times Square several years ago. But the entire column by Steenland and Gude is well worth reading — and sharing with your elected representatives:

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, is pursuing a strategy explicitly designed to provoke hostility toward innocent Muslims in Western society in order to radicalize these communities and recruit them to their cause. Listening to the American political debate in the wake of the tragic terrorist attacks in Paris, that strategy may be working. Islamophobic rants are both morally offensive and factually inaccurate and play right into the hands of our terrorist enemies.

ISIS is not hiding its objectives. In its publications, it talks of forcing the world into two camps by “destroy[ing] the grayzone” between itself and the forces aligned against it. For ISIS, the grayzone is inhabited by those who have yet to commit to one side in its clash of civilizations. In the February edition of its official magazine Dabiq, an ISIS writer outlined a plan to compel “the crusaders [the West] to actively destroy the grayzone themselves” by generating anti-Muslim hysteria in the wake of terrorism. Attacks such as those in Paris are designed to get Western governments to alienate their Muslim populations and push them toward ISIS….

Here is the truth: Rather than being a threat to national security, Muslim American communities have helped prevent more than one-third of Al Qaeda terrorist plots in the United States since 9/11. The most famous case is that of the 2010 plot to bomb Times Square in which Alioune Niass identified the car bomb and alerted police. In 2003, tips from the local Muslim community led the FBI to arrest a group that was conducting military-style training in northern Virginia.

Photo: An undated photograph of a man described as Abdelhamid Abaaoud that was published in the Islamic State’s online magazine Dabiq and posted on a social media website. REUTERS/Social Media Website via Reuters TV

Paris Terror: What ‘Je Suis Charlie’ Should Mean To Us

Paris Terror: What ‘Je Suis Charlie’ Should Mean To Us

Not long after 9/11, leading figures in France’s champagne industry decided that they would hold their 2002 annual awards gala in New York City rather than Paris. At no little expense, they displayed solidarity with New Yorkers, and America, at a time of sorrow and fury – like so many of their compatriots. The first toast of the evening included the words, “We are all New Yorkers.” It was one more instance, symbolic but significant, when the French renewed the bond that has existed since this country’s founding.

And not too long after that, disagreement between the French government and the Bush administration over the invasion of Iraq led to a breach between us and our oldest allies. They tried in vain to save us from a tragic mistake or worse, and were rewarded with vilification from Fox News to the floor of Congress.

By now, of course, we know that the French never disagreed with us about the danger posed by Islamist jihad, only about the means and priorities in combating that adversary. Today the French military is supporting the U.S. and other allies by conducting airstrikes against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq. That continuing alliance requires us all to repeat “Je Suis Charlie” in the aftermath of the atrocious terror attack on the Parisian satire magazine Charlie Hebdo.  Yet while we owe that gesture to our old friends, we still owe them, ourselves, and the world much more.

As an assault on liberty and security, the barbaric shootings that killed the editor of Charlie Hebdo, four cartoonists, a police officer and six more innocents cannot be excused or explained. The victims had every right to do what they were doing and what they had done, regardless of the violent anger they stirred among the perpetrators and their sponsors. It is criminal warfare by an implacable enemy that will not desist until it is destroyed.

To understand what is at stake in this struggle, it is important to look closely what we are defending. There is no equivalent to Charlie Hebdo in the United States, nor is there a tradition of the kind of anti-religious satire that has been among its specialties. Those killed had the kind of cultural stature of Doctor Seuss, Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau, the editors of Mad magazine or the producers of The Daily Show – except that their style is far more offensive and challenging than most Americans can imagine, not only in insulting Islam but Christianity, Judaism, and every other congregation of believers in France.

Rightists who regard the defense of Charlie Hebdo as merely another opportunity to bash Muslims ought to glance back at the magazine’s equally savage assaults on institutions they hold dear, since its anarchic sense of humor has spared no one. Nobody needs to approve of anything that the editors published, including the mocking cartoons of Muhammad, to reject the use of violence to suppress them.

Indeed, it is possible to reject the content of those drawings and still stand firmly with the Charlie Hebdo staff. In free societies, there will always be writers and artists who use their freedom in ways that the rest of us find obnoxious, ugly, even dangerous. The French imam who denounced the killings clearly and called the victims “martyrs” surely doesn’t care for those cartoons. But he knows the price of living under constitutional freedom that protects his right to worship – and to protest, without violence, words and pictures that offend.

If only the would-be persecutors of Islam in the West adequately comprehended that same principle. And if only they realized that such persecution is exactly what the jihadists desire.

Effective opposition to violent Islamism means neither denying that this grave challenge exists nor demonizing Muslims. It means seeking to make ordinary Muslims, by far the most common victims of Islamist terror, our allies as well. And in the aftermath of the Iraq war, the Senate torture report, and every other mistake and crime since 9/11, supposedly committed to defend liberty, it means restoring and preserving everything decent that distinguishes us from our enemies.

AFP Photo/Marc Braibant

U.S. Man Indicted For Material Support To IS Group

U.S. Man Indicted For Material Support To IS Group

Washington (AFP) — A Yemini-born U.S. man was indicted for allegedly providing material support to the Islamic State by recruiting members for the jihadist group.

Mufid Elfgeeh, a naturalized U.S. citizen, attempted to draft three individuals, two of whom worked in conjunction with the FBI as informants, into the services of the IS organization.

The resident of Rochester, New York, was also charged with one count of attempted murder of current and former U.S. military, having plotted to shoot and kill members returned from Iraq, according to the indictment.

