islamic state

by

by russell

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for last night's attacks in Paris.  If they are responsible, that apparently represents an upping of the ante on their part, in terms both of the ambition of the attack and the effectiveness of its execution.

The IS is kind of a strange beast.  They don't appear to want to just be a state in the modern, post-Westphalian sense.  Per (among others) the Atlantic's Graeme Wood they appear to consider themselves an essential element in the playing out of some kind of apocalyptic end-times drama.

Another thoughtful discussion, from the NY Review of Books, whose author basically finds himself (or herself) gobsmacked by the phenomenon of IS.

Basically, IS appears to want to turn out the lights on modern life and the modern world, where for "modern", read "everything since about the year 700".  At least in social, legal, religious, and political terms, they seem to be fine with modern technology and arms.

I don't really know how you address something like that.  There doesn't seem to be any available room for the co-existence of IS and anyone who is not interested in living in, or subject to, an authoritarian theocratic totalitarian polity, run on the religious and social mores of the 7th C middle east.  

And, their vision has sufficient appeal that thousands of people have been willing to give up whatever lives they have been living – in many cases successful, comfortable, generally happy lives – in exchange for one-way tickets to a violent and absolutist version of the middle ages.

Even if we (or someone) were to achieve the decisive military defeat of IS and the eradication of whatever political organization they have in Syria and Iraq, I'm not sure that eliminate the dream of an apocalyptic caliphate that seems to motivate them.

What I should emphasize is that I do not conflate IS with Islam.  Islam is obviously a prominent element of their belief and motivations, but Islam is an enormously and overwhelming larger tent than the kind of bloodthirsty fanatical Wahhabism of IS.

It would be like equating, frex, Christianity with the KKK. 

No conclusions or grand plans on offer here, it just seemed like folks might want to discuss it.

402 thoughts on “islamic state”

  2. One should maybe say that they desire a return to a 7th century as they imagine it, not necessarily the real one (compare the imagined 1950ies [or for that matter the time of the Founding Fathers] of modern day conservatives as opposed to the real thing).
    Radical movements often look for the reconstruction of a mystic past that never was while desiring to keep the creature comforts of modernity (with very few exceptions that actually would go for the full ascetic deal).

  3. I’m not sure many of us here are going to be able to get our heads around the mindset that gives rise to something like ISIS. Although I suppose someone who is familiar with someone who subscribes to one the more apocalyptic end-times Christian sects might be able to at least get close.
    That being the case, I don’t know how we really adddress IS. At most, we can try to do two things:
    1) provide some way for those who are desperate to better their lives. Because, if you have no hope, something like IS might seem attractive. (Although that is strictly a guess from the outside.)
    and
    2) provide some way for those young (mostly men) to feel like they are doing something exciting, dangerous, and worthwhile. In short, give them something adventurous (i.e. not-boring) to do with themselves.
    Not, I admit, a complete solution. Especially as I don’t really feel for the mindset involved. But perhaps a significant step forward in addressing the problem.

  4. (FFS, why do i keep ending up in moderation???)
    i’m not sure what the answer is either.
    but, i think the Russian airliner attack and now the Paris attacks put them must closer to the apocalyptic showdown that they seem to be hankering for. and that won’t go well for them.
    they might think there’s something about the European/American mind that makes them incapable of horrendous violence. but a quick glance at the history of the early 20th C should prove otherwise.
    or maybe they think the forces of tolerance and patience and restraint in the name of not wanting to harm innocents can hold forever against the desire for brutal revenge. but they’d be wrong about that, too.
    if i were them, i’d think long and hard about what my next move should be.

  5. if i were them, i’d think long and hard about what my next move should be.
    The problem might be that, if you were them, you might not mind being destroyed so long as enough other stuff gets destroyed in the process and there is at least someone left to carry on your ideology.

  6. Anything I might have to say about IS is likely to be wrong, so: I got nothin’.
    I suspect, though, that they’re looking to ratchet up the amount of chaos, and that a different group of Infidels declaring war on a different group of…well, Fidels…looks like more of a good thing.
    <Ackbar>It’s a trap!</Ackbar>

  7. no doubt there are a lot of people willing to die for that cause. but it’s not an infinite number. and it’s obvious that the leadership does what it can to stay alive.
    i think they’re going to get that war they say they want; and they aren’t going to like it much.

  8. i think they’re going to get that war they say they want; and they aren’t going to like it much.
    That may be true, particularly if not liking it much includes being dead.

  9. Perhaps they should have taken down some other plane instead of a Russian one. Russian operatives haven’t been exactly know to stick to anything like rules of engagement when it comes to evening up scores.

  10. yeah, that was a terribly dumb move going after Russia.
    it’s going to be interesting to see how the Dems handle themselves at the debate tonight. i don’t doubt that professional troll Ann Coulter really does think that IS just got Trump elected, but i think HRC might just be able to make a solid case otherwise.

  11. ISIS also murdered dozens of people in Beirut a couple of days ago. It was initially reported in the NYT as an attack on a Hezbollah stronghold, as of course political motivations matter if non-Western civilians are killed.
    http://fair.org/home/media-turn-civilian-isis-victims-in-beirut-into-hezbollah-human-shields/
    ISIS seems to be launching terror attacks at countries or groups that are fighting them. Presumably we are on the list, though I fervently hope they don’t have any sleeper cells ready here.

  12. I was a bit bothered by the contrast between how Beirut was(n’t) discussed and Paris was – yes, 120+ dead is more than 40+ dead, but still – though I wasn’t surprised. It’s the sort of thing that’s hard not to see if you’re paying attention, and people in the developing world are more likely to be paying attention than those in the West.
    —
    cleek, I think it’s fairly safe to say that the apocalyptic endtimers aren’t counting on the West being soft – they’re expecting to prevail when it matters because it was foretold. It doesn’t matter if it seems unlikely. It doesn’t matter if the West applies overwhelming force and starts pushing them back on all fronts. When it counts, they will overcome whatever odds they face because God wills it. Simple as that. Their job is to correctly set the preconditions for the prophesied events, and once that happens God will do the rest.

  14. I liked the Charles Pierce piece on how to fight extremism–go after the funding sources in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States. It has the added benefit that it ought to be an easy political sell for ordinary people in the US, left and right. Who thinks highly of the Saudi government? And Pierce isn’t talking about war either.
    While we’re at it, it might be nice if we’d stop supporting the Saudis as they bomb civilians in Yemen.

  17. What I’m confused about is the non-religious-maniac element in ISIS.
    By all informed accounts this constituency does exist – a bunch of experienced former Ba’athist soldiers who are responsible for their generally fairly impressive tactics and organisation.
    You’d think these guys, assuming they haven’t converted to the apocalyptic world-view, would be pretty unimpressed by the group, at a point when they’re already pressed on several flanks, inviting a fight to the death with all the world’s major powers except China.
    So I guess either they don’t exist, or this is a fault line that’s likely to become visible quite soon.

