Clint Watts asks 'Was Kenya Westgate Attack More AQAP/AQ Central Than Shabaab?'. Link: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=1164
Who attacked Westgate Mall?
Clint Watts asks 'Was Kenya Westgate Attack More AQAP/AQ Central Than Shabaab?'. Link: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=1164
davidbfpo
About the Gurkha beheading: this is one of the big reasons why so many prominent targets were beheaded in the good old days. In a world without photographs, taking the head to someone who knew him was the surest way of confirming that the deed had indeed been done. When Yazid's Ummayad forces killed Hussain at Karbala (now remembered as the central event in Shia historical memory), they beheaded a person who was, after all, the beloved grandson of the holy prophet of Islam. This was not just (or even mainly) an expression of their barbaric nature. It was the norm to cut off the head of the rebel and take it to the emperor for inspection, confirmation and reward.
When Aurangzeb overthrew his dad and killed his brothers to become the Mughal emperor of India, one brother (Shuja) escaped to Myanmar. He was apparently killed in a skirmish there, but no one brought back a head (to the Raja of Arakan, whose people killed him; or to Aurangzeb, who was not directly involved in that skirmish). As a result, rumors of his return unsettled Aurangzeb's officials for years. ..Much better for the imperial government if that head had been cut off and brought for display.
About ritual mutilation in Mumbai; I dont recall any such event either. The attack itself was barbaric enough (shooting unarmed innocent people while casually walking through the railway station..those images are more shocking to me than ritual mutilation). I wish psyops geniuses did not feel the need to add these details. I have never really understood why the truth (in this case, the willingness of some groups to randomly kill completely innocent unrelated people for the sake of their "cause") is not enough.
Then again, maybe I am just too naive.
I don't think that professional PsyOps strategy is behind this.Originally Posted by omarali50
The last decade shone some light at some prevalent depth of human nature.
Many people are mixing racism, authoritarianism, timidity, their desire to be knowledgeable (while being too stupid and/or lazy to actually acquire knowledge, thus they make #### up and insist others are clueless for they disagree), some despicable fantasies and other dirt from the bottom together.
The outcome is a flood of such made-up nonsense.
I suppose this is not new; 9/11 merely added a new fashion to the phenomenon.
The more I look at the world, the more I become convinced that time is overdue for a pile of good books about cognitive psychology on my desk.
Two interesting articles on the Westgate and the SEAL raids.
First one is on the “white widow”. It is now almost certain she did not participate and the media frenzy around her involvement has been prompted by a lack of info and, as usual, the need for a scoop!
http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/colu...obi-mall-probeWhite Widow merely person of interest in Nairobi mall probe
AS FAR as the security officials in Kenya are concerned, Samantha Lewthwaite, the Northern Irish woman popularly tied to the Somali extremist group al-Shabaab, is merely a person of interest and not wanted for September’s mall siege in Nairobi that left dozens dead and many more injured. Having been first linked to the attacks by the British media, the link became so compelling that it was carried around the world as fact.
The Sunday Independent got the correct Lewthwaite angle: we should be worried about what the news of her fake South African passport will do to this country’s bid to reassure the world at large that its passport-issuing system is reliable.
Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor has assured the nation that the department had a handle on the situation as far back as 2011, when it cancelled the fraudulent passport.
"It was reported that Lewthwaite bought passports for her and her two children in Durban from convicted fraudster Ehmed Chisty for R60,000. The Sunday Independent was reliably informed that home affairs has been searching for three men who have been running ID schemes across the city similar to Chisty’s, raking in between R50,000 and R120,000 for each ID," the paper reported.
And a very detailed inside of the SEAL raid:
http://guardianlv.com/2013/10/somali...ed-as-shields/Somalia SEAL Raid Ended by Children Used as Shields
In a corroborating report, NBC News described how SEALs were able to enter the al-Shabaab compound, take the positions required by their planning, and even watch one of the terrorists take a cigarette break. But that same al-Shabaab fighter may have spotted the SEALs, because he came back out with an AK-47 and fired on the SEALs. The mission quickly escalated into a firefight, with the SEALs encountering intense fire with both guns and grenades. An unidentified official told CNN that, “Once it became clear we were not going to able to take him, the Navy commander made the decision to withdraw.”
CNN and NBC had both received word from U.S. officials that the decision to end the Somalia raid was prompted by seeing children, used as human shields, being moved out of the fortified seaside stronghold the SEALs were attacking.
SEALs were actually able to see Ikrima through the compound’s windows, but when children came into their scopes, the threat of hurting them prompted the team’s withdrawal. The tactical situation for these members of SEAL Team Six, the same unit that killed Osama bin-Laden, was also disintegrating, and they evacuated via the beach.
From Satanic Symbolic to Islamist Symbolic Killings
Ms Permutter, of Symbol & Ritual Intelligence (apparently its only key figure), formerly "The Institute for the Research of Organized & Ritual Violence", founded in 2001 -
branched off from philosophy (in which, she has a PhD) into satanic and occult ritual crimes (big back in the 80s and 90s), and after 9/11 into Islamist ritual crimes.Symbol & Ritual Intelligence specializes in the research, analysis and investigation of symbolic and ritual violence. Specific areas of expertise include; unfamiliar cultural traditions, ritual activities, religious terrorism, desecration controversies, ritual murder, and the identification of symbols, artifacts and unusual practices. What distinguishes Symbol & Ritual Intelligence from other institutes is our concentrated study of images and the application of symbolic methodologies for use in law enforcement. We can assist you in identifying emblems, tattoos, colors, graffiti, clothing, ritual objects, etc. of hundreds of gang and terrorist organizations. We produce specialized charts, intelligence reports, and group bulletins from our unique perspective.
