[VIDEO] The Third Jihad: Homeland and Global Terror
Posted: March 22, 2017 Filed under: Foreign Policy, Global, History, Terrorism, Think Tank | Tags: Aid to the Church in Need, Boko Haram, CESNUR, Christian, Christianity, Christianity in Iraq, Clarion Project, Council on American–Islamic Relations, Donald Trump, Global Terror, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Islamism, Jihadism, video 1 Comment
In episode 11 of The Third Jihad, Clarion Project looks at the rise of homeland and global terror in the wake of 9/11 and the growing threat, seemingly ignored at home and overseas.
4 people have died in an attack in London. This video shows the moment the incident began outside the UK Parliament.https://t.co/FwKsndgisW pic.twitter.com/81srJq9yGr
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 22, 2017
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[VIDEO] How Can Capitalism Help End Poverty? Here’s How
Posted: December 3, 2016 Filed under: Economics, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Africa, Banknote, Barack Obama, Ben Folds, Boko Haram, Capitalism, Fortune (magazine), Free market, Nigeria, Steven Mnuchin, United States Secretary of the Treasury Leave a comment
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Nigeria‘s former finance chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy Hernando de Soto join us at Fortune-Time Global Forum.
Video Critical Of Jihad And Sharia Pulled From YouTube
Posted: July 6, 2016 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, Religion, Terrorism | Tags: André Carson, Barack Obama, Boko Haram, Council on American–Islamic Relations, Islamic Society of North America, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Muslim, Muslim Brotherhood, Ted Cruz Leave a comment
A video produced by CounterJihad critical of the Muslim Brotherhood, jihad and sharia law was removed from YouTube Tuesday due to the company’s “hate speech” regulations.
The video — titled “Killing for a Cause: Sharia Law & Civilization Jihad” — was uploaded to YouTube last Thursday.
“Terrorism seems to be everywhere, and it’s getting worse. The bad guys have lots of names—ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram—but they have one thing in common. They are all killing for a cause: Islamic Law known as Sharia.”
“I am stunned that the policy that YouTube developed for the express purpose of fighting Islamic State propaganda is now being used to silence critics of radical jihad,” Jim Hanson, executive vice president of the Center for Security Policy said Wednesday.
Hanson added, “Instead of counteracting radical propaganda online, these policies are now being used to silence the very speech that YouTube said it wanted — speech that challenges ISIS.”
“Sharia is a return to medieval Islam.”
YouTube’s hate speech policy states that “hate speech refers to content that promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on certain attributes.” These attributes include religion. Read the rest of this entry »
[PHOTO] Shield Used by French Police When They Entered the Bataclan Theater
Posted: November 21, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, France, Global, Guns and Gadgets, Terrorism, War Room | Tags: Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Boko Haram, Calais, Cameroon, Islamism, Kolofata, Law enforcement in France, Nigeria, Paris, Paris Attacks, Police officer, Tear gas Leave a comment
This shield was used by French Police when they entered the Bataclan Theater to rescue the victims and stop the carnage. Despite taking withering fire, the police continued charging the threats until they were shot dead or detonated their suicide belts.
Source: gop-tea-pub
‘ACT OF WAR’: Hollande Blames ISIS
Posted: November 14, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Global, Mediasphere, War Room | Tags: Élysée Palace, Boko Haram, Buk missile system, EUROPE, European Union, François Hollande, France, Islamism, Jihadism, New York Times, Nicolas Sarkozy, Paris Attacks, President of France, Terrorism, Vladimir Putin Leave a comment
PARIS — The terrorist assault on Paris on Friday night was carried out by three teams of coordinated attackers, including one who traveled to Europe on a Syrian passport along with the flow of migrants, officials said Saturday.
“It is an act of war that was committed by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, Daesh, against France. It is an act of war that was prepared, organized and planned from abroad, with complicity from the inside, which the investigation will help establish.”
— French President Francois Hollande
At a news conference on Saturday night, the Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said the attackers were all armed with heavy weaponry and suicide vests. Their assault began, he said, when two of them blew themselves up outside the gates of the soccer stadium on the northern outskirts of Paris.
A French security official said separately that one of the attackers had been linked to a Syrian passport. A Greek official had said earlier that the person carrying the passport had passed through Greece last month along the migrant trail into Europe.
The possibility that one of the attackers was a migrant or had posed as one is sure to further complicate the already vexing problem for Europe of how to handle the unceasing flow of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Details of the assault came after President François Hollande blamed the Islamic State for the terrorist attacks. Officials said Saturday night that the death toll had reached 129 victims, with 352 others injured, 99 of them seriously. Mr. Hollande declared three days of national mourning, and said that military troops would patrol the capital. France remained under a nationwide state of emergency. Read the rest of this entry »
Heidi Vogt: Boko Haram’s Abduction of Girls Still Grips Nigeria
Posted: April 14, 2015 Filed under: Global, War Room | Tags: Abuja, Boko Haram, Caliphate, Chad, Chibok, Gwoza, Nigeria, Nigerian Armed Forces, Twitter, West Africa Leave a comment
Boko Haram has abducted at least 2,000 women and girls since the start of 2014. Many have been forced into sexual slavery or trained to fight, says Amnesty International
YOLA, Nigeria— Heidi Vogt reports: In the year since Boko Haram militants kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls from their dormitories in northeastern Nigeria, the missing girls have come to symbolize an insurgency that doesn’t need a large footprint to terrorize a population.