  18. I liked the Charles Pierce piece on how to fight extremism–go after the funding sources in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States.
    Hillary Clinton seems to go for that too. My guess is so does Barack Obama. So we’ve probably got that covered.
    I kind of see the point of NV when s/he says: “I was a bit bothered by the contrast between how Beirut was(n’t) discussed and Paris was – yes, 120+ dead is more than 40+ dead, but still – though I wasn’t surprised.”
    In fact, IS and al Qaida have been doing all kinds of horrors for a very long time in a lot of places, and what are we to do? Well, we just hate droning them. Let it play out, man. History will reveal.
    In fact, if we take military action, some civilians will be harmed. That is a fact. War is not the same as criminal law.
    I’m totally for freezing the money. But do we really think that “we” are going to totally freeze the money? The fact is, we probably need to freaking kill some people. And, despite what cleek thinks, we might lose. Americans will not be up to the task of killing and being killed. Maybe the Russians should do it.

  19. The rest of the world doesn’t have to win; it just has to bottle Daesh up — if that psychotic death cult can’t expand it will start eating itself alive. Why do you suppose they’re sending their mens right activists further afield to murder people?

  20. Count me in with the “no idea” group. Although I like the idea of basically allowing them only technology from the 12th century and before – take out the smartphones and internet access and cars and… well pretty much a lot of stuff actually, and I could see the movement starting to die in the arse quite quickly.
    No, I’ve no idea how to do that either, although targeting mobile phone towers and similar infrastructure might be a start.

  21. Actually, sapient, I’ve said I don’t mind droning them. I object to signature strikes, attacking rescuers and lying about civilian deaths, but whatever. But bombing ISIS is fine with me, morally speaking Like many, I’m not sure it will work, but as part of a strategy it Might have its place. Here’s the thing though– just a few years ago we were talking about bombing Assad, whose forces have ( according to the human rights groups I’ve read) killed the most civilians in Syria. Obama seems to have agreed with those who think we shouldn’t plunge into another quagmire. I don’t know what to do about ISIS, but the principle can’t be that we bomb all groups that do terrible things to civilians.
    And who said ” we” are the only ones who have to freeze the money? is everything you read seen as a judgement for or against Democrats?
    The Saudis are a curious case in American politics. The government is despised across the political spectrum and everyone from far left to far right sees them as responsible for sponsoring radical Islam and they are happily blowing up civilians in Yemen, but they get away with it.

  22. “Americans will not be up to the task of killing and being killed.”
    Historically, Americans have been late to wars.
    Just saying.
    The second war in Iraq was one glaring exception. To say we were early to that one isn’t quite on point, is it?
    There was no reason, no national interest at stake, for that debacle, beyond the made-up figments in the neo-conservative (such a nice term for f*ckers who haven’t been punished yet) mind.
    Look what we did.
    Iraq was an ordered hornet’s nest, but at least with the surface structure of a self-contained country, with borders. Now it’s little more than a frontier in which Sunnis and Shiites have been given a stage to play out their their blood feuds, both using the weapons the U.S. and Russia supply and leave behind.
    And if anyone believes I’m in any way defending Saddam Hussein, you can drop dead.
    Destabilization, shaking things up, was the goal.
    How do we f*cking like it, now. Was making room for Mcdonald’s in Baghdad worth it? At least their clown isn’t malign, I will say that for them.
    Before Americans make the decision to kill and be killed, (haven’t seen a plan yet) how about we make the decision to pay for it this time around, upfront, spelled out specifically in the Act of War sent to Congress.
    And, if the Republican Party thinks that going to War with IS is merely a synonym for defunding Obamacare, scragging the social safety net, punishing tens of millions of decent human beings who are in this country legally and illegally to get at the few Islamic radicals, and the four rapists that hide among them, then as far I’m concerned IS and al Qaeda are the Republican Party’s best friends and enablers.
    After all, the men’s rights activists in both IS and the Republican Party share a longing to defund and shut down Planned Parenthood.
    The sheer delight of the usual suspects among us at the Paris murders as another lever to further their agendas is …. sorry, you’ll need to invent a new word, I’m plum out.
    Worldwide, conservatives of every society long to kill each other and drag the rest of us into it. In every country, the end-of-worlders long to kill progressive modernity and return to the pigland of the past.
    That said, I’m delighted that a drone took out Jihadi what’s-his-face, if in fact it did.
    (I’m still intending to post on the “Ivanhoe” thread about the odd evolution of chivalrous warfare, as reflected in literature, and its methods and targets, but it may be awhile)
    And regarding whether Russia can do it, aren’t they still sewing up the a*s wounds dealt to them by the bedraggled guerilla fighters in caves in Afghanistan whose names we have come to know and love?
    I suspect, as in WWII, the coming conflagration with IS and 77 other jihadi desert willow o wisps, will have to be a joint Russian/NATO/American clusterf*ck, and at the end of it, the usual suspects on our side will immediately begin haranguing us to take out Moscow as well, while we’re at it, because Medicare has not yet been abolished and there are still a few Americans on this side of the pond who aren’t carrying AK-47s into Starbucks.
    One other item, while we’re taking out IS, I want the apocalyptic end-worlders, personified by ilk such as Bachmann, Barton, and company to turn in their passports and be placed under house arrest, because letting them travel to Israel to revel in God’s slaughter of most of the Jews, and the 5 billion non-believers in this world is not helping things.
    Their rhetoric reminds me exactly of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s, except that our Death-loving cults have the delicacy to hire God as their hitman rather than Jihadi John, the better to erase the paper trail.
    At least al-Baghdadi’s martyrs, most of the human race, get a few dozen virgins once they are dead, whereas Bachmann and company’s martyrs, most of the human race, only get some coupons to dine with the Burger King.

  23. I favor, in all countries, that those who leave their country to join and/or support IS, have their passports canceled and don’t get back in to live with us.
    And why, unless it’s to keep things open enough to so western intelligence can track these people, are the Twitter, Facebook, cell phone accounts, and all other social media outlets by which IS recruits idiots and sociopaths not canceled.
    I also like Charles Pierce’s suggestion, but until that 28-page report kept under lock and key on Capitol Hill is released to all of us, nothing is going to happen.

  24. One other item:
    Coulter, Carson, Trump, Cruz and company are the prime marketing arm in this country for recruiting IS jihadis, not to mention all of the other terrorists they will create on American soil if they gain control of the U.S. Government.
    I think IS is campaigning for them to win. I think they hated to see George W. Bush and company leave office, because the latter so resembled George Armstrong Custer in their arrogance and ignorance.
    There are no others who IS would like to meet more for the End of the World conflagration in that meadow in Dabiq, Syria than those guys.
    It’s a shame they would send us in first, while they clip their coupons on U.S. Treasury Bonds, but that’s how they roll.
    Let’s roll, they’ll say. By which they mean: you roll and we’ll hide over here.

  25. You need to be careful about that Graeme Wood article. These guys argue that he is indeed “equating Christianity with the KKK”. Apart from being wrong, this sort of thing distracts attention from the social and political (not religious) issues that lead to people joining outfits like ISIS.

  27. I don’t think everyone agrees that financial pressure should be brought to bear on gulf states that fund Salafist Takfiris. In particular, those states, and their lobbyists don’t agree. The big defence corporations certainly don’t agree: the US government gives gulf states (including Saudi Arabia) billions of dollars in “aid” that can only be spent on US defence contractors. Those contractors and their lobbyists in DC will surely scream bloody murder about any limits.
    And while in theory American conservatives hate ISIS, in practice, once Lockheed Martin and friends start screaming, along with their hand purchased Senators and Representatives, all that hate will just melt away.

