Patterico's Pontifications

5/5/2014

‘Bring Back Our Girls’

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:14 am

[guest post by Dana]

#BringBackOurGirls

There is evil in this world and when it makes its insidious appearance, one offers quiet humble prayers of hope for those in need. It seems small and simple and in the big picture, likely is. But this is how it is. This is what we do, those of us who know and recognize the gift of peace we dwell in each and every day. Ours is indeed a privilege.

In mid-April, 276 school girls were abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria, as they slept in their dormitories. Their attackers lit the school on fire, herded the girls onto waiting trucks, and disappeared into the darkness of night.

The kidnapped girls ranged in age from 15 and 18 years old and haven’t been heard from since April 14. However, of the 276 kidnapped, 53 were able to escape.

Their kidnappers are an extremist Muslim group called Boko Haram, whose name in the Hausa language means “Western education is a sin.”

The NYT has more,

These girls, ages 15 to 18 and Christians and Muslims alike, knew the risks of seeking an education, and schools in the area had closed in March for fear of terror attacks. But this school had reopened so that the girls — the stars of their families and villages — could take their final exams. They were expected to move on to become teachers, doctors, lawyers.

Instead, they reportedly are being auctioned off for $12 each to become “wives” of militants.

“We are now asking for world power countries to intervene,” the desperate father of a missing 18-year-old girl, Ayesha, told me by phone. He said that the parents had given up on Nigerian government officials — “they are just saying lies” — and pleaded for international pressure on Nigeria to rescue the girls.

Clearly, as each week passes without a word from the girls, the chances of finding them, and finding them unharmed, decreases.

The fate of the rest remains a mystery. Each passing day makes it more likely that the girls have been raped, and possibly killed, in captivity. Given Boko Haram’s name, which means “Western education forbidden,” and their agenda to wipe out secular society in mostly Muslim Northern Nigeria, it’s hardly a surprise that the group locks students inside schools and sets them on fire. This, to date, is their largest mass abduction. The girls were taken into the jungle to serve as sex slaves. Yet the abduction of these girls is about much more than finding “cooks and wives.” For Boko Haram, it is about dismantling the fragile existing society by attacking its essential institutions: schools.

This video was made by Louis King, a young Nigerian Director. His hope is to bring world attention to the ongoing situation. The voice you hear is the father of one of the kidnapped girls.

It must be said: When one compares the “Ban Bossy” campaign with the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign, well, there really isn’t any comparison that can be made. In fact, one seems all the more ridiculous and pathetically self-indulgent.

–Dana

UPDATE: Fox News has updated the situation after viewing a video from Abubakar Shekau, leader of Boko Haran.

[T]he students “will remain slaves with us.” That appears a reference to the ancient jihadi custom of enslaving women captured in a holy war, who then can be used as sex slaves.

“They are slaves and I will sell them because I have the market to sell them,” he said, speaking in the Hausa language of northern Nigeria.

…

Shekau brushed off warnings that the abductions could be an international crime, saying in English, as if to reach his accusers in the international community: “What do you know about human rights? You’re just claiming human rights (abuses), but you don’t know what it is.”

An intermediary who has said Boko Haram is ready to negotiate ransoms for the girls also said two of the girls have died of snakebite and about 20 are ill. He said Christians among the girls have been forced to convert to Islam.

…

First lady Patience Jonathan fueled frustration Monday when a leader of a protest march said she ordered the arrests of two protest leaders, expressed doubts there was any kidnapping and accused the protest leaders of belonging to Boko Haram.

The first lady is also being accused of turning on protesting Nigerian women.

Mrs. Jonathan said the women “had no right to protest,” especially Nyadar, whom she identified as the deputy director of the National Directorate of Employment.

In a report on the meeting, Daily Trust newspaper quoted Mrs. Jonathan as ordering all Nigerian women to stop protesting, and threatening “should anything happen to them during protests, they should blame themselves.”

