Are these madmen religious zealots, or are they simply zealots using
religion as a cover? I prefer the latter. Not that I'm defending
religion, but these crazies would use any excuse in order to vent
their hatred on others. While I do believe that much of the suffering
and violence that has gone on over the centuries has been done in the
name of one religion or another, I cannot condemn religion, itself.
Religion is a concept. It is Man Made and it is only violent when in
the hands of violent men.
You would think that reasonable people, after centuries of attempting
to end violence with violence, would sit down and try to come up with
a different plan. But we've been conditioned, by our War Lords, to
think of promoting Peace as a spineless act. So when we learn of the
atrocities going on in Nigeria, for example, we paw the earth and gird
ourselves for our own wave of murder.
We, the people of planet earth, have the power to put an end to
violence. Our Masters will not take up the fight on their own.
Without us, they are nothing. But can we ever look forward to a
world-wide sit down?
Carl Jarvis
On 1/15/15, joe harcz Comcast <joeharcz@comcast.net> wrote:
> Boko Haram emerges as brutal Islamic State of Africa Boko Haram, with its
> chilling brutality, radical Islamic ideology and unstoppable seizure of
> Nigerian
>
> territory is quickly emerging as the Islamic State of Africa. While much of
> the world has focused on the terror attacks in Paris and the Islamic
> militants'
>
> capture of swaths of Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram has gone on a bloody rampage
> through northeastern Nigeria. Human rights groups have sounded alarms about
>
> the al-Qaeda-linked organization's recent brutality: the slaughter of up to
> 2,000 people in the Nigerian towns of Baga and Doron Baga on Jan. 3 and the
>
> subsequent strapping of explosives on girls as young as 10 to detonate in
> public places. Boko Haram first gained international notoriety for its
> savagery
>
> in April 2014, when it abducted 276 girls from a boarding school in Chibok
> and threatened to sell them as wives and sex slaves. The "bring back our
> girls"
>
> movement began with Nigerian village women demanding government action and
> grew into a worldwide rallying cry, with participants that included first
> lady
>
> Michelle Obama. Some of the girls later escaped but the fate of remaining
> captives is unknown. In addition to its ruthless tactics, Boko Haram,
> echoes
>
> the Islamic State in its aspiration to create a "caliphate" across national
> borders by crossing into neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon. On Monday,
> its
>
> fighters seized the Cameroonian border town of Kolofata. Cameroon's
> government said its forces killed 143 militants. And like Iraq's military
> setbacks
>
> against the Islamic State, Nigerian government troops seem weak and
> incapable of stopping Boko Haram from becoming a growing danger to Africa's
> most populous
>
> country and the world's 10th largest oil exporter. "The United States needs
> to recognize we have a problem that's second only to the problem we have
> with
>
> ISIS (Islamic State)," said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa program at
> the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. "We have a group holding
> territory
>
> and shooting down jet fighters. ... If Nigeria collapses ? it is the strong
> state in the region ? there are no strong states to contain what would
> happen
>
> if Boko Haram succeeds in carving out an Islamic state in that area. Rep.
> Chris Smith, R-N.J., chairman of the Africa subcommittee of the House
> Foreign
>
> Affairs Committee, says Boko Haram is "as close to a carbon copy (of the
> Islamic State) as can be," and the U.S. response to combat the two groups
> has
>
> also been similarly slow. What's needed, now, Smith said, is for President
> Obama to call Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and insist on the need
> for
>
> the U.S. military to train Nigerian troops to stop the movement. State
> Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told CNN on Wednesday that the USA is
> "actively
>
> working with the Nigerians," but added that "they need to step up," move
> forward with elections slated for Feb. 14, and not let terrorists "use
> elections
>
> as a wedge between the government and its people. An undated photograph from
> 2014 shows members of the Nigerian military manning checkpoints in
> Maiduguri,
>
> in northeast Nigeria. (Photo: European Pressphoto Agency) A week after the
> massacre occurred in Baga, groups that included Human Rights Watch and
> Amnesty
>
> International reported it. The town was razed and its inhabitants killed as
> they hid in the surrounding scrubland Jan. 3. More than 3,700 structures
> were
>
> damaged or destroyed, according to satellite imagery before and after the
> attack, according to Amnesty International. Last weekend, Boko Haram
> strapped
>
> explosives to three girls about 10 years old and detonated them in a market
> in Maiduguri and in a mobile phone store in Potiskum, killing about 22
> people
>
> in total, the groups reported. President Jonathan, who previously sent
> 20,000 troops armed with tanks and aircraft to the country's northeast, has
> said
>
> little about the Baga attack. One of his aides, Doyin Okupe, questioned the
> reported death toll in a Jan. 10 tweet, according to Bloomberg News. Gbara
>
> Awanen, the head political minister at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington,
> told USA TODAY only the ambassador is authorized to speak to the media. And
>
> Ambassador Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye was traveling and unavailable, Awanen
> said. Boko Haram, who's name means "Western education is forbidden," seeks
> to
>
> replace the Nigerian state with its own radical interpretation of Islam and
> now controls up to 20% of Nigerian territory. Nigeria's government has yet
>
> to accept large-scale international assistance to deal with the problem,
> said John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to the country. The parallel to
> the
>
> Islamic State is limited by the fact that Boko Haram has not expressed a
> desire to become a global caliphate, Campbell noted. Adotei Akwei, managing
> director
>
> of government relations at the rights group Amnesty International USA, said
> Boko Haram also lacks the governing skills demonstrated by the Islamic
> State
>
> in some of the territory it holds, although residents under its domination
> in parts of Iraq and Syria have complained about poor services and
> disorganized
>
> government. Despite the international clamor over the kidnapped girls, the
> Nigerian government has had no success rescuing the 219 still missing, and
> local
>
> media have exposed weaknesses in the nation's military that include soldiers
> refusing to fight and mutinies. The ruins of burnt out houses stand in Baga
>
> village in Nigeria, where hundreds of bodies remain strewn in the bush from
> an Islamic extremist attack by Boko Haram, on April. 21, 2013. (Photo:
> Haruna
>
> Umar, AP) On Jan. 3, Nigeria canceled a U.S. counterinsurgency training
> mission, according to a statement by the U.S. Embassy in Abuja. Nigeria has
> generally
>
> rejected offers of assistance from Britain and the United States "because of
> the conditions that come with such assistance," said Akwei. U.S. law
> prohibits
>
> U.S. military assistance to countries that commit human rights abuses. The
> Nigerian military's operations against Boko Haram have resulted in multiple
>
> allegations of illegal killings and detentions of suspected Boko Haram
> members reported by rights groups such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch,
> according
>
> to the State Department. Nigerian officials have rejected those claims as
> "fabrications," Akwei said. National pride also seems to be a factor, he
> said.
>
> "The Nigerians have always felt themselves more capable and big enough and
> strong enough to take care of their own crises," Akwei said. Yet the
> country
>
> still has no cohesive military strategy to turn the tide and protect the
> population, he said. "It's not the way a state functions if it hopes to
> survive,
>
> unless it's unaware of the gravity of the threat.
>
>
>
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