Coptic Christians in Egypt Attacked By Suicide Bomber, Newsmedia on Holiday?

Terrorist attack against Coptic Christians is being downplayed

Steve huntley

We’ve heard outlandish allegations of Islamophobia sweeping America. Not getting nearly as much attention is the bloody persecution of Christians in parts of the Muslim world.

Every report of an Islamist terrorist plot is accompanied by a chorus of warnings against Americans hating or attacking Muslim Americans. Yet, that much-ballyhooed bigotry almost never seems to arise. The latest FBI hate crime statistics, for 2009, found that 8.4 percent of the 1,575 victims of anti-religious crimes were attacked because of anti-Islamic bias. In contrast, 71.9 percent of the victims were Jews.

No doubt acts of intolerance against Muslims can be found, and they should be condemned. But Muslims aren’t fleeing America in fear of their lives like Christians are leaving some Islamic nations.

Open Doors, an organization supporting persecuted Christian churches, asserts 100 million Christians worldwide are targeted for their faith. It found that eight of the top 10 countries that are the most dangerous for Christians to practice their religion are nations with Islamic majorities, including Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen. Topping the list was communist North Korea.

New on this year’s Open Doors list is Iraq, to the shame of that nation’s new leadership and of its biggest backer, the United States. More than half of Iraq’s Christian population, numbering 800,000 to 1.4 million before the 2003 U.S. invasion, have fled the country, according to the New York Times.

As the U.S. military footprint has receded, violence against Iraqi Christians has surged. The worst recent attack was an Oct. 31 siege of the Our Lady of Salvation Cathedral in Baghdad that killed 51 worshipers and two priests. More carnage followed in a wave of bombings and killings aimed at Christians. In one ghastly case, a Christian woman who survived the Baghdad church attack was murdered in her bed.

In another mass attack against Christians, a suicide bomber detonated at a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, last weekend, killing 21. Compounding an act of Christianity hate with a dose of anti-Semitism, Egypt blamed Israel’s Mossad spy agency for the attack. Israel is one country in the Middle East that has seen its Christian population grow, with Palestinian Christians fleeing persecution in the West Bank ruled by the Palestinian Authority.

Anti-Christian atrocities are far from uncommon. The State Department this week said it is “deeply concerned” by increasing attacks on Christians in the Middle East and Africa, citing Iraq, Egypt and Nigeria. Christmas Eve church attacks and explosions in Nigeria killed 38 people. In Afghanistan, a prosecutor threatened the death penalty against two Afghans who converted to Christianity. Islamic organizations are blamed for multiple attacks on churches in Indonesia. A Somali teenager was murdered last month for converting to Christianity. The Taliban kidnapped and killed three Christian relief workers in Pakistan last summer.

Just being tolerant of Christianity can make you a marked man. A prominent Pakistani governor was assassinated Tuesday by his bodyguard. His crime: Working to repeal blasphemy laws used to persecute minorities and standing up for a Christian woman sentenced to death under those laws. An influential group of more than 500 Muslim clerics and scholars paid tribute to the killer. This organization represents Pakistan’s majority Barelvi sect, which according to the AP, “follows a brand of Islam considered moderate.”

Can anyone imagine the Catholic College of Cardinals justifying murder of non-Christians? Islamist terrorism is more than a bunch of thugs killing people. It’s enabled by radical theology from influential clerics, authoritarian governments using hate of “the other” to manipulate restive populations, and too much silence, or worse, acquiescence in the Muslim world.

New Terrorist Attack Raises Disturbing Questions

 The hero

The Huffington Post

Jasper Schuringa was interviewed on CNN. He describes how he "freaked" when he saw Mutallab lighting something and then dove across four seats to tackle and subdue the suspect.

Jasper Schuringa has been identified as the principal man who tackled the would-be terrorist on Northwest flight 253. The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, attempted to ignite some kind of explosive device between his legs when Schuringa leaped over the seat and tackled Mutallab, extinguishing the fire and burning himself in the process.
Schuringa, a video producer and director from Amsterdam according to the Daily News, is being hailed as a hero. CNN interviewed Schuringa:

Media use latest attack for more propaganda

By Barry Grey 

 

The attempted plane bombing is being used for domestic propaganda purposes. Under conditions of popular opposition to the expanding war in Afghanistan, government officials and the media are already using it to cow and frighten the population.

This is the well-tried method to justify both foreign wars and increased attacks on democratic rights at home. Once again, Al Qaeda is being summoned up to make the American people more willing to accept restrictions on their personal freedoms.

That a Nigerian national was involved in last week’s attempted plane bombing underscores the global consequences of Washington’s militarist policies.

While nothing can justify terrorist attacks against civilians, Washington’s neo-colonial wars are responsible for creating the conditions for new recruits for terrorist operations.