Protests continue in the capital Abuja to urge the government to do more to free the more-than-200 girls. Each time a town has been retaken, local newspapers and radio stations ask the government if the girls were found there.
“This is about Chibok but it is also about what’s happening in northeast. It is about Boko Haram. It’s something that people can organize around.”
— Liz Donnelly, a London-based Nigeria analyst with the Chatham House policy institute
After the recapture of the key town of Gwoza in late March, the headline of the Nigerian website Pulse headlined its story: “No sign of Chibok girls as soldiers recover Gwoza from terrorists.”
In the past two months, Boko Haram has lost much of the territory it had seized. But what may be a more persistent threat remains—that of a hit-and-run organization that instills terror through mass abductions.
Boko Haram has abducted at least 2,000 women and girls since the start of 2014, Amnesty International said in a new report. Many have been forced into sexual slavery or trained to fight, the rights group said.
But the girls seized in the town of Chibok and publicized in the #bringbackourgirls Twitter campaignhave been the ones that caught the world’s attention and galvanized Nigerians.
[Read the full text here, at WSJ]
“This is about Chibok but it is also about what’s happening in northeast. It is about Boko Haram. It’s something that people can organize around,” said Liz Donnelly, a London-based Nigeria analyst with the Chatham House policy institute.
There have been rumors in recent weeks both that the girls have been killed and that they were spotted in Gwoza, but neither has been substantiated.
And there may be more kidnappings to come. Read the rest of this entry »
Elections Massacre: Lawmaker, 8 Others Killed by Insurgents in Gombe, Nigeria
Posted: March 28, 2015 Filed under: Global, Politics | Tags: Adenomatous polyposis coli, Biu, Boko Haram, Fula people, Gombe State, Improvised explosive device, Islamism, Nigeria, Polling place, Reuters, Yobe State 1 Comment
A member of Gombe State House of Assembly, Alhaji Umar Aminu (APC), and eight others are feared killed by insurgents on Saturday. The insurgents who attacked Dukku and Nafada local government areas of the state were said to have killed the lawmaker representing Dukku South Constituency.
A source told newsmen that the insurgents, who came from Yobe, initially attacked Shole, Birin Bolewa and Birin Fulani towns of Nafada and later attacked Dukku. There was confusion in the two areas as some voters left the polling units but others later returned to be accredited, the source said.
Gombe State, located in the northeastern part of Nigeria, is one of the country’s 36 states; its capital is Gombe. The boundaries of the state roughly correspond to those of the Tangale-Waja Chiefdom and Gombe Emirate, a traditional state.
According to the source, the insurgents killed three persons in Nafada Local Government Area, including a policeman and killed six persons in Dukku Local Government Area, including the legislator.
The source further said the insurgents left on the Dukku-Darazo road after the attack.
DSP Fwaje Atajiri, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) in the state, confirmed the report, adding that details of the incident would be given after investigations were completed. “There was an attack on the outskirts of Nafada in attempt to disrupt the elections.”
A joint team of military and policemen promptly moved to Dukku and pushed the insurgents to the bush,” he said. Atajiri said elections were going on in the area and other areas of the state as the Special Forces were in control of the situation. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Mrs Amina Namadi, Wife of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Seen Buying Votes with Cash on Live TV
Posted: March 26, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Global, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Bayero University Kano, Birnin Kebbi, Boko Haram, Goodluck Jonathan, Independent National Electoral Commission, Namadi Sambo, Nigeria, Peoples Democratic Party, Peruvian Democratic Party, Vice President of the United States Leave a commentWife of the vice president of Nigeria, Hajiya Amina Namadi Sambo, was seen sharing money on live television to sway voters during the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) women presidential campaign rally on Tuesday in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi state.
BREAKING: Mergers & Acquisitions Update: Boka Haram ISIS Merger Officially Approved
Posted: March 7, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Religion, U.S. News, War Room | Tags: Abu Dua, Abubakar Shekau, al Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Beheading, Boko Haram, Borno State, Global Panic, Goodluck Jonathan, Islamism, Jihadism, Nigeria, Terrorism Leave a comment
BREAKING: Nigerian militant group Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS), according to an audio statement.
The message, which was not verified, was posted on Boko Haram’s Twitter account and appeared to be by the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau.
Boko Haram began a military campaign to impose Islamic rule in northern Nigeria in 2009. The conflict has since spread to neighbouring states.
It would be the latest in a series of groups to swear allegiance to IS.
In the past Boko Haram is thought to have had links with al-Qaeda.
IS took control of large swathes of territory in eastern Syria and across northern and western Iraq last year.
The group aims to establish a “caliphate”, a state ruled by a single political and religious leader according to Islamic law, or Sharia. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is known to his followers as Caliph Ibrahim. Read the rest of this entry »
Suspected Boko Haram Gunmen Kill 68 in Nigerian Village
Posted: March 5, 2015 Filed under: Global, War Room | Tags: Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Boko Haram, Borno State, Cameroon, Chad, Islamism, Kano, MAIDUGURI, Nigeria Leave a comment
Kano, Nigeria (CNN) Aminu Abubaka reports: Suspected Boko Haram gunmen shot dead and slit the throats of 68 people — including children — in an attack on a village in Nigeria‘s Borno state, according to survivors and vigilante sources.
