passionate
than usual
panel discussion
can be seen here.
Palestine: Chapel Hill Was Terrorist Act
Palestine investigators want in on probe.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Read Your Bible and Think About the History that ISIS is Destroying Right Now
An ISIS thug chiseling the face off an Assyrian sphinx. To learn what this is about read my article from last July:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/07/isis-is-about-to-destroy-biblical-history-in-iraq.html
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Daesh, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Assholes: Acronyms and Acrimony
You may have noticed there is not much consistency in the way the press and public officials make reference to the bands of murderous fanatics who claim to be part of a new caliphate. Others can do as they please, of course, but for my part, in any story I write or edit, these guys are referred to in the first reference as "the so-called [or self-declared, or self-appointed, or self-anointed, or putative] Islamic State" and afterward as ISIS (which I no longer bother to explain comes from the earlier name Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham), or sometimes as Daesh, the Arabic acronym for ISIS, with occasional nods to the U.S. government's preferred ISIL (from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).
One takes some pleasure in the fact that the so-called self-declared self-appointed self-anointed putative Caliph Ibrahim, formerly known as Abu Bakr al Baghdadi a.k.a. Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al Badri, hates those old acronyms. Not reverential enough. What he wants is for all of us to get used to describing his collection of murderers as the Islamic State. But, let's be clear, whether we call these guys Daesh, ISIS or ISIL, really, they are just assholes. At the risk of sounding acrimonious, but more in sorrow than in anger, I wish those publications that have fallen into the IS trap (like the BBC) would re-think their policies.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Murdered Muslims in North Carolina don't make headlines? You're not reading The Daily Beast.
I have heard the same sort of thing said by Jews about terrorism in Israel or anti-Semitism in France. Of course these stories do get extensive coverage, but for the aggrieved in a community that feels targeted, there can never be enough, and what there is never seems adequately to express their sadness and their fears.
Friend: This Was No ‘Parking’ Murder
Official word is that the shooting of three young Muslims in North Carolina was over parking.... MOREcheat -
How to Be Muslim in the South
After the horrendous Chapel Hill murders, there’s new attention on Muslims in the most religious—and Christian—part of the country. -
cheat Guns Found at Chapel Hill Suspect's Home
According to warrant. -
What Turned N.C. Fury to Murder
Parking dispute or hatred of Muslims, we still don’t know what motivated the slaying of three young people in Chapel Hill. But do we know that without a gun, they’d still be alive. -
The Chapel Hill Shootings and the Benefit of the Doubt
The ingrained bias that makes us see evildoers from a familiar culture as exceptions but evildoers from an alien culture as representative runs too deep to dispel easily.
Recent Articles: Copenhagen Terror, the Jordanian Pilot Burned Alive and, on a lighter but still sordid note, DSK's Big Swinging Shtick
ARTICLE
Twin Terror Attacks in Denmark
Feb 14, 2015 4:09 PM EST
Two dead and others injured after two attacks on a cafe and synagogue. MOREARTICLE
DSK's Big Swinging Shtick
Feb 11, 2015 5:55 AM EST
The former IMF head and French presidential contender Dominique Strauss-Kahn takes the stand to... MOREARTICLE
Barbarians Burn Pilot Alive
Feb 3, 2015 3:35 PM EST
ISIS released a video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive—and the murder may have happened... MOREARTICLE
ISIS's New Hostage Threat
Jan 28, 2015 7:45 PM EST
Mixing ruthlessness with political acumen, the terror group is now threatening a Jordanian pilot...MORE
Twitter and Instagram @csdickey
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Christopher Dickey and the Last Crusades
Once again the Crusades are in the news. Consider this excellent piece by Jay Michaelson on The Daily Beast:
‘The Crusades Were Great, Actually!’
The right-wing hysteria following President Obama’s remarks has revealed a shocking belief held by many Christian conservatives: that the Crusades weren’t really so bad.
