MetaFilter posts tagged with jihad

EPIC FAIL: The Astroturf is always greener on the other side.

Skygazer — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:07:09 -0800

Rusty Shackleford over at right-wing anti-Muslim jihad blog The Jawa Report has posted that the Obama campaign, in an effort to portray Sarah Palin a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, is engaged in a smear campaign through the use of viral video and astroturf techniques on You Tube. Shackleford claims the narrator of the smear video has worked previously on ads put out by the Obama campaign. And that “This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with [Obama campaign manager] David Axelrod's PR firm, which has a history of engaging in "phony grassroots efforts.” Shackleford also posits that the haste with which the individual who posted the video on You Tube, “eswinner,” or Ethan S. Winner, an executive for the public relations firm Winner & Assoc., removed the video proves an Obama campaign cover up in the works and that Winner & Assoc. were most likely paid by Axelrod to execute an Astroturf smear campaign against Sarah Palin. Axelrod's PR firm had a brief relationship with Winner & Assoc. from a Detroit Mayor's initiative they worked in separate capacities in 1996. Winner and Assoc, work predominately for big oil and utility companies, but also handle political campaigns and initiatives throught a subsidiary: Winner & Mandabach. Shackleford, although he presents the piece as having a high probability of being correct, admits, as his legal team advises him to, that much of it is "conjecture" and "speculation," Yet in his eagerness to expose Obama as a lowdown Chicago style political operator, he fails to discover, until he reads it here, that there is, indeed, an individual with a suspicious and compelling tie to the Winner & Assoc. public relations firm. That person is Sen. John McCain. In 2002 John McCain worked for Winner & Mandabach, a subsidiary of Winner & Assoc., to convince the people of Arizona to vote “YES” on proposition 202. One of three competing Indian gaming initiatives supported by the 17 Tribes coalition of Arizona. The 17 tribes hired Winner & Mandabach to see to it that there proposition was the one that would become law. McCain was brought in by Winner & Mandabach as a third-party player to lend his name and support to ads and mailings. The proposition was opposed by Arizona Christian groups and denied the state of Arizona $300 million dollars in annual taxes annually or imposing greater oversight and regulation. What compensation was made available to McCain for his services? “While candidates, PACs and party committees are held accountable for political funds, Indian tribes file nothing. … Disclosure only comes from those who file reports indicating they received donations from a tribe. … [T]here is no way to double check the accuracy of the reports.” McCain was twice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, in 1995–1997 and 2005–2007. (On a side note for those who know of him, Prop 202 was also supported by human rights violator and denier of constitutional rights Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Previously on Metafilter.)

The Clarion Call of Obsession

tomierna — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:40:39 -0800

The Clarion Fund has been placing DVD advertisements in newspapers. That, in itself is not terribly new. What's new is that they are advertising fear and propaganda, and they're only targeting swing states. The Clarion Fund, a shadowy 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, has also been sending Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West sort-of previously to people as direct mail, but there's no telling who they buy their list from, since they don't seem to answer the phones at their rent-an-office. Apparently, one of their affiliates even handed them out at the RNC. Supposedly the Producer/Co-Writer, Raphael Shore, is related to David Shore, creator of Fox’s House, M.D., though that doesn’t seem to have helped the movie’s production values. It’s not easy to figure out who makes up Clarion - some have claimed that even some of the crew positions are false names. And, nobody can seem to figure out where the money is coming from. That’s OK though, because the Executive Producer for “24” says, “...it's required viewing for everyone.” In case you haven't had your fear propagandized enough for you, they've also got another happy little feature coming out October 10th called The Third Jihad. And, in case you really want to get behind the fear and hate and vitriol against a religion usually called the religion of peace, you can get your fill of it at their “Learning” site.

Jumping Through Hoops

adamvasco — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:37:13 -0800

Is Xinjiang Province The Islamic Jihad Battlefront in China? China detains 82 'terrorists' targeting Olympics and police have shot Uighurs dead. Meanwhile people from the Uighur minority call on the international community to boycott the Beijing Olympic games. What side of the Jihad is China on? Previously there was The Al Qaeda - China Tie. The oil and petrochemical sector account for 60% of Xinjiang's local economy.

The Jihad Will Be Televised

digaman — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:44:42 -0800

NewsFilter: Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID - Conn.) strikes a decisive blow against another Islamic terror front group: YouTube.

my grandma married an engineer, so did my mom, oh and I'm one too

infini — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:57:08 -0800

Islamic terrorists are more likely to be engineers than members of any other profession--and not because engineers possess superior technological skills. That's the conclusion of a controversial Oxford University study that has the engineering community buzzing. (PDF) The study's disturbing finding blames what it calls a universal engineering mindset, which it describes as one drawn to structure and rules plus clear, single solutions to complex problems. When coupled with the harsh realities of life in many Islamic countries, terrorism can be the result, the study says. ~ Via EETimes Some righteous snarking online includes, This assertion based on some very fuzzy numbers indeed. We compiled a list of 404 members of violent Islamist groups drawing from a variety of sources... Our sources include... the press, governmental and nongovernmental organisations and websites... We searched in Lexis Nexis... and in Google. We also searched... Fox News; CTV News; Dutch News...