The attackers then burned down the entire village of Njaba, the sources said.
“They shot dead anyone that tried to flee but spared children younger than 13 years old.”
Dozens of gunmen invaded the remote northeastern village before dawn Tuesday, singling out boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 19 and killing them alongside their parents, witnesses said.
Njaba village lies about 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.
“They hurled petrol bombs into homes and opened fire on anyone trying to flee. They particularly targeted teenagers and elderly people.”
Karimu Lawani, who escaped to Maiduguri after hiding with eight other people behind the barn of a neighbor, said the attackers came into the village at around 5 a.m.
“They shot dead anyone that tried to flee but spared children younger than 13 years old,” Lawani said.
He and other survivors counted the victims of the massacre before leaving the village some hours later.
His account was supported by Faltama Bisika, 62, who lost four grandchildren in the attack.
“They hurled petrol bombs into homes and opened fire on anyone trying to flee. They particularly targeted teenagers and elderly people,” Bisika said. Read the rest of this entry »
iOS Conceal Carry: Women in India Fight Sexual Harassment with Smartphones
Posted: February 14, 2015 Filed under: Asia, Crime & Corruption, Global, Health and Social Issues | Tags: Blake Farenthold, Boko Haram, Bullying, Clery Act, Delhi, Domestic violence, India, Sexual assault, sexual harassment, Shevat, South East Asia, Violence against women 1 Comment
Interest in phone apps with SOS buttons to alert contacts and websites to report sexual harassment has surged as more women challenge the view that they have a lower status than men
New Delhi — Nita Bhalla and Alisa Tang, report: Indian women armed with smartphones are using the clout of social media to fight sexual harassment by filming and publicly shaming men who molest them as greater awareness of violence against women spreads.
In the latest of a series of incidents, a young Indian woman used her smartphone to shoot video of a man sitting behind her on an IndiGo airline flight who tried to grope her between the seats. She filmed her rebuke of him in front of the other passengers.
“A video is a weapon that scares patriarchy. The proof, like in the IndiGo case, is mostly undeniable. It leaves the woman with more power than usual to fight for her own cause with little need of either empathy or logistical help from a man. It pins a man down for his crimes with little scope of escape.”
— Piyasree Dasgupta, on leading news website firstpost.com
The video, posted on YouTube last week, went viral, adding to growing anger over gender violence in the world’s second most populous country where women are frequently sexually harassed in public and on transportation.
The trend to name-and-shame sex offenders comes after the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in Delhi in 2012. The incident sparked public protests and led to a national debate about the security of women – encouraging victims once embarrassed to come forward to use smartphones to expose perpetrators.
Interest in safety apps with SOS buttons to alert contacts and websites to report sexual harassment has surged in the past year or so as more women challenge the age-old patriarchal attitudes in India that view women as lower status than men. Read the rest of this entry »
The Spreading Menace of Boko Haram
Posted: January 27, 2015 Filed under: Global, Think Tank, War Room | Tags: Abubakar Shekau, Africa, Amnesty International, Boko Haram, Borno State, Cameroon, Council on Foreign Relations, Islamic state, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Nigeria 1 Comment
The jihadist group in Nigeria killed 11,245 people last year. Now their rampage seems ready to escalate in 2015
Emad Mostaque writes: The new year began with terror attacks in Paris inspired or orchestrated by al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula and ISIS and then reports of up to 2,000 residents killed by Boko Haram in a days-long massacre in Baga, Nigeria. While Paris has grabbed the majority of media attention, the events in Baga may prove to be the most significant as Boko Haram expands in northeastern Nigeria. This weekend the group captured the town of Monguno and its military barracks while simultaneously attacking the state capital, Maiduguri.
“While Paris has grabbed the majority of media attention, the events in Baga may prove to be the most significant as Boko Haram expands in northeastern Nigeria.”
A key goal of all terrorists is to provoke outsize reactions by committing heinous deeds. This is particularly true of jihadists, whose main feature is the takfir they impose on the majority of other Muslims—declaring them not to be “true” believers and thus outside of their group and liable for death. High-profile attacks aim to polarize societies and create animus against mainstream Muslims, creating more potential recruits for the radical Islamists.
A key goal of all terrorists is to provoke outsize reactions by committing heinous deeds. This is particularly true of jihadists, whose main feature is the takfir they impose on the majority of other Muslims—declaring them not to be ‘true’ believers and thus outside of their group and liable for death.”
ISIS has intensified its bloodletting over the last year, using social media to amplify its mass beheadings and other fearsome deeds—and thus the group’s power and threat—in line with the recommendations outlined in jihad theoretician Abu Bakr Naji ’s 2006 text “The Management of Savagery.” However, ISIS has reached the limits of unopposed and easy expansion in Iraq as it now faces well-armed forces in non-Sunni areas, bolstered by coalition airstrikes. ISIS gains in Syria continue, but the group appears more contained, having failed to take Kobani from its Kurdish defenders. Read the rest of this entry »
Satellite Images Reveal Scale of Destruction in Boko Haram Massacre in Nigeria
Posted: January 15, 2015 Filed under: Global, War Room | Tags: Abuja, Accra, Air chief marshal, Amnesty International, Boko Haram, Cameroon, Chad, Cinema of Nigeria, Divorce, Islamic extremism, Nigeria Leave a comment
Drew Hinshaw in Accra, Ghana and Gbenga Akingbule reporting from Abuja, Nigeria: Boko Haram killed hundreds of people and burned down almost an entire town this month, Amnesty International said Thursday, citing satellite photos to offer the clearest indication to date of the damage the Nigerian insurgency wrought.
