“From Melbourne to Ramadi: My Journey” [Jake Bilardi]

See : Jake Bilardi, reportedly killed in Islamic State suicide bombing, planned to attack Melbourne, blog says, Michael Bachelard, The Age, March 12, 2015.

Bilardi’s blog now appears to be devoid of content. He made several posts, of which this was the last.

NB. One of the principal opponents of IS in Syria are the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) and YPJ (Women’s Protection Units), militias closely connected to the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistani or Kurdistan Workers’ Party), a Marxist party which, over the course of the last decade, has evolved in a more libertarian direction, influenced in part by PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s reading of US anarchist Murray Bookchin. (See : Graeber et al on the ‘Rojava Revolution’, January 5, 2015.)

At least one Australian, Ashley Kent Johnston, has died fighting alongside the YPG. Several other Westerners have been killed fighting with the YPG: Konstandinos Erik Scurfield, 25, a former Royal Marine, and 19-year-old German woman Ivana Hoffman.

Australian authorities, like their counterparts in Europe and the US, regard the PKK as a terrorist organisation, and the PKK is the only non-Islamist organisation on the government’s list of proscribed groups. There’s currently a campaign in Australia (and elsewhere in the world) to have this designation rescinded. You can read more about it here.

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“With my martyrdom operation drawing closer, I want to tell you my story, how I came from being an Atheist school student in affluent Melbourne to a soldier of the Khilafah preparing to sacrifice my life for Islam in Ramadi, Iraq. Many people in Australia probably think they know the story, but the truth is, this is something that has remained between myself and Allah (azza wa’jal) until now.

My life in Melbourne’s working-class suburbs was, despite having its ups and downs just like everyone else, very comfortable. I found myself excelling in my studies, just as my siblings had, and had dreamed of becoming a political journalist. I always dreamed that one day I would travel to countries such as Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan to cover the situations in these lands. I was intrigued by the conflicts in these countries and I was bent on understanding the motivations behind violent political and social movements. While the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Syria and Ansar Dine/MUJAO in Mali occupied my mind day-in-day-out, I also took interest in the rise of violent street gangs in Mexico, El Salvador and Brazil. Through my research I found a common link between all these organisations, they are made-up of oppressed and neglected people seeking their own form of perceived justice.

But let’s go back a little bit further…

Being the youngest in a family of six, I was always treated as a student by my older siblings, all of whom were studying a variety of different topics. So from a young age I was being used as a study tool by my siblings, being taught Psychology, Biology and History among other subjects. I should be rivaling Albert Einstein if all the information had settled neatly in my memory, but most of it left as soon as it entered. It was my eldest brother’s deep interest in international politics though that grabbed my attention the most and while I may have fallen asleep during some of the ‘classes’, I can still to this day remember many of the things he taught me. In fact the first time I ever heard the words ‘al-Qaeda’ and ‘Usama bin Laden’, they came from his mouth, but as I know he is unhappy with me being here, I can confirm for his sake that, no, he did not ‘radicalise’ me.

From then on, my love of politics only grew, learning from my brother before going on to do my own research. Being just five-years-old at the time of the attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, my knowledge of the operation was basically non-existent. Despite this, I was immediately drawn to the topics of al-Qaeda and ‘Islamic terrorism’ based on the little information my brother had provided me with. I was intrigued, why would a group of people living in caves in Afghanistan want to kill innocent American civilians? And the even more perplexing, how did such a simple group fly commercial airliners into the global superpower’s trade and defence centres? It was from here that my research into al-Qaeda, Shaykh Usama bin Laden (May Allah have mercy upon him) and groups with similar ideologies worldwide began. I spent every day researching online and reading the books I had begun collecting and I was understandably very pleased when the Victorian state government introduced a laptop-in-schools programme, meaning I could now spend the otherwise wasted time in boring classes reading.

Australia, a nation full of proud nationalists and people who love democracy and what they perceive to be freedom, has forever stood beside the Americans in this war, deploying troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore, in the media, the reports every morning when I sat on the couch eating breakfast and watching the news before school had to include a story on the Taliban’s brutality or fears of al-Qaeda operatives hiding in Europe. It was Channel 7’s program ‘Sunrise’ that I turned on most mornings, watching discussions such as, ‘Another attack in America, should we be suspicious about the Muslims in Australia?’ Still, as an Atheist of only 13-years-of-age I couldn’t believe everything I was seeing and hearing, my views of the Muslims were very positive and when it came to organisations such as the Taliban, my views almost six years ago would be considered by the Australian government as extreme and myself an Islamic extremist, although I was still an Atheist, a little confusing I know. I saw the Taliban as simply a group of proud men seeking to protect their land and their people from an invading force, while I did not necessarily agree with their ideology, their actions were in my opinion completely justified. I saw the foreign troops burning villages, raping local women and girls, rounding up innocent young men as suspected terrorists and sending them overseas for torture, gunning down women, children and the elderly in the streets and indiscriminately firing missiles from their jets. Who was I to believe was the terrorist? I saw similar events unfolding in Iraq where the mujahideen of Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (May Allah have mercy upon him) as well as other smaller factions were valiantly fighting the occupation. I read of the massacre in Haditha where US soldiers shot dead 24 civilians, majority of whom were women and children as well as an elderly man in a wheel-chair. I read about how soldiers raped 14-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi in Mahmudiyah before killing her and her family and setting fire to their corpses. I read and viewed images of the inhumane torture in Abu Ghraib prison as well as many other atrocities committed, primarily by the Americans, with also cases of torture, summary executions and massacres of civilians being carried out by military personnel from other nations of the coalition. I was beginning to learn that what the media was feeding us was nothing but a government-sponsored distortion of the reality. The image of the American hero waving the US flag on top of a Hummer rolling through Baghdad was nothing but the soft cover to a brutal untold story.

It was from my investigations into the invasions and occupations of both Iraq and Afghanistan that gave birth to my disdain for the United States and its allies, including Australia. It was also the start of my respect for the mujahideen that would only grow to develop into a love of Islam and ultimately bring me here to the Islamic State, but I’ll get to that later.

Structuring my research, I saw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as the modern base for understanding the conflicts involving Islamic groups across Africa, the Middle East and Asia as well as sporadic attacks in Europe and the United States. From here I began focusing on the struggle in Palestine, this was the ultimate David and Goliath story, where the world was wanting so desperately to turn the victim into the oppressor and the oppressor into the victim, with much success. I saw the Israeli army tearing down the homes of Palestinian families to make way for a new Jewish family moving in from Europe, I saw Israeli soldiers torturing children for allegedly throwing stones at their heavily armoured vehicles, I saw them shooting innocent people and their treacherous leaders justifying their crimes by claiming that Jews are superior to all other races, stating that Arabs are less than dogs and should be treated as such, pointing to the Talmud as the source of their bigotry. My Atheist secularist views led me to support the aspirations of the Palestinian state and blinded me from realising what the true problem was, not Israel, nor Israelis but the religious ideology that governed them. I began to support the violent resistance in the Gaza Strip, recognising that it was this resistance that kept small pockets of Palestine from the hands of the Jews, even if it does mean that they are frequently hit with airstrikes. Also, the presence of a base to attack Israel from the west was always a sign of hope, especially considering the current aggressive advance of the Islamic State from the East and as well as the bayah to the Khilafah by the mujahideen in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula potentially allowing for attacks from all directions to liberate Palestine.

