Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Allahu… Shh!

If today’s murder of American soldiers in Frankfurt had occurred in the United States, within ten minutes of the first news report, a Homeland Security spokescreature would have reassured the public with this statement:

“This incident had no connection with terrorism.”

This is what always happens. DHS supplies its press officers with little cards that have the words pre-printed on them, so they can be kept handy when news of the latest Islamic bloodbath comes down the wire.

And, true to form, the German security services chimed in with their own version of the same lines, right on cue:

The German news agency DAPD quoted Rhein, the security minister who rushed to the scene of the shooting, as saying there were no indications of a terrorist attack.

Well, of course there was no terrorism. If “Allahu akhbar!” and thirteen dead at Ft. Hood didn’t amount to terrorism, how could this one be terrorism?

And, yes, Allahu you-know-what was prominent in Frankfurt today. According to no less an authority than The New York Times:

A man whose office is near the site of the shooting, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect his business, said witnesses told him that before opening fire the gunman shouted “God is great” in Arabic. Mr. Füllhardt said he could not confirm such reports.

The customary phrase (“Allahu akhbar”) does not actually mean “God is great”, but “God is greatest”. But we’ll let that pass.

ABC News has a slightly different angle:

When he opened fire, the gunman shouted “Allah Akbar,” according to sources. He fired nine times, killing two and critically wounding two others before the gun jammed and he was subdued by other passengers. While being wrestled into submission, the suspect shouted either “Jihad Jihad” or “Allah Akbar,” sources said.

In other words, if the gun hadn’t jammed, even more people would have been killed in this not-a-terrorist attack.

So if it wasn’t terrorism, what was it?

  • If you’re Angela Merkel, it was a “terrible event”.
  • If you’re Bajram Rexhepi, Interior Minister of Kosovo, it was “a devastating and a tragic event”.
  • And if you’re Barack Obama, you’ll “spare no effort” in investigating the slayings.

I have only one thing to add to all this: The killer was a deranged loner.

Oh, and also a member of a tiny minority of extremists.

And besides, what he did has nothing to do with the real Islam.

Not only that, what about the Crusades?

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The shooter’s name is Arif Uka, an Albanian of Kosovar descent who was born in Germany. And according to his uncle — who still lives in Kosovo — Mr. Uka is a “devout Muslim”:

MITROVICA, Kosovo — The gunman suspected of killing U.S. airmen outside Frankfurt airport is a German-born devout Muslim who works at the airport, according his uncle.

In an interview with The Associated Press in Kosovo, 70-year-old Rexhep Uka said the suspected gunman — Arid Uka — was born and raised in Germany after his parents moved there from Kosovo about 40 years ago.

The uncle says Arid is a pious Muslim whose grandfather was a religious leader at a mosque in the village of Zhabar, near Mitrovica, Kosovo.

Murat Uka, who identified himself as the alleged shooter’s father, says the only thing he knew about his son was that he hadn’t turned up at work on Wednesday.

The Frankfurt airport refused to comment on whether the suspect worked there.

[…]

In Washington, President Barack Obama promised to “spare no effort” in investigating the slayings.

The attack came as the bus sat outside the airport’s Terminal 2, according to Frankfurt police spokesman Manfred Fuellhardt. The bus driver and a passenger were killed, one person suffered serious wounds and another light injuries, he said.

The attacker and U.S. military personnel apparently had an altercation in front of the bus just before the man started shooting, Fuellhardt said. The attacker also briefly entered the bus, and was apprehended by police when he tried to escape.

The U.S. has drastically reduced its forces in Germany over the last decade, but still has some 50,000 troops stationed here. It operates several major facilities in the Frankfurt region, including the Ramstein Air Base, which is often used as a logistical hub for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

U.S. Air Force Europe spokeswoman Maj. Beverly Mock said all four victims were airmen. They were based in Britain, a U.S. Air Force spokesman for the Lakenheath airfield in eastern England said.

Lakenheath is home to the 48th Fighter Wing, the only F-15 fighter wing in Europe. It employs some 4,500 active-duty military members, as well as 2,000 British and U.S. civilians.

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed sympathy for the victims and their families and pledged that Germany would do everything in its power to investigate the crime.

“It is a terrible event,” she said.

The German news agency DAPD quoted Rhein, the security minister who rushed to the scene of the shooting, as saying there were no indications of a terrorist attack.