The Spy of the Heart

Burhanistan — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 08:50:35 -0800

The Spy of the Heart - The story of an American's exploration of Islamic spirituality within the turmoil of Afghanistan. Full book (PDF) available free onsite.

Real Confessions From Iraq

MapGuy — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 02:15:50 -0800

A Good Morning Coffee Read (or Tea or Grass Juice or Gammel Dansk ; ). The warden of Fallouja.

free speech

sadie01221975 — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 10:51:21 -0800

Kent State Professor alleged terrorist? Some say yes, some say no.

Jihad

semmi — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 08:08:48 -0800

The Master Plan. For the new theorists of jihad, Al Qaeda is just the beginning.

Marc Sageman on the global Salafi jihad

russilwvong — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:28:37 -0800

Who are the jihadists? Marc Sageman on the global Salafi jihad: its goals, its history, who the jihadists are, how they're drawn to the jihad, how the movement is organized. [more inside]

Stealing al-Qa`ida's Playbook

scalefree — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:14:40 -0800

Stealing al-Qa`ida's Playbook (PDF)
If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete. - Sun Tzu

In 2005 Harvard's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies & West Point's Combating Terrorism Center worked together to translate what appears to be one of the most important works defining al Qaeda's strategic goals & methods, Management of Savagery (PDF) by al Qaeda strategist Abu Bakr Naji. Then they analyzed it along with three other al Qaeda works: Knights Under The Banner of The Prophet by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Between Two Methods by Abu Qatada and Observations Concerning the Jihadi Experience in Syria by Abu Mus’ab al-Suri. The result is Stealing al-Qa`ida's Playbook (PDF) (also Google cached HTML). If you want to understand more of al Qaeda than the simplistic cant that "they're evil", these two books are the place to start.

Depictions of Mohammed Throughout History

Postroad — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 14:34:08 -0800

Depictions of Mohammed Throughout History This page is an archive of numerous depictions of Mohammed, to serve as a reminder that such imagery has been part of Western and Islamic culture since the Middle Ages -- and to serve as a resource for those interested in freedom of expression.

Landscapes Of The Jihad

y2karl — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:27:12 -0800

...With the end of the cold war and the emergence of global networks in which goods, ideas and people circulate outside the language of citizenship, the fundamentalist fight for ideological states has lost influence... Muslim radicalism, by contrast, has moved beyond the language of citizenship to assume a global countenance, joining movements as different as environmentalism and pacifism in its pursuit of justice on a worldwide scale. Such movements are ethical rather than political in nature: they can neither predict nor control the global consequences of their actions...

Spectral brothers: al-Qaida’s world wide web
Snapshots of Faisal Devji's Landscapes of the Jihad are to be seen within

This country's full of wankers dressed in sheets, asylum f***ing seekers in our streets

tobyslater — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 10:17:57 -0800

Jihad, terrorism and asylum - in rhyme and iambic pentameter (small QT movie, some profanity) A Middle-Eastern chef and a xenophobic Northern English cook argue about war, bombs and asylum seekers - in the kind of flowing verse one might expect from Shakespeare. It's from British indie director Sally Potter and quite apposite, representing the kind of debates which are going on following the London bombings.

Interview with a British Jihadist

biffa — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 03:40:20 -0800

An interview with a British Jihadist. What he believes, how he came to his beliefs. An extended version of the interview from the latest issue of Prospect.

The next terrorist attack on America may be perpetrated by Europeans.

dsquid — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 08:49:20 -0800

The next terrorist attack on America may be perpetrated by Europeans. Radical Islam is spreading across Europe among descendants of Muslim immigrants. Disenfranchised and disillusioned by the failure of integration, some European Muslims have taken up jihad against the West. They are dangerous and committed -- and can enter the United States without a visa.

Jihad U

digaman — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 08:03:48 -0800

President Bush pledged in 2003 that "A free Iraq will not be a training ground for terrorists... A free Iraq will not destabilize the Middle East." This past January, the CIA's National Intelligence Council observed that Iraq had become "a training ground, a recruitment ground" for jihadists. Now the senior Marine commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. James Conway -- in a statement that has not yet been picked up by the media -- acknowledges that the war is furnishing a new "a training ground" for foreign fighters trained in urban warfare who will export terror all over the world, saying, "But there's not much we can do about it at this point in time."

