from NY to Israel Sultan Reveals
The Stories Behind the News

How Muslim Attackers Once Again Become the Victims

Posted: 12 Apr 2009 07:09 PM PDT

Even before the rescue of Captain Phillips, the press was already hard at work

doing what they always do, spinning the Muslim perpetrators of the attack into

its victims.

The current story that is beginning to rise through the bowels of the mainstream

media is that the pirates are actually volunteer fisherman who have banded

together to stop toxic dumping and fishing by foreign vessels.

That's right the Somali pirates are actually misunderstood environmentalists.

And once again Westerners are to blame for causing the poor Muslims
to attack them.

Al Jazeera seems to have taken the lead in pushing the "environmentalist
pirates" angle, naturally it then percolated through the usual "hate America"
channels such as Prison Planet and Democratic Underground, and is slowly

bubbling through into mainstream news stories on Somali piracy.

This of course is typical of how Muslim attackers become the victims. The

first step is to portray the Muslim attackers as responding or retaliating to
crimes committed against them by "colonial" powers. If that direct approach

fails, Plan B involves blaming the whole thing on poverty, and "solving the

problem" with aid and some "peace talks" with the more violent factions,

who will then naturally play key roles in the new government.

Nowhere in the mainstream press however will you find stories on how the

pirates see themselves as following Muslim law-- the precedent having

been set by Mohammed's banditry, leading his gang of Muslims\Thugs on

raids against caravans and local tribes.

Rare is the mention that the pirates are even Muslims. It wouldn't do to

tarnish the otherwise sterling image of the Religion of Peace.

But the overall thrust of the Somali piracy story has always been to argue

how wrong the Bush Administration was in backing the overthrow of the
ICU, the Islamic Courts Union, an Al Queda linked local version of the
Taliban.

The ICU had formed as a stealth network of Sharia courts that took

advantage of the local political chaos to seize power, with backing from
Eritrea. The result was a brutal Islamist state that beheaded men for

watching soccer tournaments and treated women much as you would

expect. They shut down schools and recruited thousands of child

soldiers into their armies. And the media applauded them for
bringing "stability" to Somalia.

Not satisfied with turning Somalia into an Islamist tyranny, the ICU also

announced plans to seize parts of Kenya and Ethiopia inhabited by Muslim
minorities in order to create a supra-Islamist state.

Ethiopia naturally saw the writing on the wall and realized that if it didn't fight
the ICU in Somalia, they would be fighting them at home and intervened.

The ICU's terrorists and child soldiers scattered like rats, some of them

already equipped with weapons and ties to the local Sharia courts, went into

the piracy business.

The media's response to Ethiopia's invasion ranged anywhere from

skeptical to outright hostile... particularly since the Bush Administration
backed the move and carried out targeted strikes against some ICU leaders

who were also members of Al Queda. Ever since then the media has

repeatedly bemoaned the loss of "stability" brought to Somalia

by the ICU.

The ICU has lost direct military control over Somalia, but its former leader

has won Somalia's Presidential election and its government is packed with

former ICU leaders.

Meanwhile the Arab League has brokered a move to legitimize Hizbul Islam

led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, with close ties to Al Queda. Slowly
behind the scenes, the Islamist's goal for Somalia and all of Africa is back

on track.