Tag: Religious Terror

Right Wing Catholic Terrorism in America | Catholic Fascist Timothy McVeigh | Religious Terrorists

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic Terrorism, Right Wing Terrorism, Timothy McVeigh

Remembering Right Wing Terrorism: The Oklahoma City Bombing 4/19/1995
Right Wing Catholic Terrorism in America | Catholic Fascist Timothy McVeigh | Religious Terrorists
Via Justin “Filthy Liberal Scum” Rosario

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Today is the anniversary of the largest act of domestic terrorism in United States history, the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. 168 people were killed, including 19 children. Now here’s the part we’re not supposed to talk about: the bombing was carried out by right-wing extremists during a time of overheated right-wing rhetoric. Today’s right-wing rhetoric makes the 90s look like water cooler gossip. But making that comparison is frowned upon.

Why is that? Why aren’t we supposed to talk about it? Because it’s “politicizing a tragedy?” Because Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were “lone wolves” and the whole thing is just an “isolated incident?” That’s all bullshit. The nature of the attack was explicitly political. McVeigh was motivated by his far right ideology and a deep hatred of the government. Specifically, a Democratically led government. He felt that the debacles at Waco and Ruby Ridge were the beginnings of the much dreaded “government takeover” that paranoid militia groups have been preparing for. While Ruby Ridge was a legitimate mess and possible overreaction by the government, Waco was not.

David Koresh was your run-of-the-mill cult leader: charismatic, intelligent, narcissistic and completely amoral. He demanded that he be the one to impregnate his female followers and did not blink at statutory rape. Of course, he was the prophet and the messiah so why should he? This is who McVeigh was “defending;” a megalomaniac that raped little girls.

Still, this was perfectly acceptable if it meant “freedom” from the oppressive government.

Just to be clear (something the right does not enjoy when it comes to this topic) McVeigh was, without a shred of doubt, a right-wing extremist. When captured, he had pages of The Turner Diaries on his person. The Turner Diaries are an infamous right-wing, white supremacist (yes, that was redundant) novel about overthrowing the US government and the start of a race war that ends with the extermination of Jews and all non-whites. He was sympathetic to, if not an actual member of, the militia movement. The same militia movement that swelled during the Clinton years, fueled by conspiracies of black helicopters coming to kill or capture anyone that President Clinton wanted silenced. The same movement that went quiet during the Bush years even though we were “under attack” at all times from secret terrorist cells that were plotting our destruction. The same movement that wasn’t afraid of a Republican president trashing the Constitution with the Patriot Act but was simply terrified of a Democratic president who happened to be black (his skin color couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it). The militia movement is undeniably fueled by right-wing hate and fear and it, in turn, influenced McVeigh.

Are you starting to understand why the right doesn’t want to talk about this?

There have been dozens of acts and attempted acts of right-wing violence in just the past three years as the right wing has ratcheted up their eliminationist rhetoric to an insane degree. The same message is repeated over and over and over: “It’s us or them. We’re at war. Get ready for violence, the liberals are coming.” Several massacres have been averted, some of them by chance but it’s just a matter of time until one slips through. In their paranoid fantasies of “taking their country back,” it doesn’t matter who gets hurt because they believe they’re at war. When asked about the death of children, some of them infants, McVeigh had this to say:

“I didn’t define the rules of engagement in this conflict. The rules, if not written down, are defined by the aggressor. It was brutal, no holds barred. Women and kids were killed at Waco and Ruby Ridge. You put back in [the government’s] faces exactly what they’re giving out.”

This is the result of the rights’ violent rhetoric and we should never let them forget, no matter how hard they try, that this is what they stand for:

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This is Baylee Almon. She had just celebrated her first birthday the day before she was murdered by Timothy McVeigh. She died shortly after this picture was taken. When you listen to Ted Nugent declare that he will be dead or in jail if Obama gets re-elected, when you read about Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the NRA, insist that Obama is secretly preparing to steal everyone’s guns, when you hear every other pundit on Fox News compare liberals to Nazis, they do not represent patriotism or freedom or American values. They represent a baby dying as she is pulled from the wreckage of right-wing terrorism.