Not from a satellite photo
More than 3,700 buildings, including homes, schools, and clinics, were torched by Boko Haram in and around the remote town of Baga during an assault that began on Jan. 3, the human rights group said. Satellite photos showed the entire town of Doron-Baga, which is next to Baga, had been effectively burned down.
Amnesty said the pictures corroborate the stories of refugees who have spoken of many hundreds killed in the remote area, which is dangerous and inaccessible for journalists and aid workers. Residents who fled have described walking through a countryside littered with bodies. Read the rest of this entry »
Deaths in Nigeria Child Suicide Bombings
Posted: January 11, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, War Room | Tags: Boko Haram, Borno State, Chad, Council on Foreign Relations, Far North Region (Cameroon), Goodluck Jonathan, Hassoumi Massaoudou, Lake Chad, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria 1 Comment
Two suspected child suicide bombers blow themselves up killing six, in the latest assault involving young girls
At least six people have been killed after two suspected child suicide bombers blew themselves up in a market in northeast Nigeria, witnesses say.
“I saw their dead bodies. They are two young girls of about 10 years of age…you only see the plaited hair and part of the upper torso.”
— A trader at the market, Sani Abdu Potiskum
Sunday’s assault was the second attack involving young girls strapped with explosives.
The blasts struck around mid-afternoon at an open market selling mobile handsets in the town of Potiskum in Yobe state, one of three northeastern states after Adamawa and Brorno that have been hit by the armed group Boko Haram.
A trader at the market, Sani Abdu Potiskum, said the bombers were about 10 years old.
“I saw their dead bodies. They are two young girls of about 10 years of age … you only see the plaited hair and part of the upper torso,” the trader said.
The town was hit by a suicide bomber in November when at least 48 people, mainly students, were killed during a school assembly.
On Saturday, a bomb exploded at a police station in Potiskum.
Who fucking does this http://t.co/AK9rbMSP7T
— GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) January 11, 2015
Sunday’s explosions came a day after a bomb strapped to a girl aged around 10 years old exploded in a busy market place in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 20, security sources said.
Boko Haram, which opposes Western influence and education, has been fighting since 2009 to establish an Islamic state in the northeast of the country. The the army’s inability to crush the movement has created problems for President Goodluck Jonathan, who is seeking re-election in February.
Last year more than 10,000 people died in the violence, according to an estimate by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
Army losses
The military lost ground in worst-hit Borno state last weekend after fighters took over the town of Baga and nearby army base, killing over 100 people and forcing thousands to flee. The defence headquarters said on Saturday that the army was regrouping to retake the area. Read the rest of this entry »
Turn On, Retweet, Tune Out
Posted: August 4, 2014 Filed under: Global, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Boko Haram, Central African Republic, Chibok, Democratic Republic of Congo, NewYorker, Nigeria, Sanya, Syria Leave a comment
From Syria to Gaza to #BringBackOurGirls, what makes people care about stories one minute — and forget about them the next?
For ForeignPolicy.com, Lauren Wolfe writes:
Deborah Sanya, an 18-year-old Nigerian student who was kidnapped by Boko Haram in the mass raid on a school in Chibok back in mid-April, took a tremendous risk and bolted. Through the night, she and two friends ran and ran, eventually reaching safety in a village. When New Yorker reporter Alexis Okeowo spoke to Sanyaat the end of April, she described how the young woman was fasting and eating, fasting and eating, all the while interspersing that with prayer.
“What exactly is going on in the attention economy that people have little room (or desire) for sustained empathy?”
At the time when Okeowo’s article came out, many in the world were riveted by the plight of the Nigerian schoolgirls: It was a story with terror and mystery and a need for world attention — immediately. The infamous #BringBackOurGirls campaign began online. People got mad. Op-eds appeared. World leaders indignantly spoke out.
Yet more than three months later, with most of the girls still in captivity, global cries to help them are intermittent at best. It’s hardly the first time a cause has hit the headlines, only to slide slowly into the shadows, like a cranky child quietly banished to her room after throwing a temper tantrum. Remember Kony 2012?
Right.
In addition to the big hits that live and die hard, there are countless issues people care about on and off at best. See: Syria; Israel-Palestine; a number of countries with intense war and suffering in Africa (the Central African Republic, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo); HIV/AIDS. Read the rest of this entry »
Boko Haram Extremists Kill More than 100 in Northeast Nigeria
Posted: July 19, 2014 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Global, War Room | Tags: Associated Press, Boko Haram, Damboa, Friday, Islamic terrorism, Lagos, MAIDUGURI, Nigeria 1 Comment
Boko Haram wants to enforce an Islamic state in Nigeria though half the country’s population of 170 million is Christian.
