“Talking Honestly About Islamic Hate Speech” | History News Network

May 11, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

The debate between the “religion is the culprit” camp and the “circumstances” camp continues. As I’ve said before I don’t think it’s an either/or problem. Particular circumstances drive people toward certain kinds of beliefs. Or, to put it another way, certain circumstances, such as lack of opportunity, perceived or real oppression, etc., make certain ideas appealing. This does not mean that those who take up those beliefs do not hold them wholeheartedly. For example, the post-war conditions in Germany made Nazi ideology appealing. Without the Great Depression, the Nazis may have remained a fringe group.

But unfortunately the current debate over Islamic terrorism is driven by the it’s either religion or its circumstances narrative. Those putting forward the circumstances are rightly concerned that some will blame all Muslims if we attribute the violence to religion. But the solution to this problem is not to ignore the evidence that those associated with terrorist organizations like ISIS are not motivated by a particular interpretation of Islam (one that most Muslims reject!). Instead we must make it clear that it is wrong to indict an entire group of people based on the actions of a few of them.

At the History News Network, Timothy R. Furnish describes the polemics between these two camps at a recent conference (“Apocalyptic Hopes, Millennial Dreams and Global Jihad”). In doing so, he gave some great advice on how to deal with the problem of the eschatological thinking characteristic of the current Islamic terrorist groups. He argues that “modern attempts to de-fang apocalyptic groups (overt ones like ISIS; quasi-eschatological ones like Syria’s Jabhat al-Nusrah) need to emulate the Ottoman example: that is, actually employ Islamic religious texts (Qur’an, hadiths, scholarly works) to undermine eschatological jihadists (as I first called for in August 2014). Simply labeling them “non-Muslim” will not do the trick.” Read the entire article here:

History News Network | Talking Honestly About Islamic Hate Speech.

History News Network | What We now Know About the Birth of Israel Thanks to the Opening of British MI5 Archives

April 22, 2015April 22, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

This is an interesting interview with Bruce Hoffman, author of Anonymous Soldiers. Here is one of the questions he answers: “In the preface to Anonymous Soldiers, you ask the question, ‘does terrorism work?’ What are the circumstances and factors that enable some terrorist campaigns to succeed and others to fail based on the lessons from the Irgun and Lehi’s campaigns?” Read the entire interview here:

History News Network | What We now Know About the Birth of Israel Thanks to the Opening of British MI5 Archives.

Remembering the Oklahoma City bombing 20 years later – Yahoo News

April 19, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

My hope is that the memory of this event will serve as a constant reminder of the consequences of hatred and revenge.

Twenty years ago today Timothy McVeigh drove up to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City with a truck full of explosives. When the bomb detonated it killed 168 people, 19 of which were children. Before 9/11 this was the single most deadly act of terrorism in the United States. When this happened, I was getting ready to graduate from ASU with my B.S. What should have been an exciting time suddenly became a time of despair. I had already become cynical as a result of the hate-filled radio shows and the nasty politics that I had recently become aware of and I was certain that there was a connection between the hate mongering and this act of terror. McVeigh’s hatred of the federal government was not the result of just the blunder at Waco, where David Koresh and many of his followers were killed, it was just the final straw in a series perceived threats. He was part of a culture that saw the world divided between themselves with their guns and the government that was trying to take their guns away. In his hatred McVeigh couldn’t see that the “evil” federal government was made up of average Americans just trying to live their lives.

Remembering the Oklahoma City bombing 20 years later – Yahoo News.

A Higher Form of Killing: Six Weeks in World War One That Forever Changed the Nature of Warfare by Diana Preston, review: ‘authoritative’ – Telegraph

April 8, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

This looks like a great book. Read Nigel Jones’ book review at the Telegraph:

A Higher Form of Killing: Six Weeks in World War One That Forever Changed the Nature of Warfare by Diana Preston, review: ‘authoritative’ – Telegraph.