Take a moment to remind a conservative what today is and ask them if they’re OK with it. After all, the Tea Party’s favorite slogan is “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.” Timothy McVeigh was wearing that slogan on a t-shirt the day he murdered Baylee Almon, 18 other children and 147 other people. I think they should be reminded of that fact.

 

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Islamic Terror In Nigeria

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Islamic Terror, Religious barbarity, Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Terror, Sectarianism

Nigeria’s descent into holy war

A wave of terrorist violence across Nigeria has raised fears of an alliance   between the Islamist Boko Haram movement and al-Qaeda‘s franchise in the   Sahara. Colin Freeman reports from the Boko Haram stronghold of   Maiduguri.

Cars allegedly destroyed in army reprisals against residents of Maiduguri for failing to alert them to Boko Haram attacks

Cars allegedly destroyed in army reprisals against residents of Maiduguri for failing to alert them to Boko Haram attacks Photo: TOM SAATER/DEMOTIX
Colin Freeman

By , Maiduguri

7:30AM GMT 08 Jan 2012

Like many other Christian outposts in the spiritual homeland of Nigeria‘s   “Taliban”, the Victory Baptist Church in the northern desert city   of Maiduguri no longer just relies on God for protection.

A modest whitewashed spire in a skyline dominated by mosques, for the last   month it has had a military guard to defend it from Boko Haram, the militant   local Islamist sect blamed for a string of terror attacks nationwide in   recent weeks.

The soldiers in the sandbagged machinegun nest outside the church, though,   were unable save three members of the flock last week.

On Wednesday evening, three days after Boko Haram ordered all Christians to   leave Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria for good, Ousman Adurkwa, a   65-year-old local trader, answered the door of his home near the church to   what he thought was an after-hours customer. Instead it was two masked   gunmen.

“They shot my father dead, and then came for the rest of the family,”   Mr Adurkwa’s other son Hyeladi, 25, told The Sunday Telegraph the   following day. “One chased my brother Moussa and killed him, and the   other shot at me, but my mother took the bullet in the stomach instead.”

Hyeladi spoke as weeping parishioners gathered for an impromptu memorial   service in the Adurkwa family compound, where the parlour carpet was still   stained with blood from the gunshot wound suffered by Mrs Aduwurka, 50, who   now lies in hospital.

But while the sermon from the local pastor, Brother Balani, urged “prayers   for those who God has taken away, and comfort for those who remain”, it   diplomatically avoided the more earthly question of who actually did it.

For one thing, no-one can be sure the killing was not simply the result of a   private feud. And for another, Boko Haram, whose name means “Western   education is sinful”, and which wants hardline Sharia law across the   whole of Nigeria, has a track record of killing anyone who points the finger   at them publicly.

Yet some of the Adurkwa family’s neighbouring Christian households have   already made up their mind, fleeing the district for fear they might be next.

“We are going through a very difficult time because of Boko Haram,”   said Joseph Adams, 30, who lives nextdoor to the Aduwurkas. “Two weeks   ago a nearby church was also burned down, and nine other Christians have   been killed. Now all the houses around me are emptying.”

Whether such killings really do herald the start of a pogrom of Christians   remains in dispute. The Nigerian government, which is facing criticism for   failing to curb Boko Haram’s reign of terror, insists last week’s threats   were simply bluster, despite the deaths of some 23 Christians in two further   attacks elsewhere in northern Nigeria on Thursday and Friday.

What is less in doubt is the alarming evolution of the sect, which has   progressed from using machetes and poisoned arrows in its infancy to   sophisticated carbombs and Mumbai-style mass gun attacks today.

Started as a religious study group in Maiduguri more than 15 years ago, it   first took up arms under the leadership of a firebrand former civil servant,   Mohammed Yusuf, and focused its wrath mainly against the Nigerian   government, which it accused of neglecting the dirt-poor Muslim north.

