Charlie Hebdo: Gun attack on French magazine kills 12

[AvtomatKalashnikova]

Get everybody in a long line. They have to eat bacon, drink a PBR and piss on a statue of Jebus. If they don't do it they get the chop, right there. Sorts out the fundy Jews, Muslims, Christians, teetotalers, AND vegans.

Is possible to make substitution of PBR for Stolichnaya when comes my turn?

[Hermit]

XC, I have some difficulty in not regarding the killing of 2000 civilians as an act of terrorism, and any way you look at it, there's no getting away from the fact that 2000 unarmed humans were massacred.

[JimC]

XC wrote:

Terrorism is a tactic. Terrorists seek to make a political point and influence public opinion or government actions through acts of violence. They do not have the numbers or support to make any realistic attempt to overthrow the state. They have an agenda and a point to make.

Boko Haram, on the other hand, are trying to create their own state and secede from Nigeria.

I don't think you can make such a clear separation here. Boko Haram may well be trying to set up an independent state in norther Nigeria, but so is ISIS in Syria and Iraq. They are both powerfully motivated by jihadist sentiments, and in the case of Boko Haram, a deep-seated loathing for western style education, which they correctly perceive to be an obstacle to the inculcation of fundamentalist ideas. I think there is a tendency for people in the west to down play the stark religious motivation of islamist groups, whether acting as rebel armies in third world countries, or classical terrorists in the west. The root cause is the same, even if entwined with other motivations in the different groups.

[JimC]

XC, I have some difficulty in not regarding the killing of 2000 civilians as an act of terrorism, and any way you look at it, there's no getting away from the fact that 2000 unarmed humans were massacred.

A good point - the barbaric killings and rapes they inflict are deliberately designed to create terror, so that other villages will simply give in early in the piece, and accept their authority. If this isn't terrorism, I don't know what is...

[JimC]

Actually, in today's Age newspaper, a reasonably prominent article on the Boko Haram massacre - not quite the complete ignoring that Hermit was implying...

Boko Haram massacre thousands, says Amnesty International

The north-east town of Baga, Nigeria, pictured in 2013, has seen repeated attacks from Boko Haram.

Hundreds of bodies remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International says may have claimed 2000 lives in the "deadliest massacre" in the history of Boko Haram.

Mike Omeri, the government spokesman on the insurgency, said fighting continues for Baga, a town on the border with Chad where insurgents seized a key military base on January 3 and attacked again on Wednesday.

"Security forces have responded rapidly, and have deployed significant military assets and conducted air strikes against militant targets," Omeri said in a statement.


District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.

"The human carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was enormous," Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesman for poorly armed civilians in a defence group that fights Boko Haram, said.

An Amnesty International statement said there were reports the town was razed and as many as 2000 people killed.

If true, "this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram's ongoing onslaught," said Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International.

But Hassan played down reports that 2000 people had been killed.

"To say 2000 people were killed is on the high side. The death toll could run into several hundreds," Hassan said, adding that no head count had been made.

"To add to our misery, Boko Haram fighters who remained in the area went on a burning spree, setting fire to our homes after looting them," Hassan said.

Nigerian military authorities say they plan to launch a counterattack to regain control of Baga, a fishing community on the shores of Lake Chad adjacent to a military base. The base is part of a multinational effort to fight the Islamist militants with troops from Nigeria, Niger and Chad. But forces from Chad had not yet been deployed and Niger's forces had withdrawn from the base before the Boko Haram attack took place.

Gruesome images have been posted on Twitter, including some showing hundreds of badly burned corpses laid out on a village square. One shocking image showed a woman and her baby both burned to death.

But, according to an African fact-checking agency, the picture of the corpses was taken after a fuel tanker explosion several years ago in the Republic of Congo. And the burned baby photo has been circulating since 2011, according to security analyst Yan St-Pierre.

Access to Nigeria's troubled northeast region is difficult for security reasons, and those displaced by fighting tend to flee in different directions, making it impossible to confirm how many died in the recent attacks. Senator Maina Ma'aji Lawan said in a phone interview that the death toll of the attacks was "impossible to quantify at the moment".

Babagana Kyari, a resident of Baga who fled to Chad, said hundreds of Boko Haram fighters attacked the town and nearby villages at dawn, driving residents away and attacking the military base.

"They overwhelmed the troops and forced them to abandon the base which the Boko Haram gunmen took over. The insurgents split into groups and attacked Baga, Doron-Baga and Bundaram villages, forcing everybody to flee. Gunmen on motorcycles pursued residents into the bush, shooting them dead.

"I managed to make it to the Lake (Chad) where I boarded a fishing boat along with dozen others and made across into Chad," he said in a phone interview.

The Baga defeat was a serious blow for regional efforts to contain Boko Haram. Nigerian troops resisted the attack for several hours before running out of ammunition and fleeing, according to reports.

Abdullahi Bawa Wase, security analyst, said the loss of Baga was a devastating blow to Nigeria's fight against Boko Haram.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

XC, I have some difficulty in not regarding the killing of 2000 civilians as an act of terrorism, and any way you look at it, there's no getting away from the fact that 2000 unarmed humans were massacred.