What has been reported about Adbulmutallab’s biography is evidence of this fact. The young student, from a privileged and wealthy family, seems to have been radicalized in tandem with the escalation of US military violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He left his family home in London’s West End, broke off relations and disappeared during the period when it had become clear that the Obama administration was continuing and intensifying the warmongering policies of Bush.

The nearly catastrophic attempt to blow up a US passenger jet during its final approach to Detroit Metro Airport on Christmas Day raises a number of serious questions.

While many details of the attempted terror attack and the biography of the would-be suicide bomber remain sketchy, widely-reported facts that have been corroborated by US officials make clear that the near-destruction of the airliner was the result of a colossal and as yet unexplained security failure.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, was overpowered by other passengers and crew members when he attempted to set off an explosive device he had taped to his person and smuggled onto Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam.

In November, or six months ago (press accounts differ), Abdulmutallab’s father, a retired banker and former Nigerian government minister, told US Embassy officials in the Nigerian capital that he was concerned about his son’s extreme religious views and activities.

The Washington Post on Sunday quoted a “senior administration official” as saying the father had warned of his son’s “radicalization and associations.” Some press reports say the father also spoke with US intelligence officials and Nigerian security agencies.

The family had evidently lost contact with Abdulmutallab, who six months ago said he was breaking off relations. Family members reportedly said they believed he had gone to Yemen, the birthplace of his mother.

US officials say that as a result of the father’s warning, Abdulmutallab was placed on a counter terrorism database in November, but they nevertheless had no actionable grounds for barring him from flying or subjecting him to any special pre-boarding search or questioning.

The media is dutifully and uncritically parroting these explanations, but they strain credulity. Since 9/11, there have been innumerable reports of people being barred from flying by government security officials for no apparent reason.

One of these was the late Senator Edward Kennedy, who in 2004 was placed on the Homeland Security Department’s “no-fly” list and prevented from boarding a shuttle from Washington DC to Boston.

Yet despite being identified as a potential terrorist threat by his own father, a highly placed former Nigerian official, Abdulmutallab was allowed to retain his multi-entry US visa, board a plane to the US, and smuggle explosives on board.

The incident is all the more disturbing and suspicious, coming just weeks after President Obama announced a major escalation of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan and singled out Yemen and Somalia as alleged Al Qaeda bases where US military attack could be justified.

This episode has the appearance of another in a series of ostensible security lapses which have more the character of deliberately turning a blind eye than mere incompetence.

The case of Abdulmutallab seems to follow a well-established pattern dating back to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

A number of the hijack-bombers were known to US intelligence and security officials as Al Qaeda operatives, and were nevertheless allowed to enter the country, train as pilots, and eventually board the doomed airliners on 9/11.

Warnings of impending terror attacks involving the hijacking of airplanes went unheeded.

None of this has ever been explained. No one has been held accountable. Instead, numerous government investigations were carried out, culminating in the 9/11 Commission report, which whitewashed government agencies and officials.

Notwithstanding Obama’s pledge to investigate last week’s attempted terror attack, the 9/11 pattern will likely be repeated.

The latest episode occurs within days of US air attacks against insurgents in Yemen, which US officials and the media are increasingly portraying as a center of Al Qaeda activity nearly on a par with the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

The linking of Abdulmutallab to Yemen is an ominous sign that these attacks will increase, and the country may well become a new front in the expanding drive by the US to dominate oil-rich, strategic regions in the Middle East and Central Asia.

This danger was underscored by statements from politicians and the media over the weekend.

Jane Harman, the Democratic congresswoman from California who heads the House Homeland Security subcommittee, issued a statement declaring:

“The facts are still emerging, but there are strong suggestions of a Yemen-Al Qaeda connection and an intent to blow up the plane over US airspace.”

The Los Angeles Times wrote in its news account Sunday, “If corroborated, Mr. Abdulmutallab’s travel to Yemen for terrorist instruction and explosives underscores the emergence of that country as a major hub for Al Qaeda, perhaps beginning to rival the terror network’s base in Pakistan.”

The attempted plane bombing is also being used for domestic propaganda purposes. Under conditions of popular opposition to the expanding war in Afghanistan, government officials and the media are already seeking to use it to cow and frighten the population so as to justify both foreign wars and increased attacks on democratic rights at home.

Once again, Al Qaeda is being summoned up to make the American people more willing to accept restrictions on their personal freedoms.

That a Nigerian national was involved in last week’s attempted plane bombing underscores the global consequences of Washington’s militarist policies.

While nothing can justify terrorist attacks against civilians, Washington’s neo-colonial wars are responsible for creating the conditions for new recruits for terrorist operations.

What has been reported about Adbulmutallab’s biography is evidence of this fact. The young student, from a privileged and wealthy family, seems to have been radicalized in tandem with the escalation of US military violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He left his family home in London’s West End, broke off relations and disappeared during the period when it had become clear that the Obama administration was continuing and intensifying the warmongering policies of Bush.