  30. Turb–I think you’re right. Ordinary voters across the spectrum don’t care for the government of Saudi Arabia, but there are obviously certain categories of people who profit from having a cozy relationship.
    I forgot his name, but there was a Saudi prince who was pals with the Bush family and was, iirc, quite popular with the DC crowd. I also remember him being cited because he was critical of Arafat for not agreeing with Clinton and Barak at Camp David. Of course if you want fair minded political commentary on a human rights and justice issue, one would always seek out the opinions of a member of the Saudi royal family.

  31. Bandar, Donald. I just looked him up on Wikipedia to remind myself of his story. At the conclusion of the article, there was a reference to the defense contract he negotiated with China. The world’s a complicated place.

  32. take out the smartphones and internet access and cars
    Does anyone happen to know if ISIS is using cell phones domestically? Because it would seem like taking out their cell towers should have been a priority. Sure, it still leaves them free to send people out to broadcast stuff on the Internet. But why make it easy? Not to mention that disrupting communications of the enemy is always useful.

  33. Had Jehovah not seen fit to park vast amounts of petroleum under sands that He would someday cede to Allah, Muslim nutters with an apocalypse fetish might have remained no more troublesome to civilized people than are rapturist Christians or messianic Jews. To be fair, the God of Abraham was probably ignorant of petroleum and its uses.
    In any case, the modern world is stuck with an unfortunate coincidence. Always and everywhere there have been humans simple-minded enough to take religion so seriously as to kill and die for it; always and everywhere there have been men cynical enough to exploit that fact; it’s a rotten shame that some of the latter just happened to end up owning the petroleum. So, as Charlie Pierce notes, our friends the Saudis have secured their worldly wealth by buying off murderous fanatics with both financial and theological support.
    Before westerners came to buy the oil, the House of Saud’s main business was exploiting Faith(TM) straight up: the Haj was basically their only source of income. They have known the dollar value of Faith(TM) for a long time.
    –TP

  34. Thanks sapient. I read the Wikipedia article–I had forgotten W had given him a nickname “Bandar Bush”.

  35. In fact [the US and its allies] have been doing all kinds of horrors for a very long time in a lot of places, and what are we to do?

  36. You need to be careful about that Graeme Wood article. These guys argue that he is indeed “equating Christianity with the KKK”.
    I would say that I, personally, am not in a position to evaluate the degree to which IS is “Islamic”. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that there are as many readings given to “Islamic” as an adjective as there are readings given to “Christian”.
    Which is to say, a lot.
    I agree that numerous historical, political, economic, social, geographic, ethnic, and other issues play a large role in the phenomenon of IS.
    But it also appears, to me anyway, that many if not most folks in IS sincerely believe themselves to be “Islamic”, as they construe that word.
    Conflating some kind of religious conviction with violent fanaticism is, by far, not exclusive to Islam, and FWIW I do not think there is anything inherent in Islam that makes it necessary for people to be violent or aggressive toward others in order to embrace that faith.
    Thanks for the link, that was a great piece. And, I’m happy to read Wood with a critical eye.
    Americans will not be up to the task of killing and being killed.
    Leaving aside differences of opinion that folks here have had about drone strikes, specifically, I find this statement puzzling.
    If there is one thing that I think the last 15 years has demonstrated, it is that Americans are willing to kill and, if need be, be killed.
    Maybe I’m missing your point?

  37. Well, most prefer other people on one’s side to take the being killed part, also preferably people one either does not know or can’t stand.
    A lot would change their stance on the war if it was them who would run the risk of being killed.

  38. If there is one thing that I think the last 15 years has demonstrated, it is that Americans are willing to kill and, if need be, be killed.
    The American people, as a political entity, will not put up with a[nother] horrible war in Syria/Iraq, etc. Any visit to this blog in the past several years will tell you that many people have zero tolerance for civilian casualties (which is a fact of war, no matter how hard people try to avoid them), have a very low tolerance for American casualties (which are extremely sad, no matter what the number, but which have been a hugely small number compared to, for example, gun violence casualties), and are largely skeptical of the idea of war achieving a positive result.
    I was talking to a twenty-something recently who doubted the value of fighting WWII. What if we hadn’t done it, he asked. How would the world have been different now. Honestly, it put my whole world in a spin. Maybe history just will happen no matter what we do. I’ve spent my whole life worshiping those who fought against the genocide of the Nazis. But maybe he’s right – maybe it would have all just leveled out. It makes me sick to think so. This guy is a solid, humane person. I don’t see how people with this mindset can get invested on a (possibly) long, gruesome war against IS ( or Daesh – maybe we should start calling them that, at least).

  39. sapient: your 20yo friend should take a look at “The Man in the High Castle”, which Amazon is putting out (with great production value, I might add). Okay, fiction, but the result is a plausible result of “US stays out of WWII”.
    I, for one, would like to invite all those endtimers to gather at the traditional spot, Har-Magedon, on a date certain, where they can be gifted with about 50kt, airburst, and all their dreams can come true.
    Count can push the button. I’m sure he’ll get a bang out of that.

  41. russell and I are on about the same wavelength.
    I think Wood’s article skirts around the equating-Muslims-to-KKK question by confining discussion to ISIS. If Muslims are insulted by what he says about ISIS, well, I am not sure what to put on that boo-boo.
    But I haven’t read the critique yet. Maybe tonight. My brain hurts. I may be getting better (or, perhaps worse: regarded as better) at this alignment calibration thing than I want to be.

  42. It’s a mistake thinking all wars are stupid because most wars are stupid. One can also make the opposite mistake. Your 20 year old friend is wrong about WWII, but he’d be right about most wars, including probably WWI.
    I wonder how many places you would have wanted to invade back in the Cold War era, sapient? Some, though not all of the worst killers were our allies. Indonesia killed hundreds of thousands in the 60’s and then maybe another 1-200,000 in East Timor in the 70’s. Latin America was a long list of countries that tortured, disappeared or outright massacred civilians and again, most were our pals, I don’t think I could remember all the killers in Africa, though at least one of the biggest killers, Savimbi, was one of ours. Then there are our communist enemies, with Mao far outdistancing everyone, but let’s leave them out since that would mean nukes. So maybe to be safe we should have only invaded our friends. Go back a bit further and we could have declared war on France for what they did in Algeria.
    And we were doing some things in Vietnam, I hear.

  44. Are you ready to kill and be killed?
    I’m not eligible for the armed forces. I’d certainly rather kill an ISIS person than be killed by one, if it ever comes to that. Not sure I’m up to the task though, which was my point.

  45. Oh, and as for being ready to be killed, 30,000 Americans are killed in gun violence each year. Am I ready? Not really. Could it happen? Yeah.

  46. One more thing: I’m 59. Am I going to die of something? Yes. Am I ready? Not really. Would I give my life for something worthwhile (in other words, be a hero)? I hope so. Can’t imagine it, but I hope so.