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Boko Haram extremists have killed more than 100 people and hoisted their black and white flag over a town left undefended by Nigeria’s military, just 85 kilometers (53 miles) from the northeastern state capital of Maiduguri, a civil defense spokesman and a human rights advocate said Saturday.
“Nine major villages are on the run.”
Hundreds of villagers in another northeast area, Askira Uba, are fleeing after receiving letters from the Islamic extremists threatening to attack and take over their areas, spokesman Abbas Gava of the Nigerian Vigilante Group said.
Survivors said Saturday that insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades and lobbed homemade bombs into homes, and then gunned down people as they tried to escape the fires in the attack on Damboa town launched before dawn Friday. Most of the town has burned down, they said. Read the rest of this entry »
Obama at West Point: The Psychology of Surrender
Posted: May 29, 2014 Filed under: Diplomacy, Politics, Think Tank, White House | Tags: BarackObama, Benghazi, Boko Haram, Joel Pollak, Marine Corps University, Sebastian Gorka, Ukraine, United States, United States Military Academy 2 Comments
For Breibart.com, Dr. Sebastian Gorka writes: From the vantage point of the just-about-to-graduate cadets at West Point, it must be very cool to have the Commander-in-Chief be your commencement speaker.
Perhaps the ‘wow-factor’ is diminished when the speech is one that underlines why America isn’t important and how the biggest war of the last decade is about to be lost.
“The President’s speech is full of these surreal assertions that bear no resemblance to the actual world we live in”
For those who really must go to the source the full text is here. For those with shorter attention spans see the excellent and almost instantaneous analyses by my Breitbart colleagues Joel Pollak and Charlie Spiering.
Here is another take. Read the rest of this entry »
Charles C. W. Cooke: The Power of Hashtags
Posted: May 29, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Boko Haram, Charles C. W. Cooke, hashtag, Jack Dee, National Review, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Twitter 4 Comments
They’re a mighty tool—for enabling Groupthink
For National Review, Charles C. W. Cooke writes: About a decade or so ago, the perennially grumpy British comedian, Jack Dee, started to complain about the fawning language that was being used to describe the Internet. They call it “the Information superhighway,” Dee griped. “They call it ‘surfing’ the net. It’s not surfing. It’s typing in your bedroom.”
“…we are obsessed with how many people are talking about a particular topic, and where the swarm is trending. But we are less interested, it seems, in what they are saying.”
This was a thoroughly well deserved putdown — the “they” in Dee’s sentence referring to an industry that was becoming almost impossibly self-important, and that has only got worse since. I say this as a techie who hates techies and as a lover of computers and the Internet who is invariably appalled by what the promise of new services does to the brains of otherwise sensible human beings. Spend a few hours in San Francisco or Austin and you will meet a host of caricatures who appear to have had all everyday words surgically removed from their brains, a greasy marketing dictionary being installed in their place. These are the annoyingly earnest types who have taken the language of the operating system and applied it to their daily lives — the people who work not in industries but in “spaces.” You don’t chat with them, you “interface.” You don’t go out for lunch, you “aggregate,” and, if the lunch plans go “viral,” you hope that the restaurant is “scalable.” In discussions, you don’t agree with one another, but “express yourself together,” “find a common voice,” and “converge.” Each and every idea is the product of a “paradigm” or a “framework.” It’s tiring. Have a photograph you’d like to share with your parents? That’s an “exciting new possibility for customization.” Here, nothing is just okay; everything is revolutionary. A phrase you don’t hear too often in Silicon Valley: “Sure, that’s useful I guess.” Read the rest of this entry »
Reality Check: Boko Haram and the Sultan of Brunei Couldn’t Care Less About Western Twitter Outrage
Posted: May 20, 2014 Filed under: Global, History, Think Tank, War Room | Tags: al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Brendan Eich, Donald Sterling, Hoover Institution, Nigeria, North Korea, Stanford University, Tribune Media Services, Victor Davis Hanson, Vladimir Putin 2 Comments
For National Review Online, Victor Davis Hanson writes:
Nigeria’s homegrown, al-Qaeda linked militant group, Boko Haram, brags openly that it recently kidnapped about 300 young Nigerian girls. It boasts that it will sell them into sexual slavery.
What do we do in the face of 19th-century evil that is unapologetic, has lethal weapons at its disposal, and uses savage rhetoric to goad us? Tweet it to death?
Those terrorists have a long and unapologetic history of murdering kids who dare to enroll in school, and Christians in general. For years, Western aid groups have pleaded with the State Department to at least put Boko Haram on the official list of terrorist groups. But former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s team was reluctant to come down so harshly, in apparent worry that some might interpret such condemnation as potentially offensive to Islamic sensitivities.
[Order Victor Davis Hanson’s book “The Savior Generals“ from Amazon.com]
From Greece to Jerusalem to Rome to the Enlightenment to the Founding Fathers slowly grew a standard of human rights that could be applied to anyone, regardless of race, creed, or color. But that is still not how most of the non-Western world works today.