There was only one official who dared to use the T-word (nobody used the I-word) to refer to the attack, Congressman Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.):

Still, a member of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Patrick Meehan, said in Washington that it looked like a terrorist attack. The chairman of the subcommittee that focuses on terrorism and intelligence added he did not have all the facts yet and was still being briefed.

And government officials in Kosovo are mystified and perplexed:
Kosovo Interior Minister Bajram Rexhepi identified the suspect as Arif Uka, a Kosovo citizen from the northern town of Mitrovica.

“This is a devastating and a tragic event,” Rexhepi said. “We are trying to find out whether this was something that was organized or what was the nature of the attack.”

The bus was transporting a Security Forces team assigned to RAF Lakenheath, U.K., from the airport to Ramstein. They were on their way to support overseas military operations.

As Muslim terrorist attacks scale up — which they inevitably must — I’ll be interested to see how long it will be before the “no connection to terrorism” mantra falters. The U.S. government will probably stick with it long after the bodies really begin to pile up.

If we caught Osama bin Laden with his finger poised over a big red button labeled “Nuclear Bomb”, we might — just might — call it “a terrorist incident”.

But not before then. And it would still have nothing to do with the real Islam.


Hat tips: Andy Bostom and Vlad Tepes.

30 comments:

Hesperado said...

The customary phrase (“Allahu akhbar”) does not actually mean “God is great”, but “God is greatest”.

Actually, the Arabic adjective akbar is not the superlative form, but the comparative form; thus Allahu Akbar would be rendered "God is greater" -- i.e., greater than all other gods (thus, as I have argued before, Islam is not as evolved a monotheism as Judaism and Christianity came to be, but rather retains the kind of antagonistic henotheism we see in many later polytheisms whereby one god is elevated above all the rest, usually through a perpetual state of theomachy. In Islam's case, this mythological theomachy becomes translated, and concretized on Earth, in a state of perpetual war against the peoples of other gods.

See this grammar page.

Baron Bodissey said...

Thanks, Hesperado. I'm glad you straightened that one out.

I guess a god that is greater than all the others could be called the "greatest", but still -- I like these little grammatical niceties.

Hebes Chasma said...

The guy is called Arif Uka. Arif means "learned" in Arabic, "ukë" and "uka" means wolf in Albanian. It is also a given name among these pinnacle of humanity.

If there are Muslims in the world that should be happy with the US, that's Albanians of Kosovo, for what Clinton did for them. If there are people in the world rightfully disgruntled with US, that must be Serbs for what Clinton did to them. There has been 0 terror attack against US people or interests from Serbs, and more than a dozen from Albanians, most of them in US soil.

So much for tolerant Albanian Islam...

Vortac said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ex-Dissident said...

Don'cha know?

The only terrorists out there are those tea drinking, Gadsden sporting grandmas.

u.l. said...

The customary phrase (“Allahu akhbar”) does not actually mean “God is great”, but “God is greatest”.

I know that there is no other general term for god in Arabic but Allah, yet we should still not translate it as 'God' because that implies the God of Chritianity and Judaism. In this way the lie that the god of Islam is the same sneaks into our language. Just leave Allah untranslated as it is the name of the god of Islam.

Blogger said...

In this way the lie that the god of Islam is the same sneaks into our language. Just leave Allah untranslated as it is the name of the god of Islam.

That won't work, because arabic speaking Christians call God "Allah". Muhammad and his gang stole that word from the Christians.

Abu Yousuf said...

George Bush senior and junior were devout Christians too!.. That’s why they bombed and invaded Iraq and killed millions of innocent Muslims in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. I guess, it’s Ok for Christian Americans and Europeans (NATO) to bomb, invade and occupy Muslims lands, but not OK for Muslims to defend themselves!. Stop the disinformation and misinformation. Stop the hypocrisy. Stop pretending to be people of God when you lie, deceive, kill innocent people including women and children and allow all kinds of vice in your society.

Blogger said...

You're right Azzawi that it was, and still is, a pointless waste of money and lives for military action in these countries, when it is an ideology that we are up against, ie Islam. This is what the leaders don't realise, and this is what this, and thousands of other blogs, are trying to disseminate. This problem will only end when you and a critical mass of muslims reject the violent ideology of Islam. I am an exmuslim myself.

u.l. said...

arabic speaking Christians call God "Allah"

Yeah, I know, just because there is no other term in Arabic and it is a unfortunate choice to say the least. Moslems however know that this 'we all worship the same god' thing is a lie. Some months ago there was a case where moslems in Malaysia wanted to ban the Catholic Church from using Allah for God. Arabic Christians should just say: 'You are right, it is wrong to use the name of your idol to refer to God. Let's just use his real name'. Of course, it is difficult to change this now since the present usage has been common for I don't know how long already.