  48. “The American people, as a political entity, will not put up with a[nother] horrible war in Syria/Iraq, etc”
    That may be true.
    this is also true
    “Since the U.S. went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, about 2.5 million members of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard and related Reserve and National Guard units have been deployed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, according to Department of Defense data. Of those, more than a third were deployed more than once.
    In fact, as of last year nearly 37,000 Americans had been deployed more than five times, among them 10,000 members of guard or Reserve units. Records also show that 400,000 service members have done three or more deployments.”
    cite:
    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article24746680.html#storylink=cpy
    sorry for no direct limk, I’m on my tablet.
    it’s been almost 15 years that we’ve been at this “war on terror” thing; people are kind of sick of it.
    but I don’t really see us as people who are, as a community, unwilling to wage war, and incur the risks of waging war.
    I recognize the differences of opinion rrgarding, specifically, drones, and I’m not really interested in going down that rathole because I doubt any of have fresh insights to share.
    but drones are not the whole enchilada.

  49. The discussion of the willingness to kill and be killed talks about the American public at large. However, the “beauty” of the all-volunteer military is that it’s not drawn from the population at large, and the subset it draws on is generally both more realistic and stoic about US casualties, and more willing to rationalize, accept, or outright ignore civilian casualties. So as long as the media shies away from being too forthright about the human and fiscal costs of war on all sides, the general population can ignore conflicts much better than one might be inclined to think.
    —
    Slarti, the rebuttal is worth reading. I felt the Wood article was a very good backgrounder, but the rebuttal brings up some serious shortcomings on its part, primarily that it’s cherrypicking and generalizing. A lot. It does a reasonable job of presenting Daesh’s outlook, but essentially takes it at its word as to how orthodox that is, and is careful to avoid introducing anything to challenge to that POV, or to present it in any context outside of Daesh’s framing of themself.

  50. sapient: sorry if I caused you any confusion; “The Man in the High Castle” was written by Phillip K Dick, back in the 70’s, I think. Very good book.
    Amazon is putting it out as an “original video series”, first episode for free, all free on Prime. Powerful stuff. Just the opening sequence is …disturbing…

  51. it’s been almost 15 years that we’ve been at this “war on terror” thing; people are kind of sick of it.
    My point.
    My comment was not meant to impugn the bravery of the military (as should have been obvious, but clearly you’re trying to be combative – whatever). It was about the political will of the American people to stick it out in a long war against a far-away enemy.
    We crapped out in Afghanistan in favor of a shiny new object, Iraq. We got really tired of that (and no wonder, since that was a bad mistake), and were really skeptical of drone warfare against people who were perpetrating the kind of crap that happened in Paris. Okay – you weren’t convinced that they were planning terrorist attacks against civilians – fine. But, again, my point. We can’t convince every single person in the US, who is tired of war, that killing terrorists is a good thing to do.
    Yes, we have a good and brave military. We don’t have a civilian consensus to support an ugly war that will result in lots of deaths on both sides.
    What we will see (in these comments, in fact) are constant accusations of warmongering, and “war crimes”. Obama is a warmonger, no better than Bush, remember? Al Awlaki’s civil liberties were violated (even though he was recruiting al Qaeda suicide bombers), right? Glenn Greenwald is a hero, for exposing Executive powergrabbing, right? What have I missed?

  52. Thanks, Snarki. Yeah, as I did more googling, I figured it out. You might be seeing less of me here as I watch the series. Much appreciated.

  53. What have I missed?
    The fact that these folks do not pose an existential threat to us, and the fact that the only way we can say they threaten our “national interests” is due to a very expansive view of what said interests are.
    You want to end “terrorism”? Good luck with that. You want to crush Islamic fundamentalism? Take out the Saudi royal family.
    What you will see in these comments is repeated reference to BLOWBACK.

  54. > … were really skeptical of drone warfare …
    Drone warfare is wonderfully imprecise, and it tends to piss off innocent bystanders when they get blown up because some good old boy under the mountain decides that a wedding is actually a top secret terrorist mastermind(tm) meeting. I suspect that Daesh’s subjects are a lot happier seeing US jets coming in to blow the shit out of a strongpoint than they are to hear the confused buzz of a drone coming in to launch a missile at anything that moves.

  56. ” Another thoughtful discussion, from the NY Review of Books, whose author basically finds himself (or herself) gobsmacked by the phenomenon of IS ”
    Reading this look like reading pundit confusion about Trump success. it might be new technology encouraged ideology that blustery, more violent than others, and constantly getting news become popular.
    Thus its irrelevant about ISIS ‘defeat’ in Kobani, opposition by local tribes in Anbar, or engaging in several multiple simultaneous fight that kill people. Its goal is to constantly appear and dominate news in Jihadist circle. Its brutality also make it more likely become ‘famous’ and more radical than other Jihadist.
    Any lost in tactical battle is replenished by massive strategic success in acquiring International Jihadist support and men.

  57. Slarti, the rebuttal is worth reading. I felt the Wood article was a very good backgrounder, but the rebuttal brings up some serious shortcomings on its part, primarily that it’s cherrypicking and generalizing. A lot…
    Equally, the rebuttal was permeated by quite a bit of whataboutery, and I rather felt that the authors’ position on what Islam actually does stand for in terms of its engagement with the non-Islamic world evasive to the point of disingenuousness.
    Notably, in response to a not entirely unreasonable question in the comments, one of the authors basically responded ‘I’m not going to answer that; you need to educate yourself in detail about Islam’.
    There is a very large category of people, innocent of islamaphobia, who simply have no interest in doing so. Their only concern is the interaction between Islamic and non Islamic culture (FWIW, I don’t number myself among them, but I don’t see why they ought to have any such obligation).

  59. I was talking to a twenty-something recently who doubted the value of fighting WWII.
    The United States fought WWII because i. Japan launched an unprovoked attack on the US Navy in US administered territory, and ii. Germany then declared war on the United States. It seems to me that under those circumstances it would have been difficult to avoid fighting, but I suppose there was always the option from the old Firesign Theater piece:
    “Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. I have consulted with both houses of Congress and it is our unanimous decision that the United States unconditionally surrender.”

  60. To play the devil’s advocate, Japan seems to have assumed that the US would take it as a hint to accept the Japanese version of the Monroe doctrine, and Hitler was fed up with the status quo in the Atlantic, i.e. American naval forces acting like belligerents but still hypocritically demanding neutrality protection.
    We can’t be sure (yet), whether ISIS is just sending harsher ‘keep out of our business’ signals because polite words did not work or whether the attacks are bait.
    In that case they are probably delighted about the GOP talk seeing Paris as the key to have a war with Iran at last. Has anybody checked, whether there are also already warnings about Iran giving nukes to ISIS requiring US to strike NOW?

  61. My comment was not meant to impugn the bravery of the military (as should have been obvious, but clearly you’re trying to be combative – whatever). It was about the political will of the American people to stick it out in a long war against a far-away enemy.
    I have no intent to be combative, your point was not obvious to me. Thanks for the clarification.
    IMO American attitudes toward war are complicated. Also, because we have voluntary military service and not that many people actually enlist, unless someone you know and care about is actually in the military, warfare is unlikely to touch your life in any really tangible way, so to some degree attitudes toward war end up being as much a social marker as anything else.
    I agree that, at this point, folks here (in the US) are likely reluctant to begin what would almost certainly be an open-ended ground war in the middle east.
    We’re OK with deploying air power, and in fact we have done and continue to do so. Less so with ground forces. I doubt we are interested in taking and holding territory in Syria and Iraq on a long-term basis, which is probably what “defeating IS” would involve.

