The West is in mortal peril, people.
“It doesn’t surprise me, because radical and political Islam in Belgium is something that grew up through the years," Bilal Benyaich, a senior fellow at a think tank called the Itinera Institute, told The Washington Post's Steven Mufson last year.
ReplyDeleteBenyaich pointed to the arrival of funding from Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Persian Gulf states in the 1970s that was used to set up conservative religious schools in the area. A decade ago, Belgian journalist Hind Fraihi went undercover in Molenbeek and wrote a popular newspaper series that showed that disillusioned young Muslims were being influenced by radical preachers.
Despite this, the Belgian government did not act, Fraihi told The Post last year, meaning that “there is a whole generation waiting to participate in these actions."
With the rise of the Islamic State, these ambitions found an outlet. Almost 500 Belgian citizens have traveled to Syria and Iraq amid the ongoing conflicts there, and most end up fighting on the side of the Islamic State, making Belgium the biggest known exporter of foreign Islamic State fighters in Europe. A group called Sharia4Belgium, led by a charismatic preacher called Fouad Belkacem, has been accused of being at the center of attempts to recruit foreign fighters. Other potential recruits, weary of life in Europe, have made their own links to the group online.
read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/22/why-is-brussels-under-attack/?tid=sm_fb
So is your remedy more shock and awe?
ReplyDelete"The biggest proponent of an American invasion is the Islamic State itself. The provocative videos, in which a black-hooded executioner addresses President Obama by name, are clearly made to draw America into the fight. An invasion would be a huge propaganda victory for jihadists worldwide: irrespective of whether they have given baya’a to the caliph, they all believe that the United States wants to embark on a modern-day Crusade and kill Muslims. Yet another invasion and occupation would confirm that suspicion, and bolster recruitment. Add the incompetence of our previous efforts as occupiers, and we have reason for reluctance. The rise of isis, after all, happened only because our previous occupation created space for Zarqawi and his followers. Who knows the consequences of another botched job?"
read more at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/?utm_source=QuartzFB
Key line in your WaPo link: "Despite this, the Belgian government did not act."
ReplyDeleteRe: "Shock and awe": Everyone knows that the Wood article in The Atlantic is a must-read for understanding the ideology, mindset and very Muslim foundations of its way of operating, but he basically concludes that containing it and letting it die of its own inherent nihilism is about the best we can hope for. The article was published a year ago. Since then, ISIS has established a formidable presence in Libya, established a presence in countries ranging from Afghanistan to the Philippines, and pulled off two spectacular multiple-site attacks in European capitals. It would seem that containing them in their caliphate is not a workable solution.
It's going to take the smart application of US ground troops:
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/gen-jack-keane-we-are-not-only-failing-we-are-in-fact-losing-this-war/
Sure, no problem. Experts were pointing this out when Cheney/Rummy shocked and awed the universe. But we were against them if we were not real keen on that.
ReplyDeleteThat being the truth that nobody wants a wider conflagration more than these crazies.
ReplyDeleteSo all the crazies carping over here are just playing right into the evil hands of the perpetrators. I hope this unifies the world in the fight against these demons. Stateside here in your post-America it merely fatally divides us.
ReplyDeleteI'm not clear on who the crazies are and the nature of their carping.
ReplyDelete