Islamic Extremism: What The Media Won’t Tell You

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By Carey Wedler at theantimedia.org

 

In light of the devastating atrocities committed in Paris last week, millions of Americans have condemned Islam and the violent extremists it apparently inspires. In the deep pits of Facebook comment threads, many have called for the total annihilation of all adherents to the religion, arguing the Middle East should be reduced to a parking lot. The “less extreme” argue refugees from Syria should be quarantined to the region, that the evil flock to Islam, and that President Obama is aggressively attempting to establish Sharia law in the United States.

While these claims and demands are certainly impassioned, the more relevant question is: are they fair? To decide if this common American hatred for Islam is warranted, let’s examine some examples of Islamic extremism (DISCLAIMER: I encourage you to read the article in its entirety before reacting):

— Islamic extremists are ordered by their leaders to look the other way in the face of pedophilia. If they object, they are ostracized and shunned so child rapists may continue to abuse children.
— Islamic extremists are responsible for more terrorist attacks in the U.S. than any other ideological group.
— An Islamic radical in Texas fired over 100 rounds of ammunition at government buildings, including a police station.
— Another Islamic extremist beheaded a Christian in the Central African Republic last year—out in the open streets.
— Radical Islamists once starved half a million Iraqi children to death over political conflict. When one top leader was questioned on the morality of this action, that official said it was “worth it.”
— One of the biggest exporters of Islamic extremism also has disturbingly high rates of rape and domestic abuse, and very little recourse for victims of such crimes.
— That same society has heightened rates of other violence, and many citizens encourage their extremist rulers to brutalize people for nonviolent crimes.
— One band of radicals, like many other extreme Islamic groups, has been condemned for oppressing women. Its fighters have killed hundreds of children in airstrikes this year while their regime sentenced a pro-democracy blogger to 1,000 lashes and regularly sentences people to beheading and crucifixion.
— Islamic extremists shot down a passenger jet filled with hundreds of civilians.
— Last month, Islamic extremists bombed a hospital filled with injured patients and doctors, shooting at those who tried to flee. They claimed injured enemy fighters were in the building, making it worth it to kill dozens of civilians to maybe kill them, too. An ally of this extremist group has deliberately bombed 100 hospitals this year.That group of radicals is implicated in the rise of the Islamic State. Members of this group are also implicated in financing 9/11.

These horrific examples cast a terrifying shadow over the Islamic faith, but in actuality:

— It is United States soldiers who are ordered by their leaders to look the other way in the face of pedophilia. If they object, they are forced into early retirement.
— Right-wing extremists are responsible for more terrorist attacks in the U.S. than any other ideological group.
— A Christian terrorist in Texas fired over 100 rounds of ammunition at government buildings, including a police station.
— It was a Christian militant who beheaded a Muslim in the Central African Republic last year—out in the open streets.
— The United States government once starved over half a million children to death when it imposed sanctions in Iraq over political conflict. When Madeleine Albright was questioned on the morality of this policy, she said it was “worth it.”
— It is the United States that is one of the biggest exporters of military extremism, and it also has disturbingly high rates of rape and domestic abuse, as well as a lack of recourse for victims.
— The United States has heightened rates of other violence—most starkly, police violence. Many citizens encourage these extremist government agents to brutalize people for nonviolent crimes.
— U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, like many other Islamic nations the United States bombs, has been condemned for oppressing women. The kingdom has killed hundreds of children in airstrikes in Yemen this year, sentenced a pro-democracy blogger to 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison, and regularly sentences people to beheadingand crucifixion.
— The United States military shot down a passenger jet filled with hundreds of Iranian civilians in 1988.
— Last month, the U.S. bombed a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan filled with injured patients and doctors. They shot at those who tried to flee. The military offered conflicting explanations, ultimately claiming injured enemy fighters were in the building. Further, Saudi Arabia has deliberately bombed 100 hospitals this year. The kingdom is implicated in the rise of the Islamic State. Saudi nationals are implicated in financing 9/11, which the FBI has tried to cover up. The United States has refused to disassociate.

If you found yourself shaking your head at these atrocities when they were blamed on Islamic extremism and are now frantically looking for excuses to exonerate incidents of ongoing U.S. and Christian aggression… you might be suffering from cognitive dissonance. You may have also failed to realize that none of the incidents of “Islamic extremism” came with evidence to back them up.

How can you claim to stand on the moral high ground if you excuse behavior when ‘your team’ does it? How can you claim they are savages when you condone the same behavior? All of these groups, whether Muslim or Christian, government or militant, have targeted civilians—and all of this violence is universally wrong.

How can you claim to value the American virtue of individualism if you continue to collectivize all Muslims as violent in spite of the facts just presented? The U.S. military commits violence in the name of Americans. That doesn’t make all Americans violent, nor does it make them all supporters of this aggression. Similarly, just because insane people on the other side of the world claim to commit violence in the name of Islam or Christianity, it does not make all Muslims or Christians evil. In fact, Muslims routinely condemn acts of terror.

What happened in Paris is inexcusable and tragic. But even people who live in the attacked neighborhoods can see that those actions are an outgrowth of much deeper, more complex foreign policy—like the actions the U.S. and its allies have committed for years. As resident Clemens Mama said, “They don’t want us to think that maybe it’s connected to the policies of our government and of the United States in the Middle East.

Similarly, a recent report by The Nation revealed that though the Islamic State began as a fundamentally religious organization, it has attracted fighters for other reasons. “These boys came of age under the disastrous American occupation after 2003, in the chaotic and violent Arab part of Iraq, ruled by the viciously sectarian [U.S.-backed] Shia government of Nouri al-Maliki,” the report explained.

The Americans came. They took away Saddam, but they also took away our security,” one fighter remembered. “I didn’t like Saddam, we were starving then, but at least we didn’t have war. When [the Americans] came here, the civil war started.”

As the author detailed, the fighters resent their lack of an adolescence. “They are children of the occupation, many with missing fathers at crucial periods (through jail, death from execution, or fighting in the insurgency), filled with rage against America and their own government.” And so they joined the caliphate.

You may react to this article with outrage. You may call the author a traitor, a moron, a terrorist sympathizer, and naive. You may tell her to “go get raped in Afghanistan” to see how great she has it in the United States. Perhaps you’ll invite her to be slaughtered in a “backward Islamic nation for wearing a tank top”  (she’s heard it all before). You may continue to spout falsehoods perpetuated by Fox News and the rest of the corporate media.

Regardless of this reactionary response, however, as long as Americans and other Western extremists remain hell-bent on using violence to stop violence inspired by initial Western violence, terrorist attacks will continue to plague the nations that allow their governments to intervene in the Middle East.

As long as Americans refuse to look in the mirror, praising the peaceful nature of their Christian god while espousing hatred and calling for further violence, their government will continue to endanger them while the media perpetuates radical cognitive dissonance.

[Full disclosure from the editor/author:  In addition to working with Anti-Media, I also produce video content on my own platform. See the embedded video above? That’s me.]


This article (Islamic Extremism: What You’re Not Being Told) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Carey Wedler and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radioairs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email [email protected].

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40 COMMENTS

  1. “What happened in Paris is inexcusable and tragic. But even people who live in the attacked neighborhoods can see that those actions are an outgrowth of much deeper, more complex foreign policy—like the actions the U.S. and its allies have committed for years.”
    You are an islamo-fascist apologist in activist clothing.

    • Whoever wrote this is 100% right and insults dont change anything, Freedom of speech includes opinions and i think its a great achievement.

    • The author is only half right, but she is playing into the Daesh message. I agree with her on the saddam issue, some people can not handle democracy . You can not force feed democracy, people have to stand up and take it for themselves or we have the world we live in today. Ignore the finger pointers they are Daesh too. #daeshbags

    • “You are an islamo-fascist apologist in activist clothing.”

