No Big Surprise

According to press reports, Tamerlan Tsarnaev one of the Boston Bombers (the dead one), was a subscriber to publications espousing ‘white supremacy’ and ‘government conspiracy theories’ …. Why this is any sort of surprise is beyond me.

As far as I can see, any sort of extremist will find succour in other extreme groups ideas. The Far Right nationalist groups and those Far Left internationalist groups are very close to each other in methods, aims and ideas … just from different angles so to speak.

Political Circles

For example Adolf Hitler welcomed converts from the communist party saying “There is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separates us from it”, so he allowed converts from Communist parties to join the Nazi party because  ‘they didn’t have so far to leap', whereas he mistrusted the liberal middle-cases.  So the fact that a couple of self-styled radical Jihadists would be influenced by far right US conspiracy groups can hardly be a surprise.

• The US far right believe that 9/11 was a government plot and that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was also a government conspiracy.
• Apparently reading about Hitler's views on German Aryan supremacy Tsarnaev commented that "Hitler had a point".

Both these ideas are not unpopular in the Muslim world:

1. If 9/11 was a secret US government conspiracy or plot, then obviously Muslims were innocent and the ‘War on Terror’ illegal. In fact it would amount to a blood libel against Muslims (oddly like the one believed by many anti Jewish propagandists in the Muslim worlds and beyond e.g. Hitler).
2. Hitler’s book Mein Kampf is sold openly in the Muslim world where it’s something of a slow burning best seller in Bangladesh and Palestine. Its anti Jewish thoughts (and Hitler’s attempts to enact those thoughts) make it a popular work with those who share that belief.

So why it should be any kind of surprise that a white Chechen Jihadist who hated the US for its pro Israeli stance, would not find succour in the writings of those who agreed that the US government was in conspiracy to defame Muslims, or that Hitler’s views on the supremacy of Aryans over the Jews wouldn’t also evoke some agreement from him, is the mystery that only PC multiculturalists can answer.

Taking Culture To The People

It seems that Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Company is a group on a mission:

Firstly to take his play Hamlet to every nation on earth (including the Vatican), and others not known for their love of the West, or even their love of the theatre - including some which have never before seen a professional production of a Shakespeare play. I am talking about countries like North Korea and Afghanistan (not confirmed as venue but do able).

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Company

Apparently the aim is to knock off 200 countries in a two year cycle starting in 2014 and ending 23 April 2016 - with the aim of covering the 450th anniversary of the playwright's birth next April and the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death in 2016.

 

Dopey Drug Policy

That man strikes again ....  President Jose Mujica, possibly the coolest politician on the planet, wins yet another vote from this blog for daring to think the unthinkable and starting the process of making  pot in Uruguay legal.

He's thought it through, decided that the current drug laws for Marijuana, only make criminals of the users, billionaires out of the smugglers, and have corrupted the state, and has asked his parliament to pass a law that would allow the state to assume "the control and regulation of the importation, exportation, plantation, cultivation, the harvest, the production, the acquisition, the storage, the commercialisation and the distribution of cannabis and its by-products".

President Jose Mujica - Doesn't Smoke Joints

Buyers would have to be registered on a database and be over the age of 18. They would be able to buy up to 40g (1.4oz) per month in specially licensed pharmacies or grow up to six plants at home.

Good on him, I don't take these kind of drugs anymore (just the legal ones), but may have risked it when younger .... its something most of us grow out of. There would have to be safeguards against driving or flying etc while out of their heads (like alcohol in fact), but other than that, why not try another way?

Portugal is trying something similar right now with some success .... but we in the Anglo Saxon world sure as hell ain't winning the current war on drugs as we are right now .....

Supping With Shaitans Children

US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl holds something of an unwanted unique distinction. He is the only US soldier held by the Taliban (well the Haqqani network, an insurgent group affiliated with the Taliban), in Afghanistan.

Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl with Taliban Captor.

The circumstances surrounding his capture are somewhat hazy, certainly his claim to have been captured whilst out on patrol are not considered really credible, and haven’t been backed by up his unit, but what he was doing off base has never been fully established. And of course as John Lindh (aka John 'Walker' Lindh) showed, not all Americans fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq have been prisoners of the Taliban.

John 'Walker' Lindh

Sergeant Bergdahlis father has grown a bottom chin beard and taught himself Pashtun in an effort to try and appeal to the captors directly …. One of his lines was very Churchill like .... "I will not leave you on the battlefield. Your country will not leave you on the battlefield. You are not forgotten.”

As far as anyone can tell he’s still ‘alive’ (although I won’t say ‘well’), his captors have occasionally posted videos and posted letters to his parents on his behalf.

Of course they do this so that they can ratchet up the most emotional pressure on the US via his parents, friends, and family, who would do almost anything to get him back. This is all a bit like Gilad Shalit, the Israeli sergeant who was kidnapped by Hamas, and who was exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners (including some convicted of multiple murders and carrying out terror attacks against Israeli civilians - according to Israeli government sources, the prisoners released were collectively responsible for 569 Israeli deaths), a decision that many Israeli's saw as surrender. Oddly it also says that just one Israeli soldier, is worth over a thousand Palestinians .... the terrorists don't always get the more subtle messages.

And so the fact that only a couple of weeks ago the Taliban offered a prisoner exchange, to build confidence between the US and Taliban negotiating teams is probably only the first step (certainly the US are unlikely to offer anything like the number of prisoners that the Israeli's did) – currently the offer is said to be for the release of five Taliban from Guantanamo Bay.

It's a controversial idea, and the US may not be politically able to accept even this idea … time will tell, but in the meantime the pressure on the US to do something about their missing soldier will only grow more intense as the date for their withdrawal approaches.

President Obama may yet have to face up to supping with the devils children .... 

 

Update:  

He was released on May 31, 2014, as part of a prisoner exchange for five high ranking Taliban members. On October 16, 2017, he entered a guilty plea on charges of desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy to a military judge at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was sentenced to be dishonourably discharged, reduced in rank to private and fined $1,000 per month from his pay for ten months, with no prison time .... oddly, despite pleading guilty to desertion, he has appealed against being dishonourably discharged. He need a security detail to protect him from his fellow soldiers after his release by the Taliban.

The Path To Servitude

It says a lot about the UK's possible path to Dhimmitude, that two US bloggers who campaign against the creeping Islamisation of the world (but particularly against it in the USA), are banned from entering the country by the UK's Home Office.

Mr Spencer - 'Jihad Watch' and Ms Geller - 'Atlas Shrugs' blog.

The reasons given are that that their presence "is not conducive to the public good" and that "we condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form", and therefore they could be excluded by the home secretary.