I could wrap this up very shortly but I want to divert away from my interest in violent Islamic movements for a minute to explain how I developed a wider world view and how I transitioned from being a reluctant-supporter of Islamic militant groups in different lands to become certain that violent global revolution was the answer to the world’s ills.

In the course of my research I decided to delve deeper into the blood-stained history of the world. I learnt for the first time in great detail, the scale of the atrocities committed against the native population of the Americas by both the British and Spanish colonialist forces. About how both nations attempted to completely wipe out the natives in order to build their own respective civilisations, slaughtering millions of innocent people, intentionally spreading disease amongst them and raping the native women in an effort to breed-out the present race. I also learned more about the similar systematic genocide in my own country, Australia, the stories they choose to leave out when you’re in history class at school. I learnt about how the Crusaders rampaged across Europe and the Middle East, seeking to eliminate Islam from the region and restore the rule of the Catholic Church. I learnt about how the British and the French competed with each other to colonise the African continent, the advent of which still today leaves the affected nations facing great difficulties. I was beginning to realise that the cruelness of the world today is nothing but a historical expectation.

I continued to read; America’s land grab in Mexico as well as their brutality towards the Filipinos after the Spanish, who were themselves no better, signed over control of the archipelago to the Americans. The Portuguese soldiers who rampaged across East Timor, the British who seized control of many of the Pacific Islands, enslaving the populations on the pretext that non-Whites were created to serve the White race.

Continuing forward and the world bore witness to two World Wars, the second more brutal than the first. US, British, French and Australian forces imprisoned captured Axis soldiers in internment camps, torturing them and executing them as a source of entertainment. When US forces entered Japan they proceeded on a systematic campaign of massacring civilians and raping the local women before delivering the infamous nuclear bombs to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The crimes committed by all sides in these wars are far too many to innumerate, so I’ll leave the rest of them for you to discover on your own. Then as the American war machine was kicked back into action in the Cold War, the world again witnessed more of their brutality, particularly in Korea and Vietnam. Today, they hail as heroes their soldiers who fought in these wars, history will always record though that they were nothing but a gang of rapists, murderers and brutal cowards who loved to inflict pain on an already aching population. Then there was their trade embargo, economic sanctions and isolation of Cuba due to its Communist leadership which left the people of this small Caribbean island in unimaginable poverty. Then there was their economic and military support for brutal rebels and dictators throughout Latin America simply because they were anti-Communist. El Salvador, Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua and Argentina are just some examples of countries torn apart by extreme violence and whose people suffered under animalistic rulers due to American intervention. Today, the people of El Salvador are still seeking to identify the victims of the anti-Communist American-backed regime that slaughtered all who were associated with the Communist rebels, even those who had only seen the world for a mere three days. Argentina and Brazil are still seeking more information on the Nazi-style prison camps set-up by their own respective American-backed dictators and Chile still mourns their own 9/11, when on the same day in 1973 the Americans supported Pinochet’s coup and subsequent iron-fisted rule, during which thousands were killed and many more tortured and disappeared on allegations of dissent.

The Cold War, I noticed, bore great similarities to the current conflict gripping the world today. Yesterday the Americans were openly backing the tyrants simply to impose their own ideology on the people and today, they realised this backfired and has led to hatred of the US across Latin America so now they have tried to be smarter about how they colonise and only some have managed to see through the facade. Whenever America goes to war now, they claim it is simply humanitarian intervention. Take their recent airstrikes against the Islamic State, they hyped-up the story of the Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, making unsubstantiated claims of genocide before admitting the situation was greatly exaggerated and it was not much of an issue. But this correction came after the first missile had been fired and therefore, they were already in, so… ‘Well, we can’t pull out now’… Now as a result, every day the Americans are firing missiles at innocent Muslims in both Iraq and Sham.

It was also through these two successive American-led campaigns to impose the Democratic system upon the world that I woke up to the reality of what this ideology was, nothing but a system of lies and deception. The democratic system focuses heavily on providing the people with so-called freedom, allowing the citizens to select their leaders, alter laws if they feel the need and ultimately have the people decide the way their country is run, but this is far from the reality and there was no statement that summed this up greater than the words of the former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, “The people who cast the votes decide nothing, the people who count the votes decide everything.” The reality of democracy became clear to me, place in people’s mind the idea of freedom and convince them that they are a free people while oppressing them behind the scenes. On top of this the Western world throws celebrities and false reality into the spotlight to distract the people from what is really going on in the world, hence the widespread political ignorance among Westerners. This was the turning point in my ideological development as it signaled the beginning of my complete hatred and opposition to the entire system Australia and the majority of the world was based upon. It was also the moment I realised that violent global revolution was necessary to eliminate this system of governance and that it I would likely be killed in this struggle.

I saw people screaming, “Where is the Democracy?” in supposed democratic states and it made me hopeful that perhaps people were waking up to the reality but as it turned out they were still deceived despite their moment of anguish. I found a people though who had lost all hope in the democratic system and the United States and so I had to learn more, they were the gangs of the Americas. While their brutality is unforgivable and the suffering they have inflicted on innocent people, unimaginable, their underlying rationalisation is the unheard tale of the failed democratic system. I remember watching documentary-after-documentary about the Mara Salvatrucha in El Salvador, the Amigos dos Amigos in Brazil, Los Zetas in Mexico and the various street-gangs in Los Angeles. The elite prefer to portray them as simply groups of young men looking at making some quick cash and who love killing and mayhem but when asked what the real reasons for the establishment of their gangs are, the founders of these criminal organisations as well as their members always seemed to agree that they had the right to steal, rape and murder because the government and police force were doing the exact same to them in their communities. They all referred to the government as gangsters and the police force as well and rightfully so. They are predominantly from poor communities unfairly targeted by law enforcement and government policies and they are denied the opportunity to integrate into the system and build a regular life, so turning to a gang becomes their most viable option. I don’t want to go much deeper into my studies into the gangs in this region because I wish to return to the conclusion of my story, but this was something that only confirmed my understanding of the deception of democracy and that this is something that can only and must be destroyed by violent revolution. What would replace it though? Socialism? Communism?? Nazism??? I was never quite sure.

Sorry for the long detour but I felt it necessary to give the full story, I’ll now start to wrap things up, you can take a break and finish it a bit later if that’s enough reading for you at the moment.

