How do you feel about this Islamic State organization?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
damn grateful Obama is president.
The joys of religion.
They are scum that should be wiped off the face of the earth. And they will be.
Beyond horrible!
Oy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, let’s not let our Reich-Winger’s get any idea’s from this.
They do want their Libtard blood!
Rare, medium-rare, or well done!!!
ZOINKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As a convert to Islam, I’m outraged that anyone would commit murder in the name of my religion. Such people are not in any sense Muslim. No more so than Christians who joined the KKK and lynched African Americans. They are a political organization hiding behind the cloak of religion in order to give themselves a veneer of legitimacy, an all-too-common misuse of religion.
Islamic State created out of the insurgents opposed to US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, cruelty of US forces and Abu Ghraib, etc. Cruel. more cruel, most cruel. ISIS makes Al Qaeda look like friendly forces …
Al-Rishawi is reportedly the sister of a former close aide of deceased al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Some reports name her brother as Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi who was killed by US forces on Iraq.
Don’t give a shit. Not in my top 100 concerns.
Backwards. Beheadings can’t compete in warfare against good Christian drone bombs. (But not to empathize with the innocent people they are killing, maiming, and terrorizing would be as inhumane as dismissing the death and destruction the US have perpetrated in that part of the world over the past two and a half decades.)
Now if they ever gain access to and control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal that would be a serious problem for USians.
Yes, and this was always implicit in al Qaeda strategic thinking; one assumed they wanted a sovereign state, bin Laden said as much, and Pakistan seemed somehow vulnerable. But Pakistan apparently played him so who was the master and whom the apprentice?
I have also always assumed that this threat explains why Iran wanted a bomb too. The Republicans are way, way slow on catching up with geopolitical realities and if they internalised the level of military co-operation apparently going on with Iran in what used to be Northern Iraq they might wake up. I half suspect that Israel targeted Hizbullah leadership in Golan recently just to break things up a bit. Not to mention the “leak” recently of CIA involvement in a car bombing of a Hizbullah leader in 2008 previously assumed to be Mossad’s alone.
This like genuine undertow from our ally; they must take this all very seriously. Underlying Bibi’s recent diplomatic blunder runs a genuine shift in communality of interest in the Middle East; it seems obvious from just listening to the news but we have old habits.
As for the Daesh; if you were to concoct a global terrorism media-oriented strategy calculated to create division and promote mistakes among your infidel opponents you could hardly do better. Gruesome and barbaric, surely, but also having a disproportionate effect in Western media compared to, say, killing a hundred people with a car bomb in Baghdad. One wonders if their military capability is sustainable at the same standard, however. The campaign there is starting to seem like the ‘no-fly zone’ stalemate of Iraq plus beheading.
And something will have to be done about Turkey; they are the willing economic gateway economy for these ruthless killers. But nobody dares unpick the Gordian Knot with Putin looming unpredictably.
○ US Torture By Proxy in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya etc
○ Jordan: US forces plan shield against Syria
‘Em boys is bad crazy.
How I “feel” is exactly the wrong question. These executions are intended to produce an emotional response (in their followers as well as their enemies). And of course they’re repellant.
But are they any more repellant than some guy in Nevada pushing a button that drops a drone strike on a bunch of civilians in Asia? In both cases the victims are just as dead, ambushed by someone else’s political agenda. In each case the executioners have their internal protocols and rationales, however self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, or cruel and disrespectful of human life. And the death toll from the American button-pushers is much, much higher.
To answer the question, I find putting someone in a cage and setting them on fire horrifying. As it happens, I also find anonymously murdering someone 6,000 miles away horrifying. But nobody ever asks how we “feel” about that.
“But are they any more repellant than some guy in Nevada pushing a button that drops a drone strike on a bunch of civilians in Asia?”
Well, I’d say that, generally speaking, the guy in Nevada probably didn’t intend to kill a bunch of civilians. It’s a distinction that doesn’t mean much to the kin of the dead but it’s still somewhat relevant here.
I think it’s more important to understand what ISIS is and the threat they represent. They are not operating out of grievances in response to wrongs done against them. Some of those factors did indeed lead to the creation of ISIS but they are glad this happened and that they have the opportunity to set up their favored ruling system. Our own actions are not very relevant to their desired course.
All that being said ISIS is a trivial threat to Americans in the US. There are any number of domestic and international policies we can adopt to isolate ourselves from any threat ISIS poses currently. We should let the Sunnis and the Shia figure out how to deal with them.
You’re also going to die much faster if hitvby a missile so there’s probably less pain than if you were burned alive.
True, drone strikes kill faster. And our Nevadan doesn’t intend to kill civilians. But it’s a different kind of morally repellant. Nevada guy has no idea whether his (or her) target is a civilian – he’s locking on whomever or whatever he’s told to. Verifying the identity of the victims, let alone the proximity of “collateral damage,” is someone else’s job. It’s exactly that – the ease, anonymity, and lack of external accountability – that is a big part of the problem.
And yes, RWNJ hysteria notwithstanding, ISIL poses zero domestic threat to the US. Even in geopolitical terms it’s far down the threat list. However, it’s easy to demonize (especially since it behaves so demonically) and easy to respond to with the response everyone understands, BOMB THEM!!!11!!. More important threats to national security, like climate change or economic collapse caused by the predations of deregulated banks, can’t even get political agreement that they’re problems, let alone agreement on effective responses. Much easier to go with what’s worked for
weapons manufacturersus before.Lesser and different. Since you’re contrasting uncertainty about killing civilians with intentionally kills civilians. And chopping off someone’s head (as they did to the aid wirkers and journalists) is a pretty messy and painful business especially the way the caliphate does it.
