No Mercy for Terrorists
By Linda S. Heard
28 October 2014
I used to try to understand the mentality of human beings who turn into monsters whose goal in life is to bomb, torture and rape innocents to achieve their political or ideological aims. Maybe they’ve been indoctrinated. Perhaps they are so frustrated with injustice or angry that their community is being repressed. Possibly, they’ve grown-up in dire poverty and act out of hopelessness.
Those are just a few of the suppositions I once mulled over in my mind. If they had been given a fair chance in life, they might have developed a love for life rather than death I often pondered. No more!
Given the preponderance of those creatures with a hole where they hearts should be from all different backgrounds and educational levels proliferating all over the planet, I’ve concluded that the reasons why they’ve chosen a path of destruction leaving a trail of widows, orphans and people who’ll spend their life bereft of arms, legs or sight, is beside the point.
Terrorism is a disease like Ebola, with one exception. Terrorism is a disease of choice, a virus that is invited into minds rather than one that’s inadvertently consumed. Logically there is no rhyme or reason for mass murder. No faith condones it. And what’s more, it brings no positive results. Take the 9/11 attacks for example. Almost 3,000 ordinary folks were killed on that fateful day — and for what?
Al-Qaeda won nothing. In consequence, thousands of Muslims in America were rounded up and held for months without access to family members or lawyers. A new word, Islamophobia was born. Afghanistan was invaded and occupied. Suspects were abducted, subject to renditions and transported to Guantanamo, handcuffed, chained and hooded where they were kept like animals in cages open to the elements. On a roll, the US and its allies came up with a pretext to launch “Shock and Awe” in Iraq. Almost a million Iraqis died as a result. The “gift” of freedom and democracy brought with it sectarian conflict in a country where Shiites and Sunnis once lived together in relative harmony. Iraq became a terrorist breeding ground and, today, a third of the country has been grabbed by some of the most brutal, unfeeling scum in recent history.
One can seek to heap blame on western nations for arbitrarily redrawing the map of the Middle East without any consideration for ethnicities or tribal affiliations. True! Western foreign policy, driven by the old British divide and conquer strategy and fuelled by hunger to dominate natural resources has been abysmal. Resentment against neo-imperialism, while justified, has been translated into a death cult that turns its guns on its own. It’s an example of anger transference. Many more Muslims have lost their lives in terror attacks orchestrated by their co-religionists than westerners. Predominantly Muslim countries have become the terrorists’ target.
Rather than receive international support, nations seeking to preserve their own security by cracking down on extremists are often condemned by the US, the EU and NGOs for human rights abuses or authoritarian practices. For instance, in recent days, bombs have exploded in Cairo injuring dozens and a car bomb in northern Sinai killed tens of soldiers, yet at the same time an EU human rights envoy was in the capital wagging his finger at officials over arrests and sentences.
We witnessed how brutally US reacted when it was attacked. Where were the EU human rights Wallahs then? Indeed, several EU countries are now known to have conspired with the Bush administration on renditions. The problem with human rights advocates is that they concentrate their efforts on behalf of alleged criminals whereas they care not one jot about the rights of a population as a whole. What is a state without security? Take a long, hard look at Syria, Iraq and Yemen and you’ll have the answer. The rights of millions of responsible citizens requiring, safety, security, decent homes, education, access to medical facilities and a thriving economy able to provide jobs so that they can put bread on the table should take priority over individuals conspiring to use violence against other ethnicities or sects — or out to topple a government.
For all the will in the world, freedom cannot flower in states that are soft on terrorists. This sickness is an existential threat to the entire region and beyond. The only cure is for countries to come together to wipe it out.
Source: http://www.arabnews.com/columns/news/651056
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/no-mercy-terrorists/d/99769