…With the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions only giving rise to new dictators in the lands of Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, it also gave birth to new mujahideen and even the nationalist, democratic uprising in the land of Sham was the beginning of the return of the Islamic State and Khilafah in the region. It was around this time that my love of the mujahideen began changing from a political admiration to a religious one. I had begun researching different religions, seeing that they were key to many of the conflicts taking place in the world today and during this new period of study I found myself deeply confused by all of these outlandish and odd religious systems, that myself as an Atheist had never been exposed to. However, it was Islam that for me stood out as easy to understand and was shockingly consistent with established historical and scientific facts, which for an Atheist is about as likely as Earth colliding with Pluto. Slowly but surely I began being drawn towards the religion and it was no longer a political interest for me but the truth I had been circling around for years with my research into the mujahideen.

Just as I had been eager to gain knowledge of the political world, I had now opened a whole new realm of knowledge and was keen to learn as much as I could about the religion. The more I learned, the more I came to understand and make connections with my previous research. Then things took a turn, something I did not fear as an Atheist but began to fear as a Muslim, was supporting the mujahideen, convinced that I had been ‘radicalised’ by violent terrorist organisations. So, what I can say is one of the most shameful periods of my life, the research I had been doing all these years and the beliefs I had held so strongly to despite no-one around me sharing them were thrown aside.

However, as I read through the Qur’an, I couldn’t help but make strong associations between the speech of Allah (azza wa’jal) and the chaotic scenes around the world today. For example, Allah (azza wa’jal) says, “And when it is said to them: ‘Make not mischief on the Earth’, they say: ‘We are only peace-makers.’ Verily! They are the ones who make mischief, but they perceive it not.” [Surat al-Baqarah 2:11-12]. Is this not the reality of the kuffar today? Who claim to be helping to free the people while doing nothing but increasing their suffering. As my realisation of this reality re-kindled my previous views about global revolution, I began to truly understand what I had focused on studying for more than five years, the motivation of the mujahideen: The doctrine of jihad and it’s superiority in Islam. As the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad ibn Abdullah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “The head of the matter is Islam, its pillar is the prayer and its peak is jihad.” I now for the first time truly understood why there were Islamic armies from Mali to China, from Chechnya to Indonesia, it was an obligation upon every able Muslim to fight, an obligation that a person who dies without having fulfilled, he dies upon a branch of hypocrisy as stated by Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). So after my period of peaceful, submissive, down-trodden aqeedah, my return to the path of ‘radical, terrorist’ aqeedah began and the more I learned about the concept of jihad, it’s benefits, it’s importance and the rewards for taking part in military operations to raise Islam in the land, the more I desired to join the mujahideen. As I learnt more about the aqeedah of groups such as al-Shabab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria and Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen as well as various other organisations across the world, my support for such groups grew and grew. My main interest though was the mujahideen in the land of Sham, I found myself drawn to Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. Knowing the many ahadith regarding the blessings of the land of Sham I was eager to make hijra and join either of these two organisations. Despite my eagerness though, I met one key roadblock, how was I to get in? I had no contacts to assist me. After failed attempts at finding a contact I gave up all hope of making hijra.

As the war in Sham progressed and the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham appeared and the ongoing fitnah in the region was ignited, I found myself still on the side of Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, agreeing with the assessment of the mischief-makers that the Islamic State were from the khawarij. I believed it a duty upon others to slaughter the mujahideen of the Islamic State and had no respect for them, falling for the many lies being spread against them. It was my conversations with brothers from the State online though that began getting me to question my view of the organisation and the stories I had heard about it. As the Islamic State began to expand, seizing the cities of Raqqah, Fallujah, Mosul, Tikrit and others, Allah (azza wa’jal) Himself exposed the lies of the liars and humiliated the enemies of the State, a clear sign that they were upon the truth. Slowly but surely, I would come to love the State, recognising that they are the only people in the region establishing the Islamic system of governance, providing services for the people and most importantly they possess a sound aqeedah and manhaj that has led to their correct and effective implementation of the Sharia. It was this realisation that once again increased my desire to make hijra but once again I failed to find any contacts. This time was different to previous attempts at leaving though, I was growing tired of the corruption and filthiness of Australian society and yearned to live under the Islamic State with the Muslims. I now had the determination to finally remove myself from this land. I continued my search for a contact, even at one point considering simply crossing the border alone without any assistance. Finally, I made contact with a brother online who promised to bring me across the border, it was a risky decision to trust someone online but I was desperate to leave and was confident the brother was genuine. Fearing possible attempts by the increasingly-intrusive authorities in Australia to prevent my departure I began drawing up a Plan B. This plan involved launching a string of bombings across Melbourne, targeting foreign consulates and political/military targets as well as grenade and knife attacks on shopping centres and cafes and culminating with myself detonating a belt of explosives amongst the kuffar. As I began collecting materials for the explosives and prepared to start making the devices I realised that the authorities were oblivious to my plans but if anything was to attract their attention it would be my purchasing of chemicals and other bomb-making materials and so I ceased the planning of Plan B and sat waiting until everything was prepared and I could exit the country undetected.

Without revealing any sensitive information about how I entered the Islamic State, I’ll skip to the moment I entered the city of Jarablus in Aleppo province. I felt a joy I had never experienced before, the first time my eyes spotted the banner of tawheed fluttering above the city, everything felt surreal, I was finally in the Khilafah. At this time I couldn’t help but remember that moment a few years ago when I told myself that there will come a day where I will fight to overthrow the democratic system, that day had come, just not in the way I had expected. After a difficult and long journey in Jarablus, I put my trust in Allah and signed myself up for a martyrdom operation and was promptly sent to Baiji in Salaheddine province, Iraq. I sat for one month in Baiji before my failed operation arrived. After I witnessed the mistakes made, I turned to fighting in the city before once again registering for a martyrdom operation, a decision that would bring me to the large yet modest city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. And that is where I sit today, waiting for my turn to stand before Allah (azza wa’jal) and dreaming of sitting amongst the best of His creation in His Jannah, the width of which is greater than the width of the heavens and the Earth.

I guess I was always destined to stand here as a soldier in the army of Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (May Allah have mercy upon him) considering the great respect I had for him even before I entered Islam. May Allah accept him among the best of shuhadah and allow me to sit with him in the highest ranks of Jannah.”

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
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35 Responses to “From Melbourne to Ramadi: My Journey” [Jake Bilardi]

  1. Lucky Larry says:

    That kid was too smart for his own good.

  2. Dasha says:

    Wow, the kid wrote beautifully – would have made a great journalist. I find myself agreeing with a lot of his thoughts; though my love for Syria and hatred of the Islamic State stop me short of ever supporting his misguided actions. Nobody can say he was insane, nobody can say he was exploited – he knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it.

    It’s a shame he put his ambition into such a destructive cause. While violent revolution isn’t always the wrong path, in the case of the Islamic State and groups like them, it will never be right.

    I’m glad I read this.

  3. Kat says:

    I agree with the above comments. He would have made a great journalist. It’s interesting to read the way he came to connect with Islam because of seeing the injustices of western democracy to other countries. I agree with him on that point. The USA in particular have a lot to answer for. But for me the answer to that isn’t attacking civilians in either western countries or Iraq. But the difference between him and I is I’m nearly twice his age. Maybe if I’d been born later I would understand more how he could see the injustices of brutality only to go and use brutality to fight it. That’s the jump that I can’t comprehend. Someone has to take the moral high ground. The west aren’t doing it, but neither is ISIS. They’re just as bad as each other imo.

    What is scary is how similar I was in my world view with him up until the point where he makes the transition from recognising the damage the west has caused to him thinking that blowing himself up to kill others would be a good idea. 19 year olds don’t think the same as adults. They think they know everything and are much more likely to jump into something like this. And if all it takes is having a rational world view as an atheist to transition to Islamic fighter. Well that’s just scary. Because there are a hell of a lot of smart impressionable kids out there. I remember at that age exploring other religions as well. However I came to the conclusion that there is no god. But what he has written I can completely relate to as far as a journey into realising what the world is really like at a young age. Maybe the difference between him and I is that I grew up in relatively peaceful times where there wasn’t war on TV constantly. Only because we weren’t directly involved in them.

    I’ve rambled enough. But that was not at all what I was expecting to read. It’s really sad. He could have made a difference but instead he made a huge mistake. Violence is never the answer.

  4. Emily says:

    What a sad, sorry state of mind this Melbourne boy was in. Highly articulate but not so intelligent if he believed a book written over 1500 years ago. To kill yourself and possibly hurt others in the process is no different to American imperialism. It is just on a smaller scale. Love and warmth and my deep condolences to this boy’s family. If only he knew how much they must be suffering.

  5. Dave says:

    His analysis of the US, and western history of war and colonialism is fair enough; and it’s reasonable and indeed rational to reject the narratives presented to justify this militarism in the West, and recoil at the horror perpetuated in the name of democracy, of the blood spilt for oil. But what I don’t understand is how he can look at the barbarity committed against civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Palestine and think this is unforgiveable, which it surely is, but then in the next breath speak of his support for groups like IS or Boko Haram, who kidnap and murder children, complete innocents. At the end of the day he may be a relatively bright 16 yo, but he is also deluded; he became the monster he sought to destroy.

  6. Bb says:

    A pity he never bothered to delve into the violent ideology of Islam from its inception 1400 years ago through the present day. We have fought Islam and bought ourselves some breathing space during those centuries but this time it must be wiped out for all time. At least this idiot is out of the gene pool now.

  7. What’s all these crazy questions
    They are asking me?
    This is the craziest party
    That could ever be
    Don’t turn on the lights
    ‘Cause I don’t wanna see

    Mama told me not to come
    Mama told me not to come
    She said, “That ain’t the way to have fun, son”

  8. @ndy says:

    We’ll never know if Jake would’ve made a great journalist: instead he’s been ground up by the IS propaganda machine. Appalled by what he viewed as being an unceasing chain of atrocities committed by ‘The West’, he sought refuge in an online community which he understood to be its polar opposite — except, crucially, in its shared commitment to violent social transformation. The temporary sanctuary he found there quickly turned his life into another work of agitprop, entailing his death (along with the promise of eternal life in the hereafter) and a momentary headline.

    His family must be suffering terribly.

  9. Rashid says:

    Couldn’t have summarised it any better than Dave.

    Regardless of the political and historical truths he outlines, he blatantly ignores the universal sanctity of basic principles of morality and justice. For all his intellectual spotlighting of Western imperialism, he fails to grasp the schoolboy maxim that ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’. Although he doesn’t precisely articulate the justification for suspending such principles, in the final analysis we can infer that it’s nothing more than a morally inconsistent ‘ends justifies the means’ rationalisation.

    By his own admission, his transition from comfortable suburban antipathy to active revolutionary was not automatic. And it’s here that I disagree somewhat with Dasha’s analysis that “nobody can say he was exploited”. In the end, his disillusionment, anger and naivety were exploited. It seems likely that some degree of manipulation of such emotions and immature character traits, was a central factor in his eventual journey to Iraq – albeit that does not absolve him of personal responsibility.

    And what was needed for him to overcome that final hurdle between a simple rejection of the status quo, and wholeheartedly embracing its violent overthrow, was some sort of overlay of ideological justification, allaying his self confessed doubts and aversion to that path. It’s unclear though, exactly how much of his indoctrination into ‘justifiable violence’ was his own doing. Was it achieved exclusively via a personal and apparently retrospective ‘connect the dots’ reading of the Quran, a reading done through the prism of already firmly held political truths? Or can we attribute a significant influence to the group dynamics of reaffirmation, acceptance and belonging, created through interacting with like minded individuals online? The answer to that may never be known.

  10. Mike Ballard says:

    I have a hard time believing that Jake wrote this blog post. It fits so perfectly with a right-wing mind set attempting to tar and feather the radical liberal left. Can someone else please confirm that Jake actually wrote this. For, if he did, Jake’s logic and reasoning make for a damning indictment of the political bankruptcy of the radical liberal left’s project.

  11. Edward says:

    It’s a shame. He sounds like an articulate individual but his analysis and conclusions are distorted. Should have looked at the long term repercussions of his actions and the actions of ISIL/Daesh.
    It is easy to be sucked into a cult if you keep listening to their messages over and over again. I’ve been in a cult before and control of information, repetition and camaraderie are a couple of methods they use to indoctrinate their followers.

  12. He sounds totally alienated. It is a very sad and dangerous state of mind.

  13. jdrmot says:

    “JAKE[‘]S MAIN PROBLEM”

    is that he seems to be of the naive view that in the human landscape there are “GOOD guys” out there and “BAD guys” … u know … white hats, and black hats. He developed a naive dualism that, due to his personal circumstances and limited information, coupled with unbalanced history, and probably a family environment rampant with lefty types. (His older brother?) led him to seek the ‘good’ guy side. His criticism of America is the most blatant and bleeding, because his narrative implies that ‘non’ America is ‘good’ simply because they are being picked on by the USA (this probably came from his older brother and a general ‘Left’ wing narrative of modern history).

    A true and balanced approach to history is one that is grounded in psychology (which he claims to have studied?). At Yale, in Psych 110, you will be told that the ‘astonishing hypothesis’ (from Watson – DNA fame) is that all we ‘are’ is our brains. That’s ‘it’. And from this it follows that whatever we put ‘in’ our brains will determine how we act and think. It also follows directly from this, that we are nothing but an ‘organism’, and that we function in ways that have the ultimate goal of spreading our genes. So much for psychology. Now let’s turn to the big bad Satan … the USA.

    The USA is no different from every other member of the human race – it has interests, values, people and places, but collectively, the fact of it’s sense of nationhood, lead to a sense of National Interests which must be protected and promoted if for no other reasons for survival. This reasoning applies not just to America, but to every nation on earth, to every tribe and every family and every individual. For this reason, today’s ‘picked on’ person or nation is tomorrow’s bully. One of my favorite examples is the sequence of events that led up to the Pearl Harbor attack.

    STARTING POINT.

    1854, off Tokyo Harbour the fleet of American naval gunboats weighed anchor. Commodore Matthew Perry sent his emissary to the Government of Japan and in words of equivalent meaning “Open your ports to trade with us or we will blow you to kingdom come.”

    At this point I can imagine the President or Shogun of Japan saying “This day will go down in history as a day of infamy.”

    END POINT (Pearl Harbor) After some time on the rough end of history’s stick, at the mercy of the USA, the Japanese bite back and bomb Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt says “This is a day which will go down in history as a day of infamy” … and you know the rest.

    JAPAN … while we might be tempted to sympathize with the Japs on the grounds of Perry’s ‘invitation’ to trade, we cannot absolve them of their own decadent cruelty to the Chinese who now found themselves on the blood-soaked rough end of another historic blunt instrument – Japanese imperialism.

    Do I need to review the rest of history of the various empires etc to convince the reader that ‘this’ is human nature, protecting and propagating his genes?

    CONCLUSION. So, poor Jake was a victim of his own ignorance. I.S. is nothing other than an attempt by yet another group to dominate the gene pool, protect and propagate their own version of how humanity should be organized, and therefore, in the interests of our own peace and freedom must be cut down, slaughtered, and wiped out to the last man, woman and child. The whole community, young and hold, must be utterly destroyed. Harsh? Sure … but eminently workable. From that point on, the ideology itself needs to be exposed, crushed and annihilated by demonstrating through our education system how it will impact another generation of young naive and idealistic people like Jake or like the IREA Muslims who regularly try to convert passers by on Swanston Street.

    Achieving such a goal is probably impossible under our present (deplorable) adversarial political system, for more reasons than I wish to write or you wish to read right now, but it is a noble aspiration for perhaps a younger dynamic team with more life left than I have. I can say one thing though, being a massive island is a step in the right direction!

  14. jdrmot, you have given the best and most reasoned conventional assessment of Jake’s dilemma and the path he chose. I had to search for ages to find Jake’s bio here on slackbastard. The authorities (paranoia or what) have tried to take it down all over the auction, and I guess it is only a matter of time before it is scrubbed from here. The reason I searched so hard is that I had a hunch that the Palestinian situation was like a touchstone or catalyst for Jake, but absolutely no evidence due to aforesaid scrubbing of his thoughts from the Web. That guess is now partly confirmed. So it was Jake’s sense of justice – his perception of injustice for the Palestinians that helped him along to his demise, or martyrdom, as you prefer. Jake was at heart a good kid. He saw the wrong in the world and tried to make sense of it. But he decided he had to kill people and reject his own country to live with himself. I both feel he was gravely mistaken, yet also feel ashamed and a bit guilty for my own lack of conviction when confronted with injustice in the world. How much am I holding up much-vaunted morals, and how much am I just gutting-out, just preserving ‘number one’? Jake bit the bullet and made a choice, a horrible choice and a horrible outcome. My admiration for his moral sensitivities and conviction is overwhelmed by the senseless loss of life, his and others, and the suffering of his family. And also the potential loss of life of innocents here in Australia, which we thankfully narrowly missed out on.

    Now, when I heard all the counter-terrorist experts pontificating on Radio National, none of them talked about the touchstone of outrage that fuels so much terror around the world, the Palestinian-Israel situation. It is as if it is a taboo subject. To broach it, means we also have to confront the moral dilemma that Jake faced. And the risk that other young people will see what Jake saw. So our experts talk of other things. Ethnic profiling, de-radicalization, fundamentalist Islam, laws, lots of laws to stop and punish these young people for acting upon their moral outrage, as young folk since time immemorial have been wont to do. We would rather stoke fear instead. Don’t talk about Israel. Punish, prosecute, Aussies that go to ISIL. Stop them coming back. Jake saw that, he saw our hypocrisy, he saw right through us. He saw us with clarity, unmasked. And he made his terrible choice.

  15. Jim says:

    He is the outcome of the Australian National Curriculum that sends constant subtle messages to hate Western Culture and side with the Left.

    See the IPA’s submission on the ANC here and it will all make sense:

    http://ipa.org.au/portal/uploads/IPA_Submission-National_Curriculum_Review-March_2014.pdf

  16. findthetruth says:

    Beautifully wrote, everyone here is quick to judge him on his actions. But are so slow on condemning the actions of soldiers that have raped young girls and women, soldiers that have killed civilians on a mass scale.

  17. jdrmot says:

    @ Oksanna

    Dear Oksanna, thankyou for your kind words. I sense in the midst of your hearfelt cry, a lament over the situation between the Palestinians and Israelis. I can discuss this in terms of the proximate issues.. (close to our time) and ultimate.. (longer term.. breadth of history type). Depending on where you begin, the answer and evaluation will be different.

    My understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is based more on the longer historical picture, than one limited to the events of 1948 and after. It boils down to ‘which’ point in history we choose as our starting point. As Solomon once said :

    What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

    I don’t know if you have much knowledge of the Old Testament, but a reading of the books of Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel etc… you would see that there has been conflict between the Israelites and Philistines from long ago. If we remove the theological elements from the stories, and view them as ‘human activity’, then it brings us back to the same old same old ‘genes’ issue.

    It’s very difficult to speak about ‘justice’ in places like Israel/Palestine, because there are so many factors of historical input. I certainly have my own theological views on this, but there is not a lot of point in trying to persuade you on those lines if you don’t actually share my presuppositions about it… In any case… on a purely human level, as always has been… the bloke with the biggest gun will win out. Looking back on my own clan history from Scotland… by rights, if I were to seek ‘justice’ for what was done to my own clan, I’d be looking out for people with the name “Mackay” and “Sutherland” and doing away with them for what they did to my clan.

    There are so many places and peoples who only exist today because of some unspeakable injustice done by them to someone in the past. England is a good example.. the only ‘pure’ English are the Welsh and Scots, and even that’s not quite right.. ‘English’ comes from Angles and Saxons and Danes/Vikings etc.. the pages of ethnic history and conflict are indelibly printed in the DNA of various English groups.

    I hope upon hope that people will not become fixated on the ‘Plight of the Palestinians’, mainly because I know the history too well. The massacres of the Maronite Christians by Palestinians and their mercenaries is written in blood in Damour south of Beruit (this was the trigger for the attacks on Sabra and Shatila refugee camps that most ‘Pro Palestinian’ activists point to). There are also the massacres of Maronites by the Druze in the 1800s…

    1860 Druze and Sunni Muslim paramilitary groups organized pogroms against Maronite Christians; 326 villages, 560 churches, 28 colleges, 42 convents, and 9 other religious establishments were completely destroyed.

    These Christians had nothing to do with Israel… it did not even exist in 1860.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Lebanon will give a list of many different massacres.

    Even as a Christian, I have no desire to paint the Maronites as ‘Mr Clean’. I am convinced that all ethnic and religious groups, especially those where the religion has become part of the culture, operate on the basis of their self-interest, whether consciously or otherwise. This will always end in some kind of clash or conflict which will usually be over ‘resources’ rather than religion.

    What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecc 1:9

  18. Ozmir Khan says:

    Jake was raised in Australia and intelligent enough to see through Western propaganda and recognize injustice. He was not raised as a Muslim and therefore appeared to be gullible to ISIS propaganda. Like most ISIS fans, their extreme arrogance and self-righteousness has made them not only reject Western authority but also reject all of the Islamic scholars who have denounced this group. This group ISIS is referred to as the khawarij, were predicted by the Prophet as follows, “There will appear in this nation -he did not say ‘from this nation’- a group of people so pious apparently that you will consider your prayers inferior to their prayers, but they will recite the Qur’an, the teachings of which will not go beyond their throats and will go out of their religion as an arrow darts through the game, whereupon the archer may look at his arrow, its Nasl at its Risaf and its Fuqa to see whether it is blood-stained or not (i.e. they will have not even a trace of Islam in them).” (Bukhari; Muslim)

    ISIS is really another Hollywood production with nasty villains wearing balaclavas driving the latest Toyota Landcruisers and beheading people. The images are then broadcast with amazing professionalism and efficiency all over the world. They are funded, armed and supported by various governments to suppress any Islamic uprising and keep the Kings and dictators in power.

    If he had time to learn about Islam, he would have learnt to differentiate religion from politics. He would have learnt about the justice, compassion, mercy, charity and wisdom in Islam rather than focusing on violence or revenge. Quran, “O you who believe! Be steadfast for Allah (as) witnesses in justice, and let not prevent you hatred (of) a people [upon] that not you do justice. Be just it (is) nearer to [the] piety. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah (is) All-Aware of what you do.”

    He would have learnt that jihad is only permitted in defence and not for worldly power, “If they leave you alone and don’t fight against you and offer you peace, then Allah does not permit you to harm them.” (4:89-90).

    He would have learnt that killing an innocent person is the greatest crime in Islam. Quran, “Whosoever kills an innocent human being, it shall be as if he has killed all mankind, and whosoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind…” 5:32

    He would have learnt Islamic history and understood how Islam spread to Syria in the 6th century AD, “the Christian inhabitants of the country wrote to the Arabs, saying : “0 Muslims, we prefer you to the Byzantines, though they are of our own faith, because you keep better faith with us and are more merciful to us and refrain from doing us injustice and your rule over us is better than theirs, for they have robbed us of our goods and our homes.” The people of Emessa closed the gates of their city against the army of Heraclius and told the Muslims that they preferred their government and justice to the injustice and oppression of the Greeks”.

    Jake may have been an atheist and a smart Australian, but he obviously knew nothing about Islam or politics. He was understandably repulsed by the hate filled propaganda in Murdoch media, but the other extreme is not a better option. You would think that any reasonable person would ask, where do they get their funds, weapons, training, communication and all of the expertise necessary to continuously fight a war?

  19. jdrmot says:

    You know Ozmir it’s quite possible that you actually believe that stuff above? Though I doubt it, I suspect you have ‘filtered’ the history and the Quran to suit your rather shamefully ill disguised objective of offering a sanitised version of Islam that you think is more compatible with the Australian secular audience. I’m glad that I have the opportunity to correct the disabled record in your post.

    INNOCENT is a word in Islam with a technical meaning. “Innocent” means “Muslim” and guilty is “Non Muslim” (see 9:29 and 30).

    HOW ISLAM SPREAD in Syria? How about you provide a reference to your ORIGINAL sources for that claim? I think it will boil down to some carefully selected hadith, or from some ancient writer expressing opinions about them. Islam spread NOT by the means you claim, it spread by fear, intimidation and terror! Those Christian Arab tribes were ORDERED by Muhammad though Khalid bin Al Waleed to embrace Islam or establish treaties of protection with the Muslims. The account of Waleed’s cruel methods are well documented for the Christian town of Duma where Waleed murdered the Prince’s brother Hasan (Prince = Ukayda) and recommended Ukayda come to see Muhammad. We are told by victors’ historians that he surrendered the city to save his life, and some say he ’embraced Islam’ and with the image of his recently murdered brother fresh in his mind … I’m not surprised!

    Muhammad wanted those alliances BECAUSE he wanted them to be cannon fodder, and be killed first by the Byzantines to slow them down so he could organize his own armies in time to survive.

    HOW DARE you present a history of the expansion of Islam in Syria which does not take these facts into account!

    Jake, Religion and Politics. Your claim that Jake could have learned the difference between religion and politics is beyond absurd when it comes to Islam. “Islam” IS politics, from start to finish.

    Your other babblings are equally meaningless. “Mercy”? You have to be kidding.

    If you cannot see the bleedingly obvious here, that this is FORCED conversion, you are blind in both eyes and bereft of your brain. Here it is:

    And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. 9:5

    SEQUENCE OF EVENTS.

    i) Kill them!
    ii) wait for them ambush them.
    iii) BUT IF they repent … ‘Allah is merciful’.

    Yeah … riiight! They see their fellows slaughtered, they are dressed in organe jump suits and threatened with a knife to the throat … BUT … IF they ‘repent’ … they are safe and this is an indication of Allah’s mercy. RUBBISH! It’s an indication of the plain simple clear ‘forced conversion’. And please don’t insult my intelligence by pulling a Rashid act by searching for some much milder verse and claiming the MILD verse interprets the cruel one.

    Enough said I think!

  20. Mike Ballard says:

    A decent critique of IS by an anarchist:

  21. Rashid says:

    >>”INNOCENT is a word in Islam with a technical meaning. “Innocent” means “Muslim” and guilty is “Non Muslim” (see 9:29 and 30).”

    And the laughs keep coming.

    Which is this Arabic word you’ve declared as having a meaning of both innocent and Muslim? Which Arabic word have you translated as meaning both guilty and non Muslim?

    >>”And please don’t insult my intelligence by pulling a Rashid act by searching for some much milder verse and claiming the MILD verse interprets the cruel one.”

