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Pakistan Shiite Muslims offer prayers during a funeral for community members killed in an ambush in the northern town of Gilgit on Feb. 29.
GILGIT, Pakistan -- About 20 men dressed as Pakistani soldiers boarded a bus bound for a Muslim festival outside this mountain town and checked the identification cards of the passengers. They singled out 19 Shiites, drew weapons and slaughtered them, most with a bullet to the head.
The shooters weren't soldiers. They were a hit squad linked to the Sunni Muslim extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, or LeJ. They had trekked in along a high Himalayan pass that hot August morning to waylay a convoy of pilgrims.
Here and across Pakistan, violent Sunni radicals are on the march against the nation's Shiite minority.
With a few hundred hard-core cadres, the highly secretive LeJ aims to trigger sectarian violence that would pave the way for a Sunni theocracy in U.S.-allied Pakistan, say Pakistan police and intelligence officials. Its immediate goal, they say, is to stoke the intense Sunni-Shiite violence that has pushed countries like Iraq close to civil war.
More than 300 Shiites have been killed in Pakistan so far this year in sectarian conflict, according to human rights groups. The campaign is gathering pace in rural as well as urban areas such as Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city. The Shiites are a big target, accounting for up to 20 percent of this nation of 180 million.
In January, LeJ claimed responsibility for a homemade bomb that exploded in a crowd of Shiites in Punjab province, killing 18 and wounding 30. LeJ's reach extends beyond Pakistan: Late last year, LeJ claimed responsibility for bombings in Afghanistan that killed 59 people, the worst sectarian attacks since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.
"No doubt - (LeJ) are the most dangerous group," said Chaudhry Aslam, a top counterterrorism police commando based in Karachi, whose house was blown up by the LeJ. "We will fight them until the last drop of blood."
For an outlawed group accused of fomenting such mayhem, the leader of LeJ is surprisingly easy to find.
Mian Khursheed / Reuters file
Malik Ishaq, leader of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, speaks during an interview with Reuters at his home in Rahim Yar Khan in southern Punjab province, on Oct. 9.
Malik Ishaq spent 14 years in jail in connection with dozens of murder and terrorism cases. He was released after the charges could not be proved - partly because of witness intimidation, officials say - and showered with rose petals by hundreds of supporters when he left prison in July 2011.
Although Ishaq is one of Pakistan's most feared militants, he enjoys the protection of followers clutching AK-47 assault rifles in the narrow lane outside his home. There, in the town of Rahim Yar Khan in southern Punjab province, Reuters visited him for an interview.
"The state should declare Shiites as non-Muslims on the basis of their beliefs," said Ishaq, calling them the "greatest infidels on Earth." Young supporters with shoulder-length hair in imitation of the Prophet Mohammad hung on every word.
Following the trail
To assess the LeJ threat, Reuters followed the group's trail across Pakistan -- from Ishaq's compound, to Gilgit in the foothills of the Himalayas, recruiting grounds in central Punjab and the backstreets of Karachi on the Arabian Sea coast.
In interviews, police, intelligence officials, clerics and LeJ members described a group that has grown more robust and appears to be operating across a much wider area in Pakistan than just a few years ago. But it had a head start.
The LeJ once enjoyed the open support of the powerful spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence. The ISI used such groups as military proxies in India and Afghanistan and to counter Shiite militant groups.
Since being outlawed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, LeJ has worked with Sunni radical groups al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban in several high-profile strikes. Among them were assaults in 2009 on Pakistan's military headquarters and on Sri Lanka's visiting cricket team. Washington says LeJ was involved in the killing of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Now it is gathering strength anew. The risks are heightened by Pakistan's long-standing role as a battlefield in a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran, which have been competing for influence in Asia and the Middle East since the 1979 Iranian revolution.
That competition has heated up since the United States toppled secularist dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq and left the country under the control of an Iranian-influenced Shiite government. Intelligence officials say the LeJ is drawing financial support from Saudi donors and other Sunni sources.
"Unfortunately, the state for strategic reasons turned a blind eye to the LeJ for a long time," said a retired army general. "Now we have a situation where it has become Pakistan's Frankenstein."
Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who is in charge of internal security, told Reuters that "we always take action" against the LeJ when the group is suspected of murder or terrorism. "We track people and arrest them."
When asked why those arrested are often freed, he said: "Look, my job is to arrest people, not to let them go. We all know who lets them off the hook and why," he said, referring to local politicians and elements of the military who turn a blind eye to their activities or even support them in some cases.
Sacred calling
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose name means Soldiers of Jhangvi (after its founder, Haq Maulana Nawab Jhangvi), isn't the only lethal militant group that once enjoyed patronage from the spy agency.
One is Lashkar-e-Taiba (Soldiers of the Pure), which fights against Indian control in disputed Kashmir. It is blamed for several deadly attacks on Indian soil, including the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, and an audacious raid on India's parliament in December 2001 with another Kashmiri militant group, Jaishi-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad). That raid brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
Another is the Pakistani Taliban. Its attack this month on 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai in Swat was only the most recent in a long list of strikes on civilian and military targets, mainly in the unruly tribal area along the Afghan border.
What makes LeJ particularly dangerous, however, is that the group is based in Pakistan's Punjab heartland. And it is not just attacking targets in Pakistan's neighbors, but has also targeted the state, including the 2009 attack on Pakistan's military headquarters.
LeJ was established as an offshoot of another anti-Shiite organization called Sipah-e-Sahaba (Soldiers of Mohammad's Companions).