Hebes Chasma said...

Good news, good news, good news:

"In February 2011 Serbian Ambassador to Ethiopia Dragan Momcilović claimed that Djibouti was in the process of de-recognising Kosovo"

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_Kosovo

and

http://www.cocorioko.net/?p=7725

Baron, now you may want to publish the graph of monthly recognitions of Kosovo that I sent to you sometime ago.

Baron Bodissey said...

netizen --

Yes, I would like to post that graph; it's a good one. Unfortunately, when I reduce it to blog size, the scales become unreadable. This means I have to redo the text on the two scales after it has been resized. That takes a bit of time, which I don't have much of. So I haven't done it yet.

Anonymous said...

This shooting may not be terrorism in the traditional sense. It is kind of in a class by itself. I call it "sudden jihadi syndrome". Certainly motivated by Islam but not working as part of larger network to accomplish goals. The bottom line is that Islam is dangerous even when it is not terrorism.

Hesperado said...

Professor Hale,

I call it "sudden jihadi syndrome". Certainly motivated by Islam but not working as part of larger network to accomplish goals.

How can you be so sure? I think Islamic culture inculcates a kind of twist on the saying, "Think globally, act locally" -- as:

Jihad globally, kill locally.

Just to pick a few nuggets out of the hundreds we could adduce from Islamic sources:

“Allah promises that anyone killed while fighting for His cause will be admitted without question into Paradise.” -- Mohammed, in Sahih Bukhari, Book 4, 52, 46

“The man who fights so that Islam should dominate is the man who fights for Allah’s cause.” -- Mohammed, in Sahih Bukhari, Book 4, 52, 65

Koran, 4:74:

Therefore let those fight [the Arabic, derived from qital, really means "kill"] in the way of Allah, who exchange this world's life for the hereafter; and whoever fights in the way of Allah, then be he slain or be he victorious, We shall grant him a mighty reward.

8:39:

...fight [Waqatiloohum <-- qital, or "kill"] with them until there is no more Fitna [i.e., any sociopolitical situation that frustrates the dominance of Islam] and religion should be only for Allah...

[And of course, most of Sura 9]

The only question a Muslim has to answer for himself is, "Am I at war?" -- which in the Muslim mind (based on Koran and Sunna) is, "Are my enemies at war with me?"

And the answer in Islam is always, "Yes" -- even if the "war" the enemies are waging is merely the outrage of refusing to submit to Allah and His Prophet. And such an outrage is all the more galling for Muslims when it's rubbed in their faces by globally strutting and meddling Infidels (the West, with America conspicuously at the vanguard).

Anonymous said...

Azzawi wrote: I guess, it’s Ok for Christian Americans and Europeans (NATO) to bomb, invade and occupy Muslims lands, but not OK for Muslims to defend themselves!

Are you referring to Uka's killing of American soldiers as Muslims defending themselves, or are you referring to something else, or both? It would be interesting to hear your views on the possible motivation for Uka's actions. Also, have you discussed this event with others who share your views on US military actions, and if so, what do they think about what Uka did?

Anonymous said...

There you go :

"German federal prosecutors said the attack appears to have been motivated by Islamic extremism."

The Daily Mail

So it wasn't "poverty" after all.

sulber nick said...

"The gunman suspected of killing U.S. airmen outside Frankfurt airport is a German-born devout Muslim who works at the airport, according his uncle..." Amazing how many of these people work at airports.

None said...

I would say it is 'Allah is greater', as in a supremacist statement. Kinda, like "Allah is greater, damn it, so I'm gonna prove that by murdering you, and possibly myself." It's pathetic, because Muslims say that as a reassurance to themselves, like a child throwing a tantrum trying to force others to agree with them.

Anonymous said...

Hesparado,
You seem to be agreeing with me. The sudden Jihadi is certainly influenced primarily by Islam and normally also has some recent personal failings in life (divorce, financial losses, etc). It is the second part that motivates them to action while the first part only motivates them to ideological support of Jihad.