    LOL. Yeah don’t do that. Because it might make jdrmot look silly and uneducated.

    It appears though that might be an unavoidable reality. Because his mistake(?) here specifically, is not his usual deliberate amnesia around 22:40. Instead, it’s an illiterate reading of the verses surrounding 9:5.

    Chapter 9 was revealed at a time when, despite substantial victory, there were still groups of idolators waging war with the Muslims. But there were also idolators who had entered into peace treaties. For those still on an aggressive war footing and resisting peace, God instructs they be given a four month grace period to travel the length and breadth of Arabia, to see for themselves that their plans to crush Islam had failed.

    “So go about in the land for four months, and know that you cannot frustrate the plan of Allah and that Allah will humiliate the disbelievers.” (Quran 9:2)

    It is only then, after this grace period expires, that 9:5 comes into effect. But even then, it does not apply to those who are not waging war against Muslims:

    “Excepting those of the idolaters with whom you have entered into a treaty and who have not subsequently failed you in anything nor aided anyone against you. So fulfill to these the treaty you have made with them till their term. Surely, Allah loves those who are righteous.” (Quran 9:4)

    This is followed by 9:5 which you posted. But even here, in the midst of this recommencement of battling such warring groups after their period of grace, God instructs that idolators who change their murderous intentions, leave their groups, and seek protection, are to be granted it. Furthermore, they are to be ‘conveyed’ to whichever secure place they wish to go, having only been informed of the truth of Islam – not forcibly converted.

    “And if anyone of the idolaters ask protection of thee, grant him protection so that he may hear the word of Allah; then convey him to his place of security. That is because they are a people who have no knowledge.” (Quran 9:6)

    Now Ozmir may be wondering how it is that jdrmot could have missed what is so easily discernible from the surrounding verses. How could he have simply plucked out 9:5 and embarked on his shamelessly dishonest moral outrage? Well, that’s because, as has become increasingly apparent recently, jdrmot has no interest in any objective consideration of Islam. And once that fact is understood and appreciated, his shrill, ignorant rantings can be seen in their proper context.

    “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” – Anais Nin.

  22. jdrmot says:

    Hi Rashid… yes you’re correct… the laughs keep coming, but from you not me.

    The FIRST thing your so called prophet declares is… “ALL TREATIES ARE NULL AND VOID.”

    Verse 1: [This is a declaration of] disassociation, from Allah and His Messenger, to those with whom you had made a treaty among the polytheists.

    So… Muhammad has just ‘decided’ to end all his treaties… no surprise there of course. But wait… “Allah told him.” Don’t you love this ‘quickie instagram’ revelation of convenience?

    Then… the condemnation is not universal… those who have not helped the treaty breaking polytheists, or taken up arms against Muhammad’s gang, will be spared for those 4 months.

    But THEN…

    V 3 describes a “Painful Punishment” for those who fail to “repent” (embrace Islam). But not those who are in good standing re their treaties… UNTIL…

    v 4 Excepted are those with whom you made a treaty among the polytheists and then they have not been deficient toward you in anything or supported anyone against you; so complete for them their treaty until their term [has ended]. Indeed, Allah loves the righteous [who fear Him].

    Key words “complete…their…treaty” and then what???

    v 5 And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.

    From the unfolding context, this is not differentiating between any categories of Polytheists. “The polytheists” must by force of context mean ALL polytheists, including those with whom the treaty has been respected. Even though the following verses speak about “those who have broken their covenants” it is clear that it is MUHAMMAD who breaks the covenant because [he] simply ‘declares’ all such treaties null and void except for those who have not taken up arms. UNTIL they expire.

    Taken as a whole, and leading up to 9:29 the thrust of the chapter to that point is to outline ‘victors justice’ and to justify the attacks on the polytheists on the grounds that (according to the victors’ version of history) they have somehow broken their treaty.

    IMPORTANT NOTE for anyone other than Rashid reading this, note the single most important core point in all this: Muhammad (and Rashid) are operating on the level of religious ethnocentrism extraordinaire. They have as their starting point the idea that Allah has revealed things to Muhammad, and that he has the permission to make or break treaties according to the last instragram he received. If this were NOT the case, he would not have given a sunset clause that permitted the treaties to end according to the specified time, for those who had not fought against the Muslims.

    This Muslim centric view is what is causing the strife in the world today. They have an ideology that calls for global domination then when other people (like the treaty partners in Muhammad’s day) see clearly they don’t have a future of freedom with the likes of Muhammad around, and they make a stand to protect their liberty… suddenly the Muslims regard them as “Islamophobic” to use a modern word, then when they have the means and the manpower… they will unleash what our deluded Western governments conveniently describe as a “terror attack”.

    In all that, the fundamental conflict is between a political entity that cloaks itself in ‘religion’ that aims at world domination and the subjection of non Muslims to Islamic Sharia law rule.

    THIS is in part a huge reason why “Reclaim Australia” exists. It has zero to do with ‘racism’ other than to combat the pernicious Arab centric racism that Islam presents where the Caliph can only ever be an Arab from the Quraysh tribe, which is the ultimate expression of racism, equal to the idea that “The Prime Minister of Australia can only EVER be, white anglo saxon from the Tudor family.”

    Bukhari Volume 9, Book 89, Number 253:

    Narrated Muhammad bin Jubair bin Mut’im:

    That while he was included in a delegation of Quraish staying with Muawiya, Muawiya heard that ‘Abdullah bin ‘Amr had said that there would be a king from Qahtan tribe, whereupon he became very angry. He stood up, and after glorifying and praising Allah as He deserved, said, “To proceed, I have come to know that some of you men are narrating things which are neither in Allah’s Book, nor has been mentioned by Allah’s Apostle . Such people are the ignorant among you. Beware of such vain desires that mislead those who have them. I have heard Allah’s Apostle saying, ‘This matter (of the caliphate) will remain with the Quraish, and none will rebel against them, but Allah will throw him down on his face as long as they stick to the rules and regulations of the religion (Islam).’

    Bukhari Volume 9, Book 89, Number 254:

    Narrated Ibn ‘Umar:

    Allah’s Apostle said, “This matter (caliphate) will remain with the Quraish even if only two of them were still existing.”

    COMMENT I am fully aware of the long discussion about the qualifications for “CALIPH” and the various positions on it. In the absence of any directive from the Quran on the matter, we are left obviously with the next best thing: the utterances of Muhammad as reported by his companions via the authentic and highest ranking hadith tradition. Rashid, don’t bother beating about the Islamic tradition bush, this is an authentic, and highest ranked report of Muhammad’s own racism. The longer hadith above could be construed to suggest that ‘only’ as long as he sticks to the rules of Islam… ok… but that does NOT mean “any non Quraysh person” it only means a different Quraysh who does a better job.

    THE END.

