RUTHFULLY YOURS

1. The Bloody Gift for the National Day

On July 14, 2016, in the Mediterranean city of Nice, at approximately 10:40pm local time (4:40pm EST), at the 227th anniversary of Bastille Day, its national day, France witnessed yet another terrorist attack, resulting in over 80 dead and more than 100 injured. The attacker, a truck driver, drove his vehicle at a high speed into a large crowd of people gathered on the Promenade des Anglais of the French Riviera city for a fireworks display. The driver, who was eventually killed by the police, was zigzagging his vehicle for 1.2 miles (over two kilometers) at the crowd, so that he could hit as many people as possible, and was firing on the crowd as he drove. The authorities found the truck loaded with arms and grenades.

2. Some Good Stats to Wake Us Up

This attack continues a long list of terrorist attacks in France since the beginning of the 21st century.

From 2001 to 2016, France has been confronted with 18 terrorist attacks on its territory, 16 of which were related to Islamist terrorists and two to European radical groups (the National Liberation Front of Corsica, in 2003, also in Nice, and the Basque ETA separatist group, in 2007, in Capbreton, near Biarritz). The majority of the attacks, organized by Muslim jihadist militant individuals or groups, have increased in a geometric progression frequency and number of casualties year after year.

Between 2004 and 2013, there were 3 attacks (1 bombing, 1 shooting, and 1 stabbing), with a total number of victims of 7 dead and 16 injured.

During 2014, there were 3 attacks – all in December, around Christmas (1 stabbing, and 2 vehicle ramming), with 1 dead and 24 injured.

During 2015, there were 6 attacks (2 shootings; 1 shooting and stabbing; 1 event involving shootings, hostage taking, and suicide bombings [the November 13-15 Paris attack], 1 stabbing, and 1 beheading), with 152 dead (including 130 in the Paris November attack) and 383 injured (including 352 in the Paris November attack).

During this first half of 2016, there were 4 attacks (2 stabbings and 2 vehicle ramming events, including the Nice attack), with at least 83 dead (including 80+ in the Nice attack) and at least 103 injured (including 100+ in the Nice attack).

The figures from the Nice attack are not final. But obviously, in terms of number of dead and injured (80+ dead and 100+ injured, respectively), the Nice attack is in solid second place, after the Paris attack in November in the Bataclan club, the national stadium Stade de France, and elsewhere in the city and surpassing the other Paris attack, on January 7-9, at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine office.

It has become noticeable also that some attacks have been scheduled during major celebrations (national days and Christmas).

Once again, Islamic terrorists attack yet another Western city. This time in France.

A truck crashed into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day in the city of Nice on July 14, 2016. In my opinion, Islam is the problem, because there are Muslims who take its scripture as gospel and carry out its divisive and deadly provisions.

The barbarity and variety of actions of Islamic extremists are seen daily around the globe, committed under the banner of Islam, and have become so commonplace that the world has come to view them as part and parcel of a troubled humanity. From time to time, the world is shocked into a passing and momentary realization of the evil deeds these Islamist robots commit…and quickly gets over it and does nothing to seriously address this affliction of humanity.

The Islamic State – also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh, has taken credit for a number of unconscionable, brutal attacks. “ISIS has actually killed more Muslims than certainly members of any other religion,” noted Democracy Now via Amy Goodman after the Paris attacks. Muslims are the victims of “Between 82 and 97% of Terrorism-Related Fatalities,” according to the U.S. government.

Based on the above premises, a Muslim has a greater chance to become prey of ISIS than to join it, and the huge majority of the group’s victims are fellow members of the belief. This is due to the political motivations behind ISIS rather than religious ones, where it’s receiving arms and funding from nations like Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf sheikhdom. Can the incomparably larger number of Muslims in the world who are so rightly terrified today come together with their own vision – which includes denouncing the extremists? I don’t know.

A common and repeated mantra among experts is that Muslims haven’t bluntly condemned the extremism committed in Islam’s name. How many times we have heard “Where are the moderate and peaceful Muslim voices in condemnation?” “Why aren’t Muslims speaking up against extremists like ISIS?”

If Muslims want to live in peace and harmony with the infidels, they must work together and respect our laws. Let us not forget that religious high authorities play a critical role in steering the masses toward or away from hate. Fatwas – religious decrees – by Islamic muftis and ayatollahs carry considerable weight with their respective followers. Sadly, most decrees and adjudications of these high Islamic authorities are exclusionary and even hostile toward the out-groups.

People are familiar with Islam’s classification of the world into the Dar-ul-Solh, the house of peace, meaning the house of Islam, and the Dar-ul-Harb, the house of war, meaning the house of non-Islam. Ironically, the self-proclaimed house of peace, from its early years, has waged war against the house of war.

Also there is a little-known third “house” according to Islam: Dar-ul-Aman, the non-Islam house of safety where Muslims find refuge. We already know which of the three houses America is to al-Qaeda, the Iranian mullahs, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, and their ilk.

Supporters of Islamic State on social media cheered the truck attack in the southern French city of Nice that killed at least 80 people, though the extremist group hasn’t yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Late on Thursday, a truck driver slammed into a crowd packed with families that had come to see the Bastille Day celebratory fireworks at the seaside promenade, killing and injuring scores of people. President François Hollande said the attack had “undeniable traits of terrorism.”