As it happens, I have been writing about today's un-holy wars in the context of the old Crusades for many years, so I thought I would post links to a few of those articles here for those who are interested:
Newsweek: In The Name Of God, 20 May 2002
Amid the wanton slaughter of 40,000 Muslims and Jews, Christian knights "rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins," reported a witness to the Crusaders' conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. "It was a just and splendid judgment of God." In the nine centuries since, the sword and shield have given way to belt-bombs and battle tanks, but the righteous violence remains. A 20-year-old Jewish settler praying outside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron last week would understand it. "This is the center of the Jewish nation," he said, wrapped in a white prayer shawl down to his ankles. "I pray to get rid of the Arabs and return the whole of Hebron to its rightful owners." (A couple of miles away is the grave of another Jewish settler, Baruch Goldstein, who shared that dream. He murdered 29 Muslim worshipers in 1994 before he himself was killed.) And 19-year-old Zidan Muhammad Vazani would have understood too. His passion for God--for Allah--led him to a billiard hall on the Israeli coast last week, where he blew himself up and slaughtered 15 Jews. It was the first suicide bombing for almost a month--the 20th of the year.
There will always be Christian, Muslim and Jewish zealots who believe they hear messages of ruthless violence from their one God. ("I did it to make Jesus come back," an Australian Christian planned to tell police when he torched the holiest Muslim shrine in Jerusalem in 1969.) But why do such voices attract a following today? Are they on a mission of righteousness or madness or cold-blooded politics?... MORE
Shadowland: The Last Crusades, Newsweek, 14 November 2003
"Kill them all and let God sort them out." I first saw that bloody-minded credo in Beirut in the 1980s, where it was popular among Christian militias and with American soldiers, emblazoned on T shirts and tattooed across biceps. I thought of it again after the bombing in Saudi Arabia this week, and then the escalation of the war in Iraq.
The notion of wholesale holy war is deeply medieval, of course. The phrase was coined by 13th-century crusaders slaughtering heretics in southern France. (Righteous Christians exterminated other Christians almost as often as they killed Muslims in those days.) On July 22, 1209, tens of thousands of people were besieged by the knights of the cross in the French town of Béziers, some of them heretical, some not. How to decide who should be slaughtered? The monk serving as spiritual adviser to the crusaders deftly cited II Tim. 2:19, "The Lord knoweth them that are his." Kill them all, they figured, let God sort them out.
This sort of thinking isn't ancient history for Al Qaeda. ... MORE
(For more on killing them all and leaving the sorting to the Almighty— "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius," as the Abbott Arnaud Amalric is supposed to have said—there are two unusually good overlapping Wikipedia entries here and here.)
Low Motives and Higher Laws, OnFaith, 1 February 2008
If American politicians thought they could get away with calling their critics blasphemers and dispatching them to burn in hellfire, I’m sure there are some that would. There have been times in the last 20 years when not a few senators and congressmen had that look in their eye, and not one of them was a Muslim. Fortunately the Constitution and the common sense of our diverse society have kept them in check. Afghanistan is not so lucky. What we’ve seen there in the last couple of weeks looks like a classic case of politicians using religion, in this case Islam, as a cover for their own cynical self-interest.... MORE
Illustration is of the sacking of Constantinople, Christians slaughtering Christians in the Fourth Crusade.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Recent Articles on Saudi King Abdullah and the Realpolitik of US-Saudi Relations; the Argentina/Iran Suicide/Murder Mystery; and Preemptive Arrests in Europe Post-Charlie Hebdo
ARTICLE
King Abdullah: The Failed Peacemaker
Jan 23, 2015 8:41 AM EST
The king succeeded in bringing some stability to Saudi Arabia, but he could do nothing but despair... MOREARTICLE
Did Argentina Cover Up Terror for Oil?
Jan 22, 2015 7:40 AM EST
The more information that surfaces about the crusading prosecutor's supposed suicide, the murkier... MOREARTICLE
Has Iran Resumed Global Assassinations?
Jan 19, 2015 8:12 AM EST
An Argentine prosecutor died from a single gunshot wound to the head Sunday, hours before giving... MOREARTICLE
Europe's 'Minority Report' Terror Raids
Jan 16, 2015 8:06 AM EST
Terrified by homegrown terrorists hoping to emulate the gun attacks in Paris, Europe is trying to... MOR
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
J'Accuse: In Spanish, the Complete 289-page #Nisman Brief on the Argentina Government's Cover-Up of Iran's Role in 1994 AMIA Bombing
The complete PDF, just released by the Argentine courts after the suspicious suicide of prosecutor Alberto Nisman on Sunday, can be downloaded here.
