On Sunday (21/2/16) US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Jordan to discuss the (still) ongoing war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups.
In preparation for this visit the US decided to lay down the equivalent of covering fire in the form of a shooting spree in Kalamazoo, Michigan, US. The primary purpose of this was of course to create confusion rather than make any definitive statements.
Michigan state is of course where the city of Flint is located. The reason why Flint was chosen as a metaphor for US President Barack Obama's refugee/terrorist pipeline is that Michigan actually has one of the highest proportions of Muslims citizens of any US state - predominately located around the city of Dearborn. Many of the state's Muslim residents arrived in the mid-1990's as refugees from the various Balkan wars that followed the NATO-led break-up of the former Yugoslavia.
Obviously the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists. Likewise the overwhelming majority or refugees are not terrorists. However in the current climate when you hear about a mass shooting in Michigan Islamic inspired terrorism is one of the first things you want to rule out.
The Kalamazoo - yes it's a real place - appears to have begun in the parking lot of a "Cracker Barrel" restaurant. This seems intended as a reference to an incident that occurred at the "Nazareth" restaurant and delicatessen in Columbus, Ohio on February 11th (11/2/16). Here a Muslim man armed with a machete walked into the Jewish owned restaurant and proceeded to attack people before being chased away. Fortunately no-one was killed in this attack and the man was arrested shortly after.
That of course was the second homegrown Islamic inspired terrorist attack that the US has experienced in 2016. The first of course occurred on January 8th (8/1/16) when Muslim convert Edward Archer opened fire on a police car in Philadelphia in the name of ISIL.
Fortunately the 2016 attacks have so far been nowhere near of the scale of the December 2nd (2/12/16) attack in San Bernardino, California in which 14 people killed and 22 were seriously wounded. However when you are in a war against an enemy that is attacking your civilians at home you hit them as hard as you can to eliminate that threat was quickly as possible.
What you do not do is declare a ceasefire to grant your enemy safe haven so they can grow stronger and launch more effective attacks against you. You most certainly do not supply them with weapons.
The fact that it was a Cracker Barrel restaurant is a reference to the term; "Cracker." This is a term of racial abuse used by black Americans against white Americans similar to the way the term; "Nigger" is used in the opposite direction.
In his effort to disguise his support for ISIL and associated groups back in 2014 Obama launched a racist campaign to pit black and white Americans against each other. One of the "Four legs good, two legs bad" style grunts to come out of this campaign is the question; "Why is a black shooter labelled a thug, a Muslim shooter labelled a terrorist but white shooters are written off as mentally ill?"
Mindful of this one of the first things the police in Kalamazoo did was confirm that the suspected shooter was white. This was obviously to distinguish it from one of the many shooting sprees that black suspects go on in Michigan on most weekends. However the sub-text is that "White" couldn't possibly mean "Muslim."
This of course is a complete nonsense because unlike skin tone religion is a matter of choice. Therefore you can have Arab Muslims, you can have black Muslims and you can have white Muslims. In fact the majority of Muslims in Indonesia - the World's most populous Muslim nation - tend to be distinctly Asian in appearance.
This mis-conception that Muslims have to be Arabs is particularly relevant to Syria. There you have a sub-group known as the "Leucosyri" which literally translates as; "White Syrians." The Leucosyri tend to be Muslims and are definitely Arab. However they tend to have very white skin along with the blond hair and blue eyes that leave them distinctly Aryan looking.
The Leucosyri are reasonably famous amongst anthropologists as one of those little foibles that prove people who choose to see everything through the prism of race are generally wasting their lives.
The suspected Kalamazoo shooter has since been identified as Jason Brian Dalton - a 45 year old who worked for the ride hailing service "Uber." If you type "Uber" into just the news section of Google you get around 95 million results. This shooting could be a reference to any one of them.
I suppose one of the main controversies surrounding Uber though is the type of security checks their driver have to go through and therefore the safety of their passengers. After all I think most people would balk at the idea of getting into a car with a stranger for free. However if you force them to pay for the privilege it seems they'll absolutely jump at the chance.
Uber have now confirmed that Mr Dalton had passed their background meaning that he would pass even an enhanced background check to purchase a firearm. As such much like the Newtown shooting or the San Bernardino terror attack Obama's new background checks would have done absolutely nothing to prevent the Kalamazoo shooting.
The other main controversy surrounding Uber is the way that they are taking jobs away from traditional Taxi companies. I suppose you could even go so far as to say that; "Uber Driver" has become the new way of saying; "Taxi Driver."
There is of course a very famous 1976 movie called "Taxi Driver." Although I've never seen it I have on occasion been compared to the central character "Travis Bickle." One of the main themes of the movie is Bickle's desire to rescue a child prostitute or 'ISIL Child Bride' played by Jodie Foster in her debut role. In 1981 John Hinkley Jr attempted to assassinate US President Ronald Reagan in order to impress Jodie Foster after having seen her in Taxi Driver.
On Sunday (21/2/16) six car bombings tore through two cities in Syria. In Homs City two bombs struck neighbourhoods mainly populated by members of the Alawite sub-sect of Shia Islam of which Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is a member. Later in the day four bombs tore through the capital Damascus in and around the Sayyida Zeinab shrine which containing the grave of the Prophet Muhammed's granddaughter is the holiest Shia shrine in Syria.
At least 140 civilians were killed in these attacks which have since been claimed by ISIL.
The thing that really annoys me about ISIL being referred to as "IS" or even "ISIS" is that it removes the word; "Levant" from their name. This is crucial in understanding both the group and the wider conflict.
ISIL consider it their objective to rid the traditional Levant region of all non-Sunni Muslims. They believe that this will allow God to descend to earth triggering the apocalyptic war that will finally see all the Shia infidels vanquished by the holy Sunni Warriors.
Therefore when you hear that a nihilistic organisation primarily dedicated to the slaughter of Shia-Muslims has slaughtered 140 Shia-Muslims is is really easy to over analyse their motives.
However Damascus and Homs seem to have been chosen rather than say Baghdad or Ramadi in Iraq because of the talks over a cessation of hostiles. If you go back and read the thousands of words I've written on the subject in the past couple of weeks you will notice that ISIL barely get mentioned. As a result they're under huge pressure to demonstrate to their supporters that they are still relevant.
What I found interesting about the bombings though was that supporters of the supposedly moderate opposition found it extremely difficult to believe a group as ideologically pure of ISIL could have carried out such an atrocity. So instead they did what they always do and started circulating lunatic conspiracy theories blaming it all on the Syrian government.
Last night it was announced that the cessation of hostilities agreement will go into force at 00:00 (local) on Saturday (27/2/16) or 22:00GMT on Friday (26/2/16). Like everybody else I'm waiting to see what will happen.
17:40 on 23/2/16 (UK date).
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