LeJ believes it has a sacred calling -- to protect the legacy of the companions of the Prophet Mohammad - and it sees Shi'ites as the main threat.
Mahmood Baber, educated in a madrassa, was drawn by LeJ's call to holy war against Shiite infidels. His 16-year career in the movement ended in October, when he and other LeJ members were arrested.
Handcuffed and with a cloth thrown over his head at a Karachi police station, Baber described for Reuters the "great satisfaction" he felt killing 14 Shiite "terrorists" over the years. His voice choked with emotion when he said that for 1,400 years Shiites had insulted the companions of the Prophet.
"Get rid of Shiites. That is our goal. May God help us," he said, before intelligence agents led him away for a fresh round of interrogation.
The schism between Sunnis and Shiites developed after the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 when his followers could not agree on a successor. Sunnis recognize the first four caliphs as his rightful successors; the Shiites believe the prophet named his son-in-law, Ali. Emotions over the issue have boiled through modern times and even pushed some countries, including Iraq five years ago, to the brink of civil war.
Demonizing Iran
The LeJ's leader, Ishaq, lives in a house whose gate bears a sign inviting residents of the town to debate whether Shiites are infidels.
These days Ishaq calls himself a leader of Sipah-e-Sahaba, the LeJ parent group. Pakistani officials say he still runs, or at least inspires, LeJ. Ishaq denies any wrongdoing, repeatedly saying: "I've been acquitted." He has indeed been acquitted 34 times on charges of culpable homicide and terrorism.
He does not hide his feelings about Shiites, his voice growing strident as he opened a plastic folder filled with printouts from what he describes as Shi'ite Internet sites.
One contained a photo of a pig, an animal considered by Muslims to be dirty, and is accompanied by an insult to Sunnis. Another alleges the Prophet Mohammad's wife committed adultery -- all proof, he says, that Shiites are blasphemous, and deserve punishment.
"Whoever insults the companions of the Holy Prophet should be given a death sentence," Ishaq declares.
Ishaq and other hardline Sunnis believe that Iran is trying to foment revolution in Pakistan to turn it into a Shi'ite state, though no evidence for that is offered.
The Saudi connection
In the Punjab town of Jhang, LeJ's birthplace, SSP leader Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi describes what he says are Tehran's grand designs. Iranian consular offices and cultural centers, he alleges, are actually a front for its intelligence agencies.
"If Iranian interference continues it will destroy this country," said Ludhianvi in an interview in his home. The state provides him with armed guards, fearful any harm done to him could trigger sectarian bloodletting.
The Iranian embassy in Islamabad, asked for a response to that allegation, issued a statement denouncing sectarian violence.
"What is happening today in the name of sectarianism has nothing to do with Muslims and their ideologies," it said.
Ludhianvi insisted he was just a politician. "I would like to tell you that I am not a murderer, I am not a killer, I am not a terrorist. We are a political party."
After a meal of chicken, curry and spinach, Ludhianvi and his aides stood up to warmly welcome a visitor: Saudi Arabia-based cleric Malik Abdul Haq al-Meqqi.
A Pakistani cleric knowledgeable about Sunni groups described Meqqi as a middleman between Saudi donors and intelligence agencies and the LeJ, the SSP and other groups.
"Of course, Saudi Arabia supports these groups. They want to keep Iranian influence in check in Pakistan, so they pay," the Pakistani cleric said. His account squared with that of a Pakistani intelligence agent, who said jailed militants had confessed that LeJ received Saudi funding.
Saudi cleric Meqqi denied that, and SSP leader Ludhianvi concurred: "We have not taken a penny from the Saudi government," he told Reuters.
Saudi Arabia's alleged financing of Sunni militant groups has been a sore point in Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned in a December 2009 classified diplomatic cable that charities and donors in Saudi Arabia were the "most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide." In the cable, released by Wikileaks, Clinton said it was "an ongoing challenge" to persuade Saudi officials to treat such activity as a strategic priority. She said the groups funded included al-Qaida, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The Saudi embassy in Islamabad and officials in Saudi Arabia were unavailable for comment.
Shiite revenge
Some Shia groups do look to Iran's clerical establishment for spiritual leadership, but insist they have no aims beyond protecting members from Sunni attacks.
In the offices of a Shiite organization in Karachi, images of the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini are featured on a wall clock. There, a Pakistani Shiite woman named Shafqat Batool described what happened to her son, a judge, when he left for work on August 30.
Minutes after Sayid Zulfiqar stepped out of the family home in Quetta, she said, witnesses told the family three men on a motorcycle opened fire with Kalashnikov rifles. One of the assailants then grabbed a weapon from Zulfiqar's bleeding driver and pumped more bullets into her son.
It prompted Zulfiqar's family to move to Karachi. "We are not safe anywhere in the country," his mother said. "People are horrified, people can't sleep."
The fear is palpable in Quetta, the mountainous provincial capital of southwestern Baluchistan. LeJ has unleashed an escalating campaign there of suicide bombings and assassinations against ethnic Hazaras - Persian-speaking Shiites who mostly emigrated from Afghanistan and are a small minority of the Shiite population in Pakistan.
At least 100 Hazaras have been killed this year, according to Human Rights Watch, leaving some 500,000 Hazaras fearful of venturing out of their enclaves.
"We are under siege; we can't move anywhere," said Khaliq Hazara, chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party. "Hazaras are being killed and there is nobody to take any action.
In Quetta and Karachi, Shiite leaders say they are urging young men to exercise restraint and buy weapons only for self-defense.
"We are controlling our youth and stopping them from reacting," said Syed Sadiq Raza Taqvi, a Karachi cleric, seated beside a calendar with images of Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
But with each killing, the temptation to take revenge grows.