The brief passage above accuses President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Marcos Timerman of signing a secret memorandum of understanding with the Iranian government guaranteeing the immunity from prosecution of the Iranian fugitives Nisman believed were behind the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires that cost the lives of 85 people and injured hundreds more.
The Kirchner government has dismissed the accusations as groundless and delusional, and initially sought to prove that Nisman killed himself for unknown, perhaps personal, reasons. But even members of Kirchner's party are now opening the door to the possibility he was pressured into ending his own life, and the forensic evidence has yet to establish that he pulled the trigger of gun found next to his body—an Argentine-manufactured Bersa .22 semi-automatic—which presumably was used to fire the shot into his temple that killed him. No traces of powder were found on Nisman's hand, which investigators say is conceivable given the small caliber of the weapon. The investigation goes on.
This is my write-up of the initial reports on Nisman's death, raising the question of Iranian secret service involvement:
ARTICLE
Has Iran Resumed Global Assassinations?
An Argentine prosecutor died from a single gunshot wound to the head Sunday, hours before giving... MORE
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Video: Obama and Cameron Say Terrorism Can Be "Solved." Really? How? Also, The Fears of French Jews
A conversation with Alex Witt on MSNBC, following up on remarks by President Obama.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Why We Published the Charlie Hebdo Muhammad Cover
The BBC asked me why The Daily Beast published the Muhammad cover of Charlie Hebdo. In fact, Editor in Chief John Avlon explained our reasons last week. Somewhat less elegantly, I made the same points in the audio below:
From my point of view, having written about the obscurantist evil represented by the putative Islamic State, there is one Charlie Hebdo cover that stands out. It represents the Prophet as a caricature, but it does Him no injustice. Rather, it drives home the point that people murdering in his name have nothing to do with Islam. The headline: "If Muhammad Came Back ..." He's on his knees. "I'm the Prophet, you moron!" he tells the black-masked jihadi with a knife to his throat. "Shut your trap!" says the jihadi, who, of course, wants to hear nothing that interferes with his self-appointed role as God's angel of death.
From my point of view, having written about the obscurantist evil represented by the putative Islamic State, there is one Charlie Hebdo cover that stands out. It represents the Prophet as a caricature, but it does Him no injustice. Rather, it drives home the point that people murdering in his name have nothing to do with Islam. The headline: "If Muhammad Came Back ..." He's on his knees. "I'm the Prophet, you moron!" he tells the black-masked jihadi with a knife to his throat. "Shut your trap!" says the jihadi, who, of course, wants to hear nothing that interferes with his self-appointed role as God's angel of death.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Decrypting the Carnage in Paris
ARTICLE
ISIS & al Qaeda Killers United in Paris
Jan 12, 2015 6:26 AM EST
Western intelligence officials are obsessed with tracking rival groups like ISIS and al Qaeda....MOREARTICLE
Paris's Walking Molotov Cocktails
Jan 10, 2015 6:55 AM EST
Like other young men from their neighborhood, Cherif and Said Kouachi had more than a decade of... MOREVIDEO
French Search For Answers After Attacks
Jan 8, 2015 4:15 PM EST
The Daily Beast's foreign editor Chistopher Dickey joins MSNBC's NOW with Alex Wagner to discuss... MOREARTICLE
France Mourns—and Hunts
Jan 8, 2015 4:00 PM EST
A policewoman was shot dead this morning while law enforcement searched for the Charlie Lebdo...MOREARTICLE
Police Hunt for Paris Massacre Suspects
Jan 7, 2015 3:59 PM EST
Hours after a brutal attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, 18-year-old suspect Hamyd Mourad... MOREVIDEO
What Inspired the Charlie Hebdo Attack?
Jan 7, 2015 12:30 PM EST
Christopher Dickey joins 'Today' from Paris to discuss details surrounding Wednesday's attack on... MORE
Saturday, January 10, 2015
On Morning Joe: Terrorism "is not exclusive to Islam"
In the pouring rain on Thursday. The rather passionate explanation of the roots of terrorism begins about 18:00 minutes in.
"Neutralization," or, France's version of capital punishment, with Chris Matthews #CharlieHebdo
My appearance on Chris Matthews (very late at night ...)
Al Qaeda's "non-negotiable terrorism," a war to the death. Talking with RachelMaddow #Charlie Hebdo
"It's not just terrorism, it is a war, and it's a war, basically, to the death."
