SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
new orleans
'I Left You for God, Daddy': Frozen Infants in Gaza and What Terrorism Really Means
Every week, every day, I have less of a sense of how to write about this...
Jan 10, 2025
“I left you for God, Daddy.”
Let those words resonate across the planet. The speaker is Yahya Al-Batran, a Palestinian man – a dad – imagining the words his newborn son would have said. The boy, Jumaa, froze to death in the family’s tent. The infant had a twin brother who was also lying still in their bed one morning recently. The parents rushed the boys to a functioning hospital, where Jumaa’s brother, at the time NBC’s story came out last week, was still fighting for his life.
Jumaa was one of half a dozen Palestinian babies (so far) who have frozen to death in their family’s tents since the onset of winter – just one more fragment of hell the Palestinians are enduring as Israel’s US-complicit genocide continues . . . one death at a time.
Every week, every day, I have less of a sense of how to write about this or, indeed, how to think about it as I absorb the news of the day. Yes, there are wars and hellish suffering across the whole planet – there always have been – but in this current moment I feel less able to shrug and move on with my own life. I feel connected to it: a participant, you might say, simply as a citizen of the genocide’s largest enabler, as strike after strike after strike kills more Palestinians.
In a recent Common Dreams column, Abby Zimet writes: “America’s newest $8 billion contribution to an increasingly normalized genocide and its bloody, barbarous, macabre delusions will ensure more of the same. As Gazans plead for mercy and reason from an uncaring world, they in truth know and say they have ‘nothing but God.’”
An increasingly normalized genocide . . .
I think that’s what’s shredding my soul about this: the lack of any sort of mainstream awareness beyond the need for endless militarism – beyond the world’s brutally divided nature. Us vs. them is apparently the limit of our understanding, with no awareness of the effect that ongoing war against “them,” and the ensuing planetary dividedness, is having on our shared human home, not to mention our future.
Yes, there are wars and hellish suffering across the whole planet – there always have been – but in this current moment I feel less able to shrug and move on with my own life.
A recent New York Times mini-analysis of America’s current mass murder situation – particularly the horrific motor-vehicle murders in New Orleans on New Years Day – definitely seemed, as I read it, like the normalization of genocide, in its implication that only our enemies are bad. Watch out, the story warned us: Terrorism is back!
“The killing of 14 people on New Year’s Day in New Orleans was the latest sign of a resurgence in radical Islamist terrorism,” the Times story informs us. “Some of the attacks — like the one last week — seem to have been merely inspired by ISIS, the network of groups that are offshoots of Al Qaeda. In other cases, ISIS groups played an active role in the planning.”
The alleged killer, who drove his rented truck into a crowd of people in the French Quarter, had an ISIS flag in the truck. The Times then proceeds to catalog sixteen instances of violence over the last five years, in countries all over the world, that were either “inspired by” or directly plotted and carried out by ISIS.
And who the hell is ISIS, anyway? The story notes that the organization came into being during the US war in Iraq, but fails to mention . . . uh, the half a million or so Iraqis who died as a result of our bloody invasion. All that matters, apparently, is the emergence of the terrorist organization, not the US shock-and-awe bombings and brutal dismantling of Iraq’s national infrastructure. You know, the terrorists just popped up and started doing bad things. If this isn’t the normalization of genocide, it’s something worse: the utter denial of genocide.
A few paragraphs later, the Times story moves to Afghanistan, noting that President Biden’s withdrawal from the country in 2021 “reduced the pressure on an ISIS chapter there known as ISIS-K, and it has since expanded beyond Afghanistan. ISIS-K was behind the Iran bombing, the Moscow concert attack and the Taylor Swift plot.”
So, shame on Genocide Joe! His pullout allowed ISIS to expand. For some reason the story fails to note that, prior to its withdrawal, that US military presence in Afghanistan resulted in over 175,000 Afghani deaths.
We live in a disconnected planet at war with itself – and in possession of the means to kill itself.