Shiite extremists have not adopted the kind of attacks favored by LeJ. But they have hunted down members of the SSP.
One such case was an attack survived by Sohaib Nadeem, 27, son of an SSP member. Men he described as "Shiite terrorists backed by Iran" opened fire on the Nadeem family in their car. Nadeem survived nine gunshot wounds but his father and brothers were killed. "The Shiites are our enemies," Nadeem said.
Confederation of militants
When the Taliban and al-Qaida want to reach targets outside their strongholds on the Afghan border, they turn to LeJ to provide intelligence, safe houses or young volunteers eager for martyrdom, police and intelligence officials said.
"Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is the detonator of terrorism in Pakistan," said Karachi Police Superintendent Raja Umer Khattab, who has interrogated more than 100 members. "The Taliban needs Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Al Qaeda needs Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. They are involved in most terrorism cases."
The massacre of Shiite bus passengers outside Gilgit has had a profound impact on this mountaineering hub in the Himalayan foothills. Never before had Sunni extremists asked for identification to single out Shiites and then kill them on such a large scale.
Akhtar Soomro / Reuters
Police officers Jumma Gul, center, Khan Bahadur, right, and Gul Zaman, stand at the spot where bus passengers were gunned down in the Harban Nala area of Pakistan on Feb. 28.
Sunnis and Shiites, who had lived in harmony for decades, now cope with sectarian no-go zones.
"Sunnis can't go to some areas and Shiites can't go to others," lamented Gilgit shopkeeper Muneer Hussain Shah, a Shiite whose brother was killed in a grenade attack.
When violence erupts, text messages circulate rallying one sect or the other. Shops and schools close. Authorities have banned motorcycles to stop drive-by shootings.
Law enforcement itself is a victim of sectarianism in Gilgit, said police chief Usman Zakria. Shi'ite officers are reluctant to investigate crimes committed by Shi'ites, and the same is true of Sunnis.
"They are in disarray," said Zakria. "None of this has happened before."
Additional reporting by Imtiaz Shah in Karachi, Mehreen Zahra-Malik in Islamabad and Matthew Green in Quetta.
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News flash, this isn't really news. The only thing they know how to do is blow themselves up over there, I call it a good start. No more aid to any ME countries until they can behave like adults and since they won't that just means we can save our money. Bring our troops home and let them destroy eachother. On a side note what is up with the guy Malik Ishaq's forehead?
They are prayer marks, When in prayer, he presses his head on the floor. Devout Muslims have this feature. Check out some of the videos. It still does not explain why his head is square, though.
The blister of India and Pakistan relations is about to burst. The absent minded Peace Lovers of the world may soon discover the risk of complacency. In all of that bad will come good. The world will reawaken to the consequences of failed leadership, wasted time, and money in a area that may not be part of a map in the future.
I doubt that, actually. India's rising prosperity means that they have less and less to gain from conflict with Pakistan, and have even been taking trade deals with their unruly neighbor more seriously.
Meanwhile, with Pakistan struggling to secure influence in Afghanistan and juggling their paramilitary groups that are becoming more extremist in their religous creeds, Pakistan as well might have difficulty focusing its military attention on their "old enemy". I see less India/Paki conflict in the future, not more.
Charlie, its called being a 'block head' for a reason!
"They singled out 19 Shiites, drew weapons and slaughtered them, most with a bullet to the head."
Before followers of Islamic cult set their feet on Afghan and Paki regions, they were quite peaceful and prosperous.
Once the cancer of Islam gradually got control of the region, they have become raping, stealing, looting and killing fields.
They have become breeding and exporting centers for illegal activities including drugs growing and trading and export of Islamic radicals and terrorists all over the world.
In Pakistan, first it was massive genocides of minorities from 48-50 as soon as Pakistan was formed in 47. Pakistan is supposed to be a pure Islamic nation.
Percentages of Hindus and Sikhs were reduced from about 24 percent less than three years by rapings, stealing, lootings, terrorizing and killing on a massive scale.
Now the Paki Islamic religious madness has not ended there.
They are after Ahmedias, Sufis (fake love and dance Islamic soap opera people), Shiites, Hazaras, and Baloochs and other minority sects.
Shiites form twenty percent.
While praying their mosques are blown to pieces on Fridays and even hospitals are bombed to kill those injured.
A Washington, DC based think tank Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org) provides good details what is going in Pakistan.
In Pakistan, anyone the secret police want dead, is simply shot. Therefore, since the guy is alive and doing whatever he pleases, he has their protection.
In a way, the money given to Pakistan is of little difference to that given to the Barbary Pirates long ago. We are just buying access and protection. And, considering the have nukes, the calls for taking our purse and walking away are astoundingly stupid.
Since the U.S. will not abandon the Pakis because of the Nukes, I wonder who, Sunni radicals or Shiites, Mr. Obama is going to support.
Guess we will find out "AFTER the elections" since everything has been "delayed" by the "Teflon" President.
Well, I guess since Iran is Shiite and Saudi is Sunni the answer is Sunni. But Hamas in Palestine is Sunni. They brutalize Palestinians and Israel. They want a Sunni Muslim State and they do want to obliterate Israel. What a political mess fueled by fanatic religions. Land, country, power grabbing People.