As to these subjects, she wrote Investigating Religious Terrorism and Ritualistic Crimes (2003):
and True Believers: A Symbolic Anthropological Study of Islamist Culture (tbp 2014):•Presents over 100 illustrations of signs and symbols to look for at crime scenes that indicate ritual practice
•Includes background and investigation techniques for crimes involving religion-based terrorism
•Details domestic and international terrorist religions
•Provides organizational structures of large clans and covens, membership and recruitment policies, and homicide case studies
•Offers intelligence strategies inclusive of indoctrination techniques, negotiation and prosecution strategies, and advantages of understanding religious violence
•Examines types of criminal profiling and provides a crime classification system to distinguish between types of ritual homicide
I haven't read either book; nor do I intend to. I have read her 2006 article, Mujahideen Blood Rituals: The Religious and Forensic Symbolism of Al Qaeda Beheading (obviously the title rings my feeding time bell), which concludes (in snips):•Includes detailed descriptions of the use and origins of Islamist loaded words, embedded symbols, and collective rituals used in indoctrination and psychological warfare
•Demonstrates how honor and shame is utilized to inculcate children, recruit moderates, train soldiers, and motivate violence
•Includes descriptions of specific rituals and burial rites related to martyrdom operations that can assist in preventing suicide attacks and the investigation of previous attacks
•Explores the use of overt and subliminal messages in Islamist communications, cartoons, advertising, music, and videogames
•Provides a detailed symbolic analysis of honor killing, beheadings, suicide attacks, dismemberment, and other Islamist atrocities.
•Explains the disproportionate violent responses to Quran desecration and how Islamists exploit these and other incidents
•Explores the difference and significance of tribal and rational societies
•Demonstrates the impact of Islamist conspiracy theories for indoctrination, recruitment, and propaganda
•Illustrates the significance of Muslim victimhood for Islamist strategic and psychological operations
•Features full color photos
Nothing in these snips is that much different from what I've said; but I worry about Ms Perlmutter's facts. That is, is she taking (esp. as in the current Frontpage article) killings by Muslims - not part of a jihadist organization - and using them to amplify the acknowledged killings by jihadist organizations ? And, is she amplifying the Mumbai killings (and perhaps other events she cites) by adding non-facts ?It is difficult to remain in denial when there is actual proof of ritual murders and not just remnants of the crime scene. The American public is all too familiar with images of violent murder. What the public cannot accept is the fact that these beheadings are communally sanctioned and religiously justified. These are not violent crimes committed by psychopaths or a form of group hysteria; beheading, suicide bombing, and ritual mutilation are the sacred blood rituals of the Holy warriors of Islam. This is a highly organized community that consistently and proudly professes their ideology, values, and goals and persistently identifies themselves as Mujahideen. They do not hide the fact that they are fighting a holy war and that they have a religious imperative to kill Christians, Jews, and unbelievers. All we have to do is listen to what they are telling us.
...
The media is fond of using the word "desecration," particularly in reference to Islamic beliefs. Desecration is a sacred concept, and although we are supposedly not fighting a holy war, the word "desecration" has made headlines quite frequently; desecration of the Quran, desecration of enemies’ bodies, and desecration of mosques. We are hypersensitive to what Muslims hold sacred even when it jeopardizes our national security and puts soldiers’ lives at risk. We are not going to be defeated by terrorism but we will be defeated by political correctness unless we stop sugarcoating the sacred nature of this war. There are many people who recognize the implications of this religious threat; however, not one politician will acknowledge that we are involved in a holy war. It would be political suicide to announce that this is not a war on terrorism but a war on Islam.
...
True believers are the most dangerous enemies. You may be able to get a soldier to fight and die for his country in battle, but you would be hard pressed to find one willing to strap on C-4 attached to a vest full of nails and ball bearings and commit suicide as a walking claymore mine. Mujahideen are lining up for this duty. These holy warriors are willingly blowing themselves up because they have faith. As a consequence of our Western view of the world and standard behavioral science analysis of crime, we fail to see the nature of these true believers. Al-Qaeda has already won the most important strategic battle; they know their enemy, but we are in denial of their religious imperative to annihilate us. Our worst opponent is not the Mujahideen, it is our refusal to acknowledge that we are fighting soldiers of God in a centuries-old holy war.
Personally, if I were to hire someone to advise me on jihadist killings, I'd hire someone like Scott Atran from the Univ. of Michigan (includes his scientific and popular pubs), who's played that game at the major league level, with such as Marc Sageman, etc., Theoretical Frames on Pathways to Violent Radicalization (2009).
Regards
Mike
Last edited by jmm99; 10-07-2013 at 04:59 PM.
btw, re my comments above, I did not mean to deny that Jihadists indulge in horrific ritualized violence (like beheadings and displaying the heads on white sheets), see (if you wish, I did not actually see the video, but have seen others like it in the past) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ApPc...ctr=1381167244
But I just think it should not be necessary to make up stories if they did not happen.
What is happening and has happened is bad enough.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks