Homegrown Terrorism

Another "Jihad Jane" found:

(Mar. 14) -- The mother of a second American woman arrested in a terror probe says she's worried her daughter is raising her 6-year-old son on the tenets of terrorism.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, a nursing student from Colorado, was arrested in Ireland on Tuesday in connection to an alleged plot to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, her mother told The Associated Press. Her arrest came days after news hit that a Pennsylvania woman, Colleen LaRose, (nicknamed 'Jihad Jane,') was indicted in Philadelphia on a plot to recruit terrorists and commit murder in Sweden.

Irish officials said Saturday that they had released an American woman and three others arrested in the alleged plot, but would not confirm if Paulin-Ramirez was among those released.

Her mother, Christine Holcomb-Mott, is heartbroken and worried about Paulin-Ramirez's son, Christian, who she says is being exposed to her daughter's radical Islamic values.

"He said that Christians will burn in hellfire," Holcomb-Mott told The New York Post of a phone conversation with her grandson. "That's what they are teaching this baby."

Read the rest: Here.

September 11th Around The Blogosphere

Shuck and Jive: September 11:

Inhabitatio Dei: A Real 9/11 Reflection---

Dan has what I’d consider to be a reflection on 9/11 that really has some substance:

As today, is September 11th, I thought I would engage in a bit of remembering — it is, after all, important to recall moments of our history, for this is the story in which we live.

On this day in 1973, Augusto Pinochet’s American-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. This resulted in seventeen years of torture, terror, and disappearances in Chile, and (according to people like Milton Friedman, who saw Chile as a textbook example of the type of world he wished to create) set a precedent for the way in which the United States acted in Latin America (particularly in the ’70s and ’80s… although they are at it again, as Obama’s government backed the Honduran coup which overthrew the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya in June of this year).

Sponsoring terror, imposing military rule, depriving local populations of their rights, their food, their land, their livelihood, their health, their children and their lives… this is the way that the US continues to engage with the world at large. It is enough to make some people want to fly planes into buildings. Which, not altogether surprisingly, is what happened on another September 11th.

Posted in American Politics, Peacemaking.

8 comments
By Halden – September 11, 2009

Threads from Henry's Web: The Problem with Revenge---preview:

It’s 9/11 and the events eight years ago are on most people’s minds. Many Christians will be praying today, as my wife wrote in her devotional. What will those prayers consist of? What is a Christian response?

Shortly before the second gulf war began, I wrote an essay simply titled Revenge! I want to quote from it here:

As a nation, we have been living in the role of Michael Palin’s character. We see the bad guys in our sights and we shout “Revenge!” in the hope that when revenge has taken place we will be safer, life will return to pre-9/11 normalcy, and we can forget all about this extra security. Most of us know this won’t be the case, but that doesn’t stop the wishful thinking.

This was illustrated during the bombing of Afghanistan, and later during the ground war. Repeatedly the reporters would ask various military spokesmen whether they had caught or killed Osama bin Laden yet. The answer? Nobody knew. But why was that the question? Did we really think that a bombing campaign could be so targeted as to kill a single individual? Sure, he might die, but bombs are not weapons of assassination in the normal course of events. Did we think that if Osama were caught or killed that the terrorism would end? Surely we aren’t that naive!

But there is that little program in our brains that wants to yell “Revenge!” and expects that life will be a little sweeter when it is accomplished.

In some ways we face a similar situation with Iraq. I know there is a powerful motivation for revenge. I am a veteran of the 1991-1992 gulf war. It annoys me every time I see Saddam Hussein expressing himself on television. I confess I wouldn’t mind having the driver’s seat of a steam roller with Saddam’s feet stuck in setting cement. I’d yell “Revenge!” and “Take that!” and roll over him, and on the other side I’d feel good!

But then would my family be any safer? Would my country be more secure? Would anything be more normal when all was said and done? Very likely not.

I need to let that resentment go. I need to tone down the shout “Revenge!” I need to consider what will actually make things more secure.

Finally here are 2 posts of mine on the subject from last year: TheoPoetic Musings: 9-11 Remembered and TheoPoetic Musings: 9-11 Continued.

U2, John Lennon And Sunday Bloody Sunday

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."---John 14:27 (ESV).

First the main event which inspired these songs:

Bloody Sunday (Irish: Domhnach na Fola)[1] is the term used to describe an incident in Derry,[2] Northern Ireland, on 30 January 1972 in which 27 civil rights protesters were shot by members of the 1st Battalion of the British Parachute Regiment during a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march in the Bogside area of the city.[3] Thirteen people, seven of whom were teenagers, died immediately, while the death of another person 4½ months later has been attributed to the injuries he received on the day. Two protesters were injured when they were run down by army vehicles.[4] Many witnesses, including bystanders and journalists, testify that all those shot were unarmed. Five of those wounded were shot in the back.[5]

Two investigations have been held by the British Government. The Widgery Tribunal, held in the immediate aftermath of the event, largely cleared the soldiers and British authorities of blame, but was criticised by many as a "whitewash"[6][7][8] including former chief of staff to Tony Blair, Jonathan Powell.[9] The Saville Inquiry, established in 1998 to look at the events again (chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate), is expected to report in late 2009.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army's (IRA) campaign to extend Irish rule to Northern Ireland had begun in the two years prior to Bloody Sunday, but perceptions of the day boosted the status of and recruitment into the organisation enormously.[10] Bloody Sunday remains among the most significant events in the Troubles of Northern Ireland, chiefly due to the fact that it was carried out by the army and not paramilitaries, and in full public and press view.[11]

Other Bloody Sundays.

Here is John Lennon's song based on Bloody Sunday 1972:


And here are the full lyrics:

Sunday Bloody Sunday
(John Lennon)

Well it was sunday
bloody sunday
When they shot the people there
The crys of thirteen marty martyrs
Filled the free derry air.
Is there any one among you
Dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was
bleeding

When they nailed the
coffin lidds!

Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sunday's the day!

You claim to be majority
Well you know that it's a lie
You're really a minority
Oh this sweet emerald asle.
When Stormont bans
our marchers

They've got a lot to learn
Internment is no answer
It's those mother's turn
to burn!

Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sunday's the day!

You anglo pigs and scotties
Sent to colonize the north
You wave your bloody
Union Jacks
And you know what it's worth!
How dare you hold on to ransom
A people proud and free
Keep ireland for the irish
Put the english back to sea!

Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sunday's the day!

Yes it's always bloody sunday
In the concentration camps
Keep Falls and roads free forever
From the bloody english hands

Repatriate to britain
All of you who call it home
Leave ireland to the irish
Not for London or for Rome!

Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sunday's the day!

I must say I like the U2 version better and here is my favorite version of the U2 version:


And here's another good version of it:

And here are the full lyrics to U2's version:

Sunday Bloody Sunday
(U2)

I can't believe the news today,
I can't close my eyes and make it go away.
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long? Tonight we can be as one.

Broken bottles under children's feet,
Bodies strewn across a dead end street,
But I won't heed the battle call,
It puts my back up, puts my back up
against the wall.

Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.

And the battle's just begun,
There's many lost, but tell me who has won?
The trenches dug within our hearts,
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn
apart.

Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.

How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long, Tonight we can be as one.
Tonight, tonight.

Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.

Wipe the tears from your eyes,
Wipe your tears away,
Wipe your blood shot eyes.

Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.

And it's true we are immune.
When fact is fiction and T.V. is reality,
And today the millions cry,
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die.
The real battle just begun.
To claim the victory Jesus won,
On a Sunday bloody Sunday,
Sunday bloody Sunday.

So what's your favorite version?