And the religion of the USA is Capitalistic Markets for profit. Economic power, sanctions, Banks to bring down countries and colonize...NO ONE IS FREE ANYMORE. No one protects anyone from Bullys. Not our Government, not HR, no Unions, no Justice Department (tho this one seems to be stepping up alittle) No military, No foreign policy, definitely not the Capitalistic system we have today with OUTSOURCING. What are People to do? My own opinion is that the US should support the US people and get this country back to running is a fair Just way with our own citizens thriving. We need to be a strong country in this world today from within. That means not letting Vulture Capitalists attack and devour us. Work together with Corps here giving jobs to people here to buy products from our Corps. It means Regulating for the Environment and Safety (drugs and food). Thats the JOB of the Government. If America isn't strong from within (not outside with Corps and Military) but INSIDE we can't stand up in this world today. Forget the Sunnis,Shiites,Middle East, the Grand Market out there. We should not be sacrificed for OUT THERE.
So you say, using your computer, a product of pure capitalistic innovation devised and created for nothing more than the profit of its creators. GOD, what a horrible system!
You seem to be suffering from false nostalgia, here. There is no period in history that the country was more "fair" than it is now. It was simply unfair in different ways. And I'd much rather have to deal with your bogeyman, modern capitalism, than any number of other social ills. Like, say, religious extremism (see article).
Pakistan, "a strategic ally", is on the verge of bloody civil war. No one can predict, which Islamic militant group(s) will get Paki nukes!
In Afghanistan, Pakis have backstabbed the US and NATO forces big time. Half of NATO forces deaths are due to ungrateful and backstabbing Pakis.
When the NATO forces were entering Kandahar in 2001, Pakis airlifted key al-Qaida, Taliban, ISI and others militants by back door from Kandahar.
This includes Mullah Omar, Osama and many including Paki Haqqani militant network leaders.
Hope people remember about Pakis sheltering Osama.
These Paki Islamic religious Nazis don't bother about their people and they are into reckless killing games in the name of jihad.
Declare Pakistan a terrorist nation. Take the help of India, Russia and China and remove Paki nukes first.
To reduce NATO forces losses, carpet bomb Paki militant areas just like 1991 Iraqi war instead of drone attacks.
Also kick out Paki Trojan horses, who have become a liability to respective societies and nation, from all non-Muslim nations starting from the US.
Islam is the religion of peace? Yeah, right. Can you ever imagine Methodists blowing up Episcopalians because of differences in beliefs?
@Derek,
Or Roundheads killing Catholics in England by the thousands in the name of religion during the English Civil Wars? Yeah, I can imagine it. Any member of any religious community will kill any other member of any other religious community if they perceive the stakes are high enough.
How about the 8 million Jews killed in various pogroms and the Holocaust by so-called Christians? The reason it is so easy to imagine is that it has already happened. It is history, not imagination.
Chris... your history is correct in its way. In fact... there is a quote you might like ...
"He who does not study the past, is doomed to repeat it." George Santayana
At the same time, we, today, have, I hope, learned that for us here in our own country we could never allow those tragedies you name to occur. But the key words are: Our Own Country. We certainly have no right to think we have to conquer the globe. It's totally dysfunctional on quite a few levels.
I truly hope that we have, indeed, learned from those examples for our country. Our country. We need to establish our own Democracy successfully before we could hope to suggest it to other countries.
Example is the best teacher, not attempted bribery which is exactly what the politicians seem to believe... yes, both and all sides of the "political parties" who are so verbal these days.
We'd better clean our own doorstep before thinking we can bribe other countries to "be like us."
Oh... and the argument that we need their oil? What a crock of you know what. We have infinite amounts of oil in our own land.. and who is the nut case who, after we have paid millions for that pipeline from Alaska and Canada, transporting billions of gallons of our own oil .... to Texas... and then sell that oil to other countries?????
Are we out of our brain-dead minds??????
@secondsight,
I would point out that the greatest fear of the Founding Fathers was that this country would slide into "democracy." They had seen democracy in action in the French Revolution and with Cromwell's Roundheads and in the religious persecution in the early Colonies. They knew well that the Puritans did not come to MBC to escape persecution, but to practice persecution freely against others.
It is a primary reason that when setting up the Republic, the Founding Fathers made every important office in the country appointed instead of directly elected. The President, Vice-President, Senators, the Cabinbet, the Supreme Court, and all Cabinet Officials and all high government officials were appointed. The only directly elected office was the House of Representatives and that was given the shortest possible term of office to keep it in a state of "perpetual chaos." The ONLY reason the House was to be elected (versus appointed as Senators were) was to pack the Lower Chamber with an overwhelming number of advocates for slavery and maintain the institution of slavery forever. Had slavery not been such a desirable thing to the Founding Fathers, they would have made the House appointed as well.
The best quote on what "democracy" really is is by Ambrose Bierce who said, "Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." Democracy has never worked anywhere and it is a political myth that it has ever been attempted here. We pledge allegiance to a Republic, not a democracy. And in a Republic Supreme Power is held by elected or appointed officials in trust for the People. The People have little to no say.
If Religions become for Profit you can bet they will blow eachother up. If their main purpose is to convert everyone to their group they will blow eachother up.
The American Religion of Capitalism is doing just that. Forced conversion or get blown up or desicrated like Greece.
The majority of religions try to convert everyone to their group. Blowing each other up is not considered a legitimate way to convert people by the majority of religions, including mainstream Islam (of the non-Jihadist bent). Violence was a common religious practice in the past, but less so now. If it's an inevitable progression, as you suggest, then it would be more common now than it was back then, and it would be common in ALL religions.
I also don't see people being blown up in the name of capitalism. You could make an argument that the arms industry does this, but the fact that people want others dead is the reason that there are people selling weapons, not the other way around. There is nothing about capitalism that particularly encourages violence.