As Brown University’s Costs of War project notes: “In Afghanistan, even after the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2021, people continue to die due to the war-induced breakdown of the economy, public health, security, and infrastructure. The majority of the population faces impoverishment and food insecurity. The CIA armed Afghan militia groups to fight Islamist militants and these militias are responsible for serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings of civilians. Unexploded ordnance from this war and landmines from previous wars continue to kill, injure, and maim civilians. Fields, roads, and school buildings are contaminated by ordnance, which often harms children as they go about chores like gathering wood.”
Attention, New York Times: Terrorism doesn’t exist all by itself. While actions thought to be terrorist in nature can indeed be horrific, they cannot begin to compare to the horrors that result from heavily armed state terrorism – in particular, the terrorism committed by the “good states,” i.e., the United States and its allies. We live in a disconnected planet at war with itself – and in possession of the means to kill itself.
A year ago, on, good God, the 25th twenty-fifth anniversary of the Columbine shootings, I wrote: “What is power? Is it simply and sheerly us vs. them, good vs. evil? Every war on Planet Earth is sold with this advertising slogan. Perhaps this is why I find myself thinking about the Columbine shootings — and all the mass shootings since then. Define an enemy, then kill it. This is what we learn in history class — but would-be mass shooters, caged in their own isolation, cross a line. They take this lesson personally.”
All of which is to say that war begets violence of all sorts and at every level of devastation. “I left you for God, Daddy.” Perhaps these will be our last words as we exit the planet we have chosen to destroy.
Keep ReadingShow Less
New Year's Attacks Underscore Ties Between Military Service and Violent Extremism
"U.S. military service is the strongest predictor of carrying out extremist violence," noted one expert.
Jan 03, 2025
As right-wing figures blamed factors ranging from Islam to the Biden administration's nonexistent "open borders policy" for the deadly New Year's Day attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas, progressive observers noted Thursday that the men who carried out those attacks both served in the U.S. military, which one historian called "a consistent incubator of violence that returns home."
Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump was among those weighing in on the New Orleans attack, in which authorities say 42-year-old Shamsud Din-Jabbar—who was killed at the scene during a shootout with police—plowed a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's revelers on Bourbon Street, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more.
Apparently misinformed by an erroneous Fox News report, Trump falsely called Jabbar a career criminal and recent immigrant and attributed the New Orleans attack to President Joe Biden's "open border's (sic) policy."
"That Mr. Trump persists in deploying the politics of hate and bigotry is a bad sign for the U.S."
Jabbar was born and raised in Texas. He was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier from 2007-15 and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan.
"He was, in short, a patriotic American who did his part in fighting the War on Terror," Juan Cole wrote Thursday on his Informed Comment site. "He was not an immigrant or a member of a foreign criminal gang."
"That Mr. Trump persists in deploying the politics of hate and bigotry is a bad sign for the U.S.," Cole continued. "Even if Jabbar had been a immigrant, his actions would have said nothing about immigrants, who have low rates of criminality compared to the native-born population and whose productivity has been one key to American economic success."
"Nor is Jabbar's religion a reason to engage in Muslim-hatred," he asserted, decrying the New York Post for "ominously" reporting that "Jabbar referenced the Quran" and had animals including sheep, goats, and chickens in the backyard of his Houston home.
"D'oh," Cole added. "He was a Muslim. He also referenced the Quran when he was in Afghanistan as part of the U.S. Army's fight against the Taliban."
Matthew Livelsberger, the 37-year-old suspected driver of the Tesla Cybertruck blown ups outside the Trump International Las Vegas Hotel on Wednesday, was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier. The explosion of the truck, which was laden with fireworks and fuel canisters, injured seven people. Authorities said Livelsberger fatally shot himself inside the vehicle before the blast.
While given scant in-depth coverage in the U.S. corporate media, numerous observers highlighted the attackers' military backgrounds.
The Intercept's Nick Turse on Thursday published a piece asserting that "U.S. military service is the strongest predictor of carrying out extremist violence." Citing a new, unreleased report from researchers at the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), Turse, who viewed the publication, noted that "from 1990 to 2010, about seven persons per year with U.S. military backgrounds committed extremist crimes," and that "since 2011, that number has jumped to almost 45 per year."