A good point - the barbaric killings and rapes they inflict are deliberately designed to create terror, so that other villages will simply give in early in the piece, and accept their authority. If this isn't terrorism, I don't know what is...

If we call Baga terrorism, then we have to call Israeli bombing raids on Gaza that kill unarmed civilians terrorism too - by the same logic. For that matter, Hiroshima?



PS. Just seen the article posted by Jim. Note that they never use the word "terrorist" in it. Instead, Boko Haram are called "insurgents", which far better describes their role.

[JimC]

They are insurgents in a sense, but they share a root motivation with all Islamic fundamentalists, and their over-the-top violence to civilians is very different to other insurgent groups of the past, who are often very careful to get rural communities in their operating area on side... They are the overlap between the 3 sets "insurgent", "terrorist" and "religious fundamentalist"

[Xamonas Chegwé]

They are insurgents in a sense, but they share a root motivation with all Islamic fundamentalists, and their over-the-top violence to civilians is very different to other insurgent groups of the past, who are often very careful to get rural communities in their operating area on side...

Such as the tribal slaughter in Rwanda, for example?

They are the overlap between the 3 sets "insurgent", "terrorist" and "religious fundamentalist"

True. And Boko Haram do use terrorist tactics on occasion. But religious motivation does not make one a terrorist - the tactics used do.

[piscator]

Boko Haram is doing the same blood diamond clan conflict thing that's been going on for at least 150 years in Sub-Saharan Africa. They just found a good way to tap into the jihadi revenue network, which is financed by pennies from children around the world, and larger donations funneled to The Foundation and others.
Don't forget that AlQ was founded by the 7th son of a billionaire who shorted the markets to the tune of $400m bucks before and after 9/11.
Not trying to be cynical. Zakat is at least as important as jihad.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Boko Haram is doing the same blood diamond clan conflict thing that's been going on for at least 150 years in Sub-Saharan Africa. They just found a good way to tap into the jihadi revenue network, which is financed by pennies from children around the world, and larger donations funneled to The Foundation and others.
Don't forget that AlQ was founded by the 7th son of a billionaire who shorted the markets to the tune of $400m bucks before and after 9/11.
Not trying to be cynical. Zakat is at least as important as jihad.

Land, power, money. Religion is mostly just used as a recruiting tactic.

And if you want atrocities, look up Charles Taylor...

[Svartalf]

Get everybody in a long line. They have to eat bacon, drink a PBR and piss on a statue of Jebus. If they don't do it they get the chop, right there. Sorts out the fundy Jews, Muslims, Christians, teetotalers, AND vegans.

Is possible to make substitution of PBR for Stolichnaya when comes my turn?

No Stoli for you Komrade, you get Standard like everybody else

[Seth]

Hahaha, poor guy. I don't think he's every properly debated an atheist before. He's a bit lost.

Linky?

It's on my facebook wall. You can't access that.

Are you sure?

[Seth]

Religious groups don't get to be on government committees concerning anything other than faith.

But religious people do, and their religion is allowed to inform their decisions.

Yeah, that's fine, but they are representing themselves, not a religion.

Are they? Would a radical Muslim governor of a state be representing himself or Islam?

Would a crypto-Marxist President of the United States be representing himself or his ideology?

[Hermit]

XC, I have some difficulty in not regarding the killing of 2000 civilians as an act of terrorism, and any way you look at it, there's no getting away from the fact that 2000 unarmed humans were massacred.

A good point - the barbaric killings and rapes they inflict are deliberately designed to create terror, so that other villages will simply give in early in the piece, and accept their authority. If this isn't terrorism, I don't know what is...

If we call Baga terrorism, then we have to call Israeli bombing raids on Gaza that kill unarmed civilians terrorism too - by the same logic. For that matter, Hiroshima?

Yes. Of course they are. Even Bomber Harris admitted as much when he advocated carpet bombing. The main aim is to make the enemy submit by killing enough civilians to cause the survivors to lose their fighting morale. Terrorism, pure and simple.

[piscator]

XC, I have some difficulty in not regarding the killing of 2000 civilians as an act of terrorism, and any way you look at it, there's no getting away from the fact that 2000 unarmed humans were massacred.

A good point - the barbaric killings and rapes they inflict are deliberately designed to create terror, so that other villages will simply give in early in the piece, and accept their authority. If this isn't terrorism, I don't know what is...

If we call Baga terrorism, then we have to call Israeli bombing raids on Gaza that kill unarmed civilians terrorism too - by the same logic. For that matter, Hiroshima?

Yes. Of course they are. Even Bomber Harris admitted as much when he advocated carpet bombing. The main aim is to make the enemy submit by killing enough civilians to cause the survivors to lose their fighting morale. Terrorism, pure and simple.

"The word "terrorism" is politically loaded and emotionally charged,[5] and this greatly compounds the difficulty of providing a precise definition."

"Total War" is the term for warfare waged as much on the civilian populace as men at arms. When we start waging total war on Islam, we'll make an announcement to that effect. Until then, we call the dickheads who shoot cartoonists in the name of God "Terrorists". We don't call the Australian Army "Terrorists" when they move to arrest the ringleader of a gang of thugs who plant land mines, even if it turns into a shootout and the guy's whole family ends up dead.