You attempt to be randomly attaching capitalism's name to horrible things you hear reported on the Internet. And not very well, either.
Religion is opium of the masses.
Saudi and Paki versions of Islam are the highest dosages of heroin.
These Paki and Saudi Sunni radicals declare some as infidel and then they declare "jihad." There are no ends to this jihad business.
Many Muslim ME nations, Pakistan, Afghanistan are some examples of complete Islamic religious madness going berserk!
In addition, Islam treats girls and women as sex and children producing slaves. Look at that Malala case.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are the dirtiest swamps on earth, where life is hell due to high dosage of Islam.
They are responsible for breeding and exporting Islamic radicals and terrorists all over the world. They are creating at least 80 percent of havoc all over.
Saudi Arabia through its puppet like oil companies and their lobbyists invented Iraqi wars; manipulated high oil prices; exported their Islamic extremist Salaffi and Wahhabi versions by funding their mosques all over the world.
Sunni Saudis are inventing problems in Syria and again manipulating oil prices higher through sanctions on Iranian oil.
For world peace and economic stability, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have to be erased out of the map.
Even for some sections of Muslims, girls and women, it will be a liberation from the Islamic extremist barbarians and beasts worse than German Nazis.
Let's face it--these people are a bunch of dumass imbeciles who will never get along.
Except they do get along. Quite frequently, actually.
Sectarian murder is the exception, not the rule. The article even goes out of its way to point out that Shiites and Sunnis used to live together peacefully.
You are right. In many places, including those of the current Afghan and Paki regions, love and dance version of Islam, Sufis, attracted many followers.
Sunni Saudis have been primarily guilty of inventing, funding and exporting their highly radical Islamic hater and killer versions of Islam like Salaffi, Wahhabi, MB, al-Qaida, Taliban, and other label ones all over the world. This has impacted Paki and Afghan regions most. Now it is spreading all over the world like wild fires!
So we have Sufi mosques being bombed to pieces on Fridays and those praying killed in Pakistan, Mali and other places.
We see Muslims inventing problems in most of the non-Muslim nations.
Even in the US, we can notice these actions! Hope people can recall 9/11, Dearborn, Michigan and many other incidents in the US itself. Where they there before Iraqi war, 1991?
When Muslims form more than five percent, downhill march starts.
Muslims are inventing problems in Myanmar, Thailand, Philippines, India and other places.
When they form more than 30 percent then it is Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Lebanon (few decades back)
In Muslim majority nations, they kill each other!
Better wake up before it is too late on inventions of problems by followers of Islamic cult!
Although I cannot agree with the negative, virtually ruthless comments of "makessense," comment #1 above, at the same time I wish the United States would mind its own business.
Stop sending our money to the extremist Middle East countries who have a culture totally alien from ours. It is not our job to "conquer" the world. Yes, to defend and protect our own homeland is not only Constitutionally sound, it's even required. But few people who live here, our citizens, realize that our Constitution is dedicated NOT to attack another country.
As far as I am concerned, we must lower our taxes and take care of our own. Quit trying to expect that "democracy" should be part of the cultures of those Theocracies of in the Middle East. And especially quit sending them our hard earned money.
However, we must support our one Allied country over there as a last bastion of Western integrity in that area and which, btw, was historically "there first." Continuous occupation of their land has been archaeologically established for over 4,000 years... eons before the attempted conquests of Mohammed.
No, I am not a Hebrew/Jew/Israeli... (all of whom are a continuous culture back virtually to "the dawn of our time"). However, I am interested and meticulously researching the cultures there.
My point is, protect the one Middle East country founded centuries past which is, actually, the ancestor of the philosophy upon which we, here and now, depend. And if we are sincere in our own ideals, we won't interfere with even an alien philosophy to our own.... such as the "theocracy." Interfering as we have attempted to do, especially in the last few years, is against our own principles.
Time for us to get with our own program. Loyalty begins at home.
@Secondsight,
The problem with your argument is that Jews/Hebrews/Israelis have NOT been in continuous occupation of modernday Israel for 4,000 continuous years.
Both Hebrews and Arabs are Semites. 4,000 years ago they were one and the same. Aramaic was the common language from which Hebrew and Arabic sprang. 4,000 years ago, just like Christ 2,000 years ago, the daily speech was Aramaic. Today, Hebrew speakers can easily understand Arabic speakers and vice versa, even though they may not admit it since their languages are as close as Spanish and Portuguese are today.
The same goes for religion as well. Both the Jewish religion are Abrahamic religions, meaning that they both trace back to Abraham and the origins of Jewishness itself. Christianity is also Abrahamic tough it broke from Judaism around 1800 years ago versus the 1400 years ago when Islam broke away from Judaism. The Pentatuch is just as revered in Islam as it is in Judaism. And Christ is considered a Major Prophet in Islam just as He is in some Jewish communities. So, if you look at it that way, Islam is closer to Judaism by around 400 years than is Christianity.
Your understanding of the Constitution is likewise flawed. The Constitution is very specific about the power to attack other countries (Article I, Section 8, Caluse 11) but is so specific that Congress has only been able to exercise its Constitutional war powers on five occasions (1812, Mexican-American, Spanish American, & WWs I & II) with every other war being conducted on Executive Power only. "As to the Philadelphia Convention and the intent of the American founders, there was only one delegate who suggested giving the Executive the power to take offensive military action: Pierce Butler of South Carolina. He suggested the President should be able to, but in practice would have the character not to do so without mass support. Elbridge Gerry, a delegate from Massachusetts, summed up the majority viewpoint saying he "never expected to hear in a Republic a motion to empower the Executive alone to declare war." George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and others voiced similar sentiments." Most Constitutional Scholars consider the War Powers Clause of the Constitution to be so obsolete as to be void because virtually every President has ignored it.