  62. just heard something interesting on NPR about IS in Afghanistan. apparently they’re kicking the Taliban out and taking over. and this is made possible in large part by the fact that IS is paying people to be their soldiers ($700/mo); and they’re paying more than twice the salary that the Afghan army pays ($300/mo). and, IS pays on time, unlike the Afghan army.
    economics.

  63. The aspect of IS that I find most troubling is this one:

    And, their vision has sufficient appeal that thousands of people have been willing to give up whatever lives they have been living – in many cases successful, comfortable, generally happy lives – in exchange for one-way tickets to a violent and absolutist version of the middle ages.

    I’m not surprised that Sunnis who spent time in military prisons during the US invasion of Iraq, and/or found themselves more or less disenfranchised under al-Maliki, would find the idea of a resurgent Sunni caliphate appealing.
    What I find disturbing is the appeal of the kind of violent, absolutist regime that IS implements to young Muslim people all around the world. Not just folks living marginal lives, but folks living accomplished and successful lives, with good futures ahead of them.
    The persona that IS presents to these young people on social media and elsewhere is profoundly and vividly violent. Beheadings, burning people alive in cages, throwing people off of the roofs of buildings, enslaving women and children.
    And, that attracts young people by the tens of thousands, to the point of completely abandoning their lives and families to run off to join up.
    It is, apparently, a really inspiring vision.
    I’m not sure what to think or say about any of that. It’s profoundly sad.

  64. “In that case they are probably delighted about the GOP talk seeing Paris as the key to have a war with Iran at last.”
    Is there a link on that? I haven’t seen that.
    Not that I would be surprised.
    Did anyone in the room think to ask “What’s a Sunni?” or “How do you pronounce ‘Shiite’?”
    If IS obtained a nuclear weapon from Iran, wouldn’t they first take out Baghdad, where Iran’s allies in Iraq live?
    Or is my common sense getting in the way here?
    IS sh*theads have a meadow in Dabiq to look forward to.
    Our homegrown sh*theads hanker for a “Red Dawn” as the last battle.
    Death cults.

  65. but I don’t really see us as people who are, as a community, unwilling to wage war, and incur the risks of waging war.
    Agreed, with leadership and focus and some kind of defined goal. Confronting ISIS is not the same as invading Iraq. Although neither turned out to have any meaningful impact, Iraq had an air force and some number of armored/mechanized units. Light infantry doesn’t fare well against even second rate armored formations. So, it was necessary to deploy the correct order of battle. The kind of deployment necessary for dealing with ISIS isn’t armor-heavy, but rather highly mobile: helicopters, air support and the like with equally mobile ground forces. Rather than occupying and pacifying, the focus should be on meeting and destroying. The larger ISIS becomes, the less difficult it is to confront conventionally. The Cold War left us with a very impressive ability to project force and relocate large numbers of troops and material. Retooling units to deploy for 3-6 months of intense operations followed by extraction would be a useful tool for dealing with ISIS-type movements. Long term ability to support such operations would require some number of forward bases with pre-positioned supplies and hardware. In support of that class of operations, our drone and special ops approach would have to become more and not less intense. If an Imam in Pakistan starts preaching Jihad, he is killed.
    ISIS and similar movements are not going to mature into something that can be dealt and negotiated with. If home grown terrorism becomes the rule and not the exception, we will have to revisit the 1st Amendment. If these refugee migrations become methods of insertion, very harsh measures will follow. Note the use of the conditional “if”.
    The above understands that collateral damage, civilian casualties, etc, are part of the package. We wouldn’t be fighting over oil prices or access to raw materials. The fight is to, eventually, eliminate intentional attacks on our and allied civilian populations.
    It is a bonus that people like ISIS’ adherents would be killed in the process. Burying children alive? Institutionalized psychopathology.
    You want to end “terrorism”? Good luck with that.
    So, don’t bother? Do nothing?
    You want to crush Islamic fundamentalism? Take out the Saudi royal family.
    I suspect the last is tongue in cheek. It’s hard to argue that other dictators in the Mid East should be left in power as necessarily evil sources of stability yet contend this particular group of assholes should be toppled, or to expect no blow back if that were to happen. That said, I share the sentiment. The Saudi’s have played all ends against the middle forever and have done so brilliantly. Back when we needed their oil, they could get away with it. Now, we can and should rethink. But, that process will involve a ton of bloodshed. There are hundreds of thousands, maybe some millions of fanatics.
    Sapient, we are on the same page. That entire part of the world is a war zone with zero recognition of rules of engagement, protecting civilians, etc. We would fight as cleanly as circumstances will allow, and doing so would put us light years ahead of the other combatants.

  66. I’m not sure what to think or say about any of that. It’s profoundly sad.
    And profoundly disturbing. Yes, they are very forthright in what they stand for and a lot of young Muslims find this attractive. So, where does this lead the conversation?

  67. ISIS and similar movements are not going to mature into something that can be dealt and negotiated with.
    I agree with this.
    I’m not seeing a future in which IS decides to be one nation living peaceably among the other nations of the world.

  68. If home grown terrorism becomes the rule and not the exception, we will have to revisit the 1st Amendment.
    I’m not clear on your point here.
    How would a “revised” 1st Amendment read?

  70. How would a “revised” 1st Amendment read?
    Fair point. If domestic terrorism were to become more than the occasional one-off, we would have to look very carefully at what is going on in mosques around the country, surveillance and whatnot. Ugly stuff. I don’t know how a liberal democracy confronts a violent movement that has its roots in a religion without, at a minimum, monitoring that religion.

  73. What I find disturbing is the appeal of the kind of violent, absolutist regime that IS implements to young Muslim people all around the world. Not just folks living marginal lives, but folks living accomplished and successful lives, with good futures ahead of them.
    Most people, in every social strata, live lives of quiet desperation looking for something to fulfill a need to feel special. Fear of failure, of being alone…of being ordinary, pervades the untethered lives of millions of young people. It has since bobbyp and I were protesting the Vietnam war and, I suspect, long before.
    A promise of having a part in something important and not boring is a powerful draw.
    Boorstin wrote: “Human models are more vivid and more persuasive than explicit moral commands.”
    Right and wrong get lost in vivid and persuasive human models creating a world in their image. We have lost the war for the imagination of these youth, what need will they meet for us?

  74. Notably, in response to a not entirely unreasonable question in the comments, one of the authors basically responded ‘I’m not going to answer that; you need to educate yourself in detail about Islam’.
    The response you refer to was by all appearances the lead-in to line-by-line gotcha arguments from the Qur’an. I frankly don’t fault the author for declining to engage that particular commenter in detail, as they had a fairly transparent intent to derail the conversation into an argument of reductionist out-of-context parsing.

  77. And profoundly disturbing. Yes, they are very forthright in what they stand for and a lot of young Muslims find this attractive. So, where does this lead the conversation?
    There is a non-trivial portion of combat-arms enlistees in our military who are quite forthright about their desire to go forth and kill those they deem evil, with only as much regard for ROEs, Law of War, and civilian-combatant distinctions as is forced upon them from above. Do you find this, too, to be “profoundly disturbing”, or is American Exceptionalism at work again?
    Also, what Marty said in his 11:03. Very much so.

  78. There is a non-trivial portion of combat-arms enlistees in our military who are quite forthright about their desire to go forth and kill those they deem evil, with only as much regard for ROEs, Law of War, and civilian-combatant distinctions as is forced upon them from above. Do you find this, too, to be “profoundly disturbing”, or is American Exceptionalism at work again?
    No, I don’t. I’m fairly sure enlistment bonuses do not include sex slaves, etc. Moral equivalence is bullshit and you are engaging in gross mind-reading. It’s probably true that a significant number of combat arms enlistees are fine with killing our country’s enemies, but it’s bullshit to say they are fine with killing *those they deem evil*.
    As for exceptionalism, I consider western liberal democracy as it is practiced in the US, in Europe, Canada, Japan, S. Korea, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere exceptional and well worth defending.
    I am fine with tolerating Islamic or other religious dictatorships that keep their extremism within their borders. However, since Islam was birthed, it’s had the tradition of conversion by the sword. Most Islamic countries eschew that these days, but not ISIL.

  79. Pick your cherished liberty. How do we fight back?
    In the context that we’re talking about…
    We already have American citizens, with a strong desire and motivation to prevent religiously-inspired terrorism from happening on US soil, embedded in the nation’s mosques and other Islamic religious organizations.
    They are called “Muslims”.
    A lot of the intelligence that results in thwarting intended acts of terror from “radicalized” Muslims comes from the Muslim community.
    There’s always a need for more information than what a potential terrorist’s family, neighbors, or co-religionist might have or want to divulge.
    That’s what warrants are for. For cases of suspected terrorism, they are not very hard to get.
    I’m skeptical of claims that addressing terrorism requires abridging civil liberties.
    I am also skeptical that what is given up in exchange for increased safety, or the appearance of safety, is worth the candle.
    Opinions vary on that point, that’s mine.

  81. However, since Islam was birthed, it’s had the tradition of conversion by the sword.
    It’s not, remotely, unique in that regard.

  82. We already have American citizens, with a strong desire and motivation to prevent religiously-inspired terrorism from happening on US soil, embedded in the nation’s mosques and other Islamic religious organizations.
    They are called “Muslims”.
    That’s the good news. The bad news is that their views are less than universal.
    It’s not, remotely, unique in that regard.
    Actually, Islam is very much in a class by itself in terms of conversion by sword, even with colonialism folded in. Not trying to hijack the thread, but it’s a matter of historical fact that Islam’s spread across the Middle East, northern Africa, up through Spain and into France, to Pakistan and up through the Bosporus was 100% a matter of armed conquest.
    I’m skeptical of claims that addressing terrorism requires abridging civil liberties.
    If we begin having events like what Paris just experienced, if the Boston Marathon bombing becomes common place, I think you underestimate what we’d be willing to tolerate. And, I think you underestimate what steps would be needed to effectively repress that level of violence.

  83. Right and wrong get lost in vivid and persuasive human models creating a world in their image. We have lost the war for the imagination of these youth, what need will they meet for us?
    Maybe I got up on the wrong side of the bed. Not raping women, not murdering adults and children alike, one person/one vote, free speech, freedom of worship, economic liberty, rule of law, equality under the law, liberal democracy: the whole good/bad thing doesn’t seem all that complicated to me.

  84. And, I think you underestimate what steps would be needed to effectively repress that level of violence.
    I think you underestimate how effectively our law enforcement has already controlled that level of violence. It is simply unfathomable that the radicalized (add your type) haven’t tried continuously to create fear and destruction over the last 20 years. 15 at least. Lets not pretend the success in Paris bodes anything new.

  85. I think you underestimate how effectively our law enforcement has already controlled that level of violence. It is simply unfathomable that the radicalized (add your type) haven’t tried continuously to create fear and destruction over the last 20 years. 15 at least. Lets not pretend the success in Paris bodes anything new.
    I’m not talking about the past. Up thread,I was careful to highlight the use of the word “if”. Your incomplete quote misses the premise underlying my contention. I will repeat it: “If we begin having events like what Paris just experienced, if the Boston Marathon bombing becomes common place, . . .”.

  86. The bad news is that their views are less than universal.
    mathematically, they are.
    there’s something like 100,000 ‘members’ of IS, and you can throw in another few 10s of thousands if you count all of the adherents to all the other Islamic terrorist organizations. but there are 1,600,000,000 Muslims in the world.
    you might as well declare war on all the young white men in the US because they’re responsible for the vast majority of mass shootings we experience.

  87. “A promise of having a part in something important and not boring is a powerful draw.”
    I’ve been turning over in my mind the odd convergence of death cult IS and death metal band fans Friday night.
    The bored, the desperate, and the alienated interrupted by some really serious, bored, desperate, and alienated motherf*ckers.

  88. The bored, the desperate, and the alienated interrupted by some really serious, bored, desperate, and alienated motherf*ckers.
    Justin E. H. Smith of Slate describes the band’s fans quite differently.

  89. I can envision plenty of the Amendments to the Constitution going by the wayside if things get scary enough.
    Except for one of them.
    I wouldn’t expect to get them back any time soon.
    I also don’t expect the type of militancy against the infringements that we’ve seen from the NRA and company on behalf of any of the other Amendments, at least for awhile, despite the ongoing carnage among ourselves cleek refers to.
    Let’s put it this way. If the First Amendment is abridged on behalf of national security, I’ll stop posting here or anywhere.

  90. “there’s something like 100,000 ‘members’ of IS, and you can throw in another few 10s of thousands if you count all of the adherents to all the other Islamic terrorist organizations. but there are 1,600,000,000 Muslims in the world.”
    See, depending who is in charge of limiting the First Amendment, that statement right there would put cleek in jeopardy.
    Already, it has three key words in it that NSA tracks but, we’re told, harmlessly, for now.

  91. I can envision plenty of the Amendments to the Constitution going by the wayside if things get scary enough.
    Except for one of them.
    If anybody tries to quarter any soldiers in my guest room without my permission, then by god I’m gonna find myself a tree of liberty and give it a good watering.
    Just saying.

  92. Thanks, sapient. I half expected that irony probably still lived in the band’s choice of a name and its musical genre, though it’s not my taste.
    Just pointing out that it looks like a B horror movie with a real slasher taking out innocent kids dressed as ghouls and slashers at a high school Halloween party.
    I agree with the author, the band should be obscene and heard.
    Also, f*ck IS.