A true terrorist though is motivated to action by orders to act from a superior in a hierarchical command structure (organization) in order to accomplish a goal that is important to the organization.

In the west, we would call Sudden Jihadi a psychopath, McVeigh, Manson, VT and Arizona mass shootings , etc.

Henrik R Clausen said...

I think some straightening out is needed here..:

The customary phrase (“Allahu akhbar”) does not actually mean “God is great”, but “God is greatest”. But we’ll let that pass.

'Greater' or 'Greatest' both work, they're comparatives. But 'God' doesn't, it's 'Allah'.

The reason for this being that Allah was the most important idol of the Kaa'ba, well before Muhammad and Jihad entered the picture. The worship of Allah can, in Islamic scripture, be traced back at least five, more likely 9, generations before Muhammad. The half-moon sign was in use as well, as was the battle cry Allah-hu-Akbar.

Allah was the topmost idol of the Kaa'ba (the famous black stone), and was worshipped by the clan of Muhammad generations before his birth. Where, BTW, his father is recorded to have exclaimed "Allah-hu-Akbar".

Yeah, I know, just because there is no other term in Arabic and it is a unfortunate choice to say the least.

There is, and that term is 'Ilah'. The word 'Allah' even might be a contraction of 'The God', as in 'The Greatest', but that's lost in time before written history.

There is a very telling incident from the early time of Islam where a fresh convert to Mo's religion wanted to change his name to 'Abd Ar-Rahman' ('Abd' means 'Slave of'). A pagan family member named 'Abd Allah' protested the choice of name as Ar-Rahman was not recognized as a god. The quarrel was eventually resolved by the fresh convert adopting the name 'Abd Ilah', 'Slave of God', which satisfied both parties.

Also worth noting is that Muhammad, before the 'Satanic Verses' incident, told the Allah-worshippers in Mecca that they did not worship what he worshipped. That's in the Quran, can't recall the exact verse.

That theme played out again later, at the peace treaty of Hudaibyah (after Mo and the Muslims had failed to take Mecca by force), where the Meccans refused to start the treaty with the Islamic standard phrase "In the name of Allah, Ar-Rahman and Al-Rahim", to which Mohammed obliged and accepted that only 'Allah' should be there.

This is in Al-Tabari Vol. 6 through 9.

Arabic speaking Christians call God "Allah"

My guess is that this would be under the threat of decapitation or other unpleasentness...

Anonymous said...

Clearly the problem is immigration and ending Muslim immigration is the solution.

Michael Servetus said...

. And according to his uncle — who still lives in Kosovo — Mr. Uka is a “devout Muslim”:

Surely there is some misunderstanding going on here. The Uncle sulrey doesn't know what real Islam is and neither does his devout nephew. Once again great and trajic misunderstanders of Islam. The only mysterious thing about it is why do so many who call themsleves Muslims but obviously misunderstand it, think that Islam is a religion that sanctions war against the infidel? That we will never understand since we know that Islam is a religion of peace based upon our knowing.
So what is our knowing based upon our knowing based upon?

a) because that is what some muslim told us or said on TV

b)because that is what we heard government leaders say on tv.

c)because it is a religion and all things called religions must be peaceful by definition. (Source unknown).

c2) it is one of the worlds three greatest religions and it is a related(alleged)Abrahamic faith

Can anyone else think of any more primary fallacious reasons and memes and perhaps short refutations and counter memes?

I think the effectiveness of all of these adds up to trust. We trust that a Muslim on television will not lie or he will be clearly and publicly refuted. We trust that our politicians know what they are talking about and didnt simply listen to the same Muslims we heard and that they have our best personal interests in mind, and that they have a loyalty to America according to the same vision we have.
Trust in oursleves and in our own complacency based upon what is familiar to us, namely our own religiuous concepts.
Lastly trust in our learning on PBS that we have earned this and somehow deserve it and are the cause of this belligerency.

Michael Servetus said...

In continuation of my post from above , I meant to add Kants definition of the Enlightenment and contrast it with the trust that the mass of the population puts in our politicians and the TV set.


Kant-- "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians..."

Michael Servetus said...

