The Caliphate Rising

Back in January 2006, I published this at my first blog site. Excerpt:

From "Reunified Islam: Unlikely but Not Entirely Radical: Restoration of Caliphate, Attacked by Bush, Resonates With Mainstream Muslims," front-page article in the January 14, 2006 edition of the Washington Post....

I concluded my blog post with this paragraph:

Are we standing before an abyss which we cannot comprehend and refuse to admit the very existence of?

Now, in 2014, Iraq seems to be falling to the jihadists.  $15 billion of our treasure, some 4000 dead American military personnel, and much blood spilled.  For what?

Syria aroil.

A dead U.S. ambassador in Libya.

Various jihad attacks are popping up all over the place.

Five Taliban commanders traded for one PFC.

"The Arab Spring," with whatever purpose it began, represents the push to establish a worldwide caliphate, something for which the majority of Muslims yearn.

And Obama has sent numerous signals that have served to embolden jihad.

Islam respects The Strong Man, and Obama has clearly indicated that he is not A Strong Man.

Clearly, the caliphate establishers are winning. 

How long before we face another 9/11 here on our soil?

Not to worry, though. Obama says (June 11, 2014), and his supporters nod their heads in agreement:

[T]he truth of the matter is that for all the challenges we face, all the problems that we have, if you had to be — if you had to choose any moment to be born in human history, not knowing what your position was going to be, who you were going to be, you’d choose this time. The world is less violent than it has ever been....

Talk about delusion! Or is it something else?

Room for Rent -- Cheap. . .

Sky News:

Revealed: Iraq Terrorists' Deadly New Tactic
Adam Arnold, Sky News Online

Al Qaeda in Iraq is renting residential buildings and rigging them with explosives in a cunning new tactic which has killed dozens of civilians, officials say.

The ploy has defied thousands of security forces in Baghdad by getting around the mass of checkpoints used to deter car bombings.

The new tactic has forced the police and army to change their own operations to counter the terrorists.

America's military has even come up with a new term - HBIED (house-borne improvised explosive device) for the attacks.

The attacks have also left hundreds of people injured in the past month in the Iraqi capital.

The HBIED phrase follows the IED (improvised-explosive device - homemade bomb) and VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised-explosive device - car bomb) into a terrorism vocabulary started in Iraq and then taken to Afghanistan.

Some 25 people were killed on election day, March 7, when explosives destroyed two buildings in north-east Baghdad.

The US military, which pointed the finger at al Qaeda, said the properties had been rented and deliberately blown up.

Another 35 people died on April 6, when explosives were planted in houses and shops in mostly Shi'ite neighbourhoods.

A number of those properties had been rented days earlier, security officials said.

Major General Qassim Atta, a Baghdad security forces spokesman, said: "Our forces are focusing on the renting of apartments and buildings."

Insurgents were continually looking to exploit gaps in the city's defences, he said.

"They change their methods periodically because most of their plans and tactics have been discovered. I believe they are already searching for another method of attack, maybe churches or bridges."

Counter-terrorism expert Brian Fishman said of the HBIED operations: "The tactic is seen as very disreputable, even among active insurgents."

But he added it allows them "to get around a lot of the tactics developed to prevent car bombs," such as the mass of security checkpoints in Baghdad.

Al Qaeda may be in disarray, but is still threatening

Jonathan Spyer at the Gloria Center writes that, while some analysts see the al Qaeda gang being in disarray, they are still as dangerous as ever. Never underestimate what demonic terrorist organizations like those are still capable of.

The Al Qaeda Guide to Vegeterrorism

Alien Salad by Till Nowak. Click here to see an enlargement.

At what point do people begin to realize they have been had, and that they have had enough of being had? Consider Iraq, where Al Qaeda was having a successful reign of terror against their Sunni brethren by kidnapping their children; torturing and killing them if they refused to pledge fealty. Of course, Los Qaedistos would argue that they were protecting their Sunni brethren, but that is too nuanced an argument for an infidel like me.
I am but a woman.

Hochgekocht, 2008 by Sarah Illenberger

And for awhile that was pretty successful. Even the rumored kidnappings and killing of children and serving them up to their parents roasted for potluck Fridays seemed to keep the population somewhat quelled. Of course, the surge has certainly helped with cleaning up the rack and ruin Al Qaeda left in its wake, and making the locals to rethink about who is really on their side, but what caused the Sunnis to finally say "Khalas!" and begin to turn on their terror lords and masters?

Vertumnus: Portrait of Rudolph II 1591, by Giuseppe Arcimbolo.

Via Jihad Watch: Al Qaeda Jumps the Shark

Al-Qa'eda in Iraq alienated by cucumber laws and brutality

Al-Qa'eda is losing support in Iraq because of a brutal crackdown on activities it regards as un-Islamic - including women buying cucumbers.

Besides the terrible killings inflicted by the fanatics on those who refuse to pledge allegiance to them, Al-Qa'eda has lost credibility for enforcing a series of rules imposing their way of thought on the most mundane aspects of everyday life.

They include a ban on women buying suggestively-shaped vegetables, according to one tribal leader in the western province of Anbar.

Sheikh Hameed al-Hayyes, a Sunni elder, told Reuters: "They even killed female goats because their private parts were not covered and their tails were pointed upward, which they said was haram. (Check out Ayatollah Khomeini's guide to what you do with a slightly fondled farm animal. Nummy. Sra. Scherzophrenic)

"They regarded the cucumber as male and tomato as female. Women were not allowed to buy cucumbers, only men."

Other farcical stipulations include an edict not to buy or sell ice-cream, because it did not exist in the time of the Prophet, while hair salons and shops selling cosmetics have also been bombed.

Most seriously, Sheikh al-Hayyes said: "I saw them slaughter a nine-year old boy like a sheep because his family didn't pledge allegiance to them."

Such tactics have triggered a backlash among Sunnis, whom Al-Q'aeda had claimed to be protecting, the sheikh and military leaders said.

Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Albers, an American intelligence officer, told the news agency: "Al-Qa'eda's very heavy-handed killing of civilians backfired on them. The Sunnis just wouldn't stand for it any more.

"The self-described protectors of the Sunni community now kill more Iraqi Sunnis than anyone else."

Yes, it's always the little things which pull the blinders off people's eyes. Savor the moment.
(crossposted at Tasty Infidelicacies)