Burka burka Muhammad jihad. Isn't it great that in America we're busy removing obstacles to veiling? "Blast Kills 3 Somali Cabinet Ministers," by Jeffrey Gettleman and Mohamed Ibrahim for the New York Times, December 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):
NAIROBI, Kenya -- In a devastating blow to Somalia's fragile transitional government, a suicide bomber disguised as a veiled woman struck at a graduation ceremony on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, including 3 government ministers, Somali officials said.The body of the Somali Minister of Education Ibrahim Hassan Cadow was carried away from the scene of a suicide bomb attack during a university student graduation ceremony at a local hotel in Mogadishu on Thursday.
The bomber struck in a part of Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, that was thought be relatively safe, though many Somalis fear hard-line insurgents have infiltrated the government's security forces. According to witnesses and government officials, dozens of medical students gathered on Thursday morning for a graduation ceremony at the Shamo Hotel, which was often where the few Westerners who visit Mogadishu would stay.
About five high-ranking government officials, including the ministers of health and higher education and another cabinet member, were attending the ceremony, and witnesses said three ministers were killed along with several Somali journalists and at least two surgeons in a country desperately short of doctors.
The attack, said Mohammed Aden, a Somali diplomat in Nairobi, "is very, very serious, really."
"It proves the aggressive power" the insurgents have, "and their determination to take over this country," he said. "They can easily go at the heart of the system. This will create a lot of panic for all the supporters of the government."...
No kidding, really?
Allowing ANYONE to conceal their identity is a security threat. We are under attack by the Jihad, why allow it's practitioners and their sympathizers to roam about our country in disguise? The constitution is not a suicide pact.
When will the Obamahdi administration start to realize that protecting the United States is more important than being "politically correct"?
But it's okay, because it was the bomber's choice to go veiled.
Ban the burkha/niquab/jilbab/chador.
Actually, ban all forms of islamic dress for men and women.
I wonder if the bomber was from Minnesota?
The natural state of modern Muslim societies, absent a despotic regime (fully-equipped not only with an army, but armed with its ever-vigilant omnipresent Mukhabarat as well), is far from Edward Hicks's Peaceable Kingdom. It resembles the state of Hobbesian man, with each against each. And that is a result of Islam itself, which prevents the development of the idea of the free citizen, with responsibilities and loyalties to the nation-state (to the very idea of a particular nation), and because the ideology of Islam replaces, or never allows in, rather, anything else, on which the mind can repose and the heart take refuge, and leaves only texts full of violence, aggression, and hatred (Wafa Sultan: "The God That Hates"), not only Somalia, but many Muslim states, will descend to this condition.
We should do nothing to prevent it. We should stop worrying about this absurd "failed state" problem -- which is merely a fashionable phrase that those who deliver themselves of their views, no matter how ignorant of many things they may be, and of all things, now, especially ignorant of Islam, like to employ, with a serious mien, and ponderous delivery, indicating -- presumably -- great and careful thought. But that phrase's meaning is not self-evident, and the more you look at it, the more you see it means nothing more than a breakdown of central authority. Big deal. Is the "failed state" of Somalia, with each against each, more or less of a danger to us than the presumably unfailed-state of Saudi Arabia, or Iran? Let's put that silly phrase to rest, because its use impliedly suggests, too often, that we-- the Americans and other Infidels -- have to unfail those "failed states" lest they become...oh, you know, places where those "violent extremist Jihadists" will damage us. Let the Muslim states worry about that, if they want. Saudi Arabia is right across the sea from Somalia, and right next to Yemen, another state about to become what the writers of articles about foreign policy will hasten to call a "failed state." Let the Saudis worry. Let them use up their arms, their money. It'll do us all good.
Meanwhile, just watch the spectacle. And read, to your children -- or grandchildren -- at bedtime, "Millions of Cats" by Wanda Ga'g. It contains a geopolitical lesson.
