What a curse on humanity religion is!

We borrowed this picture, and quote the text of the accompanying article by Faith J. H. McDonnell, from Front Page.

Christians slain in Nigeria by the Muslim  terrorist organization self-nicknamed Boko Haram

(The name means: Book-learning  – ie. literacy and Western culture generally – is forbidden)

(We cannot be certain that the picture shows the victims of the massacre reported here, but we are as sure as we can reasonably be that it is a picture of Christians slain by Muslims in Nigeria.)

Boko Haram’s latest attack, killing at least 42, took place on Tuesday, May 7  (2013), in the already battle-worn town of Bama, in Nigeria’s northeast Borno State. Borno, one of 12 states under Sharia, has suffered heavy losses under the Islamists. Some believe that Boko Haram has taken over northern Borno State much as Islamists took over northern Mali.

At least 277 had been killed by Boko Haram in Borno State in 2013 before this attack. … The Tuesday event involved “coordinated attacks by Islamic extremists armed with heavy machine guns” in multiple locations around Bama.

The jihadists also raided a federal prison, freeing 105 inmates. …

Boko Haram frequently attacks Nigeria’s police and military forces. In 2012 as documented by the Facts on Nigeria Violence website, there were at least 67 attacks, almost exclusively by Boko Haram, against military barracks, police stations, prisons, and other government facilities, as well as against individual soldiers, policemen, and civil servants.

But Boko Haram’s main targets are northern Nigeria’s Christians and churches.

The official name of Boko Haram, Jamā’a Ahl al-sunnah li-da’wa wa al-jihād, can be translated “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”. Its goal is to establish a pure Islamic state in northern Nigeria, removing the Christian presence – either by conversion, expulsion, or extermination. Boko Haram appears to prefer the third option.

According to the World Watch Monitor (WWM) report on global Christian persecution, Nigeria had a higher death toll from anti-Christian persecution and violence than the rest of the world combined. WWM concluded that Nigeria is “the most violent place on earth for Christians” …

That is saying much if one considers how Christians are violently persecuted in countries ruled exclusively by Muslims.

But the government of the United States cannot, will not, hold Muslims responsible for the persecution.

In the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) 2013 report on Nigeria … [there] appears to have developed the same pathological impulse that afflicts the rest of the federal government, to never blame Islam. As a result, portions of the report mischaracterize certain acts of violence by both Boko Haram and other Islamists targeting Christians, and criticize northern Nigerian Christian leaders for calling the situation what it is: persecution.

USCIRF’s egregious observations and recommendations are actually State Department policy. For instance … former Asst. Sec. of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson … declared in a congressional hearing, “It is important to note that religion is not the primary driver behind extremist violence in Nigeria” and that “the Nigerian government must effectively engage communities vulnerable to extremist violence by addressing the underlying political and socio-economic problems in the North.” [And USCIRF argues that] “Boko Haram’s motivations are not religious but socio-economic.”

The State Department – which seems never to sigh the lightest sigh or shed a single tear for the savagely slaughtered Christians – would like this to be true. As Faith McDonnell says, the “Islamist apologist choir” has its choir stalls “located in the U.S. State Department, which not only refuses to designate the jihadists as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), but maligns and defames Boko Haram’s Christian victims, as well. Some of that choir’s most dreadful caterwauling today is in support of Nigeria’s yet-undesignated terrorists, Boko Haram.”

But Boko Haram are not driven by want.

Terrorists never are.

These are dedicated jihadists:

Boko Haram is well funded by outside Islamists. “Heavy machine guns” and “buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns” are just the latest examples to show that Boko Haram is not just a motley crew of impoverished, marginalized local Muslims. In February 2013 it was revealed that hundreds of Boko Haram members had trained for months in terrorist camps in northern Mali with the local “Ansar Dine” al Qaeda of Mali. …

Besides, Boko Haram themselves make it perfectly clear why they’re killing Christians; have plainly declared what their aims and motivation are:

In their many publicly released statements and videos, Boko Haram has never declared poverty and marginalization to be a motive for their actions. On the contrary, they state clearly that their actions are a “jihad (Holy War)”.  They said that “Christians in Nigeria should accept Islam, that is true religion, or they will never have peace,” and that they “do not have any agenda” other than working to establish an Islamic Kingdom like during the time of Prophet Mohammed.”

In the Nigerian states dominated by Muslims, as wherever Muslims dominate, “Christians are regarded as inferior to Muslims and suffer ongoing, systematic and comprehensive discrimination.” 

Thanks to pressure from the U.S. State Department, Nigeria’s Christian President appears more concerned with demonstrating that he is not biased in favor of his fellow Christians than seeing justice done for those who have suffered (even to the point of considering offering amnesty to Boko Haram). The State Department has pressured President Jonathan to give more federal resources and create a special ministry for “northern affairs.”  … Federal resources have provided the northern [Muslim dominated] states with “millions in public funds on forced mass weddings for widows, pilgrimages to Mecca, rams for sacrifice at Islamic celebrations, and payments to terrorists’ families”. [But] there has been no compensation to the families of Christian victims. …

The State Department’s passionate wooing of Islam drives it to astonishing lengths, however often it is proved that its yearning love is not reciprocated:

In April 2012, former Asst. Secretary Carson [announced] … that the US would soon open a consulate in Kano, one of the full-Sharia northern states [of Nigeria], to join the U.S. Embassy in Abuja and the existing consulate in Lagos.

And this despite warnings that the Muslims in Kano are in a violently rebellious mood:

Three months earlier, Boko Haram had carried out numerous simultaneous attacks on the security agencies in Kano – police stations, army barracks, intelligence headquarters – leaving some 200 dead.

The writer comments aptly:

What a great place to build a new U.S. consulate. Kano is about 200 miles from Abuja. About half as far as Benghazi is from Tripoli.