Turse continued:
From 1990 through 2023, 730 individuals with U.S. military backgrounds committed criminal acts that were motivated by their political, economic, social, or religious goals, according to data from the new START report. From 1990 to 2022, successful violent plots that included perpetrators with a connection to the U.S. military resulted in 314 deaths and 1,978 injuries—a significant number of which came from the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
"Military service is also the single strongest individual predictor of becoming a 'mass casualty offender,' far outpacing mental health issues, according to a separate study of extremist mass casualty violence by the researchers," Turse added.
Both Jabbar and Livelsberger were once stationed at Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. Although their time there overlapped, there is no indication that the men knew each other. Turse called Fort Liberty "an exceptionally troubled Army base."
"Investigations found, for example, that 109 soldiers assigned there died in 2020 and 2021," he wrote. "Ninety-six percent of those deaths took place stateside. Fewer than 20 were from natural causes. The remaining soldier fatalities, including macabre or unexplained deaths, homicides, and dozens of drug overdoses, were preventable."
The issue of violence committed by soldiers and veterans gained national attention during the height of the so-called War on Terrord—which is still ongoing—amid a wave of domestic and other killings and suicides attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), more than 1 in 6 veterans of the Afghanistan or Iraq wars screened positive for PTSD, compared with about 1 in 10 nondeployed vets.
The VA also reported in 2018 that 1 in 4 male and 1 in 5 female veterans deployed during the War on Terror who received care from the agency had PTSD.
There is also the issue of who the military allowed to enlist. In an effort to fill the military's ranks during the War on Terror, some service branches lowered recruiting standards and allowed neo-Nazis, gang members, and other violent criminals to serve.
"This policy, which was behind many atrocities abroad, is now coming home," author Matt Kennard said Thursday on social media.
In 2022, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) introduced an amendment to 2023 military spending bill requiring the Pentagon and federal law enforcement agencies to publish a report on countering white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity in the armed forces.
The measure passed—without a single Republican vote.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Does Trump Know the NOLA Attacker Was a US-Born Veteran?
That Mr. Trump persists in deploying the politics of hate and bigotry is a bad sign for the U.S. Even if Jabbar had been a immigrant, his actions would have said nothing about immigrants.
Jan 03, 2025
I love New Orleans, and have been known to hit the jazz clubs on Bourbon Street into the wee hours myself. So what happened there is a gut punch, and I want to express my condolences to the families of the victims and to the community there for its trauma.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump jumped to the conclusion that the New Orleans attacker, who killed 15 people and wounded three dozen more was a career criminal and recent immigrant. In fact, he was an African-American veteran, born and bred in Beaumont, Texas. His conversion to Islam must have happened before 2004, when he tried to enlist in the Navy under that name. Instead, he ended up in the army, and deployed for a year to Afghanistan (2009-2010), as well as getting the training to become an IT specialist. He remained a reservist after his honorable discharge.
He was, in short, a patriotic American who did his part in fighting the war on terror. He was not an immigrant or a member of a foreign criminal gang.
I do know that if a white guy lost his family and his business, went tens of thousands of dollars into debt, and ended up living in a trailer home with livestock in his yard, and then went postal, sympathetic white reporters would be eliciting regrets from his white parents that he was suffering from mental problems.
That Mr. Trump persists in deploying the politics of hate and bigotry is a bad sign for the U.S. Even if Jabbar had been a immigrant, his actions would have said nothing about immigrants, who have low rates of criminality compared to the native-born population and whose productivity has been one key to American economic success. They don’t take jobs from the native-born on the whole, but do jobs that the latter typically won’t do.
Nor is Jabbar’s religion a reason to engage in Muslim-hatred. The NY Post‘s insidious and Islamophobic reporting ominously says that one of his neighbors in the trailer park in which he ended up only spoke Urdu. If that were true it would be because poor people live in trailer parks, including immigrants with limited English. However, it sounds fishy to me, since even poor Pakistanis of the sort who come to the United States tend to know English. It was the colonial language and still an essential language, like French in Tunisia. Then they say ominously that there was a mosque in the area. So what? Mosques are houses of worship where people go for solace when facing rough times.
