VOLCANOES OF JIHAD

O soldiers of the Islamic State, continue to harvest the soldiers. Erupt volcanoes of jihad everywhere.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

When Baghdadi announced the caliphate at the al-Nura mosque in Mosul he leader of Islamic State called for "volcanoes of jihad everywhere".

He got his wish.

And the latest volcano, in Mosul, itself, courtesy of Western bombs, and therefore Western taxpayers, was the most magnificent, most devastating, sickest of them all. The biggest battle of the 21st Century. Arguably the largest urban conflict in history. 

The mismanagement of military strategy and political motif, the war crimes, were there for all to see.

The Great Satan had provided the jihadis the most powerful propaganda weapon of all time.

And the bombs rained down.

Slaughter was everywhere.

Thousands of bodies lay rotting in the rubble of the ruined city.

The Islamic State mujaheddin were made martyrs before the world.

As murderous, as unforgiving and as cruel as their ultra-violence had been, now they were martyrs to God.

As, in their hundreds, they blew themselves up and gifted their souls, they had achieved beyond their wildest dreams.

Islam was on the agenda everywhere. 

The infidels knew fear in their homelands, the apostates quivered, and the already broken and morally bankrupt West had expended billions of dollars on a theatre of war they were steadily losing. 

From an obscure splinter group of al-Qaeda, the world now knew the name of Islamic State.

Affiliate groups around the world, including on Australia's doorstep in the Philippines, had sworn allegiance. 

In a parallel discord, a parallel universe, in remote Australia, the shrinking of the public mind continued at a pace, with the cultural Marxists running the government's propaganda arm the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the government's bum chums at Rupert Murdoch's empire of tabloids in lockstep with the lunar right and the lunar left infesting the apparatus of an increasingly dysfunctional democracy.

The news had been bleached anodyne.

The response of the state to the threshed, heavily promoted threat of terror had been to allocate increasing power to itself, passing more than 60 pieces of legislation. There had been outrageous, and to the general public little understood, assaults on freedom of speech. Outlandish levels of surveillance of journalists, including so-called Journalism Information Warrants, had been introduced.

"It was a stupid idea in the first place," he heard one of the Watchers on the Watch say.

And Old Alex couldn't have agreed more.

Now, with their phone calls and heart beats monitored, the authorities already knew ahead of time every story every journalist was working on, and could easily manipulate the levers behind the scenes, whispering to their conscripts within the walls.

A little text, a little whisper, an outright lie.

They were controlling the news before it was even born.

Outright manipulation of everything. 

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Screaming and shouting amounting to nothing. For  the flames of jihad would not die down. And the more oppressed a population became, the less productive it was. Until, once again, the people rose up.

The government, Old Alex could swear it, was deliberately fermenting violence.

And the Australian government, with a long long history of excessive, inappropriate and abusive surveillance of its citizenry, and with overt interference in the nation's media, vetting appointments, whispering in the ears of their compliant plants, issuing false, prejudicial or ill-informed security assessments, had blood on its stained hands. 

The very blood they were determined a dumbed down population would be too too deaf to hear, too blind to see. 

It was everywhere now. 

The crackdown had begun. 

There was barely any place in the lives of the citizenry where the government did not reach. 

In New South Wales it was now illegal to throw your boots in the back of the ute, or utility truck as the Americans called them, after work. Unsecured load. They needed to be strapped down or secured with netting. 

The indefensible had become unnecessary to defend in a tidal wave of bland. 

It fell to Donald Trump, of all people, to bell the cat. And set the hares running, with the "progressive" media howling their disapproval:

On both sides of the Atlantic, our citizens are confronted by yet another danger -- one firmly within our control: the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people. The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies. 

Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty. We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are.

We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers.

We reward brilliance. We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression. 

The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it? Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield -- it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls.

