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Showing posts with label acts of terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acts of terrorism. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The Norway Massacre - The new face of domestic terrorism

By Rebecca Theodore



A terrorist attack in Oslo, Norway! No, it’s not. It’s unrelated to al Qaeda or any other terror movement. It is the work of one of its own citizens. It is the work of a madman.

Situated in the western part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Norway’s constitutional monarchy style government feared nothing from attacks by Islamic militants.

Rebecca Theodore was born on the north coast of the Caribbean island of Dominica and is now based in Atlanta, GA . She writes on national security and political issues and can be reached at rebethd@comcast.comEven though there has been threats that Norway supported the American-led NATO military operation in Afghanistan by the number two leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, who took over after the death of Osama bin Laden; the scene of panicking people and blown out windows of several government buildings, lay far from the minds of the ordinary working people of Oslo. Instead, they looked forward to enjoying the long days of summer and the glories of the midnight sun.

Now that American counterterrorism officials have cautioned that Norway’s own homegrown extremist, Anders Behring Breivik is responsible for the attacks; President Obama’s plea to ‘work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks’ opens the floodgate on domestic terrorism in America and around the world.

Whereas this cautionary tale distracts the American people from the debt ceiling crisis and the failures of the economy, it extends beyond the perpetuated myth of political scientists and sociologists that all Muslims are terrorists and the compressed hysteria and outpouring of hate for Islam and Muslims.

According to Oslo acting chief of police, Sveinung Sponheim, Mr Breivik is not known to have any ties to Islamic extremists, speculating instead that the target was Norway’s liberal government.

Anders Behring Breivik was ‘an army of one’ with a full-fledged ideology that he held together – an ideology that motivated him to stalk youths and open fire on an island summer camp for young members of the governing Labour Party and the government building in Norway.

Anders Behring Breivik committed a terrorist act, yet he is not labeled a violent radical terrorist but rather ‘a right wing Christian fundamentalist.’ Although the atrocity is more politically motivated rather than religious or probably just a prolonged state of mental illness, a new definition of terrorism has been created in the media for other copycats to mimic.

It cannot be denied that we live in a bigoted world. Muslim radicals have a great record of creating havoc and murdering innocent individuals. However, it is clear that if a Muslim was involved then it would have been labeled a terror attack, but because it came from a white Christian man, terrorism is baptized and sanctified with a new aphorism.

It is evident that language again serves its own purpose by entertaining the whims of a blockade type mentality that fuels more antagonism and bitterness for home grown recruiting camps in the US and the Caribbean, thus making them more inward looking and more open to religious extremism.

As a replacement for addressing the vehement revolt of disturbed individuals who use violence against civilians to satisfy their own political ends against elected governments, the media has again detached the issue away from its socio-political context by enforcing the culture of victimhood against Muslims. Muslims are again portrayed as the one stop cause for the myriad of problems facing the world today.

Mr Breivik’s actions have puzzled a nation known for its active diplomacy and peacekeeping missions in the world. For America on the other hand, it is time to look within.

July 26, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Cuba rejects inclusion on blacklist

AS WE GO TO PRESS…



WASHINGTON.—The Cuban Interests Section in this capital assured this January 5 that the island government is cooperating in the international fight against terrorism, and it condemned its inclusion on the list of states described by the U.S. administration as sponsors of terrorism, EFE reports.

Alberto González, spokesman for the Cuban mission in Washington, stated that Cuba "has complied with, is complying with and will comply with the internationally recognized security measures in these cases," and he noted that the Cuban people "do not recognize in any way the moral authority of the U.S. government to certify their inclusion on this kind of list."

González unequivocally stated that "Cuban territory has never been utilized to organize, finance or execute acts of terrorism against the United States or any other state," and suggested that this latest attack on the island is politically motivated.

On the contrary, he continued, Cuba has been the victim of violence and terrorism on the part of individuals such as Luis Posada Carriles, who remains at large in the United States and has not been brought to justice.

Translated by Granma International

January 6, 2010

granma.cu