Your time sense is equally flawed. An "eon" can be exaggerated for rhetorical effect, but when you start throwing in specific numbers like "4,000 years" it becomes literal and means a billion years. This makes gibberish of your claim that 4,000 years ago is billions of years.
I'm not defending anyone or condemning anyone. I'm just saying that spinning history to support specious conclusions is a form of lie. Read a little, learn a lot.
Chris, I do enjoy your scholarship, but I note that you are inaccurate in a number of ways. First, in literature the word "eon" is used as metaphor to indicate almost any extreme of time lasting over a decade... etymologically, the word (aka aeon) itself goes back (in English) only to the 17th Century Four thousand years can easily, however, be described as an eon with usage. Note the applicable etymological definition:
As for the Semitic occupation of the Middle East it was established originally by pagan cultures and the earliest spin-off of a monotheistic culture leaving the Mesopotamia lands... i.e., again the allegory from "Ur of the Chaldees" of a group which traveled Westward as I pointed out, about 4,000 years ago (and even historians fluctuate regarding an exact time).
What you are not seeming to delineate is a confusion between "religious" and "racial" concepts. They are different... essentially interactive in many ways... but different.
The favored scientific hypothesis is that earliest humanoids have been discovered in Central and Eastern Africa, but these discoveries have nothing to do with "culture" (which can, but not necessarily does, include "religious beliefs" today).
Now I fear you have confused the Hebrew/Judaic/Israeli Semites with a very different and much more originally pagan group of totally different sub-Semitic tribes which never in their own history migrated northwards from the area near Mecca until it developed an influential monotheistic religion about 1,300 years ago.
The Islamic Qur'an does borrow segments of both the Old and New Testament of the Christian Bible which by then was well established in Mediterranean lands but the significant Suras rely on the imagination primarily of Mohammad's dictation to his scribes (as were most writings required down through those eras. Illiteracy was common not just among the poor but all the way to the rulers of nations and did not change significantly until the Reformation of the Middle Ages).
If you wish to talk about the religious developments as we know them today... The Hebrews were many thousands of years first in the Middle East and their settlements have been verified down through the ages; the Christians have been two thousand throughout the lands (but note began with the Aramaic Hebrews); and the Islamic tribes of Mohammad developed at most about 12 or 13 centuries past.
My interests are with cultures, and I have not included the Far East, nor the ancient Greek and Roman and Egyptian cultures within which multiple gods were basic influences. But we should not ignore their legacies which I fear, Chris, you try to do.
There is a remarkable book I recommend, called "The Source," by James A. Michener. Fascinating reading and I think you can get it in paperback still. His objectivity and research is awesome.
btw... I agree with you about the term "democracy" to a point. We are the United States of the American Republic. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are the two noteworthy influences on making the distinction. And how wise they were.
The American citizenship has escalated beyond even their dreams of population size and a democracy would simplistically bypass our representatives where each of us would vote directly, not through representatives. The complexity of that even then is mind-boggling.
I believe their Republic was, in part, a method to avoid not just "royalty" but dictatorship of any kind.
Unfortunately, most of us folks do not understand that the President of the United States is NOT the supreme boss, and, possibly, even he himself. If he were we would not be a Republic; we'd be a Dictatorship. He does not tell Congress what to do; they tell him what to do.
The "Congressional" Branch (our representatives) make our Nation's Laws. i.e. WE make the laws via our elected representatives.
The "Executive" Branch sees that those Laws are enforced. A better term for his job is Administrative Assistant to Congress. The President may NOT abuse his function by attacking another Nation without Congressional ratification.
The "Judicial" Branch examines Laws in conflict to be sure they concur with our Constitution.
One last word about your cite of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of our Constitution. There have been only 5 wars ratified ... repeat ratified by Congress under that citation: the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II.
If you know your history (too much to relate to you here) each of those wars began when we were threatened or attacked. For example: Think of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, which brought us into WW II.
There are others, as you say which have posed considerable controversy. But note the above... each of those wars were defensive.
Sorry Chris... You write well and I think you make good points. But I do love to do research. It is like ready a darn interesting book. Try it.. I bet you'd like it.
There are primarily many issues
1. Time is changing fast with new ICT technologies. We have to change with the times.
2. We should know history. We need to learn from past mistakes.
3. From this angle, Iraqi wars were big blunders. Making most bigoted, autocratic and despotic seventh barbaric and beastly Sunni Saudis, Kuwaiti, UAE and other tin pot ME rulers against Saddam were the costliest blunders of the history. These wars have almost bankrupted US and ruined the US, Britain, and many European nations (PIIGS).
4. It is simply idiotic to intervene in the century old Shiites vs Sunni battles. From this point of view, it is equally idiotic to invent stories of WMD, human rights violations, killing of children, women, Israel about to be nuked by Iran as during Iraqi wars and take sides in Syria, Iran and other places. Again what is that nonsense of sanctions on Iranian oil and manipulating oil prices higher and higher. It looks as though US, Britain, European nations are a bunch of paid mercenaries of Sunni Saudis, oil companies, Christian right, extremist Jewish lobbyst. It looks as though rest of all big talks are a big hoax.
5. For at least a decade, keep away from all battles and straighten things right in the US.
6. Close all doors on Muslims from all Muslim nations and start kicking out problematic Muslims back to from where they have come from. We don't need their baggages in our nations. Take it or leave it: this is going to happen sooner or later!!!!