Comments (27)

27 Responses to “‘Bring Back Our Girls’”

In fact, one seems all the more ridiculous and pathetically self-indulgent.

which hasn’t stopped Shrillery from sending out a tweet on the issue…

http://twitchy.com/2014/05/04/is-this-real-life-hillary-clintons-nonsensical-bringbackourgirls-tweet-blasted-with-brutal-truth/
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 5/5/2014 @ 6:24 am
This will never receive the attention it deserves in this country because the aggressors are Islamic militants (as were the Benghazi murderers and the Ft. Hood murderer). And they can not, must not, be widely associated with unspeakable evil and violence without all the government and journalistic and academic memes of the past six years being shown up as total lies.
elissa (63578c) — 5/5/2014 @ 7:07 am
Oh yeah, a hashtag. Them gun-totin’ thugs are no doubt shaking in their boots. From laughter.
Mojo (6db70b) — 5/5/2014 @ 9:26 am
The inaction on this kind of issue is what isolationism looks like.

Don’t expect any help from the USA though. They can’t pay for the citizenry to care about external issues right now. There is no interest in this case, the Ukraine, or Syria. We’ve been pushed into an isolationist stance because of the Iraq War and Obama’s foriegn policy. Americans see too much going on in their own country to really be terribly bothered by other people’s problems.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 5/5/2014 @ 9:36 am
What can the Nigerian “government” do? What can the “international community” do? The European imperialistic exploiters (they don’t deserve the word “colonialists” because they did not colonize they looted) left the place without a western infrastructure and created national borders without regard to tribal borders. The tribes control their areas and another Rwanda, or Eritrea, or Biafra, or Darfur, are just a matter of enough murderous thugs getting together to commit wholesale genocide. There’s nothing we can do short of sending ten million ground troops, expert in jungle fighting, to occupy half the continent and impose western civilization.
nk (dbc370) — 5/5/2014 @ 9:40 am
International governments could send troops to track down the abducting group. You wouldn’t need 10 million. Unfortunately, it would probably turn out bad because you would need a will to fight. It’s a similar situation to what Columbia had to deal with for years with FARC. It will linger until there is a real will to root them out.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 5/5/2014 @ 10:22 am
The New York Times link is an op-ed by Nicholas Kristoff, who made his column about this yesterday in the New York Times.

‘Bring Back Our Girls’

I didn’t know anybody else was talking about it.

Comment by nk (dbc370) — 5/5/2014 @ 9:40 am

There’s nothing we can do short of sending ten million ground troops, expert in jungle fighting, to occupy half the continent and impose western civilization.

Well, no. You just need good intelligence.The amount of military force needed to take care of this is minimal – and maybe financial pressure on whoever is supporting Boko Haram could do it.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/5/2014 @ 11:36 am
Here’s another new problem. This is part of a world wide trend in the last 3 or 4 years, of no longer regarding doctors as neutrals, but as siding with whom they treat, and of governments sometimes not outright killing people, but wanting them to die by themselves.

Ban on Doctors’ Group Imperils Muslim Minority in Myanmar

In Aung Mingla, a Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe, patients with tuberculosis, a common disease in the area, said they were down to their last supplies of medicine. The Rohingya who live in Aung Mingla are prevented from leaving the district by barbed-wire security posts and police officers.

Some Moslems escaping to other countries, have committed suicide upon being sent back.

Inn this case, Milhouse is wrong.

THINK BUDDHIST, not MOSLEM

Buddhism has gone off the rails in Burma.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/5/2014 @ 11:41 am
Their real complaint against the Moslems is that the Moslems are out-reproducing them.

They have also decided that they are hereditary illegal aliens (No 14th amendment there,or in the Dominican Republic)
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/5/2014 @ 11:44 am
This article was in this morning’s Tribune. The girls are “for sale”.

The brazenness and sheer brutality of the school attack has shocked Nigerians, who had been growing accustomed to hearing about atrocities in an increasingly bloody five-year-old Islamist insurgency in the north.
Boko Haram, now seen as the main security threat to Africa’s leading energy producer, is growing bolder and extending its reach.
The kidnapping occurred the same day as a bomb blast, also blamed on Boko Haram, that killed 75 people on the edge of Abuja and marked the first attack on the capital in two years.
The militants repeated that bomb attack more than two weeks later in almost exactly the same spot, killing 19 people and wounding 34 in the suburb of Nyanya.
The girls’ abductions have been hugely embarrassing for the government and threaten to distract attention from its first hosting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) for Africa, this week.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-boko-haram-kidnapped-schoolgirls-20140505,0,5378700.story
elissa (b17489) — 5/5/2014 @ 12:00 pm
Who here would support the targeted killing of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau via drone or a visit from the SEAL Team? Would that be a legitimate target in the War on Terror? Would it be acceptable for the U.S. to kill him, or do we have to wait until Boko Haram attacks us first?
JVW (05e1e2) — 5/5/2014 @ 1:04 pm
I don’t think a drone strike would be the proper response to this situation. The goal would be to retrieve the kidnapped girls.