      It only took one simple sentence and a split moment to realize the irony that you’ve tried so hard through the use of vocabulary in order to make yourself seem credible, yet a simple grammatical error and your ignorant viewpoint make you seem anything but (as much of an ad-hominem as it would be, regardless).

      Bonus points if you can correct your own grammatical mistake; Here’s a hint — It has to do with your use of a metaphorical proverb.

      By the way, regardless of whether ANY of the information in this article is true, which I would rather not debate on either way, there is definitely a point and that point is that ISIS would not exist if it were not for the actions of the United States of America.

  2. Have to say that the mention of people called Christian committing barbaric acts of terrorism are only but a few instances, and Christians of the real kind call people who do such acts children of the Devil and anything but Christian. So by comparison you are making a point where something like 0.0001% of a population of people who call themselves Christians have committed atrocities, while thousands of people in the name of Islam have committed unheard of atrocities in the name of their religion.

    As for the things you have said about the US and its military exploits we have to say this is true, and we have to say that Obama has turned a blind eye to allot of this, but look Obama is a Muslim and apparently all of this is something he is desensitized to and so do not expect him to get a grasp on this and do one thing about it. He is a Muslim sympathizer.

    • Christians, I was born and raised a french roman catholic, do some research before you start saying we never performed barbaric acts, isn’t the KKK a christian group??? and this is just recent history…

      • KKK is a white supremacy group. It is not a Christian group. And though much of the world associates christianity with the whites, Christianity originated and spread initially in asia minor and africa. Besides whatever the government does in the US is not in the name of Christianity. In fact Christians in the US are opressed and called extremist for their views by the government. The US government is NOT Christian.. Majority of the government views are atheist.

    • Name me 1000 islamist extremists you have heard of that have committed acts of terrorism. Try doing it without Google. i bet you couldnt even do it with google.
      And I don’t know why you are targeting Obama when presidents before him committed worse crimes on other countries. Not to mention presidents from around the world that benefit from ISIS activities in oil.

    • You are quite right , all the mass murders was a Muslims ,like Bonaparte,Hitler,Stalin,Mao……,they even made two W Wars and killed 54 millions of people they nuke Japanese cities they created communism , fascism,Nazism,Zionism,Darwinism…., and their holy pedophile gangs in Vatican burn all the Christian great thinkers, The last 30 years bloody Muslims invade many Christian countries like _ UK,France,Canada,Italy ,Norway…..to export eating of doner-kebaps ! To be ignorant,blind,deaf and dumb today in the era of the information is crime and sin ! Do you know the meaning of the word sin ?

    • Nope, haven’t done your homework You’d prefer to believe American govt violence is a small fraction of a percentage of the problem? You know what?so would I. Wishing it were so, doesn’t make is so. Do your homework, Love, You’re way off

    • Troll or actually doesn’t know nothing of history, not bashing in any particular religion (between you and me, they’re all pretty much the same), but christianity “held” back human evolution for 400 years, killing and what not in the mean time and to this day yhere’s alot of abuse (children abuse and what not), is everyone like that? no. Are some? yes. Should you ban them all? Well, remenber this in your life, everytime you’re on the extreme of a belief, YOU ARE WRONG, the world isn’t black and white, it’s full of shades of grey and all the other colors, but no hate from this side, love and be free

  3. Well said i wish more people would know the real truth,but unfortunately due to mainstream media most people wont. Thank you to the brave individuals like you and organisations like Anonymous for the real and tru information. Keep up the good work Thank you

  4. Why leave the burden of fact checking to your audience? You took the expense and investment of time to do this video, you should have at each step provided clips, documents or evidence of all of the points you have made and to clarify that you yourself are not speaking with such anger for the US government out of having been brainwashed by God knows who. Statement like the one you have made my lady, must always be supported by evidence or it will fall on deaf ears. Without the proof people will only see you as a disgruntled citizen and you will be an easy target of ridicule and possibly a victim of those who might want to keep you quiet from speaking what may be truths. The thing is you may be right on all counts, but you have to have evidence to substantiate what you are saying or it will be considered hearsay. Be thorough and please be careful what you say has tangible evidence to fully back it, because there is too much stuff going on in the world, that can be fueled by untruths that can fuel up unnecessary anger and rebellion. Where are the goods that prove what you said was not repeated to you by someone. Like the game of telephone stories can take on a whole different turn to become untruths. If you cannot back it up, don’t say it on video. A video does not mean you are correct. Further you can embarassed and taint yourself forever if it turns out you are wrong. The burden of proving and fact check g is always up to the people reporting on video to the masses, whether it is the media or you. It doesn’t change that you can be as wrong as the media if you do not provide the evidence to substantiate your words. Your Stearness, or chastising tone and your rather self righteous attitude does not establish your honesty and do not generate a sense of credibility. It is the tangible facts that always do. Facts still apply.

  5. Cognitive dissonance is rampant. However, I believe people are coming around and demanding answers from their government. Keep up the good work “Anonymous”.

  6. It is amazing how many things this organazation does that I support, then spreads propaganda. None of your information you have posted is false. But the circumstance and reasons behind each incidint both islamic and christian has to be taken into account. I am not sure of the agenda of this article is, but I do know the outcome of the people who read this in a positive or negative light, will do no good in furthering society. This is the first article or thing you have done that I believe is against what this community stands for. I am not sure this is truly a website by the real active members of anonymous, but I really hope not. I would assume they would of taken it down though if it wasn’t so that being said, I condone this message fully, and not just the Christian side, but also the Islamic. The whole article no matter where you stand cannot further society in a positive way. I still support you, but this article should be thought through and reconsidered.

  7. Although, it may seem that what this woman is saying is true and makes sense, and certainly, by checking her facts, you could find that it’s legit. However, it is nothing more than an attempt to trick people into believing something that is in fact NOT TRUE at all.

    I, myself could take a few factual incidents and provide the illusion that what I am saying is the truth. That doesn’t make it true. It just means that I was able to use some truth to perused others to follow my bias.

    The facts are that “Muslim” is not a race. Muslims are people that believe in Islam. It is not a race, nor is it a religion. Islam is the ideological belief, “religion”, followed by all Muslims.

  8. This article is written with a specific purpose. To foreshadow specific events as evidence of a whole. Well played propaganda, but even your first “fact” played right in to Islamic pedophilia. I remember stopping a boy sex trade while I was in Afghanistan. We have issues in and as Americans. That does not mean we have no reason to dislike a group of people who have been raiding and disrupting civilizations since 747 AD. Go ahead and parrot the crusades and then go fact check your time lines. Bringing up liberal gun parroting lines like Aurora and Littleton do not compare when you expand the picture as a whole. Ask yourself why we went into Mogadishu. When was the last time you watched Hotel Rwanda.. We have military pride, but to call it extremism would represent your dissonance. Our cultural condemns any pride that isn’t geared toward homosexuality or feminism. I do not have a problem with homosexuality so please don’t confuse it. Just ask yourself what is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word pride. It is necessary for the military to instill pride in our ranks for the purpose of building. The human error factor will always be evident. The extremism of some will happen when you have people engage in anything. A young male became popular on YouTube by trying to shove a controller up his rear because of a video game. We are a messed up people. What seems to occur is that we have a split where people either acknowledge the wrongs or excuse it.