Their ways are not our ways.
We have to ACCEPT this.
The west can't undo many thousands of years of their culture with military actions and the internet. It's going to take generations.
Or, alternately, we leave them to it and progress into the future. Shut them out and not waste another dollar or life on them.
When they grow up and want to join us, they are welcome to.
ohh how shocking-- another mass murder in the ME! i'm simply stunned with redundancy!
i agree our ways are not their ways that means they should not be allowed to get visas to get into "OUR Country" if they dont like how we dress live or worship let them eat pork and die who cares these people from the middle east ar e the first group which has affected our way of living more than any other the russians poles germans italians irish etc did not try to change things when the came here for a better life i guess its ok for these people to come here and demand that they are allowed to build huge mosques and use mega phones for a call to prayers these things belong in the countries they came from not the one they chose to adopt as their new home
I agree.
But some think that protecting your own cultural identity is racist!
Our cultural idenity is a mix of immigrants. Our cultural identity is a place where where all persecuted people can live together with the freedom to keep their own thing. Racism is not our cultural identity. Everyone the same is Not our identity. Too many have forgotten (or maybe never even taught). We are supposed to the Globe of people showing that we CAN live together. Are you saying it can't be done?? Are you saying the American Experiment of peace and Freedom is a failure? Can't you just be and Let be? Be the example that we are the World and all kinds of people can live side by side and get along? With Rules against Violence. Can't you? THATS American.
Cultural identity is an anchor around the neck of everyone that thinks they need to act a certain way because they belong to a certain "group" that was arbitrarily established and named centuries ago. It's useless, and fuels resentment and needless tribalism as people try to bolster their "side" against its enemies, real and imagined.
It's a free country. Choose your own identity.
Well yeah, but still, do you, Julea and SF, welcome these 'cultures' with open arms?
That's a bit suicidal, don't you think?
I don't want MY culture (in the US, whatever it is and however you define it) to become THEIR culture because we are too wimpy to stand up for ourselves and cower behind PC delusions.
They suck. Period. We don't suck - as much. Period.
They can stay over there and live and let live just fine, but I don't think they'll do that.
I don't "welcome" any culture, necessarily. I don't care about it. We have a secular society with a well-established political system and rule of law. If they want to come here, fine, they just have to follow those laws. Beyond that I couldn't care less what their culture is or what they try to do with it.
What you seem to propose is that if we don't "protect" our culture from their influence, then we'll take on their culture and become like them. My counterpoint is that if their culture is so rich and compelling that we adopt it over ours under peaceful circumstances, then I guess Islam is just that great! So be it. I can't imagine this being the case, so I can see no reason to protect our culture from theirs.
More to the point, such xenophobia would prevent us from taking valuable lessons and advantageous aspects from their culture, and probably force them to reject ours as well, while at the same time contributing to unnecessary strife. Being "PC" really has very little to do with it. It's simply a matter of moving beyond fear and groupthink.
Hate to say it, but muslim-on-muslim violence may yet turn out to be the best metric for the progress of intelligent life in the universe.
One thing's for sure - it's dragging down the curve tremendously.
These people are so sick and perverted, their religions and values and whats important to them, is so goofy.
If they weren't running around killing each other it would almost be comical, but this is no laughing matter.
Would you follow that silly looking fellow and do whatever he asked? Sick; and kill if he ask you? Even sicker.
Just don't bring your stupid values and religions to the free world.
Gee, thats what I've been saying about America for years. We do just that but the big guys use money instead of guns to control and destroy us. Just goofy the way we are. And then all join up to some Military to kill people in other countries just for the Big Money to move in. And what do they give us for that? OUTSOURCING.
I'd much rather be "controlled" and "destroyed" by money than guns. But that's just me.
Also, it's somewhat tasteless to complain about outsourcing in a comment to an article about people being butchered in the streets. It makes you sound like you're whining just for the sake of whining. Clearly there are people with REAL problems in the world, and our 8% unemployment rate seems like a petty inconvenience in comparison.
Julea Bacall. Your real name must be Osama, or some other Muslim pig eating sl$ts name.
musta hit a nerve...what was said id true. u should read more not listen to stupid people
Yes, this is just too weird. However, in my opinion, it really isn't about religion, it is about power. These people (probably mostly) don't really give a fig's butt about religion, they just want power and control and they use the written and oral laws of their religion to justify what they do.
It is the same story over and over: grab as much power to dominate and kill off your competition. The reasons they give aren't the real reasons, they are just culturally accepted (in their culture) excuses that naive people accept as the truth. Look at Stalin and what he did, like at what Mao did. These people are just very sick despots with too much power. Look at Sadam and what he did to his own people. This is a deep, yet very common disease of the human psyche and we are only now becoming aware of it: kill off your competition whenever possible, the reason doesn't matter: religious, famine, insults, fear of any sort, whatever works.
Once we are able to see this pattern, we will see that even though we actually know history, we STILL repeat it. Hopefully some day we will learn. Zealots of any sort are dangerous and should not be given any power, guns, or money.
And this applies very deeply to this country too and if we can see it, we can fix it. Wouldn't that be an accomplishment! Wouldn't that be truely exceptional. Fix ourselves first!
Perhaps it is about power to the people in charge, the clerics and the paramilitary leaders, but to the young men being recruited into these abominable organizations, and to the civilians who start to resent their neighbors because of their sect, I believe it is still very much about religion and tribalism.