With regard to how to conduct the fight with that group, I would think that there has to be a concerted effort to establish a societal defense. Conducting an impersonal war via drone attacks would be the wrong way to go about it…or at least it wouldn’t end the bigger problem.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 5/5/2014 @ 1:42 pm
With regard to how to conduct the fight with that group, I would think that there has to be a concerted effort to establish a societal defense. Conducting an impersonal war via drone attacks would be the wrong way to go about it…or at least it wouldn’t end the bigger problem.

Yeah, but a societal defense implies that we would have a long-term entanglement with Nigeria, and based upon our short attention span with Afghanistan and Iraq, why should we think we would have the resolve to support societal change in Nigeria?
JVW (9946b6) — 5/5/2014 @ 1:55 pm
I wouldn’t say we had a short attention span with Afghanistan or Iraq, but that is besides the point. The fight is Nigeria’s, or in a broader sense, Africa’s, not America’s. They could certainly ask for assistance and receive help…but the desire to fight would have to come from the people that live there. If they think it is a fight worth having, a long-term military connection with the US or another partner could certainly help (as it has with Japan, South Korea, Columbia, Israel, Taiwan, etc.).

But, at any rate, I do not think we would be resolved to support Nigeria in this. I think the US populace isn’t interested in any external problems at this time.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 5/5/2014 @ 2:34 pm
I don’t know. Targeting the Boko Haram leadership could be the only way to retrieve those girls.

Any direct action against the group that kidnapped them would just result in all those girls getting killed. I haven’t seen a more accurate figure than “dozens” when discussing the number of kidnappers, but one must assume if they’re selling those 200 plus girls into slavery to other militants the group is larger than dozens. Not that I’m assuming they’re all still in one group.

It would be a big job; I think it would take more than one SEAL time. Too large a force for the Nigerians to allow in. I also doubt even the SEALs could get the job done before those girls were murdered. But even if they could, would you want the Nigerian Army having your back? And if the Nigerian army tries to get those girls back, they’re dead.

First world special forces like those of the UK, the US, Australia, Israel, train to a standard where if even a single hostage gets killed it’s a failure. Most of the rest of the world doesn’t. They don’t have the money to spend on the kind of training it takes to acquire that level of skill. So they define success differently. If none of the terrorists get away, and all are either killed or captured, the mission is a success. If any of the hostages live, that’s gravy.

Think the Moscow movie theater hostage rescue, Beslan, or the Algerian gas complex hostage rescue.

The best plan could be to motivate Boko Haram to want to give them back.
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/5/2014 @ 2:49 pm
6. …It’s a similar situation to what Columbia had to deal with for years with FARC. It will linger until there is a real will to root them out.

Comment by DejectedHead (a094a6) — 5/5/2014 @ 10:22 am

Just so you know, what I’m suggesting is similar to the support we gave to the Colombians to help them defeat the FARC.

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2013/12/28/mad-world-2/

Lost in the global outrage over the NSA’s spying program is a surprising fact: the most sought-after item of US aid isn’t relief goods or money. It’s intelligence assistance. The Washington Post reports that the biggest thing many countries want with the NSA is to get on its distribution list. Take Colombia.

The 50-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once considered the best-funded insurgency in the world, is at its smallest and most vulnerable state in decades, due in part to a CIA covert action program that has helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more than 30 former and current U.S. and Colombian officials.

…In order to complete the firing circuit, recipients of US aid have been seeking one more item: precision guided weapons and drones. The Colombians found that mere signals intelligence was not enough to kill the FARC. Even when precisely located they often escaped in the time it took for their units to hack their way through the jungle to close with them. These problems were obviated by the provision of GPS-guided munitions, “the Enhanced Paveway II, a relatively inexpensive guidance kit that could be strapped on a 500-pound, Mark-82 gravity bomb.”

