Internal US law enforcement documents describe a highly controversial community initiative aimed at identifying potential terrorists before they “radicalize” as being intimately related to intelligence gathering.
Despite years of official denials, American Muslim civil rights groups have claimed that Barack Obama’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) initiative was a euphemistic approach that targeted Muslims for surveillance.
The FBI described the CVE program as designed to “strengthen our investigative, intelligence gathering and collaborative abilities to be proactive in countering violent extremism”....
Under Donald Trump’s administration, the Department of Homeland Security is reviewing the effort with a mind to rebrand it “Countering Radical Islam” or “Countering Violent Jihad”
I suppose that somewhere there may be a religion that has no ties whatsoever to the injunction to smite, kill and otherwise obliterate those who do not concur. Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims ... all have passages in sometimes well-secreted texts ... bomb the bastards. We are the bestest with the mostest and if you do not agree, you'd better run, 'cause you can't hide.
How much easier things might be if religion(s) were forced to admit up-front that such clauses and invocations existed within its/their ranks. Even where a religion has no obvious invocation, still, there is enough suggestive stuff so that a suggestible human being -- with all the best intentions, of course -- could go on a blood-curdling rampage.
If this were simply admitted up front, maybe we could save some money now being spent on electronic surveillance, fear-mongering and all the rest.
And no mention of radical christian organizations such as the KKK and the Aryan Brotherhood.
ReplyDeleteAnd no mention of governments either, regardless of religious inclinations. Either agree or we'll obliterate you out of existence.
ReplyDeleteSounds like dictatorship, I know, but at least it would be more honest than appearing to be tolerant and then stab you in the back.
On a side note, some time ago I learned that the "Do not kill" christian commandment is actually a mistranslation. According to a Jewish scholar, the hebrew word in the original texts was "murder", not "kill". His argument is that killing is acceptable, as long as no law is broken in the act, which would then be murder.
Amazing how 2.000 years later such a basic translation mistake can persist as a fundamental stone in a worldwide religion.