The group is trying to rule all of Somalia with an austere version of Islam, and in the areas they control Shabab fighters have stoned adulterers to death and cut off the hands of teenage thieves.
Austere version? Sounds like the genuine article to me. So I guess we're supposed to be culturally sensitive and defend islam in order to toe the PC/MC line, and then when the barbaric thing is actually carried out as described in the koran, we construct a straw man such as "austere version" or "radical interpretation" to blame for the violent outcome. Utter, obvious nonsense.
"... ban all forms of islamic dress for men and women...."
Better yet, ban all forms of Islam ....
"... ban all forms of islamic dress for men and women...."
Better yet, ban all forms of Islam ....
(aside to)Hugh~ The depth of your literary knowledge is not suprising, but the breadth astounds. Thank you for the reference.
Recently English has had its lexicon enriched by individual words that originate in Islam. I'm not sure of exactly when such words first entered into widespread use, but I've put in parentheses some guesses for what I think may be the half-dozen that are now in most frequent use in English:
Ayatollah (c. 1979)
Fatwa (c. 1985)
Jihad (c. 2001)
Dhimmi(c. 2003)
Jizyah (c. 2006)
Taqiyya (c. 2008)
There are, of course, many others -- Imam, Mufti, Burqa, Nijab, Hijab, and so on -- and a poster should feel free to compose his own list, and his own guess as to dates of frequency (Jessie Sheidlower, are you reading this? And what about you, David Crystal? And all you harmless drudges out there, making your word-lists and checking them twice?), and place it below.
But it is not only individual words that have entered English from the world of Islam. The behavior of Muslims now endows old phrases with new meaning.
How, after the murderous attack above -- and many more like it? -- can we not be tempted to see and use the phrase "veiled threat" in a new light?
Come to think of it, isn't that what adherents of Islam all over the West at present constitute - a "veiled threat"?
Hugh - I would LOL if a Politically Correct Policeperson is not present.
Haha, nice Team America reference at the beginning. It's "Durka durka, Muhammad jihad," for the record.
Here's a few words that should get greater recognition:
Lan Astaslem
er...make that wider recognition.
I am sorry, we are silly kaffirs and not allowed to say such things or we will have eggs thrown at us by our Muslim masters.
Suicide bombing at a graduation program? How utterly and uniquely Islamic!
What other religion (of peace?) can boast such total dedication to its members than a self-detonating event at graduation? Beats fireworks. But is it not ultimately telling, that the Cult of Islam can engage its suicidal followers to die for the cause, even on graduation day? Which 'education' wins in the battle for hearts and minds of its students? What other school can claim such devotions? Islam-cult wins hands down.
Time for a new omelette recipe, then. >;)
Robert Pape believes this is all because of poverty and occupation. But why do many of these poor, occupied suicide bombers end up killing those who are just as poor and occupied as them?
I think you meant 'Ilan Pape'?
Somewhat tangential to the topic, but it suddenly occurs to me that we're being sucked into accepting the bad guys' vocabulary - for instance "martyr." These dreadful people aren't martyrs at all. A true martyr is someone who continues to peacefuly practice his faith or live according to his belief system even though he knows that so doing could well bring about his death. Martyrdom is a passive, not an active process.
The simple truth of the matter is that these murderers are mentally defective. In our civilized countries we have sympathy and compassion for such persons, and exert every effort to protect and treat them in the hope that they might one day be able to become well-adjusted, contributing members of society.
The religion of peace, on the other hand, gleefully recruits them as cannon fodder to commit atrocities that their superiors would never have the courage to carry out. Have you ever noticed that bin laden, anjem choudary, the imams and mullahs etc. never seem to blow themselves up?
Jesus died on the cross for us - where was the selfless committment of the great paedophile?
We need to discontinue perpetuating the islamic definition of "martyr," replacing it with our own term. My personal choice is "islamic stooge," but I'm sure my most erudite spencerite friends can do much better.