To assure themselves that the Colombians would not misuse the bombs, U.S. officials came up with a novel solution. The CIA would maintain control over the encryption key inserted into the bomb, which unscrambled communications with GPS satellites so they can be read by the bomb’s computers. The bomb could not hit its target without the key. The Colombians would have to ask for approval for some targets, and if they misused the bombs, the CIA could deny GPS reception for future use.

If it worked in the jungles of Colombia, it can work in the jungles of Nigeria. And they still do all the fighting.
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/5/2014 @ 3:03 pm
When I read about these nearly 300 girls sold into slavery, or the 300 killed in the South Korean ferry tragedy through the fault of a corrupt maritine system, I wonder: why do people despise our culture?
Patricia (be0117) — 5/5/2014 @ 3:14 pm
Because some cultures are actually better than others. And they hate the truth of that fact.
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/5/2014 @ 3:21 pm
Evil, evil, evil.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/5/2014 @ 5:42 pm
Boko Haram… a blacker shade of fail.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/5/2014 @ 5:59 pm
Post has been updated.
Dana (9f8700) — 5/5/2014 @ 6:36 pm
Shekau brushed off warnings that the abductions could be an international crime, saying in English, as if to reach his accusers in the international community: “What do you know about human rights? You’re just claiming human rights (abuses), but you don’t know what it is.”

Keep in mind that this is coming form the leader of a group which has a name that mans “Western Learning is Forbidden.”

They aren’t interested in any western concept of human rights. Whatever rights people have are contained in the Koran.

What’s frustrating is just how easily played our masters of the universe are by these guys. They know how to speak the language that they’ll fall for. For instance the Muslim Brotherhood formed the “Freedom and Justice” party in Egypt. You know, the one that won the election and put Morsi in the presidency.

What they mean by that name is that freedom is freedom from man’s law, and justice is sharia law.

But this is the administration that had a DNI that actually told Congress this:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/02/10/dni_james_clapper_muslim_brotherhood_a_largely_secular_group.html

“The term Muslim Brotherhood is an umbrella term for a variety of movements. In the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a congressional hearing today.

One of his spokes orcs threw together a jumbled Carney-esque word salad in an attempt to walk that back. Failure ensued.

The idea that the MB has eschewed violence or actually has renounced AQ is ridiculous. The MB embraces or abandons violence depending upon what stage of the jihad they think they’re in. If they’re out of power, they eschew violence as a tactic. For the moment.

Any Egyptian can tell you that. Such as these:

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/85587/Egypt/Politics-/Egypt-protesters-tell-stories-of-torture,-abuse-at.aspx

Ahram Online republishes testimonies from opposition activists who said they were subject to torture at hands of Muslim Brotherhood members during the December 2012 bloody clashes between supporters, opponents of President Morsi

There was plenty of evidence. In fact, MB supporters invited the western press in to look at the torture centers they had set up. Idiot western reporters wanted to know why they’d brag about their crimes. Isn’t it obvious? For the same reason Abubakar Shekau is bragging about his. It inspires fear among his enemies, and he doesn’t believe for an instant he’ll suffer any consequences. Not in Nigeria. And not from Barack Obama, who is a willing dupe.

Bush was better, but not my much. Islam is not a religion of peace. It’s in the Hadiths. Muhammad said no Muslim can renounce Jihad. In fact, according to Muhammad, a Muslim who dies without fighting in jihad or without ever expresing a desire to fight in jihad “died the death of a hypocrite.” If you don’t believe you should be conquering unbelievers as these brave Boko Haram “fighters” are conquering these girls or Christians when they shoot or blow up unarmed congregations at Sunday mass, you are not a Muslim and as a hypocrite you will go to hell.

Sorry to go off topic a bit. You will never hear the truth about what Islamic holy texts actually say from this crowd of MB apologists in our administration. Because if you hear the truth, you’d actually know that AQ isn’t perverting Islam. Their version of Islam is actually fully supported by their holy texts and schools of Islamic legal thought. So they have a word for telling the truth about Islam. It’s called “Islamophobia.”
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/5/2014 @ 8:20 pm
Yeah, I might as well cite authority.

http://quranexplorer.com/Hadith/English/Hadith/muslim/020.4696.html

The Book on Government (Kitab Al-Imara)

Muslim :: Book 20 : Hadith 4696

It has been narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: One who died but did not fight in the way of Allah nor did he express any desire (or determination) for Jihid died the death of a hypocrite.

