My latest story, with video: T-Shirt Flap Pits Jihadists Against Sunday School Teachers.The video is edited down to a few clips.
Many in the mainstream media have turned a blind eye over the years to the global and geo-strategic aspirations of jihad groups. Just this year a wire article mentioned a document and said it was the "first time" anyone had heard of global plans of al Qaeda. On the contrary this has been public information for decades, and the historic root of it all goes back centuries. Instead of giving the public an accurate big picture of this, news agencies were content to portray every Islamist conflict around the world as nothing more than a local squabble with nobody right and nobody wrong. One result: people in the West and in the US become more vulnerable to believing the propaganda these groups put out, and they become sympathetic to them. Another result: there is an 'over-sensitivity' (as one person has put it) in media to Muslims which extends to the nonsensical ignoring of the victims of Muslim extremists --unless there is a 'big bang' in a major Western city.
The publicly-available information I mentioned was in captured communications of terrorists as well as in audio/print/video of thousands of 'indoctrinators' around the world. In addition, you could see it in the internal charters of terrorist groups like the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine (IJMP) which puts forth the same geo-strategic goals all these groups have:
1) Re-conquer all lands that were ever conquered by Muslims and dedicated to the caliphate.
[We're talking Sicily, Italy, parts of France, Spain, up to the gates of Vienna etc.]
2) The nation-state is sinful, and must be overthrown.
[That pretty much covers the rest of the world.]
Don't forget, in 1988 bin Laden promised to "liberate America."
As far as Indonesia in particular, consider what John M. Linder, a missionary writer with 25 years experience who now heads World Christian Ministries, wrote:
"An Indonesian correspondent known only as Ibrahim B. says their agenda is spelled out in an Indonesian-language book with an English title, "Jihad and the Foreign Policy of the Khilafah State."
"Ibrahim told Assist News Service the book is freely available in Indonesian bookstores and "teaches a vision of aggressive and violent jihad to establish an Islamic caliphate, and from there to launch jihad against other nations to bring them into the Islamic Empire."
"This is the new imperialism and the new colonialism my country is facing, and it is evident in the militant mujahideen who gather at the court in Indramayu each week to demand the death of three accused housewives who cared enough about children to try and save them from a future in prostitution," he said. [I often wonder why the media, so eager to discuss American imperialism, is so loathe to discuss Islamic imperialism, -sg-]
According to Ibrahim, "The radicals want Indonesia to be the foundation of a Southeast Asian caliphate that will launch jihad against other nations such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia and Papua New Guinea until they have all submitted to Islam."
To achieve this vision, he said, "all pockets of resistance must be subdued. This is why there have been jihad operations in Maluku and Central Sulawesi in the last few years and why there have been more than 100 churches closed down or destroyed in West Java alone in just the last three years – and over 30 churches in the last month."
Ibrahim quotes page 64 of the Jihad book as saying, "It is not allowed for Muslims to fight those whom the Islamic da'wah [preaching] has not reached, rather the unbelievers must first be called to join Islam. If they reject, then they are invited to submit (live under) the ruling of the Islamic State by paying the jizyah tax [protection money – only paid by non-Muslims]. If they reject that, then war must be waged against them in order to remove any obstacle in the way of implementing the Islamic ruling system upon them."
(In other words, covert, be inferior and pay a tax, or die --with No. 2 sometimes being left out of the mix. -Sherrie)
Those who have spent a lot of time in Indonesia say it is difficult to figure out how all the violence started. Lazy media simply refer to the violence that started in late '98 through the new century as sectarian violence that claimed thousands of lives. (They also miss the infusion of radicalism) One Christian leader said there's no doubt Christians did participate in violence, for example, burning the homes of Muslims or attacking mosques.
One individual I spoke with, believed the first attacks of Muslim extremists were actually against Chinese traders.
Consulting information from Defense & Foreign Affairs, the earliest date I found was in January 98. On January 29, 1998 a curfew was imposed in central Java due to “tension” between Christians and Muslims. The tension was reported to have been started by Indonesian troops firing randomly into a crowd of indigenous Melanesian Christians.
Then on February 10, 1998 a similar curfew was imposed in the town of Endeh after locals, angry over rising prices, attacked the homes and stores of ethnic Chinese.
What we do know is in 2000 the notorious Laskar Jihad, which said it was formed to protect Muslims, announced its intention to rid certain islands (where they did not live) of all Christians. They were equipped with automatic weapons. In 2002, Washington Times asst. editor Julia Duin wrote of areas where the Christians were being cleared out -there would be a "jihad post" set up, with a jihadist armed with an Ak-47. These "posts" appeared at key locations along roads. Each post displayed a picture of bin Laden. And of course we know Jemaah Islamiyah is the regional arm of al Qaeda, and intel officials believe there are actually al Qaeda sleeper cells in the archipelago. (Not hard to imagine, especially considering only 6,000 of the 17,000+ islands are inhabited, and there are rising insurgencies in the Philippines and south Thailand, spilling over into Malaysia.)
There have also been reports of police, government and army officials spotted in mobs of rampaging Muslim extremists.
About the atrocties committed against Christians, non-Muslims and minority Muslims, GlobalSecurity.org wrote:
"In Indonesia, in the Malocas and Posa and Chilewesi, local people have experienced horrifying suffering at the hands of Laskar Jihad, and extremist group trying to impose its brand of Islam on the local people. And both Christians and Muslims, ethnic minorities have had their homes, their villages destroyed when they refused to bow to the demands of Laskar Jihad. And we have heard about this for years.
Not many people cared until recently, when reports suggested that Laskar Jihad has ties with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Laskar Jihad still operates in these islands and continues to attempt to impose a Taliban-style version of Islam on the local people. "
Julian Dobbs, president of the New Zealand branch of the Barnabas Fund, just returned from Indonesia where he met with the parents of the schoolgirls who were recently beheaded (3 died, one escaped with serious machete wounds to the face etc.) He says local officials are "terrified" of the extremists and turn a blind eye to Christian suffering. He also says it's "political correctness" that keeps people from covering these issues.
I'd like to emphasize that wherever this ideology of implacable hatred takes root, there are attacks inevitably on moderate Muslims as well, and this is indeed happening in Indonesia where the Ahmadiyya sect are being persecuted for example. That persecution extends to Hindus as well -and all people who are "other"/"different".
More to come on this.
Also see my story "Muslim Mob 'Terrorizes" children at Indonesian Sunday School"