Today, however, it is believed to be morphing into a new pan-African jihadist   franchise, forging links with both al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, which   operates in the vast Sahara region north of Nigeria, and al-Shebab in   Somalia.

Last August, in what diplomats fear may signal a campaign against Western   interests in oil-rich Nigeria, it killed 24 people with a car bombing of the   United Nations building in the capital, Abuja.

But what is causing even more worry is its parallel lurch into more sectarian   violence, aggravating historic tensions between the Christian south and the   Muslim north, and potentially destabilising West Africa’s biggest and most   powerful nation.

That new agenda was spelt out with a brutal sense of occasion on Christmas   Day, when a car bomb killed 42 worshippers at morning mass at St Theresa’s   Catholic Church in Madalla, just outside Abuja.

Among the bereaved was Steady Esiri, who rushed to the scene to find a charred   corpse wearing the distinctive Sunday best dress of his pregnant wife Uche,   26. Her eight-month old foetus had been torn from her womb.

“We were supposed to attend Mass together, but I was busy and planned to   go the evening service instead,” he said. “Then I heard a huge   explosion, and when I rushed here I recognised her dress. She was a   wonderful woman, a perfect housewife, now I will have to start my life   again. What kind of people do this for political ends?”

For the Reverend Isaac Achi, who feared his 3,500 strong congregation might   carry out reprisals against local Muslims, it was cause for a heartfelt   sermon the following day reminding them of the Christian virtue of   forgiveness.

“I told them revenge would just increase the number of souls dying on   both sides,” he said last week, looking out over church’s wrecked   facade, where Christmas decorations still hung lopsidedly. “But if the   government cannot stop this kind of thing, I will be worried about the   future of Nigeria.”

For some Christian leaders, however, the time for meekness is over. In   comments that angered Muslim leaders, the president of the Christian   Association of Nigeria, the Reverend Ayo Oritsejafor, branded the attacks a “declaration   of war” against Christians, and warned that they would “have no   choice but to respond appropriately ” if the authorities failed to stop   them.

Responding to the crisis last weekend, Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan,   declared a state of emergency throughout selected northern areas, including   Maiduguri, a dusty frontier town near the border with Chad.

Troops, tanks and pick-up trucks of menacing-looking plain clothes police have   flooded the city’s sandy, unpaved boulevards, where motorbikes – long the   favourite method for Boko Haram’s hit and run attacks – have long been   banned. Nevertheless, an air of menace remains, with the 6pm curfew enforced   not just by the soldiers, as by the knowledge that the sect generally mounts   attacks from late afternoon onwards. When The Sunday Telegraph   visited last week, explosions and gunfire were heard during the hours of   darkness.

Pacifying the city has been made harder by the local hostility to the security   forces, whose heavy-handed approach has won few hearts and minds over the   years.

In 2009, more than 700 people were killed when troops fought a five day battle   against Boko Haram followers which culminated in the capture of their   leader, Mr Yusuf. But the government’s victory was marred by reports that he   was summarily executed in police custody, a move that galvanised Yusuf   supporters to regroup, and put some locals off cooperating with the   authorities.

Last week, The Sunday Telegraph saw one street littered with burned out   cars – allegedly set fire to by soldiers after locals failed to warn them of   a bomb attack.

“They were angry because we did not give them any information,” said   one man, afraid to give his name. “But if we do, the sect will come   after us. We’re stuck in the middle.”

Maiduguri, however, is not the only flashpoint city in the region, and nor do   Muslim extremists have a monopoly on aggression. In the religiously mixed   city of Jos, north of Abuja, Christians are held equally to blame for   clashes that have claimed several thousand lives in the last decade alone.

The city, said to be an acronym for “Jesus Our Saviour”, sits atop a   balmy plateau that provides prime farming land and was once a favoured   retreat for British colonials escaping the humid malarial climes of coastal   Lagos. But it is jealously regarded as a historic fiefdom by the Christian   Berom tribe, who still view the Muslim Hausas who came here a century ago as   interlopers, despite having sold them much of their land.