Pro-Islamic State accounts on social media celebrated the attack, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity. Related messages—many of which were made in a coordinated fashion—expressed the belief that the extremist group was responsible for the attack, though the attack has so far not been claimed by any group, SITE said.

As it suffers setbacks in its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq that have made it harder for recruits to join the group on the battlefield, Islamic State has increasingly called for more attacks elsewhere. In recent weeks, supporters with suspected or confirmed ties to Islamic State have launched deadly strikes in Turkey, Iraq and Bangladesh.

The attack in Nice came after a series of deadly terrorist attacks in France over the last two years, including one of the bloodiest assaults in the country’s history in November, when a series of attacks in Paris left 130 people dead. Last month, a man who pledged allegiance to Islamic State killed a police captain and his companion in a suburb of the French capital.

This was another enlightening Hudson Institute panel examining Tunisia’s unique, shaky experiment in Arab democracy.
Expert Eric Brown discussed the “historical convulsion which shows no sign of ending anytime soon across the region” in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) during a June 29 Washington, DC, Hudson Institute panel. In this upheaval, as his Hudson Institute colleague Samuel Tadros examined with the panelists, the sole democratic success of the “Arab Spring,” Tunisia, forms an unsteady “beacon of hope” amidst the region’s few positive developments.
Brown described MENA’s “implosion of the state-based order” following the 2011 “Arab Spring” outbreak of popular revolts against undemocratic regimes across the region. Washington Institute for Near East Policy expert Sarah Feuer particularly cited “how to cauterize Libya,” a failed state riven by sectarian fighting, as a key North African stability issue. As Tadros noted, one million Libyan refugees in neighboring Tunisia, about ten percent of the country’s population, have seriously strained housing and education resources there.
The “Arab Spring,” by contrast, “was relatively tame” in Morocco, Feuer stated, a country that has pursued under its monarchy a “tried and true preference for a very gradual type of reform.” She cited the expanded parliamentary powers and human rights provisions of the 2011 constitution, while Brown credited Morocco with MENA’s most “comprehensive Countering Violent Extremism strategy.” Morocco’s security sector, anti-corruption, and rule of law reforms demonstrate that the government has attempted to “find chinks in its armor” and “close the doors that predatory groups in the region have managed to use,” he stated. “The monarchy in Morocco has managed to stay ahead of the curve” of political unrest, Tadros concurred.

The panel focused on the problems confronting what others have previously described as Tunisia’s unique post-2011 “fragile success” in creating Arab democracy, described by Feuer as “tiny Tunisia hanging in there.” Despite Tunisian organizations having won a Nobel Peace Prize for their success in guiding the country’s democratic transition, “Tunisia is facing real trouble” and “serious divides within society,” Tadros stated. Tunisia’s coastal region, for example, is far more developed than the interior long neglected by Tunisia’s deposed dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
Tadros and the other panelists particularly noted Tunisia’s conflict between secularists and Islamists like the Ennahda Party. Comparing Tunisia’s dictatorship with Iraq and Egypt, Brown analogized that Ben Ali “was much more of a Saddam Hussein than a [Hosni] Mubarak” and brutally tyrannized Tunisians, leaving behind deep societal distrust. During Brown’s recent visits to Tunisia, secularists referred to Ennahda members as “animals,” while they reciprocated by suspecting trade unionists of being French defense ministry agents.
Tadros noted improved cooperation between Tunisian secularists and Islamists while Feuer credited Ennahda with a stabilizing role by having “swallowed some very difficult decisions along the way” during Tunisia’s democratization. Yet he wondered whether the youth would follow the moderate path taken by aging party leaders like Ennahda’s Rashid Ghannouchi and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, head of the secular Nidaa Tounes party. He had attended Ennahda’s 2016 congress where Ghannouchi announced a party of “Muslim democrats.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/terror-attack-in-nice-on-bastille-day-kills-dozens-1468569739

NICE—The death toll from the truck attack in the French Riviera rose to 84 people, with another 18 people critically injured, the interior ministry said Friday morning, as the nation reeled from its third major terrorist attack in the last 18 months.

The ministry said there were “several children” among the dead in Nice after a truck driver late Thursday barreled for more than a mile through a seaside promenade thronging with revelers celebrating Bastille Day. The promenade had been cleared of vehicles for a fireworks display.

Much of the waterfront was barricaded by police officers Friday morning, and the usually bustling beachfront was silent. Dozens of residents and tourists surveyed the area in shock, many in tears.

Young people sat wrapped in blankets outside the Centre Universitaire Méditerranéen, which had been used for psychological counseling overnight.

Gilles Giordani, a musician who performed at Bastille Day celebrations Thursday evening, said he had escaped the onrushing truck.

“I heard people screaming and running, and saw the truck coming behind me as the second band was starting to play,” he said. “I followed them. I ran and jumped onto the beach to save myself.”

Mr. Giordani said he was waved into a beachfront restaurant, which the owners locked with dozens of people inside to protect them from the attack. CONTINUE AT SITE