Old Alex was as surprised as anyone to find himself quoting The Donald, even if it had been written by his speech writers. As he skimmed daily the blizzard of stories ridiculing America's most unexpected President. There was a simple financial motive behind the ridicule, ratings went up, sales went up. People loved to read about the disaster of Donald Trump, whether to confirm their own prejudices, for fascination in what they had been told would be a train wreck, or simply to stoke their own dislike of the media at large. 

Whatever the motive, it was one of the surprising phenomena of the times. 

In Australia, there was no such luck. The country did not believe in itself. Confidence had been entirely eroded. If you believe in everything you believe in nothing, as the Hizb would have it. A nation divided could not stand. There was no national pride. There was no freedom of expression. The natural yearning of citizens to establish their own businesses, fulfill their dreams, protect their families, all had been sacrificed on an altar, The Tyranny of Tolerance. Ground, smothered into the bedrock. Without any core values. In the absence of a big idea had come a thousand small ones. And hence, people were fined for leaving their boots in the back of the ute. For having too much mud on their mudflaps. For leaving their shopping on the back seat. For daring to dream, in a place where all the dreaming had been crushed.

THE BIGGER STORY:



http://www.timesofisrael.com/20000-civilians-trapped-as-iraq-forces-battle-is-in-mosul/

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi commanders say female Islamic State militants are firing on their forces and using children as human shields as the extremist group defends its last sliver of Mosul's Old City.

The militants' use of human shields has repeatedly slowed Iraqi advances throughout the nearly nine-month offensive to retake the country's second largest city, and the commanders' frustration was on display as they watched surveillance footage from the front lines.

"The women are fighting with their children right beside them," Lt. Gen. Sami al-Aridi said as he was briefed by an officer holding a tablet computer showing drone imagery. "It's making us hesitant to use airstrikes, to advance. If it weren't for this we could be finished in just a few hours."

Another officer in the command post suggested using Iraqi artillery, which would not require approval from the U.S.-led coalition. "They're all Daesh, just kill them all," the commander said, referring to the IS group by its Arabic acronym.

"There are civilians there, but they are Daesh families," said another officer. Neither would agree to speak on the record, in line with military regulations.

"For a child, even if his father is a criminal, what has he done?" al-Aridi said. "At the same time, my men are still taking casualties. We had 14 wounded today already."

Women have also carried out suicide bombings against Iraqi forces. Three female suicide bombers hiding among fleeing civilians killed at least three soldiers over the past week.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi congratulated his forces on their "big victory" in Mosul on Tuesday, as they appeared to be on the verge of driving the militants from their last stronghold, but the grinding, house-by-house fighting continues.

It's unclear how many civilians remain in the militants' last enclave, which is less than one square kilometer (mile), but the U.N. says some 2,000 to 3,500 people have been fleeing on a daily basis.

http://www.inss.org.il/publication/iraq-day-liberation-mosul/

The question of America’s continued presence in Iraq stands as one of the major issues to be considered on the day after the liberation of Mosul. An American presence in Iraq poses a threat to Iranian interests; consequently, most pro-Iran Shiite elements in Iraq are calling for an American withdrawal. Although Prime Minister al-Abadi often reaffirms the strengthening of security and economic cooperation with the United States, he has also recently expressed Iraq’s need to work with the Assad regime and affiliated Shiite militias to hold the Syria-Iraq border, reflecting his understanding that he too must be in lockstep with Iranian interests. In any event, an American decision to remain in Iraq is liable to exacerbate the confrontation between the United States and its adversaries. 

The scope and intensity of the confrontation will be significantly influenced by the assessment of the Islamic State’s strength and the degree to which it threatens the government in Baghdad, which may agree to American involvement in order to pursue its interest of destroying the Islamic State. Moreover, Iran and its political allies in Iraq are interested in attracting international investment in general and American investment in particular in order to rebuild and stabilize Iraq. Nonetheless, the extent to which the Trump administration will be willing to invest economic and other resources to support Iraq on the day after the defeat of the Islamic State remains unclear.