Instead, Western elites now flood Facebook and Twitter with angry postings about Boko Haram — either in vain hopes that public outrage might deter the terrorists, or simply to feel better by loudly condemning the perpetrators. Read the rest of this entry »
A Group of Nigerian Hunters Join the Search for Missing Schoolgirls
Posted: May 19, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Global, War Room | Tags: Boko Haram, Chibok, Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria, Twitter, Wall Street Journal 1 CommentA group of Nigerian hunters have joined the search for missing schoolgirls: http://t.co/rMdN0OSzdP (Glenna Gordon) pic.twitter.com/H3rezlt3Vl
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 19, 2014
Boko Haram Strikes Chinese Company in Cameroon
Posted: May 18, 2014 Filed under: Asia, China, War Room | Tags: Boko Haram, Cameroon, China, CNN, Islamism, Nigeria, Sinohydro 2 Comments
For Breitbart.com, Jordan Schachtel reports: Late Friday, Boko Haram Islamist insurgents reportedly attacked a Chinese-owned camp in Cameroon. Chinese news agency Xinhua reported ten Chinese nationals unaccounted for and one injured. According to CNN, a Cameroonian soldier was killed during the attack.
The attack took place in the town of Waza. The northern Cameroon town is just a few miles from the Nigerian border, where Boko Haram recently kidnapped almost 300 schoolgirls. The area is in close proximity to the Sambisa forest, a location that remains a stronghold for the Islamist terrorist group. Read the rest of this entry »
The Sound and the Fury — and the Tweet
Posted: May 16, 2014 Filed under: Global, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Boko Haram, Charles Krauthammer, Damascus, Michelle Obama, Nigeria, Nigerian government, RUSSIA, Tahrir Square, Tehran, Twitter Leave a commentVideo: Protesters spoke out at the Nigerian embassy in Washington, D.C. to express their disappointment in the Nigerian government after an extremist group kidnapped nearly 300 girls on April 15th
For The Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer writes: Mass schoolgirl kidnapping in Nigeria — to tweet or not to tweet? Is hashtagging one’s indignation about some outrage abroad an exercise in moral narcissism or a worthy new way of standing up to bad guys?
“As always, however, we tend to romanticize the power of the tweet…”
That is nothing but preening, a visual recapitulation of her boss’s rhetorical fatuousness when he sternly warns that if the rape of this U.S. friend continues, we are prepared to consider standing together with the “international community” to decry such indecorous behavior — or some such.
[Read more: Will: I Can’t Believe Adults Use Hashtag Foreign Policy, ‘An Exercise in Self-Esteem’]
When a superpower, with multiple means at its disposal, reverts to rhetorical emptiness and hashtag activism, it has betrayed both its impotence and indifference. But if you’re an individual citizen without power, if you lack access to media, drones or special forces, then hashtagging your solidarity with the aggrieved is a fine gesture and perhaps even more. Read the rest of this entry »
Geller: According to The Daily Beast, Boko Haram Terrorists Are Not ‘Islamic’
Posted: May 15, 2014 Filed under: Global, Politics, War Room | Tags: Boko Haram, Daily Beast, Dean Obeidallah, Islam, Islamism, Jihad, Nigeria, Pamela Geller, The Daily Beast 4 Comments
Pamela Geller writes: On the very day that the devout Muslim group Boko Haram released a video of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls, clad in burkas and being forced to recite the Qur’an, author Dean Obeidallah declared in the Daily Beast that “The Nigerian terrorist group that kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls has nothing to do with Islam, and it’s grotesquely irresponsible of the media to suggest it does.”
Mr. Obeidallah, it’s not the media that suggests it; it is Boko Haram that declares it.
“The reason the media use the rather silly term ‘Islamist’ or ‘Islamic radical’ is because the devout Muslims engaged in jihad are citing Qur’an chapter and verse. They are identifying themselves as such.”
It is not grotesque to tell the truth. What is grotesque is that the widely-read Daily Beast would run such damaging propaganda by a failed yet self-described “comic.”
[Geller‘s book: Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance
The Daily Beast is doing an end run for Islamic jihad when these girls’ lives hang in the balance. That is a different kind of savagery. The Beast is more worried about Islam’s PR than it is in educating the public on the most grave threat to freedom, not just in Nigeria but across the world.
“Disinformationalists like Obdeillah don’t have a theological leg to stand on.”
Clearly, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls is just more empty rhetoric from hypocrites, not an honest clarion call for action.
Boko Haram Demands Release of Fighters for Girls
Posted: May 12, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Global, War Room | Tags: Abubakar Shekau, Abuja, Allah, Associated Press, Boko Haram, Chibok, Islam, Nigeria 2 Comments
“I swear to almighty Allah, you will not see them again until you release our brothers that you have captured.“
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Under the guns of their captors, dozens of barefoot girls sat huddled together wearing gray Muslim veils as they chanted Quranic verses in Arabic. Some Christians among them said they had converted to Islam.
“I swear to almighty Allah, you will not see them again until you release our brothers that you have captured,” the leader of the Boko Haram terrorist network threatened, an assault rifle slung across his chest.
A video released by the group Monday offered the first public glimpse of what it claimed were some of the nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped a month ago. The girls’ plight has spurred a global movement to secure their freedom.
It is not known how many suspected Boko Haram members are detained by security forces. Hundreds were killed last month when leader Abubakar Shekau‘s fighters stormed the military’s main northeastern barracks in Maiduguri, the terror group’s birthplace and the headquarters of a year-old military state of emergency to put down the 5-year-old Islamic uprising.
