Monday February 10, 2003 by Bjørn Stærk

Gill Doyle wonders why this story about Ansar al-Islam's assasination of Shawkat Hajji Mushir, a prominent PUK member, and several other people, haven't made big news in Norway. It's been briefly mentioned as a regular foreign news item, (and only "allegedly" committed by Ansar), but only Nettavisen has actually tried to confront Mullah Krekar about it. According to Krekar's brother, Khalid Faraj Ahmad,

We don't know who's behind this attack. We haven't had contact with Ansar al-Islam this weekend. .. Krekar has had several meetings with Shawkat Hajji Mushir from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Together the two leaders were trying to make peace in the area.

Sure, if you say so. Curiously, that's exactly how Mushir was killed - by Ansar al-Islam members pretending to be peace negotiators. From the NY Times story:

Mr. Mushir met with an Ansar delegation at least two other times to discuss the possibility of mass defection, once in the village Sirwan, which is under Kurdish government control, and in Beyara, where Ansar has a headquarters, people familiar with the negotiations said. Another meeting, they said, was arranged for Saturday night in Qamesh Tapa, a short drive from the front lines and in an area under Kurdish government control.

Kurdish officials said he was deceived. The meetings were not meant as a step toward peace, but to lure a prominent Kurd to his death. Mr. Mushir appeared to have been completely tricked, witnesses and Kurdish security officials said. .. He arrived early Saturday night at the house, accompanied by Muhammad Tawfiq Galali, the director of security of the nearby district of Halabja. The three Ansar negotiators arrived about 8:30 p.m. One sat inside with him and Mr. Galali. The others waited outside.

After about 45 minutes, Mr. Galali stepped from the room, and as Mr. Mushir was writing a letter they had discussed in the session, the Ansar negotiator picked up a Kalashnikov rifle and shot him in the head.

I don't know much about the Kurdish conflict, and I won't rule out the possibility that some of the accusations that have been made against Ansar al-Islam and Krekar really are fabricated by the PUK. They sure will benefit from being seen as the "good Kurds" in the conflict when the Americans liberate Iraq. But it seems to me that the Norwegian media is following up leads of Ansar brutality only half-heartedly. Here's a person who might be connected to both al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, who definitely is the leader of a fanatical Muslim guerilla organization, and he's right here among us. Not only is it an important story, it's a great news story.

And with a few notable exceptions, few Norwegian journalists have risen above the level of reactive reporting in this case. Krekar accused of this, Krekar denies that, Krekar to be made action toy and get own talk show on TV, etc. Where are the interviews with exile-Kurds about the situation in Northern Iraq, about Ansar's methods and goals? Have anyone tried to analyze the Kurdish conflict, tried to find out if the PUK and Ansar really are equally untrustworthy, (as is so often implied)? Is Mullah Krekar a fanatical guerilla leader or a pious cleric? Is Ansar evil? Where's the investigative reporting, the hard confrontations? Maybe I've overlooked it, or maybe there just hasn't been all that much of it.

My theory is that this has to do with an inability to confront and accept the existence of evil. I'm not saying that Krekar is evil, or that Norwegian journalists should say that he is, but it's an angle that any decent journalist should investigate. And the failure to do that, I think, has to do with a failure to imagine that a person who sits right next to you might actually sympathize with and support bin Laden, might actually want to chop off people's hands for theft, and torch gays to death. And lie about it. That kind of evil and deception may be imaginable in history books and far-away countries, but it can't possible exist here in Norway. Not when it smiles to you and has such a soft and friendly voice.

To fall back on an overused analogy, I want the press to treat Krekar as a prominent nazi leader should have been treated on a visit to Norway in 1934, with the same combination of curiosity and disbelief. As it is, Krekar is being treated as a minor curiosity, an "evil" "fanatic", a reliable source for anti-war soundbites. What a waste of a perfectly good battle-Mullah.

allah is a moon god, world | 2003-02-12 23:55 | Link

A side issue here is how these muslim 'warriors' are drawing up and signing their own death certificates with this kind of behaviour (sending assassins as photographers, journalists, defectors, peace negotiators, etc., not to mention suicide bombers). You can't negotiate with people who do that, you can only kill them.

Cortez did what many consider a horribly brutal act when he had the hands of spies that were posing as something else cut off before sending them back to their tribe. He did this because what those people were doing was 'breaking the rules' (yes, there are rules in warfare, and if they're broken then the people who break them deserve immediate death, or, to be made an example of in the brutal way Cortez made an example of them). All's fair in love and war, yet when you cross a line and begin doing what the muslims have been doing you give your opponent no other choice but to kill you, and good riddance.

Muslim 'warriors' --- odious AND stupid.

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Gill Doyle, Cupertino, California | 2003-02-13 00:04 | Link

According to the New York Times today (Tuesday February 11), Ansar al Islam has kidnapped yet another person — a nephew of someone kidnapped earlier this week end. The Times says that the organization admits on its webpage (www.nawend.com) that it is reponsible for the assassination last Saturday of a Kurdish parliamentarian. I took a look at the page. Unfortunately for me, it's in Arabic script. I noticed that there is a photo there of our friend Krekar.

- Gill Doyle

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Gill Doyle | 2003-02-13 00:06 | Link

I see that Oslo unge venstre (Oslo Young Leftists) sponsored an evening with Krekar the other night at an Oslo cafe. Apparently, the cafe was packed with folks young and old, for and against Krekar's assumed politics. When asked why a leftist organization would sponsor a public forum for an Islamic fundamentalist, a representative for Unge venstre argued that it was not for them to judge Krekar — that Oslo unge venstre was only interested in seeing to it that Norwegians are informed and able to judge for themselves. Well, that's hard to argue with, and it could be that Unge venstre really was interested in providing a public service and had no intention of allying itself with someone like Krekar. Of course, both Krekar and Unge venstre do share many opinions about the US.

- Gill

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allah is a moon god, world | 2003-02-13 22:22 | Link

I want to make sure I didn't leave the impression that I think mutilating people, for ANY reason, is something to be tolerated by any military leader in any kind of situation. Killing them would have been better than the horrible mutilation of the kind Cortez ordered. Of course, people were getting burned alive on stakes back then too. The kind of mutilation, though, that Cortez ordered in that situation is probably the worst thing that one can do to another human being. It is a crime more egregeous than any the guilty party were responsible for. If their crime were that great that they deserved that penalty then they should have been executed. If an example needed to be made then they should have been executed and made an example of in some way after they were dead.

Currently, in recent years, Muslim armies in Liberia (which the world media is curiously though predictably silent about) have made it a policy to hack off both hands of males as young a three years old, in entire villages that support their enemies. They get childrn to do this to children even. Children with names like 'Betty Cut-Hands' (I'm not joking.) They also drug them up on coke and marijuana (probably one of the reasons the world media keeps silent about it...don't want people to know that people do bad things easier when they're drugged up)... Muslims are the evil scum of the planet, and it's so revealing, if, at this point, predictable, that the world's left of all stripes tacitly supports their every move... To hell with them all.

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Bjørn Stærk, Oslo | 2003-02-14 22:06 | Link

Gill: Venstre is leftist in name only. They're actually centrist Liberals, in the European sense of the word. Doesn't explain why they invited Krekar, though.

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cash advance | 2004-11-26 06:35 | Link

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