The Jihad culture: not that poor

It is a major prejudice to say that Jihad fighters are from poor backgrounds, and were underprivileged and so on.
A lot of basic research has shown that instead, the average Jihad Moe is not really poor. If he’s a Saudi man especially, chances are he is merely bored, and unemployed. He is not a stupid man at all, but having nothing better to do, he exposes himself to truly extreme and sinister individuals and their organizations.
Why do they do this? Well say they’re 25 and have been sitting at home for pretty much most of their life, and suddenly discover that others just like them are doing so much with their lives, they’re interested. Now maybe at first, when they hear that they are doing something with guns and killing, they’ll want to step back. But it will be stepping back to boredom, and uselessness.

In the book “My Jihad”, by Aukie Collins, the American ex-con, son of US army soldiers, is converted to Islam while in jail and decides to join the Jihad, in Chechnya. It is there that he sees men doing what anyone, with the least bit of greed in them, would like to do: boss other men around, and through the means of violence and weapons, lead a life seemingly totally dependent on one’s own will.

So these are not poor and desperate Saudis and others. Most of them were bored, and if desperate at all, they were just desperate for some excitement. Easily accepting the extremist rhetoric around why Muslims should help their brothers [by blowing them up?], and then by more evolved and consequently more lunatic logic, they rapidly give in. They arrange quite a bit if not most of the funding themselves, because they are not poor. Perhaps their family members approve, or respect, or simply ignore the fact that the money will go into killing people.

While I felt “My Jihad” was a decent book, the author did at times get carried away and he certainly got carried away with the whole Jihad thing. He does however, have interesting detail of fighting the Russians, and more interestingly, how the whole wheel of Jihad is completely corrupt with “Jihadists” and their targets [eg the Russians] extorting money out of each other.

This also explains why the most extreme of all Jihadists often grew up in the West or were educated in the West, or even had an opportunity to fit in and start a new life. In fact, one of the 911 hijackers did almost slip out of it, having a European girlfriend. They were neither poor nor desperate. Simply bored, a head with a vacuum, easily filled by twisted logic explaining why it’s ok to blow up mosques.

The Iraqi Election Results: A Bloody Joke

A Bloody Joke

The Iraqi election results are out, and while as I said before, it is an overall success, the need to respect the minorities is crucial.
If this was a country with a huge majority and one tiny minority, I’d have to acknowledge that the minorities would just be crushed and there would be no other way.
Iraq has one majority, the Shia, and plenty of not so minor minorities such as the Sunnis the Kurds, the Assyrians, and then still plenty of others like the Turkmen and Yezedis.

The results have come out, and it looks like the Shias rightly won a major proportion of the vote. The Kurds got a higher than expected result, coming in second. Allawi’s party is third, and in fact I find this reassuring because it means he wasn’t considered such a puppet after all.
The Sunni’s vote is absolutely minor and unrepresentative of their constituency. This is going to be a huge problem if the bigger winners decide to be, well, grand, and give the Sunni some seats anyway. It will be tempting not to do so. But one must remember, a lot of Iraq was under fire, and that didn’t prevent others from voting. While I understand the insurgency has prevented some of them to vote, a lot of Sunnis boycotted the election and as of such, their lack of representation is self imposed.

The Kurds have been well organized for years since the no-fly zone meant they had to sort things out for themselves. It also meant they were in a position of domination for years and have been able to vote comfortably, feeling safe and at home. They also voted on whether they should become an independent nation, so interest was high!

As for the Assyrians, I am most disappointed and sad for them. They were also very keen to vote and finally show that they are there, present, and numerous, but through efforts from various bodies, their votes have been minimized. As I reported earlier here, the Kurdish authority and other Muslims were responsible for providing voting equipment, personnel and ballots in provinces that were largely Assyrian. These towns and villages were home to over 300.000 Assyrians. On January 30th, they ballots did not arrive. They didn’t vote. So whatever the result for Assyrians, it is unjust and unrepresentative. You will know this anyway because they will most certainly complain about it during the next 3 days of “discussion”, unless they are given seats just like the Sunnis should be given seats.
Assyrians are the original inhabitants of Iraq. They still speak Aramaic, the language of spoken at the time of Jesus, and they are Christian –this has cost them a lot.
Even in America, the towns were the voting stations were placed was biased and unrepresentative of where the Assyrians are [Chicago, California, etc], and Assyrians represent at least 80% of Iraqis in America!
Check out www.aina.org, the Assyrian news agency for full details of how Assyrians were prevented from voting, and the daily horrors these people have had to suffer, not only recently, but for the past 1400 years!

So congrats to Shias and Kurds. Condolences to Assyrians and all others.