One can say that there is definitely a mass conspiracy by Muslims worldwide excpet the known and outspoekn foolowers who tell it like it is. All so called moderate Muslims are guilty of conspiracy because when a Muslim gets up and lies and says Islam is a religion of peace and we as trusting people trust that if that wasn't the case he would be renounced and proven wrong and he isn't, we conclude, nop doubt naively that he wouldnt say such a thing if it were so easily proven wrong. That is the trust of a complacent citizen of a free and open society, with free press and free speech.
Now there are many more millions and perhpas billons of Muslims who are conspiring against us by allowing this lie to be put upon us without saying a word and no doubt for different reasons. It is not that they all want to engage in Jihad or destroy us or enact sharia, though a significant amount do, again out of a mixed bag of intentions, but nevertheless what it all does amount to is a conspiracy and subterfuge knowingly or halk knowingly. It is probable that a large part of Muslims whgo engage in this conspiracy unwittingly do so out of a desrie to believe the lie the themselves and hope like a child that by closing their eyes the true horrible image of Islam that they know and remember from their homeland and family relations would just soehow disappear. They earnestly wish Islam were other than what it is and see the lie as almost a good deed, that in covering over Islams true identity somehow they will be able to magically usher in the new version. Or they simply refuse to believe that Islam is as barbaric as it has proven to be through universal experience because they subscribe to one of the errors listed above, such as a religion must be peaceful by definition and thus ensues a conflict between what there natural human reasoning reveals to them and the facts of Islam encoded in writing.

1389 said...

Serbs just don't do terrorism. That's not how we roll. Orthodox Christianity gives that sort of thing a big thumbs down. Islam, not so much (is that an understatement, or what?)

Prejudice Against Serbs Keeps Coming Up Everywhere

urah2222 said...

"Allah" is actually Ba'al moon god of the Arabs, dressed up and made up with a new "dress."

Dr. Shalitl

urah2222 said...

I.O.W. -

Sir Winston was entirely correct in his 1899 discourse on the so called "R.o.P."

Dr. Shalitsoll

urah2222 said...

We ALL know what "ISLAM" really is. It is the doctrine of the superiority of the Disinherited Son of Abraham - ISHMAEL, the contentious one of the Old Testament.
A total Re-Write of the word of G-d.

Dr. Shalit

Zenster said...

Frankfurt Shooting Suspect Had Links to Radical Islamists

"The suspected gunman who killed two U.S. servicemen at Frankfurt airport Wednesday had links to Germany's radical Islamist circles, but German investigators say they currently believe he carried out the attack on his own." [emphasis added]

It is curious to see how so many of these attacks follow such a strict pattern even as media outlets and governments alike totally deny that there is any interconnection among them.

"Among other leads, German authorities are investigating witness statements that Mr. Uka had befriended more than two years ago a known Islamist, Rami Makanesi, a Syrian-German currently in German custody on terror-related charges." [emphasis added]

It is more than a little evident that Mr. Uka had been in contact with and was swayed by the thinking of a known terrorist or terrorists. Still, "he carried out the attack on his own".

How "on his own" is an attacker that carries out the will of a doctrine followed by over ONE BILLION people. Mr. Uka implemented Islam's ideology in exactly the manner it is prescribed and taught in countless locations around the globe.

To construe this as an isolated incident or as being unrelated to the constant and relentless press of Islamic jihadist attacks all around the world requires a degree of willful blindness that defies imagination.

The politicians and journalists who continue to mischaracterize these events should be made to answer for their crimes against Western civilization.

Hesperado said...

To construe this as an isolated incident or as being unrelated to the constant and relentless press of Islamic jihadist attacks all around the world requires a degree of willful blindness that defies imagination.

As Hugh Fitzgerald put it, they "lack the mental pencil to connect the dots".

The politicians and journalists who continue to mischaracterize these events should be made to answer for their crimes against Western civilization.

I look forward to a "Nuremberg 2", where all the West's enablers of the enemy are put on trial -- mostly to be sued with the monies distributed to public works and to those who were trying to sound the alarm; others to be jailed; perhaps a small few to be executed depending on evidence of de jure treason. I may well not live to see it however, as I estimate the timeline of the West's Great Reawakening to unfold over the course of the next 50 years at least, if not longer; and such a trial would likely take place toward the end of that period.

I am a pessimist in the short run (Muslims will succeed in inflicting horrific casualties on us in terms of lives and infrastructure over the next few decades); but I am an optimist in the long run (the West will really wake up and stop hitting the snooze button with its mighty paw, and rouse itself to flick Islam away as a lion does a fly that has been bothering its nose).