Imam Muslim is considered along with Imam al-Bukhari (not their full names, but who cares) one of the two great complilers of the hadiths (Arabic: ahadith, hadith is singular). These are the actions, sayings, and judgements of Muhammad.

So keep in mind when Abubakar Shekau is taking infidel girls as sex slaves, he’s following Quran and the example of Muhammad. This is something all Muslims are duty bound to do; he is the perfect example of a Muslim.

And he had his sex slaves in addition to his wives. Particularly Mariyah, a Coptic Christian, part of the loot collected in battle. One of his wives Hafsa caught him sleeping with her in her house, in her bed, when she returned early from a fake errand Muhammad sent her on. Just to get her out of her house, so he could sleep with the slave Mariyah. Hafsa got royally PO’d at the prophet of Allah, yelled at him, and he promised not to do it again. And asked her not to tell anybody. But he couldn’t keep his word, and Hafsa told Aisha about it (the two wives referred to in the following verses). Which led to Allah delivering unto Muhammad permission to do what he damned well pleased with the slave.

http://quran.com/66/1-5

Surat At-Taĥrīm 66:
1. O Prophet, why do you prohibit [yourself from] what Allah has made lawful for you, seeking the approval of your wives? And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.
2. Allah has already ordained for you [Muslims] the dissolution of your oaths. And Allah is your protector, and He is the Knowing, the Wise.
3. And [remember] when the Prophet confided to one of his wives a statement; and when she informed [another] of it and Allah showed it to him, he made known part of it and ignored a part. And when he informed her about it, she said, “Who told you this?” He said, “I was informed by the Knowing, the Acquainted.”
4. If you two [wives] repent to Allah , [it is best], for your hearts have deviated. But if you cooperate against him – then indeed Allah is his protector, and Gabriel and the righteous of the believers and the angels, moreover, are [his] assistants.
5. Perhaps his Lord, if he divorced you [all], would substitute for him wives better than you – submitting [to Allah ], believing, devoutly obedient, repentant, worshipping, and traveling – [ones] previously married and virgins.

Whenever it came to the prophet’s sex life, Allah was always ready with a convenient revelation authorizing him to do exactly what he wanted to do. Reminding Muhammad first that Allah had told him to make slaves of the infidel who wouldn’t submit to Muslims and pay the jizyah. It was lawful to do anything he wanted with his slaves, and Muhammad couldn’t deny himself what Allah has made lawful, such as breaking his promises to his wives. And if the wives wouldn’t repent for giving Muhammad a hard time about his sex life and breaking his word, then maybe Muhammad would be better off with new wives who knew their places.

Such is the nature of human rights in Islam. These Boko Haram blokes may be perverts, but they are not perverting Islam.
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/5/2014 @ 9:17 pm
Am I the only one who read this story and immediately thought of John Ringo’s novel
Ghost ?
htom (412a17) — 5/5/2014 @ 11:04 pm
Boko Haram ar really some C.O.W.A.R.D.S. They ONLY DO “SURPRISE ATTACKS” usually with people who are UNARMED CIVILIANS & WOMEN & CHILDREN (who are also essentually D.E.F.E.N.C.E.L.E.S.S.)

the true definition of WIMPY C.O.W.A.R.D.S.!
BOZO KARAM SHOULD “NOT BE FEARED” they should be called out for what they TRULY ARE, ROOTED OUT & EXTERMINATED. PERIOD.
Ghetto QUEEN (f00049) — 5/6/2014 @ 6:09 am
Is Boko Haram a radical Lutheran group or something? Are they a bunch of Godbothering, christofascist, dinosaur riding, new earth creationists?

Is the media explaining why they don’t want women to get an education or why they make a practice of attacking Christians in Nigeria? Has their funding from from Al Qaeda affiliated groups even been mentioned?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/6/2014 @ 10:58 am
Hillary Clinton refused to identify Boko Haram as a terrorist group…

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/188306/
Colonel Haiku (b198f5) — 5/8/2014 @ 10:53 am

5/5/2014

‘Bring Back Our Girls’

27 Responses to “‘Bring Back Our Girls’”

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