Keep in mind that I am not a fan of drone strikes for that reason. Making it easier to kill people anonymously makes you more likely to kill people period, as opposed to have to face them to kill them. But it’s still a difference of degree.
The arab and persian muslims have hundreds of thousands of US and Russian trained military/pilots. They also in possession of every modern tool of warfare except the bomb. ISIS is their problem.
Recognize them as a state then declare war the old fashioned way. Other than that we can’t do much more than we’ve been doing. Either the states and peoples in the region deal with it or it won’t get dealt with.
Recognise them as a state and start buying their oil. Religious intolerance, barbaric criminal statutes and cruel execution don’t seem to be barriers to trade in that particular commodity.
This is such a really, really bad idea. yet it’s repeated over and over.
In decades of constant warfare, we have not “declared war” on any state since WW 2. So we now need to recognize a new state (thereby fulfilling one of their main goals) in order to declare war?
Recognize them as a state and all the countries in the Middle East, at a minimum, call their ambassadors home from Washington.
Why declare war? There’s no upside to it. They are just a band of murderous hooligans with grandiose ideas. They need to be obliterated.
ISIS is the descendant of the Salafist that the Ottoman sultan butchered around 1817 ( Used an Egyptian army against the same Sunni ground that ISIS wants. )
The big danger in all this are the Saudi general populace that due to Wahabism basically agrees with the ISIS just is sitting on the side lines. If there is some kind of ISIS move into Saudi Arabi, these people join in and they go for Mecca and Medina. Then the house of Al Saud is shit and now we have a really different situation. One that is inherently bad for the West. These people really don’t like the oil revenue. They want purity and will do whatever it takes to get it.
Think Christian Dominionists on steroids.
Ibn Saud’s cavalry, basically, until they turned on him. And later became the first desert brigands to be subdued by air power, a notable moment in colonial aviation history and establishing a doctrine persisting, more or less, almost a century.
Your comment regarding Dominionists was spot on but I’m thinking something more psychotropic than mere steroids.
Where did you ever get the idea they don’t like the oil revenues? Oil revenues are absolutely essential to them.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/19/-sp-islamic-state-oil-empire-iraq-isis
The King of Jordan is a direct descendant of the Prophet. A man who served his king and the people of Jordan was just thrown into a cage and burned alive. Reports are that the King is livid and there will be hell to pay.
This execution just crossed an important line. Hiding behind Islam ended today.
Supposedly they’re going to execute the prisoner ISIS wanted tomorrow.
They don’t fuck around.
Richard Engle just reporting that it’s looking like they will execute 6 within the next 3 hours.
Agreed. They have crossed a line.
Biblical times, eye for an eye! Works extremely well, you start with torture of Zarqawi, US invasion, rendition, outsource some more torture of the bad guys, destroy some cities and what do you get? More bad guys who are much worse, we’ll execute them, need some boots on the ground, create chaos in ME states … and so on.
.
From my diary on Nov. 14, 2005 – Jordan A Police State plus Prison Torture ¶ Video Iraqi Woman.
Al Zarqawi is a product of Jordan prison torture, I’ve seen a BBC documentary of the village where he grew up. Nearly all interviewed villagers supported his actions in the first six months of the Iraq invasion and occupation by the U.S. Armed Forces.
Crossposted from my new diary – Jordan Bombings Were A Revenge for Fallujah – 2005.
All true. But ISIS/L just burned alive a man serving a direct descendant of the Prophet.
ISIS is a criminal enterprise that is in the middle of a marketing campaign. Not a lot different than conventional organized crime syndicate that exercises a gory mix of ransom, kidnapping, and extortion.
American politicians need to put away the fainting couches and stop pretending that America is the biggest victim in all this.
The people who live there are the victims. The U.S. Policy of fattening corrupt governments with cash and arms has been an abject failure prior to 9/11 and ever since. We are however succeeding in some ways. We are sewing the seeds of the next calamity, as well as sewing the seeds of the next Pentagon budget increase.
It is reminiscent of the Tuscarora War, which in the early 1700s, was one of the establishing events of the rolling frontier that swept westward.
It is the tactic of an organization that is outgunned but not yet defeated. It is also a tactic that is more possible in communities in which the force are outsiders instead of residents.
It is bait for outrage and US troop engagement on the ground. It is clear that we cannot continue to try to fight wars against Assad, Iran, ISIS, and a cold war with Russia all at once. But that is the folly the neo-conservatives have succeeded in entrapping us in as the create their new reality. If/when ISIS starts destabilizing Saudi Arabia, the situation will really get desparate. And you will likely see atrocities on both sides.
America cannot fight an enemy like this because we don’t have the stomach for it. At this point, I don’t even want to fight them. The arab/islamic world has given birth to a serial killer society. I’m happy to step back and watch them suffer for it.
Any westerner foolish enough to travel to the middle east isn’t going to get any sympathy from me when they find themselves captive.
Meanwhile the Saudi’s are offering to help the Russians with oil pricing if the Russians stop supporting Assad in Syria…. Say what? Which of the 5 sides in this conflict are the Saudi’s on anyway?
Good question. Perhaps not the one we think:
That plus twenty-eight pages of embargoed 9/11 reporting has got to be a peek behind the curtain. Why are we only getting glimpses of this now?