And even if you were to make the argument that, in the abstract, those elements are merely excuses for acquiring power, there are still plenty of ways to resolve it without actual violence. The rhetoric between (to choose a currently relevant pair of struggling factions) Republicans and Democrats is as vitriolic and angry as that used by the fanatical clerics, but I still don't see Republicans killing Democrats in the streets, or vice versa. So in the end, we still have people killing each other over religion, and that's still a particularly vile state of affairs.
Saudis, Egyptians and Pakistanis are the greatest threat to the world. Pakistan Army is the most dangerous institution in that region. It works with the Saudis and helps and protect the Islamic extremists who are bend to destroy West and Israel. Pakistan Army also protect the criminals who do the ethnic and religious killings inside their own country. In fact I.S.I. is involved in the killings of its own people.The massacre of Western soldiers in Afghanistan is all planned in Pakistan by the I.S.I of Pakistan's military. Pakistani Army train, armed and provide shelter to these criminals who go to Afghanistan and fight and kills our soldiers without any mercy. Pakistan Army wants to see America and other European nations bleed in Afghanistan. Our defeat will be their victory. A failed nuclear state Pakistan will bring calamity to our world. Its time for us to take care of Pakistan before its too late. By destroying its military, we can destroy Pakistan and save the world from calamity.
Yeah, no. It's hard enough to get people to countenance military action in Syria to prevent a genocide in progress, or Iran to prevent a possible future genocide.
No US president is going to attack our "ally" Pakistan unless they hit us first, on our soil. Too much to lose and hardly anything to gain.
Just more episodes from the 'religion of peace'. If these people want to murder each other, then just let them do it OVER THERE! We do not want or need this type of violence exported to other parts of the world where Muslims refuse to assimilate and insist on living by THEIR 13th century laws instead of the laws of the country they live in. No sympathy for these radical religious terrorists at all.
Ya know with all the great software viruses like the one that infected Iran....why don't someone come up with one that either disables Pakistan nukes or redirects them toward Iran!!
Think about it stupid. Nuclear weapons are not hooked into the Internet. They are stand alone equipment. The only way to stop our "friends" in Pakistan is to send in cruise missles and take out the nuclear weapons that we have a fix on. Oh wait, we can't hurt Osama Obamas friends.
Maybe these guys will all kill each other and save us the trouble.
Wretched situation. But this is the inevitable result of Pakistan's aiding and abetting paramilitary groups for its own ends; something the United States, sadly, also has experience with. When these groups with training and weapons are controlled by ideology rather than a civilian government, the governments that tolerate them can quickly find themselves on the receiving end of their violence.
The sectarian killing probably won't stop until the government or military takes firm and decisive action to stamp out these groups and enforce peace between Sunnis and Shiites. If it keeps turning a blind eye, wider conflict is probably inevitable. 20% of the population is too much to maintain stability if they're being actively hunted down.
And all over a minor disgreement of religous lore. Disgusting.
Ah yes, Islam, the religion of peace!
starts as one and then it tears everything and everyone near to it to pieces!!!
Lets see. We know where he lives. We know that the Pakistani Military likes him. Lets send in some drones. Oh wait, Osama Obama can't hurt his Muslim brothers.
Except, you know, all the ones he's already ordered killed.
How can you call him "Osama Obama" and claim that he can't hurt Muslims without irony?
Pakistan has always been a mess, partially due to its corrupt political/military system. What concerns me now is the Iranian factor. Iran will stir up trouble, just as they do in Egypt, Mali, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Qatar, Bahrain and Lebanon, until there is another "arab spring", this time in a nuclear country.
This is one battle that the US should support both sides. Let the anarchists eliminate each other.
Religions are more or less all the same,if Moslems,they fight between themself(Sunnis,Shiites and what ever else there is)all this many Christians,not only Catholics&Lutherans,Calvinist etc.they all say its Them who has the Truth
To me(and not only me)it seems more like Proof,that they all Wrong,because all Religions are Man Madeall those Prophets who say they speak in the Name of GOD(if there is one)God told them what to do etc.are self appointed,no real God would have anything to do with those.
Ask yourself, how many people have been killed in Mexico over drug control? We seem to want to Label these people in the middle east. Most of your drug lords are living in Pakistan. Each one's wanting to control the opium fields in Afghanstan. You can hang up these names(terrorist,Taiban,AlQueda, this religion, that religion. It's now all about drugs people. Our brave soldiers need to get home. They have done their job and now caught in the midddle of these drug wars.
In the ME drugs are just a means to an end. Their conflict isn't about drugs, drugs just happen to be a resource they can exploit to get weapons. So no, it's not really an extension of the "drug wars" at all.
Pakistan is a breeding ground of death and hatred. The terrorist groups hiding in the lawless northwest region are feeding these killings. The Pakistanis Taliban can't survive without wars. They thrive on the fear of the battling sects and like our politicians, cash in on the trouble. American dollars are indirectly funding these murders. We have to stop feeding their killing machine called the I.S.I. Without our money those scumbags would have no way to support these death squads. But the Republicans insist on spending hard earned taxpayer money in that God forsaken poop hole so they can claim there are dangerous terrorists that have to be dealt with in Pakistan and the lobbyists that pay the conservative politicians bills will have their payday.
The world needs to come together and remove nuclear weapons from these nations of uncertainty now before it's too late!
See, the problem with that is these countries would probably be tempted to use them if they think they might lose them.
As it is now, with countries keeping them deep in their hidden silos and not wanting to get annihilated themselves, the nuclear weapons balance is actually pretty stable.
Typical GOP crap.......No different than racist bigots sitting on the back of their old pickup trucks in the fifties down south. Drinking moonshine, chewing tobacco, holding shotguns while they stare down minority voters.