The Post says ominously that Jabbar referenced the Qur’an, the Muslim scripture. D’oh. He was a Muslim. He also referenced the Qur’an when he was in Afghanistan as part of the U.S. army’s fight against the Taliban.
The Qur’an forbids murder and urges believers to forgive and do good to their enemies. See my study of these peace themes in the Muslim holy book at academia.edu.
If this guy had been a white Proud Boy found with guns and explosives, would the newspapers imply that it is suspicious that he quoted the Bible and that there is a Baptist church near his house? It is 2024, New York Post. Islamophobia is a disgusting form of racism. (Yes, Muslims are racialized in this country.)
I admire the hell out of veterans. I grew up in an army family, just as Jabbar’s children did. Most veterans are admirable citizens who come back and contribute to their communities, building businesses and providing key services. But the job undeniably can lead to trauma and stresses that a small minority deal with in dysfunctional ways. The suicide rate is tragically high. I’ve lost people I knew that way. Some end up homeless. Some are radicalized. It is not an accident that the leadership of the Proud Boys, convicted of sedition, were disproportionately veterans.
Jacqueline Sweet was able to screenshot some of Jabbar’s postings at Twitter / X.
In the first posting, from 2021, he says that a “scarcity mindset” is unhealthy in an environment of abundance, and that if you can’t turn off that scarcity mindset it becomes a kind of trauma. In the second, from the same year, he complains about the lack of Black protagonists in films after Marvel’s The Black Panther (2018) who are not “submissive, immoral or immature/ silly.”
Then in 2022, everything went to hell. His wife divorced him, he went deeply into debt, and the Post says he ended up living in a trailer home with chickens and sheep in the lawn.
Everybody goes postal in their own way. White nationalists try to invade the capitol and hang the vice president. Kahanaist Jews in Israel shoot up mosques and commit atrocities in the Occupied Territories. A handful of Muslim Americans have declared themselves ISIL (ISIS, Daesh), even though that organization barely exists and has no command and control. It is like a white supremacist declaring that he is acting in the name of Adolf Hitler even though the Nazi army was long ago defeated and Adolf died in his bunker.
It should go without saying that the fact that a tiny number of disturbed individuals act this way does not reflect on the 4 or 5 million Muslim Americans, who are our physicians, accountants, and local business people. Tarring a whole group with the actions of a few is the definition of prejudice. Likewise, the Proud Boys don’t reflect on all white people.
I’m not a psychiatrist and don’t play one on television. I therefore cannot pronounce on Jabbar’s state of mind. But I do know that if a white guy lost his family and his business, went tens of thousands of dollars into debt, and ended up living in a trailer home with livestock in his yard, and then went postal, sympathetic white reporters would be eliciting regrets from his white parents that he was suffering from mental problems. As I pointed out over a decade ago, however, the U.S. media treat white terrorists differently.
As a reminder, here are my Top 10 Differences between White Terrorists and Others:
- White terrorists are called “gunmen.” What does that even mean? A person with a gun? Wouldn’t that be, like, everyone in the U.S.? Other terrorists are called, like, “terrorists.”
- White terrorists are “troubled loners.” Other terrorists are always suspected of being part of a global plot, even when they are obviously troubled loners.
- Doing a study on the danger of white terrorists at the Department of Homeland Security will get you sidelined by angry white Congressmen. Doing studies on other kinds of terrorists is a guaranteed promotion.
- The family of a white terrorist is interviewed, weeping as they wonder where he went wrong. The families of other terrorists are almost never interviewed.
- White terrorists are part of a “fringe.” Other terrorists are apparently mainstream.
- White terrorists are random events, like tornadoes. Other terrorists are long-running conspiracies.
- White terrorists are never called “white.” But other terrorists are given ethnic affiliations.
- Nobody thinks white terrorists are typical of white people. But other terrorists are considered paragons of their societies.
- White terrorists are alcoholics, addicts, or mentally ill. Other terrorists are apparently clean-living and perfectly sane.
- There is nothing you can do about white terrorists. Gun control won’t stop them. No policy you could make, no government program, could possibly have an impact on them. But hundreds of billions of dollars must be spent on police and on the Department of Defense, and on TSA, which must virtually strip search 60 million people a year, to deal with other terrorists.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular