What I don’t get is why all the reports on ISIS are so weird. Commentators describe them as this super-efficient, well- organized terrorist group but every story is accompanied by videos of goofy, silly youngsters who say childish things like, “We will put our flag on the White House” while grinning in a very non-scary ways.
I have no idea what point the reports are trying to make through the incongruity of what is said and what is shown.
Yet that same group has somehow managed to fight off the Kurdish peshmergas, who are reputed to be a well-trained, well-disciplined, highly professional army. Either the reports we’re getting on ISIS are highly incomplete, or the peshmergas are over-rated and there is in fact no army on the ground in Iraq that can take down ISIS.
My suspicion, and this is not something I’d wager money on, is that the dumb teenagers you see are just cannon fodder, the religious zealot leading them is the guy who gives the speeches to motivate people, and there are some former Iraqi and/or Syrian army officers actually running things in the field. Those guys probably don’t have much interest in getting their pictures taken.
But I could be totally wrong about this.
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\\ the dumb teenagers you see are just cannon fodder
+1
There are plenty of dumb teenagers in every terrorist group, without connection to effectiveness. Important people don’t show their faces.
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The problem for ISIS is they are fanatics trying to stare down a Juggernaut they can never defeat. They may kill a few reporters but if they really felt in control, then why hide your face when making your silly comments about domination. Obama is right, the US has a very long arm and unlimited ability to hunt you down. Osama, Saddam, Qaddafi, now this next fool I can’t even remember his name thinks he can outlast the Military Industrial Complex that will just profit by chasing him down. Sort of sad that these guys think they stand any chance to make a difference. They think a hundred pickup trucks with AA guns stapled to the bed is military hardware. If push came to shove, they would find out one armored division of US tanks would roll their whole silly khalifate or whatever it is.
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It would be great if that armored division rolled them down sooner rather than later, you know?
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American media will always sensationalize the story….politicians follow suit …leaving our military with “itchy finger syndrome”.
Soon the average Joe on the street, concurs….and says “bomb em”
We can’t have healthcare, new bridges and water for the poor slobs on Detroit…but we sure can makes bombs and stuff!
It’s America….such a peaceful society!
….observer Jules…..
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Another piece of propaganda. The west needs “threats”. ISIS is surely terrible, but the threat it poses is clearly overstated.
ISIS is a serious fighting force only because they are in a weak, unorganized part of the world with little dedicated resistance. Not to mention lack of cohesion in any form by the populations it is attacking (outside of the Kurds). A force of 10,000 isn’t shit in scale (they likely don’t even have this number of actual fighters in Iraq) – That shows you what a mess the “democratic” Iraq is, that this force can cause such problems.
Frankly with time the Kurds would eventually best ISIS in Northern Iraq. Also, if it isn’t already painfully obvious – Assad’s strategy in Syria has lead to a new reality on the ground, and this is that the Syrian fruit isn’t as ripe as it seemed last year.
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“ISIS is a serious fighting force only because they are in a weak, unorganized part of the world with little dedicated resistance.”
– Yes, I think so too.
“Frankly with time the Kurds would eventually best ISIS in Northern Iraq.”
– Obama just said that the US is now involved in Iraq “long-term.” I’m still not sure what the rush was to get back into Iraq and long-term, too.
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It is funny, because he is saying “long term” in the same breath that he says “limited”. I don’t feel the two go together.
And yea, I don’t know what the rush is. Iraq is another sad example of a country that was better off with a secular-socialist-dictator as it’s leader – as opposed to western intervention and the aftermath. The dictators all die eventually, some paving the way to a better daily life for majority of the citizens they rule over; though of course at varying but always terrible humanitarian costs.
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Israeli users reacted to a news article about Obama admitting his administration underestimated ISIS with “where wasn’t it mistaken about the Middle East?” and “he will say the same thing after Israel is horribly attacked.” For some reason, Bush is seen as more supportive of Israel than Obama by some segments of Israeli population. Of course, 30 or something commenters don’t represent everybody, but still.
One person also noted that USA will soon leave the Middle East altogether, including countries like Egypt, letting everybody sort out matters themselves with (probably) Chinese weapons. Another reason why Israelis aren’t likely to trust USA promises of support in case of moral high ground.
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The USA won’t need the Middle East as it progreses to oil independence using shale oil. At that stage there is no real need to keep the place civilised they can let everybody fight it out leaving all weakened to the stage they are not a threat to the US.
I think Israel will be eventually left to look after itself.
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It’s all a White House plot. Didn’t you know that Obama is really the son of Satin?
A bit about the Yazidis who Obama wants to protect according to The American Family Association writer, Bryan Fischer:
“The Arabic name the Yazidis have given to him (their angelic protector) transliterates into English as “Melek Taus,” which means “Peacock Angel.” The other name of Melek Taus,Shaytan, is the same name theQur’an uses for Satan.
This reminds us of the Scriptures’ description of Lucifer, who is described as the “Day Star, (the) son of Dawn” (Isaiah 14:12) and in Ezekiel 28 as “the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty…till unrighteousness was found in you (vv. 12, 15).” The New Testament describes him this way, “Satan (who) disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14), eager to deceive the gullible into believing that he is good rather than evil. The Yazidis have fallen for his lies.”
Read more at http://afa.net/the-stand/government/obama-will-fight-for-satan-worshipers-but-not-for-christians/#zHHIT1wu5fH1yh5Y.99
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That’s kind of funny:
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah called ISIS a “monster that has come to devour the region’s people,” and claimed the if Hezbollah had not participated in Syrian fighting the group would have reached Beirut.
“If someone steps up to fight this monster… should they be thanked or condemned?” he asked rhetorically, attempting to defend Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian conflict.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4559030,00.html
We all know what he would do regarding thanking or condemning, had Israel begun to fight ISIS, right?
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Two things regarding ISIS
1. Unlike USA, Germany seems to be ready to pay ransom to ISIS to release German citizens. Do you have any views on the practice? Israel behaved so, and it made terrorists all the more eager to kidnap our soldiers and citizens. Quite a few citizens of EU are in Syria and in ISIS itself, how can one know at all whether somebody is really kidnapped or a member of ISIS?
2. A Muslim London rapper with “rising music career,” who “appeared in videos and had his singles played on BBC Radio in 2012.” Then he went to Syria,”posted a picture of himself holding a severed head on Twitter” and is currently “under investigation following the beheading of James Foley.”
After seeing his disturbingly unthreatening Western photo as a DJ, I wondered how one could know when an immigrant really became a part of a new society. Then read an article and turned out that
“His father Adel Abdul Bary, an Egyptian refugee thought to be one of Osama Bin Laden’s closes lieutenants, was extradited from Britain to the United States on charges of terrorism in 2012 for his alleged roles in the bombings of two US embassies in east Africa in 1998.”
Why wasn’t their entire family sent out of Europe? I think democracy can find a way not to leave dangerous immigrants inside EU. If his father is like that, be sure entire adult family supports terrorism and raises children accordingly. After such Indoctrination at home, children have high chance to become dangerous too, as we can see here. Even if they look “normal.” Do you disagree?
Where does a red line pass? Immigrants were received yesterday, today some country in EU found out they were terrorists. Can’t the entire family be sent back, instead of endangering everybody? Now put “a month” or “a year” ago, instead of “yesterday.” What is the limit?
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After reading:
Muslim MP: Twice as Many Muslim Brits in ISIS as in British Army
…
The UK Foreign Office said that they believe over 400 individuals have travelled to Syria … However Mahmood described such low estimates as “nonsense” and said that the British government was failing to deal with the problem of home-grown extremists. “We’ve not concentrated on the prevention work, we haven’t invested enough in de-radicalisation. It’s tragic, somebody’s got to wake up to it.”
http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/08/21/muslim-mp-twice-as-many-muslim-brits-in-isis-as-in-british-army/
I wonder whether they *want* to do this prevention work at all. I mean, Europeans deep inside, not what they say outside. For instance, I think that many Europeans are glad to see Jews attacked now in their countries and that Hungarians are glad to keep gypsies as an underclass by sending 40% of gypsy kinds into special ed schools. Here too, imo they want to see Muslim immigrants as extremists and failures, and definitely don’t desire to make any effort to prevent this from happening.
The above was about an average European, both on conscious and unconscious levels.
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“while grinning in a very non-scary ways”
Now I find the grinning the scariest thing about them. It’s dead-soul smile of the true believer who really thinks he’s doing what’s good for you by threatening to kill you if you don’t want to follow their fatuous religion.
Of course they can’t fully carry out their threats but they can do (and are doing) a _lot_ of damage on their way to horrible failure.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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