ISIS beheads journalist, James Foley

Monkey said:

I've seen this story several places, but this one has the best pics:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/0...-down-terrified-islamic-state-killers-images/

I'm all for this as a way to combat these terrorists.

Click to expand...

Good on them.

raburrell said:

As much as the ISIS cretins need stomping, I really, really, wish the urge to grant them the notoriety they so desperately seek wasn't being so readily met. They're disaffected sadists. Treat them like any other criminal or violent individual and stop feeding their delusions that they're speshul.

Click to expand...

yeah we should really tell the thousands across multiple towns and two countries who have come under their yoke (well, the ones whose heads aren't already on fence-spikes) that they're really just attention-whores and they really should just ignore them and they'll go away.

hell, obama should have just stood down on the mosul dam... people could stand to go a little thirsty until these pouty, petulant children get tired of stamping their feet and resign themselves to naps and a juice box.

That's one way to misinterpret what I'm saying. If you'd prefer to read it as intended, that would be to stop granting them mythical status and deal with their crimes as the atrocities they are.

they are a military organization steadily amassing money, arms and territory, in which they are establishing an oppressive theocratic political system. they need to be fought in that context.

Eh, the theocratic part is an excuse they use as cover for a desire for power, money, and control. Some of them probably even believe it. I don't see why we should.

raburrell said:

Eh, the theocratic part is an excuse they use as cover for a desire for power, money, and control. Some of them probably even believe it. I don't see why we should.

Click to expand...

Whatever label we give them, they are an armed, organized force of major size that a law enforcement will not affect to any significant degree.

Terrorists, war criminals, barbarian hordes, I'm not terribly concerned with the labels. Get rid of 'em no matter where they fall on the "spectrum of evil."

More or less, that's all I'm saying. I just want it done intelligently, in a way that does not further their goals. Somehow.

Basically, not like the last time.

raburrell said:

Eh, the theocratic part is an excuse they use as cover for a desire for power, money, and control. Some of them probably even believe it. I don't see why we should.

Click to expand...

if someone is chopping off people's heads, oppressing the population and forcing conversions to their religion under threat of murder, i take them at their word if they say they're doing it for their god.

And (especially given that I *think* you are an atheist), how does that change the situation?

raburrell said:

And (especially given that I *think* you are an atheist), how does that change the situation?

Click to expand...

fanaticism has to be acknowledged in order to know and defeat a fanatical enemy. that their particular fanaticism is religious is irrelevant.

if this were the early 1930s and someone was telling me that nazis were just "disaffected sadist criminals" using their wacky ideas on race and territorial expansion "as cover for a desire for power, money, and control," i would say the same thing. take them at their word.

hitler and the SS exterminated jews at great expense and logistical heavy-lifting. it wasn't cover for jackshit.

it was their raison d'etre.

Oh goody, a Godwin lol.

You and I are saying nothing different about what ISIS is doing factually speaking. But when a gang of people are financing their operation via means of kidnapping ransoms, stealing oil and wheat revenus, etc, and their leader appears wearing a luxury watch, etc, the last thing I'm going to do is take them at their word that they're doing it for God.

you're calling them a criminal collective of opportunists.

i'm calling them an army of fanatics with political aims.

the difference in our approaches to how they should be dealt with is implicit in our perceptions.

Pardon the interruption, but I think there's a lack of clarity with this bit, raburell (my boldface):

raburrell said:

As much as the ISIS cretins need stomping, I really, really, wish the urge to grant them the notoriety they so desperately seek wasn't being so readily met. They're disaffected sadists. Treat them like any other criminal or violent individual and stop feeding their delusions that they're speshul.

Click to expand...

Perhaps you didn't intend the part in bold to sound quite the way it sounds? Because I don't think it's feasible in the least. An org looking for and training violent fanatics as means of advancing its cause(s) simply can't be dealt with in the same way as, say, a group of simple arms smugglers or drug dealers. Because like it or not, there are people willing to protect and support the fanatics because of the cause(s). That changes the approach as a matter of course I think. Such groups can't be treated like any other criminal or criminal group.

Nope - all I'm saying is to quit lionizing them. It serves to legitimize their claims and implicitly strengthens them.

raburrell said:

Nope - all I'm saying is to quit lionizing them. It serves to legitimize their claims and implicitly strengthens them.

Click to expand...

yeah, hagel...

(Reuters) - The sophistication, wealth and military might of Islamic State militants represent a major threat to the United States that may surpass that once posed by al Qaeda, U.S. military leaders said on Thursday.

"They are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it's in Iraq or anywhere else," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon.

Hagel's assessment of Islamic State, which gained strength during Syria's civil war and swept into northern Iraq earlier this summer, sounded a note of alarm several days after the group posted a video on social media showing one of its fighters beheading an American hostage kidnapped in Syria.

Asked if the hardline Sunni Muslim organization posed a threat to the United States comparable to that of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Hagel said it was "as sophisticated and well-funded as any group we have seen."