  93. I never understood how anyone could single out Islam in the Middle Ages as uniquely about violent conquest. Try reading what the Byzantines, Persians and Jews were doing in Israel or Palestine right before Islam burst on the scene. The Emperor Heraclius actually wanted to wipe out all the Jews, after Jews had sided with Persians in slaughtering Christians, which they did because Christians had been oppressing Jews. Yeah, things were just lovely and peaceful before the Muslims came along.
    Everyone was violent in those days, and Christianity didn’t become the dominant religion in the West via peaceful persuasion. Paganism was eventually suppressed. And yes, this is in response to McKT’s threadjack.
    As for ISIS, I actually favor bombing them, if it can be done with low civilian casualties. Some violence is certainly going to be part of any solution with fanatics of that sort. I don’t trust our government to be honest about that, under any President or party, though I definitely trust Obama more than I would, say, almost any Republican replacement.
    That said, our interventionists wanted to topple Assad just a few years ago and certainly Assad is a thug more than worthy of toppling. And what would the likely consequences of that have been? What happened in Iraq? That’s how we got to be in this situation in the first place.
    And I also have real problems with interventionists who are so eager to jump into war with our official enemies and then sigh and pass on the subject of what to do about us or our allies. ISIS isn’t alone in killing civilians, and no, when our allies do it only an idiot would think that it’s all accidental. There are, of course, plenty of idiots in the world.

  95. “…Islam is very much in a class by itself in terms of conversion by sword…”
    There is some validity to this statement, given the Christian propensity to skip the “conversion” part, and just kill everyone that *might* believe differently.
    “Kill them all, the Lord will know his own” was not spoken in Arabic, just saying.

  98. Actually, Islam is very much in a class by itself in terms of conversion by sword
    Nothing is exactly like anything else, but suffice it to say that conversion by force is a prominent feature in the histories of many of the world’s great religions.
    I think you underestimate how effectively our law enforcement has already controlled that level of violence.
    I agree with this.
    What I really hope happens, and what I think would be the best counter to the actions of IS and similar organizations, is that we all not freak out.
    If we can find a way to not demonize and/or become hostile toward and suspicious of anyone who reminds us of whoever we think terrorists are, even better.

  99. Those Christians were confused.
    They got hold of a bad translation:
    “In the beginning was the (S)Word, ……….. ……….. and the (S)Word was God.”
    I suspect IS is misreading the Koran just as it misread the band’s guitar distortion, if they cared one way or another.
    Just as Charlie Manson got “Helter Skelter” all bollixed up.
    Another idiot without any sense of irony.
    It’s the mark of the psychopath.
    Apropos of something or other, I recently heard an Alice Cooper fan back in the day complain that he couldn’t get his head around the fact that Cooper spends much of time on the golf course these days.
    Why does he think the concert ticket prices were so high?

  100. Count, the most prominent voice to tear up the Iran agreement because of ISIS (and Paris) seems to be Huckabee. Not his first objectionable statement on said deal though, to put it mildy.

  101. Thanks, Hartmut.
    I guess Huckabee wants to free up a whole lot more Middle Eastern real estate for madness to have its way.
    Which brings to mind that I already like Eagles of Death Metal better than Ted Nugent’s act.
    Less military-grade weaponry on stage.

  102. Christianity didn’t spread to all of South and North America by osmosis. it was spread by the sword.
    Debatable as to North America, true as to South America, but still relative to the fact that Islam would not exist but for conversion by the sword, it remains a class in itself.
    DJ–my comment, not intended as a hijack referred specifically to conversion or spread of a particular religion, not religious strife.

  104. because we have voluntary military service and not that many people actually enlist, unless someone you know and care about is actually in the military, warfare is unlikely to touch your life in any really tangible way
    Especially since we have, these days, a new tradition of NOT increasing taxes or otherwise inconveniencing our civilian population when we decide to go to war. If you are going to have the sorts of impact that we saw domestically in WW II, the national enthusiasm (such as it is) for wars. Whether in the Middle East or elsewhere.

  105. Thanks for the music videos! They greatly improved my outlook for some reason.
    What I really hope happens, and what I think would be the best counter to the actions of IS and similar organizations, is that we all not freak out.
    I agree with this too, although I’m quite happy that we’re striking IS strongholds. (Kevin Drum’s recent posts reminded me how substantial our current involvement already is.)
    It’s hard not to freak out though. What they do is so horrible, and Paris is so close to our hearts, and no, Donald, I’m not buying your false equivalence of “when our allies do it.” The entire business model of Daesh is unimaginable atrocity.

  106. Especially since we have, these days, a new tradition of NOT increasing taxes or otherwise inconveniencing our civilian population when we decide to go to war.
    Well, from a fact-based point of view, and looking only at taxes on earned income, the top marginal rate has gone up 10% under Obama, 3.6% income tax and Medicare/Medicaid went up 31%.
    A lot of taxes have gone up under Obama. So, maybe not.

  107. Well, the top marginal rate during World War II and the Korean conflict was @91%, which was too high, OMHO.
    Besides, one downside of curtailing the First Amendment during time of war is that all verbal and written resistance to tax increases to fund the conflict will be forbidden and punishable by having troops quartered in Mitt Romney’s offshore safe deposit boxes.
    I kid.

  109. It’s hard not to freak out though. What they do is so horrible, and Paris is so close to our hearts, and no, Donald, I’m not buying your false equivalence of “when our allies do it.” The entire business model of Daesh is unimaginable atrocity.
    Correct.

  110. Alice Cooper has been an enthusiastic golfer since, like, forever. He’s one of the more popular celebrity golfers, with a handicap of 7.
    That ain’t scratch, but it ain’t bad.

  111. I agree that ISIS is in the business of slaughtering people. But no, I don’t think we are off the moral hook because ISIS is evil. We do support Saudi Arabia’s campaign in Yemen and it does kill civilians, because the Saudis don’t give a damn or because they target them, and Israel did target homes with children inside last year, not just once but over and over again. Google the Dahiya doctrine sometime. 500 children died. People in other countries know about this and it matters to them even if lordly Westerners like you and McKT are above noticing the petty little lives of the people we or our allies snuff out. I agree that people in Gaza and Yemen are not close to our hearts the way people in Paris are. That’s part of the point. They don’t matter. And you are delusional if you don’t think this attitude contributes to terrorism. Not that this should be the main reason for ridding oneself of this attitude.
    I really despise the “false equivalence” phrase. I first noticed it back in the 80’s when it was false equivalence to point to the corpses piled up by our allies in Central America and it never seems to change.

  115. Well, from a fact-based point of view, and looking only at taxes on earned income, the top marginal rate has gone up 10% under Obama, 3.6% income tax and Medicare/Medicaid went up 31%.
    A lot of taxes have gone up under Obama. So, maybe not.
    Assume, for the sake of discussion, that this is absolutely accurate. It still was not a tax increase for the purpose of conducting military operations, i.e. for a war. Which means that there was no visible connection between the cost of the war and the war itself.

  116. We do support Saudi Arabia’s campaign in Yemen and it does kill civilians
    Are we supporting the Saudi’s actions? Or are we merely acquiescing to them?

  117. DJ, leaving aside the ad hominem, there is no pure, moral, free of gray areas war. Never has been, never will be. A country who refuses to defend itself because it cannot do so with perfection is a country that will not be remembered for long, history being written by the victors and all that.
    ISIS prides itself on systematic rape and murder. It revels in it and uses it a recruiting tool.
    We were the good guys in WWII, but captured SS personnel, especially officers and non-coms often had a very short life expectancy. Imperial Japanese troops routinely tortured captives and mutilated corpses. US Marines were happy to reciprocate. War is ugly. Having ISIS on this earth is worse. You would be ok with bombing ISIS but only if the number of civilian casualties met your personal standards of morality.
    Do you accept the moral load of all of those killed and enslaved because we don’t put ISIS down?
    Your moral calculus has at least two sides.

