The French terrorist killings

Just yesterday, allegedly three gunmen entered the building of one prominent French satirical magazine and killed 12 years before fleeing in a car. I saw the video where the gunmen entered calmly and fled calmly. Supposedly they raised the slogan of "God is great" after doing their business. Now you can say that it is part of the Islamic terrorism and Islam is the cause of it. But here I want to emphasize that the satirical magazine had angered not only Muslims but other religious sentiments and for that they were also fire bombed a few years ago. But is this the way to silence your critics when you have a perfect opportunity to use your reason to convince others of your opinion. This act of terrorism should be condemned in the loudest terms by all but especially the so called Muslims leaders who due to their petty and personal sectarian agenda have been keeping quiet about extremism in their midst for years. And since France does not have a death penalty on its books, how will you treat such terrorists if ever they are captured. Even if you don’t believe in death penalty, how would you treat such individuals who had clear intentions of taking lives away that day? If you throw them away for life still they will be living inside a jail of their own actions. I believe that for some heinous crimes there is no other remedy but to reinstate the death penalty even if the so called European human rights organizations don’t agree with me on it.

The Year in Review-2014-5

With all the chaos taking place in Syria and Iraq especially Iraq, the rise of the Kurds have been particularly spectacular. This group although Sunni have never been given its due share in the Iraqi government. And the Arabs, although Sunnis, never liked the Kurds because they were of different ethnicity and hence have different cultures. During the ISIS blitz in Iraq, the Kurds were being displaced in increasing numbers and since the Kurds have come to ally themselves with the West, they were equally qualified to fight off ISIS and they have done a remarkable job till now. The New Shiite Iraqi government also went along and provided them with weapons and support from other Shiite Fighters and for now Kurds having been holding up pretty much against ISIS. And with this acknowledgment, the Kurds are systematically pushing for a nation of their own, although, Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran are resistant to that idea due to their own Kurd population. And the now biggest news that has impacted me financially and I know hundreds of millions of people worldwide is the price of oil which has dropped from more than 110 dollars a barrel to now below 50 dollars with contributing factor of the United States being a net producer due to the fracking technology that has unleashed. I know that the oil exporting countries are hurting but the rest of the worlds' countries are getting the benefit of lower oil prices and growth in their economies. So that is all I have to write about the major events of last year, hopefully this year will be must better. So Happy New Year to you and your families.

The Year in Review-2014-4

As it keeps on happening in the Middle East, another Israeli-Palestinian conflict flared up. The reason was that three Israeli teenagers were supposedly kidnapped and then killed by the Palestinians who initially denied it but acknowledged their role when the war started. And the war was mainly confined to the Hamas ruled Gaza Strip as the West Bank ruled by its opposition was not touched. Although the Palestinians won the social media war but the sad part was that they did not won the hearts of the Arab government as the Arabs fearful of its Islamic background sometimes condemned its leadership and sometimes just ignored the casualties? At the end of the year a historical U.S. decision to restore ties with the Cuban government after over 50 years of imposing embargo on it. Some of the people were happy and some were not on this sudden turn of events as is the case with every decision which affects people. After much dallying by the U.S. and its allies, finally was the time to have an air campaign against ISIS to stop their advances towards the Iraqi capital Baghdad and roll back their victories. The U.S. (as usual) started to assemble a coalition of the forced including Arab allies to make it sound like the Arab Muslims are also against ISIS. Although experts are saying that this battle against ISIS will have to involve ground troops but so far the U.S. has resisted committing significant number of troops, although a few thousand are still on the ground taking the role of advising the Iraqi troops how to deal with ISIS. Curiously the U.S. has not invited Iran to play a role here as they need not need any invitation to join this war as they are already on the ground.

The Year in Review-2014-3

This was also the year when the Nigerian Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped several hundred girls and despite efforts by the United States and an admittedly lack luster search by the Nigerian Security forces, they have not been found and remained in hostages or even worse no one knows. In South Korea, a ferry capsized and sank killing more than 300 people and sparked a nationwide mourning for the victims who were mostly high school kids. In Iraq and Syria, another Islamic terrorist group ISIS grew in strength supposedly out of nowhere and captured large parts of Iraq and Syria and established a so called Islamic State which they called Caliphate ruled by supposedly Islamic laws making hundreds of thousands of people flee from their homes who did not adhere to ISIS’s sect and who feared for their lives because they did not want to be part of it. Again we go back to Nigeria as it has been in the news very much lately and if you have read my blog about Boko Haram, they are not ready to slow down and indeed they killed hundreds of people in one sweep in Nigeria last year and the killings continues to this day with increasing frequency and determination and they are gaining and capturing more and more area of Nigeria. In the same year, the world cup was held in Brazil which was won by Germany. Another Malaysian plane flying over Ukraine worn torn area was shot down and it has not been determined yet whether it was shot down by rebels or the Ukrainian security forces.