My appearance (at 3:00 a.m. my time) with Rachel Maddow. Her introduction is long and informative. My remarks begin about 18 minutes into it.
My appearance (at 3:00 a.m. my time) with Rachel Maddow. Her introduction is long and informative. My remarks begin about 18 minutes into it.
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
"Footloose" In Iran?
Amal Alamuddin? Amal Clooney? What's Important Is What She's Doing. A Follow-up on the Egypt Issue.
Please see below letter, published today [January 4] on the Huffington Post, by lawyer Amal Clooney who is representing Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Fahmy.
For background: A Canadian-Egyptian journalist, Mohamed Fahmy is a senior producer for Al Jazeera English in Cairo. He previously worked for The New York Times, CNN, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Fahmy was arrested in Egypt on December 29, 2013 and on June 23, 2014, he was sentenced to seven years in prison, after what many considered a sham trial which featured evidence including BBC podcasts and a song by Australian artist Goyte. A Dutch journalist Rena Netjes posted on Twitter that despite never having worked for Al Jazeera, she believed she was implicated in the case by the Egyptian authorities because she once spoke to Mohammed Fahmy in a hotel lobby.
Al Jazeera Journalist Mohamed Fahmy Should Be Released Not Retried in Egypt
Posted: 01/04/2015 7:28 pm EST Updated: 01/04/2015 10:59 pm EST
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Amal-Clooney/al-jazeera-journalist-mohamed-fahmy-release-statement_b_6414028.html
On 1 January 2015, the Egyptian Court of Cassation issued a ruling upholding the appeal filed by Mohamed Fahmy to overturn his conviction and 7-year sentence. In so doing, Egypt's highest court has recognized that there were legal errors in the original trial. But instead of releasing Fahmy, the Court ordered a retrial and declined to grant him bail. The Court's reasoning and the position of the prosecution on the re-trial are due to be published in the coming weeks.
Mr. Fahmy is a journalist who was convicted of reporting false news and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. These allegations are not true and were not backed by any evidence at trial. Mr. Fahmy has never supported the Brotherhood. There was no evidence presented at trial that showed that he ever fabricated a report or knowingly made a false statement. He is serving a draconian sentence for simply reporting the news.
A re-trial process is lengthy and its outcome is uncertain. It is also not clear how a new process would fix any of the deficiencies in the original trial. The charges themselves are a violation of the right to free expression under Egyptian and international law. There are no guarantees that a new panel of judges would respect due process or demand cogent evidence before concluding that a crime was committed. Fahmy cannot therefore count on the retrial process to offer a just or swift solution.
As Mr. Fahmy's counsel, we are therefore pursuing discussions with the Egyptian and Canadian authorities in a spirit of cooperation in order to identify a swift and fair resolution to the case. We have submitted a written request for a pardon and for his release to the Egyptian President, Minister of Justice, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prosecutor-General, and we await their response.
President Sisi has the power under Article 155 of the Egyptian Constitution to grant Mr. Fahmy and his journalist colleagues a pardon at any time. He has already distanced himself from the case, pointing out that the decision to arrest Mr. Fahmy was taken before he was president. He has stated that Mr. Fahmy and his journalist colleagues should not have been put on trial. He has expressed regret about the negative consequences of the case for Egypt. And he has said that he is considering granting a pardon or finding another solution to this matter. Although President Sisi has suggested that he may not grant a pardon while judicial proceedings are ongoing, now that the appeal has been determined -- and the judiciary has recognized that legal violations have occurred -- we very much hope that the president will decide to step in.
A transfer to Canada is also possible, and has received official support from the Canadian government. We have been in touch -- along with Canadian counsel Lorne Waldman -- with officials in Ottawa and we are currently actively pursuing opportunities to discuss the terms of a transfer in Mr. Fahmy's case with the Canadian Foreign Ministry. We have been informed that Foreign Minister Baird is considering our request to meet with him and we very much hope that such a meeting will be possible before the foreign minister's planned visit to Cairo in mid-January. We would also welcome an official response from the Egyptian authorities to the request for a pardon, and further engagement on the terms of a transfer.