On a walk through Jos’s Bukuru district, scene of Muslim-Christian clashes   which claimed 150 lives two years ago, the conflicting visions become clear.   While the two groups still live side by side in dense shanty towns, patches   of no-go-areas abound for each, and no two accounts of how 2010’s bloodshed   arose are alike.

“It is the Berom who cause the problems, trying to get their land back,”   said Mohamed Yakuba, 32, gesturing to a row of burned-out houses where his   father and eight other relatives died during the clashes.

True, he is still on good terms with his Berom neighbour John Jang, who also   lost his home. But when asked for his version of events, Mr Jang insists: “The   Birom were simply retaliating for attacks that the Hausa started.”

Yet while most Berom and Hausa still muddle along together in every day life –   urged on by street posters saying “Stop this wickedness” – some of   the Jos’s politicians have a less compromising view. None more so than Toma   Davou, 73, the Scripture-quoting leader of the Berom parliamentary forum,   who greets foreign visitors to Jos by saying “Welcome to Beromland”.

“The Hausas want to push us out, and although it is about land   occupation, they say it is religious so that they can get the sympathy of   Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda,” said Mr Davou. “Christians should arm   to the teeth to meet this threat from them and Boko Haram.”

Mr Davou is now campaigning for Nigeria to divide into separate Muslim and   Christian states, a move that for many would evoke memories of the Biafran   civil war of the 1960s.

The Nigerian government dismisses such talk, pointing out that the vast   majority of its 150 million citizens get on with one another peaceably, but   there is less clarity on the remedy for Boko Haram and al Qaeda, its new   ally.

Some Nigerian officials even question whether the sect really exists, saying   much of the havoc in Maiduguri is the work of criminal gangs who use its   name to frighten people.

But others are convinced that Boko Haram’s relationship is indeed having a   fledgling relationship with al-Qaeda – not least Robert Fowler, a Canadian   diplomat kidnapped by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb while serving with the   UN in Niger in 2008.

The gang who held him in the Sahara for 130 days repeatedly told him of their   aim to destroy governments across central Africa as a precursor to   establishing a pan-African caliphate. And among their number, they also   included a Nigerian.

“It would be an obvious partnership to form, even if there isn’t any hard   evidence yet,” Mr Fowler said. “The world should be worried,   because Nigeria is a huge country, and if it implodes it will take the rest   of West Africa with it.”

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Religious Right Pose National Security Threat

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in American Theocracy, Christian Terrorists, National Security Threat, Religious Right, Religious Terror, Religious Violence

Are evangelicals a national security threat?

A new poll suggests that American Christians (unlike Muslims) are likely to put their faith before their country

By David Sirota

If you have the stomach to listen to enough right-wing talk radio, or troll enough right-wing websites, you inevitably come upon fear-mongering about the Unassimilated Muslim. Essentially, this caricature suggests that Muslims in America are more loyal to their religion than to the United States, that such allegedly traitorous loyalties prove that Muslims refuse to assimilate into our nation and that Muslims are therefore a national security threat.

Earlier this year, a Gallup poll illustrated just how apocryphal this story really is. It found that Muslim Americans are one of the most — if not the single most — loyal religious group to the United States. Now, comes the flip side from the Pew Research Center’s stunning findings about other religious groups in America (emphasis mine):

American Christians are more likely than their Western European counterparts to think of themselves first in terms of their religion rather than their nationality; 46 percent of Christians in the U.S. see themselves primarily as Christians and the same number consider themselves Americans first. In contrast, majorities of Christians in France (90 percent), Germany (70 percent), Britain (63 percent) and Spain (53 percent) identify primarily with their nationality rather than their religion. Among Christians in the U.S., white evangelicals are especially inclined to identify first with their faith; 70 percent in this group see themselves first as Christians rather than as Americans, while 22 percent say they are primarily American.

If, as Islamophobes argue, refusing to assimilate is defined as expressing loyalty to a religion before loyalty to country, then this data suggests it is evangelical Christians who are very resistant to assimilation. And yet, few would cite these findings to argue that Christians pose a serious threat to America’s national security. Why the double standard?

