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(A Brief Comment from NAL publisher Doug Drarper– Somehow this piece missed getting posted during the dog days of August, and since President Obama made the following statement (which we are posting word for word here), a second American journalist – 31-year-old Steven Sotloff – has been brutally murdered by this band of pyshos that calls itself ‘The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or ISIS for short.
With a third journalist from Britain possibly on deck for a beheading at the hands of these murderers and rapest, the remainder of my comment here from late August stays the same.
Where are all of those who wish to blame the United States for all violent evil around the world now? Where are they on obscene violence like this one?
Why do they only blame the U.S. for murderous acts and not place equal attention on terrorist groups that commit genocide in other parts of the world?
Why do some of the cheap-end, neo Noam Chomsky nimrods among us so dogmatically accuse North American journalists of being pawns for the corporate world? And why do they insult the rest of us by assuming we don’t have enough of a mind of our own to deal with media propaganda, regardless of its origin?
By all accounts, James Foley, who had his head knifed off by a psycho organization that thrives on murdering people, was a decent person who cared and held high respect for citizens in Syria who are fighting, against horrible odds, for a chance to live something even remotely close to the freedoms we’ve been gifted to preserve in Canada and the United States.
Now at least give U.S. President Barack Obama’s statement on this abhorrent crime and ask yourself, as a Canadian, whether you would rather be living next to the United States or a terrorist state like Syria, which has received continued support at the United Nations by Russia and China, by the way.)
President Obama delivered the following remarks in Martha’s Vineyard on the beheading of American journalist James Foley by the militant group Islamic State. Transcript courtesy of Federal News Service.
PRESIDENT OBAMA, August 20th, : Good afternoon, everybody.
Journalist Jim (James) Foley, who risked and ultimately lost his life covering changes in Syria. Please do not do the murderers who beheaded him by not opeing up the youtube on that. You may want to petition youtube to not distribute horrible garbage like this.
Today, the entire world is appalled by the brutal murder of Jim Foley by the terrorist group ISIL. Jim was a journalist, a son, a brother and a friend. He reported from difficult and dangerous places, bearing witness to the lives of people a world away.
He was taken hostage nearly two years ago in Syria, and he was courageously reporting at the time on the conflict there. Jim was taken from us in an act of violence that shocked the conscience of the entire world. He was 40 years old, one of five siblings, the son of a mom and dad who worked tirelessly for his release. Earlier today, I spoke to the Foleys and told them that we are all heartbroken at their loss and join them in honoring Jim and all that he did.
Now, Jim Foley’s life stands in stark contrast to his killers. Let’s be clear about ISIL. They have rampaged across cities and villages killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence. They abduct women and children and subject them to torture and rape and slavery. They have murdered Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, by the thousands. They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can, for no other reason than they practice a different religion.
They declared their ambition to commit genocide against an ancient people. So ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day. ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt. They may claim out of expediency that they are at war with the United States or the West, but the fact is they terrorize their neighbors and offer them nothing but an endless slavery to their empty vision and the collapse of any definition of civilized behavior.
People like this ultimately fail. They fail because the future is won by those who build and not destroy. The world is shaped by people like Jim Foley and the overwhelming majority of humanity who are appalled by those who killed him. The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people. We will be vigilant and we will be relentless. When people harm Americans anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done and we act against ISIL, standing alongside others. The people of Iraq, who with our support are taking the fight to ISIL must continue coming together to expel these terrorists from their community. The people of Syria, whose story Jim Foley told, do not deserve to live under the shadow of a tyrant or terrorists. They have our support in their pursuit of a future rooted in dignity.
From governments and peoples across the Middle East, there has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so that it does not spread. There has to be a clear rejection of this kind of nihilistic ideologies. One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century. Friends and allies around the world, we share a common security and a common set of values that are rooted in the opposite of what we saw yesterday. And we will continue to confront this hateful terrorism and replace it with a sense of hope and civility.
And that’s what Jim Foley stood for, a man who lived his word, who courageously told the stories of his fellow human beings, who was liked and loved by friends and family. Today, the American people will all say a prayer for those who loved Jim. All of us feel the ache of his absence. All of us morn his loss. We keep in our prayers those other Americans who are separated from their families. And we will do everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for. May God bless and keep Jim’s memory. And may God bless the United States of America.
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