Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon - Chapter Nine Podcast Three

  Attacks   The Islamic State has aggressively targeted France. In 2015, Islamic State spokesperson Abu Muhammad al-Adnani demanded, “If you can, kill a disbelieving American or European—especially the spiteful and filthy French—or a Canadian.” Why were the French singled out as particularly “filthy”? According to the Clarion Foundation, there are several reasons. First, France fights. Its soldiers have been battling Jihadis around the world, from Syria to Timbuktu. The French approve of the French armed forces' intervention in Iraq, and 70 percent support the air strikes in Syria.   The Caliphate views France as a leading infidel state and one committed to destroying its organization and similar Islamist organizations around the world. Furthermore, French leaders, unlike many other Western leaders, have asserted that their country is at war with a variant of Islam. The French ambassador to America later clarified, saying, “We are at war with radical Islam. It means that right now . . . Islam is breeding radicalism, which is quite dangerous for everybody.” This language is much sharper than that of most other Western leaders.   Further, the Caliphate and other Islamists despise French civilization, which is centered on and helped create the Western canon. France is the home of the Enlightenment and promotes liberal values. In 732, France held the thin line of European civilization at the Battle of Tours. Later, the nobility and commoners fought in the Crusades. Some symbols are unendurable to the Caliphate. The acerbic, anti-religious Charlie Hebdo weekly, the Bataclan theater, home to Western music, police and military personnel, and Bastille Day are hateful signs for Islamists.   In July 2016, a Tunisian Jihadist plowed a rented eighteen-ton truck through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France. At full throttle, the driver zig-zagged through spectators who had come to enjoy the fireworks and patriotism. The driver, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, was shot dead while yelling “Allahu Akbar,” but not before killing eighty-four people, including ten children, and injuring over a hundred more. Babies lay dead in the street, having been jolted from their buggies, which were crushed during the mile-long killing spree. There were twenty-seven nationalities among the dead. Before the blood was cleaned from the pavement, the Caliphate’s fans flooded social media with posts celebrating the event.   The Caliphate claimed responsibility. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, who agree on very little, viewed the carnage through the same lens. Secretary Clinton said, “I’d even call this World War III. It’s a very different kind of war.” Her rival, Trump, echoed the same words: “This is war.”   Profile Thirty-Five: “Kiss the Devil”   Some survived the rampage in Nice by pure chance. “I was supposed to be there on Friday night,” said a twenty-eight-year-old journalist of the web magazine French Metal who struggles with survivor’s guilt. “I had a ticket but couldn’t find anyone who wanted to go. It was pure chance.” She lived, but several of her friends died, and she wept in front of a makeshift memorial at the Bataclan theater in Paris. Others wept, too, for the eighty-eight people who were killed and the scores more who were wounded.   The theater was one of six attack sites where coordinated shootings and suicide bombings killed at least 129 people. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks. The terrorists shot anything that moved in the theater, which has hosted artists from Edith Piaf to Prince. Elsewhere in Paris, on November 13, 2015, their Caliphate-connected associates killed without mercy anyone they believed to be non-Muslim. They struck cultural targets in Paris’s vibrant east end, which teems with nightlife. A local woman explained, “They were attacking culture—music, celebrations, everything fanatics don’t like.”  The group Eagles of Death, a California heavy metal band, had played a favorite, “Kiss the Devil.”   As they shot into the audience, the killers laughed, played with some musical instruments, and asked, “Where’s the singer? Where are the Yanks. Some of the doomed were shot while huddling in dressing rooms. Some of the survivors played dead. Others threw their bodies on the injured, young, or female to save them. Some of the victims died quickly and others slowly, having bled out on the floor. For some it was a family catastrophe. A thirty-five-year-old mother clutched her son against her, probably saving his life. But her mother, the boy’s grandmother, was killed.  The killers kicked the fallen victims to check for signs of life. One man lived thanks to his artificial leg.   Very quickly after the attack, Western leaders assured the world that it had nothing to do with Islam. Others said they refused to fight hate with hate, words that would presage US Attorney General Lynch’s sentiments after the Orlando killing, less than one year later. One Frenchman told the Caliphate, “I will not give you the gift of hating you.” His wife, Helen, had been murdered with the rest. The widower said, “I do not know who you are, and I do not want to know. You are dead souls.”   T