In the video, two of the girls were singled out for questioning.
“Why have you become a Muslim?” one girl, who looked to be in her early teens, was asked.
“The reason why I became a Muslim is because the path we are on is not the right path,” the girl said, nervously shifting her body from side to side, her eyes darting back and forth. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Breaking: Boko Haram Video Claims to Show Missing Nigerian Schoolgirls
Posted: May 12, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Global | Tags: Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram, Cameroon, Islamic terrorism, Nigeria, United States, YouTube Leave a commentBoko Haram released a new video on Monday claiming to show the missing Nigerian schoolgirls, alleging the teenagers had converted to Islam and would not be released until all militant prisoners were freed. Duration: 01:08
Robert Spencer: 5 Things Media & Government Won’t Tell You About Boko Haram
Posted: May 11, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, War Room | Tags: AK-47, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Dawah, Hillary Clinton, Luddite, Nigeria, Obama administration, United States Department of State 10 Comments
Why was Hillary Clinton’s State Department so notoriously slow to recognize a terrorist group?
5. The abduction of the schoolgirls is only the latest in a huge string of atrocities.
The world has only begun to notice them because of the abduction of the schoolgirls, but the Nigerian jihad terror group Boko Haram has been around for years. Without attracting the international outrage they have drawn upon themselves now, they have committed innumerable acts of unimaginable savagery,murdering over 2,500 people in the first three months of 2014 alone andtorching numerous churches and Christian homes.
At my website Jihad Watch a Google search turns up about 115,000 results for “Boko Haram,” indicating that anyone who has been tracking jihad activity over the last few years has had plenty to track in Boko Haram, and that the outrage over the abducted schoolgirls, as welcome as it is if it results in genuine action to stop this brutal and bloody group, is quite late and arbitrary.
Of course, in the Obama administration it hasn’t been fashionable to talk about jihad activity other than within the context of al Qaeda, and Boko Haram is not al Qaeda. Therefore it essentially did not exist (either for the administration or for the mainstream media that it carries around in its pocket like so many nickels), or if it did, it wasn’t a terrorist group: Hillary Clinton’s State Department wasnotoriously slow to designate it as such, even as the dead bodies piled up.
4. Their real name is Party of the People of the Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad.
Boko Haram means “Western education is sin,” or more literally, “Books bad.” The mainstream media has reported this as if the group were a bunch of Luddites with AK-47s – people who for some unexplained reason object to modern technology except for the weaponry. But actually the moniker “Boko Haram” is a specifically Islamic name, referring to the sinfulness of any system of education that is not based and centered upon the Qur’an and Islam.
And the actual name of the group is not Boko Haram at all; it is the Party of the People of the Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad. Sunnah is accepted Islamic practice as derived from the Qur’an and Hadith; dawah is Islamic proselytizing; and jihad, of course, is (according to mainstream Islamic tradition) primarily warfare against unbelievers in order to establish the hegemony of Islamic law. Clearly, then, the group’s focus and motivation is entirely Islamic – which is probably why the media never calls the group by its actual name: too much focus on Islam in connection with terrorism is, for the media, as verboten for today’s media as it would have been for Der Stürmer to run a piece favorable to Jews. Read the rest of this entry »
Rep Mike Rogers: ‘You Can’t Base Your Policy on What’s Trending on Twitter’
Posted: May 11, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Boko Haram, Hillary Clinton, Mike Rogers, Nigeria, Twitter, United States Department of State 2 CommentsThe administration is right to address the kidnapping of hundreds of young girls in Nigeria, but its decision to not designate Boko Haram as a terrorist group years ago displays a failure to take these foreign policy issues seriously, says Representative Mike Rogers (R., Mich.).
“You can’t base your policy on what’s trending on Twitter. It has to be more than hashtags and selfies.”
Rogers outlined other examples of threats and dangerous situations abroad that are largely going unaddressed under this administration, particularly those affecting and harming women…(read more)
Will: I Can’t Believe Adults Use Hashtag Foreign Policy, ‘An Exercise in Self-Esteem’
Posted: May 11, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Boko Haram, George Will, Jennifer Psaki, Michelle Obama, Nigeria, Obama administration, Twitter, Ukraine 2 Comments“Are these barbarians in the wilds of Nigeria supposed to check their Twitter accounts and say, ‘Uh oh, Michelle Obama is very cross with us — we better change our behavior’?”
George Will doesn’t quite understand the thinking behind the first lady’s recent tweet in which she used the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, referencing the Boko Haram kidnapping of Nigerian girls.
“It’s an exercise in self-esteem. I do not know how adults stand there, facing a camera, and say, ‘Bring back our girls.’”
In March, the State Department engaged in a similar strategy to signal its support for Ukraine by tweeting a picture of spokeswoman Jen Psaki with the hashtag #UnitedForUkraine.
“Power is the ability to achieve intended effects, and this is not intended to have any effect on the real world.”