Because Christianity is seen as the dominant culture in America — indeed, Christianity and America are often portrayed as being nearly synonymous, meaning expressing loyalty to the former is seen as the equivalent to expressing loyalty to the latter. In this view, there is no such thing as separation between the Christian church and the American state — and every other culture and religion is expected to assimilate to Christianity. To do otherwise is to be accused of waging a “War on Christmas” — or worse, to be accused of being disloyal to America and therefore a national security threat.

Of course, a genuinely pluralistic America is one where — regardless of the religion in question — we see no conflict between loyalties to a religion and loyalties to country. In this ideal America, those who identify as Muslims first are no more or less “un-American” than Christians who do the same (personally, this is the way I see things).

But if our politics and culture are going to continue to make extrapolative judgments about citizens’ patriotic loyalties based on their religious affiliations, then such judgments should at least be universal — and not so obviously selective or brazenly xenophobic.

The Pitch: Banning All Religion – The Gruen Transfer

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Ban Religion, Religion Past Use By Date, Religious Terror

The Pitch: Banning All Religion – The Gruen Transfer
 

Two ad companies make the case that banning religion is a good idea on ABC TV’s ‘The Gruen Transfer’.

14-Year-Old Girl Lashed to Death for Islam

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Islam, Islamic cruelty, Islamist Terror, Religious barbarity

The BBC reports the utterly barbaric death of a 14 year old girl in Bangladesh.

Can you possibly guess why? Yep, no surprise or shock, its what we expect. Just one single word sums it all up … “islam”. (Yes, I’ve not used upper-case, I refuse to do so)

She was accused of having an affair, so a village court consisting of elders and clerics passed the sentence. When challenged, they claim that the punishment was given under Islamic Sharia law. She was sentenced and then given 80 lashes. She was then later admitted to a hospital after the incident and died there six days later.

The authorities have (quite rightly) stepped in, so far four people have been arrested and another 14 are still wanted.

“What sort of justice is this? My daughter has been beaten to death in the name of justice,” Mosammet’s father, Dorbesh Khan, 60, told the BBC.

Here are a couple of links that give you a lot more information about all this. First we have the BBC report on it here, then we also have the Newspaper report in the UK’s Guardian here.

Check out the Guardian page, some of the folks writing comments there have been removed, some of the others still in place are more or less dancing on her grave. These are (as you might expect), the islamic believers doing the, “Oh thats not ‘real’ islam dance that they always do when faced with such incidents. It becomes a “them” and “us” song about how islam is really all about peace and that true muslims would never do this … er no, sorry but you don’t get to play that card … period.

Choosing to believe in a made up supernatural entity and claiming that it has given you a book of bizarre rules for you to impose on others is at the root of all this. The truth is that lots of smart folks do truly believe many weird things, and I’m OK with that. However, the moment you start to impose anything on others you have crossed a line. islam (as do many other beliefs) crosses that line and must be robustly challenged and told, “believe whatever bullshit you like, but you don’t get to dictate to others”. If not, then this is where it will lead you.

When faced with the claim that religion is a forced for good in the world, be skeptical. The evidence does not support that claim.

Preacher implicated in torture

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Sadists

Friday, January 14, 2011

Preacher implicated in torture

“OKAKU – A 33-year-old woman and her 15-year-old daughter were seriously injured after their relatives allegedly tortured them with an electrical wire that they connected to a car battery with the intention to extract a confession from them about a cellphone that had gone missing from the culprits.

Martha Hamutenya from Omakolombongo village of Okaku Constituency and her daughter, Indila Ikumwa, were treated at Oshakati Intermediate Hospital with burnt wounds last week.The two were tortured by their relatives allegedly on the verbal instructions of Hamutenya’s aunt who is also a preacher at the Anglican Church. The relatives allegedly accused the mother and daughter of having stolen a cellphone. Three relatives, a woman and two men, were arrested and charged with assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

MORE: http://www.newera.com.na/article.php?articleid=36864