In 2013 and early 2014, Elfgeeh, 30, encouraged and helped prepare the two confidential sources “to travel overseas to engage in violent jihad,” a statement from the Department of Justice said.

He also sent $600 to an individual in Yemen for travel to Syria to join the IS fight.

“Elfgeeh attempted to assist all three individuals in traveling to Syria to join and fight on behalf of ISIS,” the Department of Justice said, using an alternate acronym for the IS group, which also goes by ISIL.

The seven-count indictment additionally included charges for possession of firearms equipped with silencers for furtherance of a violent crime, and two counts for receipt and possession of unregistered firearm silencers.

Elfgeeh first mentioned shooting military members to one of the informants in December 2013 when Elfgeeh reportedly said he wanted a gun and ammunition so he could put on a bullet-proof vest and go “around and start shooting,” the Department of Justice said.

Elfgeeh was arrested after one of the informants provided him in late May with two handguns — made inoperable by the FBI — as well as silencers and ammunition.

“As this case shows, our agents and prosecutors are using all the investigative tools at our disposal to break up these plots before individuals can put their plans into action,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in the statement.

“We are focused on breaking up these activities on the front end, before supporters of ISIL can make good on plans to travel to the region or recruit sympathizers to this cause,” Holder added.

AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan

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Iraq Appeals For U.S. Air Strikes On Advancing Jihadists

Iraq Appeals For U.S. Air Strikes On Advancing Jihadists

Baghdad (AFP) – Iraq asked the United States Wednesday to carry out air strikes on Sunni jihadists, who attacked the country’s main oil refinery and seized more territory in the north.

The appeal came as fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were pressing a week-long offensive that has brought them close to the capital, and as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki pledging to face down “terrorism.”

“Iraq has officially asked Washington to help under the security agreement (between the two countries), and to conduct air strikes against terrorist groups,” Zebari told reporters in Saudi Arabia.

However, Zebari said “a military approach will not be enough. We acknowledge the need for drastic political solutions.”

The United States spent millions of dollars over several years training and arming a new Iraqi army after disbanding the Sunni-led force created by the late dictator Saddam Hussein.

Washington has already deployed an aircraft carrier to the Gulf and sent marines to bolster security at its embassy in Baghdad, but President Barack Obama has insisted a return to combat in Iraq for U.S. soldiers is not on the cards.

However, Secretary of State John Kerry has said drone strikes could be used.

Maliki vowed on television that “we will face terrorism and bring down the conspiracy,” adding that “we will teach (militants) a lesson and strike them.”

He also said the country’s security forces, which wilted in the face of a major militant offensive that overran all of one province and chunks of three more in a matter of days last week, had suffered a “setback” but had not been defeated.

Maliki security spokesman Lieutenant General Qassem Atta later said security forces would retake by Thursday morning full control of Tal Afar, a Shiite town in the north that lies along a strategic corridor to Syria.

That would provide a base from which to launch operations to recapture Mosul.

With regional tensions rising, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic republic “will do everything” to protect Shiite shrines in Iraqi cities against the militant assault.

And Saudi Arabia warned of the risks of a civil war in Iraq with unpredictable consequences for the region, while the United Arab Emirates recalled its envoy to Baghdad, voicing concern over “exclusionary and sectarian policies.”

The crisis, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, threatens to break the country apart, while the assault on Baiji oil refinery Wednesday further spooked international oil markets.

Brent crude for August delivery added three cents to $113.48 per barrel just after midday in London.

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate for July delivery picked up 34 cents to $106.73 a barrel.

The attack on the refinery complex, in Salaheddin province north of Baghdad, was launched before dawn, officials said.

Atta said Iraqi forces managed to kill 40 militants and repel the attack, but that some tanks containing refined products caught fire.

The refinery was shut down and some employees evacuated on Tuesday due to a drop in demand caused by the militant drive.

World oil producers have cautiously watched the unfolding chaos in Iraq, which currently exports around 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. They have stressed that the country’s vast crude supplies, mostly in the south, are safe — for now.

The militants’ swift advance has sparked international alarm, with the UN’s envoy to Baghdad warning that the crisis was “life-threatening for Iraq.”

Analysts suggested that the country could unravel, surviving at best as a federal state.

John Drake, an expert on Iraq with British security group AKE, was asked if Iraq could remain united.

“I don’t think it’s impossible, but it is highly unlikely,” was his verdict.

Police and officials reported that militants had moved into the Shiite Turkmen area of Bashir in Kirkuk province and also seized three villages in Salaheddin province Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Indian foreign ministry announced that 40 Indian construction workers had been abducted in Mosul, the first city to fall in the offensive.

Spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said 46 Indian nurses were also stranded in the militant-held city of Tikrit.

Last week, as the offensive got underway ISIL fighters kidnapped 49 Turks in Mosul, including diplomats and children, after earlier seizing 31 Turkish truck drivers.

In a bid to see off the offensive, Maliki sacked several top security commanders Tuesday evening, then stood alongside several of his main rivals in a rare display of unity among the country’s fractious political leaders.

The dismissals came after soldiers and police fled en masse as insurgents swept into Mosul, a city of two million, on June 10.

Some abandoned their vehicles and uniforms when faced with the insurgents, which are led by ISIL fighters but also include loyalists of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

After taking Mosul, militants captured a major chunk of mainly Sunni Arab territory stretching towards the capital.

Despite security forces’ initial poor performance, Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said Iraqi troops, with help from Shiite volunteers, were “stiffening their resistance” around Baghdad.

©afp.com / Sabah Arar