Click to expand...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/21/us-usa-islamicstate-idUSKBN0GL24V20140821

sounds like somebody's got a man-crush...

belated thought to @robvowels - you make an interesting point regarding those who'd support them, and it's part of why this bugs me. The more we move onto their turf in looking at this as a holy war, the more support of that nature they get.

Right now, the entire Islamic world is united against ISIS. That rare situation is very much ours to lose.

raburrell said:

The more we move onto their turf in looking at this as a holy war, the more support of that nature they get.

Click to expand...

any links, aside from the usual suspects on the fringe religious right, characterizing it as such?

everything i'm seeing is that it's about modernity, rationality and tolerance vs. knuckledragging medieval fanaticism.

raburrell said:

belated thought to @robvowels - you make an interesting point regarding those who'd support them, and it's part of why this bugs me. The more we move onto their turf in looking at this as a holy war, the more support of that nature they get.

Click to expand...

Maybe, maybe not. I get the notion, it's certainly plausible. But not as a matter of course. It depends on lots of other things.

There's a linkage here--that I think I've discussed before--with regard to these kinds of orgs and the cultural/ethnic/religious diaspora that often seems to be of major consequence, when it comes to both support and recruitment. In this respect, it doesn't much matter how "we" look at things.

Right now, the entire Islamic world is united against ISIS.

Click to expand...

Don't think so.

And check this out (related to the diaspora issue): http://rt.com/news/181076-isis-islam-militans-france/

Here is who did the poll (can't vouch for them at all): http://www.icmresearch.com/media-centre/press/isis-poll-for-rossiya-segodnya

We were debating as to whether or not to accept their claims to be acting on God's behalf, no?

I'm basically with Obama on this:

“No faith teaches people to massacre innocents,” Obama said in his statement. “No just God would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day.”

Click to expand...

from yesterday

The more we treat them as an out of control militarized crime syndicate and the less like a religious movement, the less other religious fanatics are going to want to identify with them.

robeiae said:

Don't think so.

Click to expand...

They have no state support, quasi-legitimate or otherwise. Fellow travelers, of course.

raburrell said:

They have no state support, quasi-legitimate or otherwise. Fellow travelers, of course.

Click to expand...

Okay, but that's not "the entire Islamic world" in the least. That's all.

robeiae said:

Okay, but that's not "the entire Islamic world" in the least. That's all.

Click to expand...

Yes - my characterization was too broad, but please don't lose the important part of it. Right now, we're cooperating with Iran for goodness sake. We have the opportunity for a Gulf 1-style coalition because of that united opposition. It'd be a hell of a shame to lose that.

raburrell said:

The more we treat them as an out of control militarized crime syndicate and the less like a religious movement, the less other religious fanatics are going to want to identify with them.

Click to expand...

On balance, that could be true. Although I doubt our own portrayal of all this stuff is the main shaper of Iraqi public opinion (or in the broader Islamic world, for that matter).

As a side note, I wonder how much the idea of ISIS as a religious group shapes the opposition against them. That's an interesting phenomenon as well, imo.

Trying to come up with a rational solution to this is a waste of time. Almost as effective as shaming them, by pointing out that this is 2014. They don't share our values for human life, or the environment, or anything enlightened society might embrace. Those values are seen as weakness, as far as I can tell. Or skillfully used to cloud the issue, preventing any real cohesive opposition by the rest of us.

Hamas proves that point, as they tug at the heartstrings of society by showing pictures of women and children hurt, or killed. All the while they purposefully hide munitions in private households, schools, and hospitals. Money and materials meant for humanitarian aid are funneled towards tunnels and munitions. Cease fires last long enough for them to regroup and rearm, then it's more of the same. Insanity is what it looks like to me. A single-minded desire to exterminate their enemy, no matter the cost.

Except for the foreign recruits, I see most of them coming from areas where brutality is the norm. Quite possibly, the only true 'religious' believers may well be the foreign contingent and the common foot soldiers. The rest are out to get what they can, while they can, before they die. If they can amass power, and money, and do whatever they want in the name of a religious frenzy, then that's fine with them.

Finally, I don't think we can honestly lay this at the feet of the United States. We are the excuse for their brutality. If not us, then there would be some other country that would be the focus of their hatred. Every good jihad needs a scapegoat. We just happen to represent all the things that they resent, covet, and use as a focus. If the poor, uneducated masses lost sight of that convenient target, they might actually rebel against their leaders. They're really to blame for the lives they have condemned their countrymen to endure. Might as well blame the Crusades, if anything. It's pointless, as that is not the reason for the current unrest.

Now that this event has generated a discussion on the issue of ransom, I'll cast my vote:

We did absolutely the right thing in not acceding to ransom demands. Period. As harsh as that was, and as hard a decision at a personal level that must have been, it was the right one. Nobody can play this ransom game with these kinds of people.

caw