To echo @BarackObama today-proud to stand #UnitedForUkraine World should stand together with one voice pic.twitter.com/VeMt578UdY
— Jen Psaki (@statedeptspox) March 26, 2014
Mark Steyn: #BringBackOurBalls
Posted: May 10, 2014 Filed under: Politics, U.S. News, War Room, White House | Tags: Boko Haram, Daniel Payne, Don Pacifico, Mark Steyn, Muslim, Nigeria, Ukraine, White House 3 CommentsMark Steyn writes: It is hard not to have total contempt for a political culture that thinks the picture at right is a useful contribution to rescuing
276 schoolgirls kidnapped by jihadist savages in Nigeria. Yet some pajama boy at the White House evidently felt getting the First Lady to pose with this week’s Hashtag of Western Impotence would reflect well upon the Administration. The horrible thing is they may be right: Michelle showed she cared – on social media! – and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?
Just as the last floppo hashtag, #WeStandWithUkraine, didn’t actually involve standing with Ukraine, so #BringBackOurGirls doesn’t require bringing back our girls. There are only a half-dozen special forces around the planet capable of doing that without getting most or all of the hostages killed: the British, the French, the Americans, Israelis, Germans, Aussies, maybe a couple of others. So, unless something of that nature is being lined up, those schoolgirls are headed into slavery, and the wretched pleading passivity of Mrs Obama’s hashtag is just a form of moral preening.
But then what isn’t? The blogger Daniel Payne wrote this week that “modern liberalism, at its core, is an ideology of talking, not doing“. He was musing on a press release for some or other “Day of Action” that is, as usual, a day of inaction:
Diverse grassroots groups are organizing and participating in events such as walks, rallies and concerts and calling on government to reduce climate pollution, transition off fossil fuels and commit to a clean energy future.
It’s that easy! You go to a concert and someone “calls on government” to do something, and the world gets fixed.
There’s something slightly weird about taking a hashtag – which on the Internet at least has a functional purpose – and getting a big black felt marker and writing it on a piece of cardboard and holding it up, as if somehow the comforting props of social media can be extended beyond the computer and out into the real world. Maybe the talismanic hashtag never required a computer in the first place. Maybe way back during the Don Pacifico showdown all Lord Palmerston had to do was tell the Greeks #BringBackOurJew.
As Mr Payne notes, these days progressive “action” just requires “calling on government” to act. But it’s sobering to reflect that the urge to call on someone else to do something is now so reflexive and ingrained that even “the government” – or in this case the wife of “the government” – is now calling on someone else to do something. Read the rest of this entry »
Mollie Hemingway: Who Has It Worse? Women In America Or Elsewhere?
Posted: April 24, 2014 Filed under: Global, Health and Social Issues, Politics | Tags: Boko Haram, Condoleezza Rice, Elle, Islamic terrorism, McDonald, Nigeria, Sheryl Sandberg, Women's rights 4 Comments
Mollie Hemingway writes: Who could deny that the problems identified by feminists in America are serious? Here are just five recent examples of how bad women have it in the States, each followed by a look at a minor problem faced by women in other parts of the world.
American Problem #1
Gendered toys being distributed McDonald’s.
Did you know that McDonald’s distributes toys with its so-called Happy Meals? And that these toys come in “boy” and “girl” varieties? Can you believe what a human rights violation this is? Slate is on it, thank goodness. This must be stopped.
Global Problem #1
234 girls kidnapped from Nigerian schools last week by Islamist extremists.
As the Associated Press reports:
The kidnappings are believed to have been carried out by Nigeria’s Islamic extremist rebels, known as Boko Haram. Boko Haram — the nickname means “Western education is sinful” — is violently campaigning to establish an Islamic Shariah state in Nigeria, whose 170 million people are about half Muslim and half Christian. Boko Haram has been abducting some girls and young women in attacks on schools, villages and towns but last week’s mass kidnapping is unprecedented. The extremists use the young women as porters, cooks and sex slaves, according to Nigerian officials.
American Problem #2
High school boys asking famous people to the prom.
Reigning Miss America Nina Davuluri was at a high school assembly recently to discuss the importance of science and math. Male aggressor Patrick Farves took the opportunity to ask her to prom. He was suspended.
Feminist leader Amanda Marcotte called this practice what it really is: sexual harrassment of the worst kind imaginable.
Global Problem #2
Iran to hang 26-year-old rape victim.
Rayhaneh Jabbari, a 26-year-old former interior designer, was scheduled to be hanged after serving seven years in prison for stabbing a man she claims drugged her and attempted to rape her. The execution has been postponed, but is still pending.
American Problem #3
Banning the word “bossy.”
In March, high-achieving women such as Beyonce and Condoleezza Rice joined Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s campaign to ban the adjective “bossy.”
And no, it’s not bossy that all the cool and beautiful girls who are super-popular and wealthy got together and decided that not only were they not going to use a word but that no one else could either. Why do you ask?
Beverley Hill, the founder and President of a women rights organization “Gendercide Awareness Project”, which was formed to combat prejudice and injustice against women, has said that China is leading in Gendercide index and India is at second place. Addressing a special meeting of South Asia Democracy Watch Board of Directors, Ms. Hill said that her group is fighting a systematic mass genocide of women population, through selective abortion in many countries of the world.
Global Problem #3
Gendercide
According to a Pakistani media outlet this week:
Beverley Hill, the founder and President of a women rights organization “Gendercide Awareness Project”, which was formed to combat prejudice and injustice against women, has said that China is leading in Gendercide index and India is at second place…
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