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim

y2karl — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 19:19:54 -0800

...The presumption that there are 'good' Muslims readily available to be split off from 'bad' Muslims masks a failure to make a political analysis of our times. This book argues that political Islam emerged as the result of a modern encounter with Western power, and that the terrorist movement at the center of Islamist politics is an even more recent phenomenon, one that followed America’s embrace of proxy war after its defeat in Vietnam. Mamdani writes with great insight about the Reagan years, showing America’s embrace of the highly ideological politics of 'good' against 'evil.' Identifying militant nationalist governments as Soviet proxies in countries such as Nicaragua and Afghanistan, the Reagan administration readily backed terrorist movements, hailing them as the 'moral equivalents' of America’s Founding Fathers. The era of proxy wars has come to an end with the invasion of Iraq. And there, as in Vietnam, America will need to recognize that it is not fighting terrorism but nationalism... Here is an excerpt of Chapter 1 of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, and with one review, two review, three reviews hereafter. And here is author Mahmood Mandmani interviewed by AsiaSource.

Why so quiet?

twiggy — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 12:52:03 -0800

I'm not much for the tin foil hat types out there, but does anyone else find it odd that the leader of the Islamic Jihad was killed [Reuters UK via Fark] and it's not being reported by anyone else? Could it have anything to do with the fact that it's nearing election time and the fact that it wasn't us who did it?

Militants in Europe Openly Call for Jihad and the Rule of Islam

Postroad — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 06:55:02 -0800

Militants in Europe Openly Call for Jihad and the Rule of Islam The call to jihad is rising in the streets of Europe, and is being answered, counterterrorism officials say. In this former industrial town north of London, a small group of young Britons whose parents emigrated from Pakistan after World War II have turned against their families' new home. They say they would like to see Prime Minister Tony Blair dead or deposed and an Islamic flag hanging outside No. 10 Downing Street.

Intruders in the House of Saud, Part I: The Jihadi Who Kept Asking Why

y2karl — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 13:15:04 -0800

The Jihadi Who Kept Asking Why - An unlikely group of onetime religious jihadists have recently stepped into the midst of the debate on Saudi Arabia's future. They belong to a larger circle of liberals, intellectuals, professors, former Wahhabi scholars, judges and even women who are discussing subjects in the media that were taboo before 9/11 -- questions about terrorism, about Wahhabi discrimination toward Muslims of the Shiite and Sufi sects (whom they consider apostates), about alcohol, about AIDS, about the rights of women to drive and work. The ex-jihadists are fluent in Islam and, more important, in the lingo of the underground terrorists, and they've surfaced from the extremist subculture with a message for the Wahhabi official clerics, the royal family and even their complicit American allies: Wake up. It's you who created us. We are not an aberration.
From The Agonist--where the editorial comment this is an absolutely excellent article and a must read is quite indisputable. From entering Salafiyya in Google comes the fascinating polemic The Salafi Cult. better known as the Khawarij.

Middle East Correspondant?

davehat — Tue, 06 Jan 2004 13:45:06 -0800

Osama bin Laden writes today's comment in the Guardian. Is the Comment & Analysis section of a major national paper (and international website) the right place to publish a call for jihad?

malvo case ehxibits

hama7 — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 07:18:16 -0800

Scribbling for jihad. Malvo case: defendant's trial exhibits.

What's next from Al Qaeda

y2karl — Sun, 23 Nov 2003 16:02:26 -0800

The Protean Enemy by Jessica Stern, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003
What accounts for al Qaeda's ongoing effectiveness in the face of an unprecedented onslaught? The answer lies in the organization's remarkably protean nature. Over its life span, al Qaeda has constantly evolved and shown a surprising willingness to adapt its mission. This capacity for change has consistently made the group more appealing to recruits, attracted surprising new allies, and -- most worrisome from a Western perspective -- made it harder to detect and destroy. Unless Washington and its allies show a similar adaptability, the war on terrorism won't be won anytime soon, and the death toll is likely to mount. Other texts by Jessica Stern: How America Created a Terrorist Haven, Pakistan's Jihad Culture, Talking With Terrorists. Classical Reference: Proteus.

Rappin' Taliban

jonp72 — Wed, 03 Sep 2003 13:55:17 -0800

John Walker Lindh, Hip Hop MC? Before John Walker Lindh became the American Taliban, he hid his whiteness, excoriating wack MCs on Usenet hip-hop bulletin boards. Attracted to Islam after listening to hip hop influenced by the Five Percenter movement, he later abandoned rap to denounce Nas as a fake Muslim. An interesting, but previously unexamined side to the American jihadist.