In the meantime, to the extent that consideration of a pardon or negotiations on a transfer to Canada will lead to further delay, it is imperative that Mr. Fahmy be temporarily released on health grounds in accordance with the Egyptian Code of Criminal Procedure. A request to the Prosecutor-General for humanitarian release was made by the Egyptian Syndicate of Journalists in October and it has subsequently been supported by counsel and by Canadian consular officials. Medical reports attached to the original request confirm that Mr. Fahmy suffers from Hepatitis C as well as other health conditions that cannot be treated appropriately in detention. His detention has become a serious risk to his health and he must be released for treatment immediately while requests for his release are being processed.
Mr. Fahmy has been imprisoned for over a year in a case that shocks the conscience of many observers in Egypt and abroad. We look forward to working constructively with the Egyptian and Canadian authorities in the coming days to reach an agreement for his release as soon as possible.
Finally, there is another matter that requires comment. An article was published in the Guardian newspaper on 2 January 2015 stating that officials threatened Amal Clooney with arrest in Egypt in connection with her representation of Fahmy. The incident that was recounted in fact arose in early 2014 when the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBA) -- which was organizing the launch of a report co-authored by Mrs. Clooney -- was warned by experts in Egyptian affairs who were consulted on the launch that she and her colleague risked arrest if they launched the report in Cairo, in light of the criticisms made in the report and recent prosecutions for "crimes" like insulting the judiciary, government or military in Egypt. As a result of these warnings, the IBA decided that it was not safe to hold the launch in Cairo, and the authors were forced to hold it in London instead. This incident arose before Mrs Clooney's involvement in the Fahmy case, before the current president was in office and in a context entirely unrelated to this case. The journalist has since apologized for the misleading presentation of this matter in the article and corrections were made to the text to attempt to address this. More importantly, the focus today should not be on the risks that lawyers or journalists faced in the past. The focus should be on the risks of free speech in today's Egypt. We consider it a promising sign that President Sisi has stated that he would consider pardoning Mr. Fahmy. It would be a promising sign if the authorities agreed to transfer him to Canada. Freeing Fahmy would finally send a message that journalists in Egypt will not be imprisoned for simply doing their job, and it would honor the aspirations of those who have marched for a new and more progressive Egyptian society.
Amal Clooney
Mark Wassouf
Counsel for Mohamed Fahmy
NOTE: The Guardian got the Fahmy connection wrong, the Beast did not. For a full explanation of the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute report on the Egyptian judiciary, you can watch this 7-minute video.
Sunday, January 04, 2015
Diana Conspiracies Redivivus? Please, No.
As we reported in The Daily Beast today, a new play about to open in London is dredging up all the old, and a few new, twists in the conspiracy theories about Princess Diana's death in a 1997 car crash in Paris.
I won't ask, "Who cares about Diana's death?" Obviously there are still quite a few people. But I do wonder who it is who cares.
Those who were adults on August 31, 1997, probably remember where they were when they heard that Diana died. Indeed, many probably heard that news from me, speaking on CNN live on the phone from the hospital.
It was one of those shared global moments, and, indeed, the moment was the message. People stopped to reflect and to mourn, not just for Diana, and maybe not for her at all, but for their own lost years and lost loves. But does anyone under the age of 25 today remembers that event firsthand? I think probably not. And in retrospect it seems to have been completely overblown.
Diana was not an assassinated president, she did not walk on the moon, the day she died was not a day that will live in infamy. She just made some very bad choices in men, protectors, and drivers, and when a drunken deputy security chief at Dodi's father's hotel wanted to impress his boss and the princess, he drove far too fast down a treacherous stretch of road in a car he couldn't handle and, when he was surprised to see a slow-moving vehicle right in front of him, overcompensated and hit a concrete pillar, killing himself, his boss and Diana.
Full stop.
The Latest Cantlie Video for "Islamic State" Professes Too Much
Not sure how long this video will remain live.
But it's more evidence of ISIS weakness, not strength. There have been many, many reports that life in Mosul is more or less normal if you are Sunni, if you wear niqab, and if you still have your head on your shoulders. But as The Daily Beast reported last week, the Kurdish offensive in Sinjar is changing that picture. And, oh, by the way, it has been more than two months since Cantlie "reported" that Kobani was basically under ISIS control. Still not so, as The Daily Beast reported last month and as the excellent BBC coverage "Inside Kobane" established this weekend.
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