History News Network | This Is When Muslims in the Middle East Turned to Extremism

March 7, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

The historical context laid out by Richard Drake is important to remember as we try to understand the worldview of radical Islamic terrorists. Richard Drake: “When considering the emergence of radical Islam or any of its actions down to the Charlie Hebdo massacre of 2015, it is necessary to keep in mind the deep historical background extending all the way to Sèvres. These distant events are in the foreground of the Muslim radicals inspired by Osama bin Laden.” Read the entire article here:

History News Network | This Is When Muslims in the Middle East Turned to Extremism.

The Big Four at the Paris Peace Conference (1919)

The First Victims of the First Crusade – NYTimes.com

February 16, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Reflecting on the current religious violence Susan Jacoby turns to the history of the Crusades for insight. But it is not the Christian conflict with the Muslims that she finds most useful; instead she turns to the Crusades first victims: the Jews. To Jacoby, the Christian attack on the Jews “highlights several elements analogous to the actions of modern terrorist groups. These include attempts at forced conversion; the murders of women and children; and the imposition of financial penalties on coerced converts who try to remain in their homes.” From this comparison she concludes: “What we actually see today is a standard of medieval behavior upheld by modern fanatics who, like the crusaders, seek both religious and political power through violent means. They offer a ghastly and ghostly reminder of what the Western world might look like had there never been religious reformations, the Enlightenment and, above all, the separation of church and state.” You can read the entire article at The New York Times:

The First Victims of the First Crusade – NYTimes.com.

Iraqi Libraries Ransacked by Islamic State Group in Mosul – ABC News

February 4, 2015 / Debbie / 1 Comment

“When Islamic State group militants invaded the Central Library of Mosul earlier this month, they were on a mission to destroy a familiar enemy: other people’s ideas.” These people are truly barbarians! The beheadings, the burning of the Jordanian pilot, the killing of anyone who disagrees with them, the treatment of women, the destruction of ancient sites, and now the burning of books. Is there any shred of humanity left in these radicals?

Iraqi Libraries Ransacked by Islamic State Group in Mosul – ABC News.

History News Network | Terror in Paris – An Analysis

January 23, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

The historian Lawrence Davidson offers a reasonable solution to the cycle of violence we are currently stuck in, but I’m afraid that he’s also correct that “there may be a perverse correlation between how much blood is shed and our eventual moment of self-examination.” If history is any guide there will be a lot more blood shed before begin to seriously self-reflect and commit to the hard choices that will end the vicious cycle.

History News Network | Terror in Paris – An Analysis.

History News Network | Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris

January 9, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Juan Cole has an interesting take on the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack: “This horrific murder was not a pious protest against the defamation of a religious icon. It was an attempt to provoke European society into pogroms against French Muslims, at which point al-Qaeda recruitment would suddenly exhibit some successes instead of faltering in the face of lively Beur youth culture (French Arabs playfully call themselves by this anagram).” It is certainly a possibility, but I’m not convinced at this point. It has happened before (as Cole points out) so it is not out of the question. However, this would assume that these men were carrying out an Al-Qaeda strategy rather than being lone wolves. At this point we don’t know enough. Either way, Cole is correct that this event will polarize the French population unless they have the fortitude to follow Cole’s advice: “The only effective response to this manipulative strategy (as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tried to tell the Iraqi Shiites a decade ago) is to resist the impulse to blame an entire group for the actions of a few and to refuse to carry out identity-politics reprisals.” Read his entire essay at:

History News Network | Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris.

History News Network | Are We a Great Nation?

December 29, 2014December 29, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

The historian Steve Hochstadt comments on the Senate Intelligence Committee Report and concludes: “It is noteworthy that those conservative Americans who insist most loudly that we should follow the founding documents literally, and who also insist that the US is an exceptional nation because of its moral virtue, defend torture because they believe it is effective. The rejection of torture as immoral has now become a “liberal” idea, just as it was in the 18th century, when the most liberal political leaders in the world founded our nation.” Read his assessment at:

History News Network | Are We a Great Nation?.