Daily Lessons from Life 31 October 2014 - UN warns of 'unprecedented' number of foreign militants

1. How time flies!! It is the last day of October 2014. 10/12th of the year has passed! May those working on their 2014 Resolutions have a review to-date! Mine has been pretty decent. :-)

2. Simply has to have this item here before my main reflection of the day: "Kim Jong-Un visits orphanage, but no kids are there - the children's orphanage is well, eerily empty, with no sign or indication of any children at the facility during Kim's visit."

North Korea must be the MOST enigmatic country in the world! Unbelievable!!

3. "UN warns of 'unprecedented' number of foreign militants - AFP 31 October 2014

LONDON: Militants from more than 80 countries have flocked to fight in Iraq and Syria on an "unprecedented scale", according to extracts of a UN report published by Britain's Guardian newspaper on Friday (Oct 31).

Around 15,000 people have travelled to fight alongside Islamic State (IS) and other hardcore militant groups from "countries that have not previously faced challenges relating to al-Qaeda," said the report. The number of foreign militants travelling to fight since 2010 exceeds the cumulative total of the 20 preceding years "many times", added the Security Council study.

"There are instances of foreign terrorist fighters from France, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland operating together," it said, according to the Guardian.

The UN warned that more nations than ever face the problem of dealing with fighters returning from the battle zone. The report was produced by a committee that monitors al-Qaeda, and concluded that the once mighty and feared group was now "manoeuvring for relevance" following the rise of the even more militant IS, which was booted out of al-Qaeda by leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The IS group's "cosmopolitan" use of social media, "as when extremists post kitten photographs", was attracting a new breed of foreign fighters who are put off by the more dogmatic communication tactics of al-Qaeda, said the report. IS leaders recognise "the terror and recruitment value of multi-channel, multi-language social and other media messaging," it added."

A fairly terrifying number: 15,000! From many countries that supposedly had 'arrived', at least material wise!

Lessons for me are:

a. it is about religious belief, twisted no doubt, and it is EMOTIONAL. As I had reiterated many times, when emotion is aroused, rationality has NO CHANCE. Of course, behind this facade, certain sense of injustice, unfairness, and even neglected brutal oppression of certain groups of people by the larger world fuels such warped behaviours;

b. in this war, hopefully never will happen in Singapore, the 'enemies' are one of us. He or she or they will be hard to spot as they don't put a label on their forehead to say: 'I am ISIS or IS!' That is the most troubling part. Precautionary measures may include monitoring 'known returnees'. A delicate issue in societies that values freedom of expression of individual and the observance of laws that advocate: 'Innocent until proven guilty'. There will be controversies whenever the government uses a stricter set of laws as pre-emptive strikes against potential religious terrorists. Should be interesting to track how things develop when real cases happened;

c. recent news of Singapore government acquiring this 'eyes in the sky with a cable' system is perplexing as I am not sure we are susceptible to 'blatant' aggression from the sky. If anything will rock the stable foundation of our Tiny Little Red Dot, it has to be terrorists attacks. As Singapore is relatively well off in terms of materials measurement, it will be IRRATIONAL motivations that triggered any aggression since NO rational thinking person will want to destroy the stability and peace upon which pursuit of prosperity and self-actualization is based on.

Everyone just have to be aware and be more alert to tell tales signs of 'religious terrorists' amongst us, if any!! (Hope there is NONE!)