    • Good moral people of all races, religions and nations (the global moral majority) are ham strung in this fight against those who own the world and control everyone in it. Those who would “own” us, do not believe in our moral codes (for them), have no national allegiance, they operate above the law, behind the scenes using any other organization or individual they choose to infiltrate and influence for their own purpose. No religion, environmental group, government, banking or political system is immune. The propaganda and mind control they generate has been so effective that individuals wake up to find themselves betrayed by there own minds and working against their own community without even having been aware of it. (just doing my job said the bank manager as he creates money out of thin air). Every working person I ever known has acknowledged having to compromise their ethics for the job.(job = the majority of our time and effort).
      Ordinary people for the most part cannot conceive or understand that such outlandish schemes, conspiracies, people, families and groups being real, there is a basic denial, an inability to accept that there are such people among us hiding in very plain sight. They are in effect alien, unbound from earth, society and law. they are broken, they are not interested in our long term collective survival, freedom, rights or laws, all are sacrificed in the selfish promotion of their empire / corporation succeeding. They are mentally and emotionally, children with power, ownership, guns, connections and money. if they are not stopped then this civilization will fall like all the great civilizations of history.
      (they don,t care if it falls, they already have plans to profit from the mess, they deliberately create mess, they know how to manage it into profit).
      Civilized….. ?

  9. So basically, you’re downplaying with the terrorists do (even borderline defending it) because, for the most part on a MUCH smaller scale, we’ve done/do similar things (though for vastly different reason in most cases)? When will people understand that standing so far to the left is JUST AS BAD as standing far to the right? You’re doing the same thing in this article that people on the right do (as you chastise Fox, for example), just the opposite…you do realize that right? If you say their views are conflicting ok, but they’re still conflicting if you flip it around.

  10. While your statements can be hard to read, much is true. However you assume we agree with our Govt’ here in the US. This is not true. Some like me do not find god to be part of any of this so again your assumption is incorrect. We see one Christian behead a guy and somehow that is equal to ISIS beheading hundreds. Personally I find you reaching out to people with this in an attempt to justify the wrong doings of a select few. Islam is a bad religion and so is Christianity. so you need to associate the 2 as such not one over the other. There has never been “PEACE” in the Middle East. Muslims only know kill and that’s it. They pray to a God who allows them to marry children and abuse their women. So I would urge the readers to see through this misleading article to see you are only try to say everything and everyone is bad…..and that much is true!

  11. Im a muslim, but im a soenneit muslim, my faith is the islam, the one who tells me our first holy book was the Torah, our second The Bible and the Psalms in the Bible our Prophet Jesus ( arabic Isa ) said there will come one more messiah after me , and our last The Quran Where Muhammed is the last messiah as our second holy book told us ( If christians would accept this they would call Muhammed Amet ), my Islam teaches me if i kill 1 innocent person no matter what religion i kill all mankind, i will burn in hell for that, my islam teaches me to love, forgive, teach myself and never force a human in any kind of way, my islam teaches me onlyyyy to act in selfdefense with violonce if there is no other way But always try to talk first.

    My islam says, in times of war the ones who are willing to fight and to protect the innocent are the ones who need to obey the rules of war. Never kill an animal, never hurt a tree, only use violince in selfdefense, dont disform a body, dont destroy a house, always try to talk first. Dont kill childeren, dont use weapons that can disform a body or an area with trees, animals, or houses.

    My Islam teaches me the disbelievers are the ones who dont believe in God ( Allah in arabic) and im not talking about atheist im talkin about those who dont follow the path of God, who kill for profit, those who kill innocents, those who scream with their hearts there is no God, those who do evil by killing, decieving, those who lie, im talking about people like ISIS, like Governments, Like Rothchild, Like Rockefeller, people who believe in the Devil those people we are allowed to fight against if they declare a war on us and they come armed at you, we are allowed to do self defense.

    the ones who wont harm you, but dont believe in God you have to respect those people, only if they ask you something you may anwser but you never FORCE somebody your believes. My islam teaches me to respect even those talking bad behind your back or in your face, its not my place to judge them just turn the other cheak.

    My islam tells me my Prophet Isa ( jesus in english) will return for he never has died, he will come to release us all, and tell us the ultimate truth, my Islam tells me innocent people arround the world who are getting killed tortured etc. will always go to heaven.

    My Islam teaches me to be wise, calm, peacefull and loving.