  23. Rashid says:

    @jdrmot

    I’ve now learnt from past experience not to indulge you, because the respect I afford of addressing your questions is not reciprocated. When your posted hadith are shown to be fabricated, you move on to the next question as if you have no knowledge of your own foolishness. When your nonsensical understanding of verses is exposed, you offer only silence or irrational denial.

    So let’s try one final time…

    Which is this Arabic word you’ve declared as having a meaning of both innocent and Muslim? Which Arabic word have you translated as meaning both guilty and non Muslim?

    >>”The FIRST thing your so called prophet declares is… “ALL TREATIES ARE NULL AND VOID.””

    Using caps adds absolutely nothing to your assertion. It’s still completely false. It seems you’ve simply copied this absurdity in good faith from one of your favourite anti Islam sites – and you’ve been burnt yet again. Looks like you’ll be writing them yet another letter of complaint.

    “This is a declaration of complete absolution on the part of Allah and His Messenger from all obligation to the idolaters with whom you had made promises.” (Quran 9:1)

    This verse has nothing to do with treaties. The absolution of God and his Messenger(sa) is from any blame regarding their promise to defeat the designs of the idolators to destroy Islam. The Arabic used is ‘ahud’ which does not mean treaty, but does mean promise. The Arabic for treaty, which is then used in the following verses, is ‘zumt’. It is in this context that the next verse says, “So go about in the land for four months…”. The period stated is for the idolaters to travel the length and breadth of Arabia to see for themselves that the promise had indeed been fulfilled.

    So having completely and deliberately(?) mistranslated this verse, you then embark on a ridiculous construction where, even if we were we to read the verse using your mistranslation, it would nonsensically say, ‘You are absolved from honouring treaties from all idolaters…except to those idolaters with whom you have a treaty’. Huh?

    But even more laughable is your clear contradiction. You say:

    “those who have not helped the treaty breaking polytheists, or taken up arms against Muhammad’s gang, will be spared for those 4 months”

    I.e. for four months, such people, including those under treaties – which you deliberately left out of this statement but included in your quote of the verse, are not to be engaged in war. But you then say:

    “From the unfolding context, this is not differentiating between any categories of Polytheists. “The polytheists” must by force of context mean ALL polytheists, including those with whom the treaty has been respected.”

    So are those polytheists already under treaty, to be killed after four months? Or only when their treaty ends? If you claim four months, you’re in contradiction of 9:4. If you claim only when their treaty ends, you’ve invented a fantasy assertion not found in any verse. Nowhere does it say kill polytheists at the expiry of treaties with them.

    Furthermore, and predictably by you, you’ve completely ignored 9:6 – which by clearly instructing that polytheists seeking protection are to be delivered to safety without being killed or converted – exposes your entire construction for the falsity that it is.

    “And if anyone of the idolaters ask protection of thee, grant him protection so that he may hear the word of Allah; then convey him to his place of security. That is because they are a people who have no knowledge.” (Quran 9:6)

  24. jdrmot says:

    Rashid… I see your dopamine reward sub system is working hard to protect you … it’s telling you that no matter how compelling the argument, deny it … mock it … ridicule it … making sure you use lots of abuse words in the process …

    [Etc., etc., etc.. This conversation is over. Thank you, players, thank you, ball boys.]

  25. aaqertthb says:

    thanks for publishing the contents of the deleted blog. censorship is alive and thriving unfortunately.
    keep up the promulgation of free information

  26. Hey there, any idea who emptied Bilardi’s blog, or who I could speak to in order to find out who emptied it? Was it family/family directed by government/the AFP? Using Bilardi in the introduction to my PhD. Thanks mate.

  27. Mike Ballard says:

    I fear the censors as should we all.

  28. Reading this blog post, from Jake, reminds me, that in the USA, we don’t really teach history prior to Columbus, and it’s a damned shame. Jake is noticing flaws in the world, but at the same time, political correctness seems to have robbed him of honest reasons, the world is in the situation it is in today. And so he was vulnerable to propaganda and half-truths. I’m not saying that current governments are all correct, but in general, the world has been civilizing itself, and the war on terror is a part of that process. Too bad the historians sanitized his encyclopedia so much, that he had no chance of learning that on his own.

  29. Mike Ballard says:

    History is essentially persona non grata in today’s world and this in turn has affected the development of class consciousness.

  30. jdrmot says:

    Logan, my history professor at the University of Wisconsin (the late) Prof George Mosse used to say “I am here to destroy you. I judge the success of my course by the number of suicides at the end of it!” History, true history, can be quite a jolt to the person brought up with rose colored glasses of sanitized PC history.

  31. Pingback: Dylann Roof’s manifesto … #CharlestonShooting | slackbastard

  32. Pseudonym says:

    Jake was isolated and [disillusioned] with western society, cry me a river. He chose his violent path because he was angry and felt rejected. Poor [diddums]. He was just a little boy who happened to be articulate but was not very smart. An over thinking, calculating [predatory] animal [whose] wish was really just to be loved and his views recognised. I’m glad he is dead because super morons like this are dangerous to us all. If he was really smart he would have known that the right thing to do would be to throw himself off a bridge and do the world a service.

  33. ablokeimet says:

    Reading Jake’s piece makes me sad. He was a bright young guy who saw through the hypocrisies of modern capitalist society and wanted a way out, but was unable to see any way of operating except for winning a bloody war. His only defence of the crimes of Daesh seems to be to point to the greater crimes of imperialism. He didn’t get that the means one uses determine the ends one reaches.

    I have two other comments:

    (a) Jake’s short career as an Islamic revolutionary is an indictment of the failures of the Left. There should have been a Left group with which he could come into contact & point him in a more constructive direction. A bit of labour history could have transformed him. Instead, he was an auto-didact who came into contact with Daesh & other fundamentalists on the Internet.

    (b) Jake’s fate was no accident. Daesh had a policy of using keen recruits from the West for suicide attacks. The commanders were Arabs or Chechens & were absolutely Machiavellian. To them, Jake was just deluded cannon fodder. My readings of & about Islam, though limited, are enough to inform me that amongst the many conflicting currents within Islam are universalism and Arab chauvinism. The tension between the two is not resolved, but would become a really major issue in the event that a Caliphate with a global perspective (if not global ambitions) was set up ruling a population that had a solid non-Arab majority.

  34. Fruitilitarian says:

    As usual, Ablokeimet, you’re right on the money. The metamorphosis of the old class-struggle left into the present-day pack of moralising, censorial, petty-bourgeois wankers is the problem. If only this fellow had encountered the MACG he would’ve had the opportunity to transform his ennui into the purposeful labour of creating the self-managed global phalanstery of anarchist communism.

  35. ablokeimet says:

    Yes, the MACG might have been able to help Jake. But many other Leftist groups might also have been able to set him straight. Just a basic class analysis would have been enough to save him from becoming what revolted him.

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