    Your islam tells you to hate all muslims, christians, jews innocent atheist, innocent people, your islam asks your premmission to kill millions of innocent people, your islam tells you that they need you to believe they are the hero’s. Your islam tells you to keep your mouth shut if you want a piece of paradise on this planet. Your islam will eventuelly tell you There is no God or no Heaven there is only the Devil and this planet where your souls can wander on forever! And watch history repeat it self, and hear the screaming pledges of the innocent people childeren, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, sisters brothers, neighbours you call disbelievers of your islam. Because those people will die while saying grace to the one and only God ( Allah in arabic < most people dont know this because in every subtitle its never translated so people get the impression its something unknown and think its some kind of cult), your islam needs to hear they are the greatest your islam will kill billions who put God above them, so please stop forcing your faith up to me and millions of others, our believe is GOD ( ALlah) and we will die with that name in our last breath, and we will never bow down to your islam. You can kill me and put the fatal bullet in someone else his hands, but God is watching, and i will be waiting before the gates of heavens for Judgment Day, where we all were born and all have to face our lives, and we all will pay for our sins, there with guilt in your eyes, your islam will bow down befor the Almighty and plegde for forgivness, now in this phrase i need to tell you how bad it will be, but my islam teaches me to pray for all the souls, pray for them that they will be forgiven, pray that those souls will come back home with you, home in heaven with God watching proud over us.

  12. Carey Wedler,

    Please provide the facts and proof yourself. I assume you already have it. Myself and everybody else will spare the time and effort. Thank you.

    Kristian

  13. read the koran its short; in english it isnt a poem like it is in arabic(it rymes) but one can see the morals of murder and female abusive lifestyle.

    • You mean “yourself” by “one can see”, because not everyone see things from your perspective, or should I say Islamophobic agenda(s)…

  14. It’s interesting to see people’s comments on this subject as everyone seems to use history as point of fact and as a literal translation for whomevers atrocities in a modern world…. But that’s the point, this is a modern world not the middle ages or ancient studies. You can’t use history to judge people of a modern world just learn from it. Many religions long deceased have committed crimes against humanity whatever period just as modern ones have. The point is evolution of society, society has evolved over centuries to form the backbone of how we think and act, thus religion has evolved or in many cases forgotten. You cannot judge modern society with a medieval attitude.alas that is what seems to happen. To evolve is to progress and we all like progress, why else would we expect what modern society has to offer, from medicine to electricity, the Internet and freedom to speak whether for or against. And so much more but all these have been forgotten as it is just assumed.there is no point to ideologies from the eighth centurybeing used to control and manipulate people now it has had over1300 years to develop but hasn’t. If Christianity hadn’t evolved over the last 2 thousand years would we have the society we have now..,no. Religion cannot be used as an excuse anymore by whomever or whoever to subjugate people’s whatever the purpose

  15. Ya, Americans broadcast beheadings in order strike fear in the hearts of enemies and those who speak out. We stone women to death over sexualized crimes. It’s absolutely disgusting how we strap bombs to our children and send them off to play with soldiers… o wait that wasn’t America. Maybe the lesser or two evils is what’s important here as I would never align myself with anyone capable of the former. Too bad there’s no refund on crappy educations, better luck next time haha

  16. This article has a valid point in that the American government has been able to hide behind the curtain of propaganda that comes from the vast American media network. There is also another side in that we do not hear of the crimes which are committed under the name of religion by Muslim religious leaders and the people which they allow to govern. The truth is that both Catholic and Muslim religious leaders are guilty for their silent tolerance of atrocities. This has been going on for hundreds of years. It is ridiculous how the books of god have not been ungraded to emit their clearly apparent defects. The fact that they haven’t just shows how stubborn some people can be to see their own hypocrisy.

  17. “The U.S. starved thousands in Iraq with sanctions”

    Now hold the fuck up you ignorant cunt, the U.N. doesn’t provide permanent means for food or anything.

    It’s a nicety that isn’t required.
    Fuck off.

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