  119. Anyone who thinks we Americans have special views on killing civilians might want to check out:
    Dresden, Firebombing of
    As several people point out above, once you have a war, civilians are going to get hurt. That may be regretable, but it comes with the package. And your only honest alternative is to simply refuse to wage war . . . and accept whatever the other side might decide to do to your civilians.
    You may feel that personally that would leave your hands clean in a direct sense. But if you make the choice, you own the results of that choice.

  120. McKT–I’ve already said I support bombing ISIS, though I think we have to be much more careful about our targeting than we have been. And yes, there will be accidents. Actual, honest to goodness accidents, well-intentioned mistakes. It’s unavoidable.
    But I wasn’t linking to pieces about collateral damage. Saudi Arabia hit residential areas, Israel targeted homes repeatedly, and our allies the Kurds are evidently using the threat of US air strikes to drive Arabs from their homes. As for war crimes by soldiers in WWII, yes, I’ve read about that too. WWII is one of the extreme cases where the enemy is genuinely so evil and also so powerful you accept that innocents are going to be hurt by one’s own side and we would ally ourselves with someone about as bad as Hitler. I still think we shouldn’t have done some of the things we did in WWII, but decided several years ago it wasn’t really worth the bother of arguing about. There are more clearcut cases and more relevant ones in our more recent conflicts.

  121. “As several people point out above, once you have a war, civilians are going to get hurt. That may be regretable, but it comes with the package.”
    Too glib. Yes, no matter how good one’s intentions there will be civilians killed accidentally, but Americans are like everyone else–we give ourselves way too much credit for the nobility of our motives. It’s the easiest thing in the world for Westerners to inflict cruelty and harm at a distance, either with long distance weapons or with sanctions or with allies who aren’t very savory and then we claim not to have meant any harm. It’s why, though ISIS sickens me and I have zero sympathy for their motives, which seem utterly unconnected to any legitimate goal, I tend to be a bit jaundiced by people claiming that terrorism in general is something beyond the pale, something we would never support. Baloney.

  122. I’ve tried, but I have to de-cloak for this one. I’m specifically addressing the question of why educated, successful members of society might, for example, move to ISIL territory, or even become ISIL martyrs. Marty’s 11.03, as well as being thoughtful, beautifully put and correct, also applies to fundamentalist adherents of other religions. The alienation of many people from a sense of meaning, and worthwhileness in their lives, is considerable, and encouraging them to believe they are taking part in the great struggle between Good and Evil, (even if it sometimes seems like life in Westeros), and the feeling of significance that it gives to them, shouldn’t be underestimated. I’m not equating the actions of fundamentalist Christians or Jews with the actions of ISIL, who certainly seem to be in an appallingness league of their own, but you cannot ignore at least the stated beliefs of other fundamentalists, and even more particularly, the implications of those beliefs.
    For example, as I understand it, belief that the Endtimes are imminent, and in the Rapture, implies that the rest of humanity will burn, and serve them right too for continuing in the error of their ways (i.e. the refusal to accept reality as proposed by the fundamentalists). The extreme evangelical Christian movement which enthusiastically supports Israel in all its acts, including the building of settlements, openly thinks it is hastening this longed-for denouement.
    As far as fundamentalist Jews are concerned, I regret to inform you that once, while under heavy cover as a Jewish woman visiting her retired parents in Israel, I heard a young orthodox Jewish man (who is now a “respectable” right-wing lawyer who is well-known for taking cases defending settler provocateurs) openly regretting that the then BSE crisis also applied to cattle slaughtered for kosher meat, because the ensuing CJD epidemic would therefore affect Jews as well as gentiles.
    Pace McKinney, there are certain moral equivalences here: fundamentalist adherents of the major religions regard “their own” as, by definition, not only superior, but actually a different category of being, worthy of being “saved”, and one of the things WW2 taught us is that once you start differentiating between different categories of human being, and putting some into categories which can be slaughtered and abused, there is no telling where it will stop.
    By the way, none of this should be construed as meaning I object to bombing ISIL off the face of the Earth, it’s just we shouldn’t ignore the fact that, in my opinion, once people start believing they have God on their side they become trouble waiting to happen.

  123. WWII is one of the extreme cases where the enemy is genuinely so evil and also so powerful you accept that innocents are going to be hurt by one’s own side and we would ally ourselves with someone about as bad as Hitler.
    You draw a very fine moral line. The problem is, using your standards, the next WWII type calamity has to go unanswered until we are certain the moral calculus well and truly favors our side. In the meantime, a lot of innocents get slaughtered. Or worse.
    once people start believing they have God on their side they become trouble waiting to happen.
    I’m more concerned about people who think that God can’t get things done without their help. Whether it’s creating the right setting for the end times or opposing gay marriage, if one accepts that God created the universe and all that is in it, you ought to be willing to assume that He can and will deal, as he sees fit, with sinners, and not just gay sinners (assuming He has his stinger out for gays, which I don’t), and that if He thinks it’s time to rain down fire and brimstone, that is what He will do when and if it pleases Him. I’m a Christian, but I’m pretty sure God manages just fine without me dipping my oar into the water and it will likely be a meteor or Yellowstone blowing it’s stack that will do us in, not God having a final temper tantrum.
    My issue with ISIL isn’t the hereafter, it’s the here and now and what they are doing to innocent after innocent.

  124. Another critic of Wood’s Atlantic piece.
    Parsing the moral dilemmas raised by war is, I think, several levels above my pay grade. In the words of WT Sherman, war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it. Whatever the desired outcome of warfare, the actual process and method of warfare is death, pain, and destruction.
    Not as an undesirable side effect, but as the essence of what war is.
    The IS apparently doesn’t reluctantly engage in war, it seeks it out. It desires war, and more of it. And not just war, but the most ferocious, violent, and brutal forms of war-making that it can come up with.
    Beheading non-combatants, including people who travel to their territory with the intent of helping people there. Burning people alive. Enslaving the survivors of people they fight. And, filming it all for the entertainment of people who, for whatever reason, support them.
    I’m sorry that civilians in areas under IS control are subject to bombing, but I find it hard to condemn it. I wish it were not so, but it’s the predictable consequence of choices made by folks other than us.
    Yes, I understand that the Iraq invasion was stupid, yes I understand that it precipitated the conditions that enabled the emergence of IS, yes I understand that the US and the west are culpable for a very long history of wrong-doing.
    But IS really does own the consequences of their own actions. Those consequences really do include being subject to military retaliation, and that really does include having people who live in territory that you control getting killed.
    It’s a f’d up world in many ways, that is one of them.

  125. My issue with them, or other fundamentalist religios, isn’t the hereafter either: I don’t believe there is a hereafter. My point is that people who do, and who think (unlike you) they know what the God they believe in wants them to do before they can get there, are the most dangerous of all. By definition, if God is on your side, and you are doing what you think is his will, you are capable of anything. In my experience, right-thinking Episcopalian or CofE types, which I take you to be, do not fall into this category, which is why I use the word “fundamentalist” to differentiate.

  126. Moral equivalence is bullshit and you are engaging in gross mind-reading. It’s probably true that a significant number of combat arms enlistees are fine with killing our country’s enemies, but it’s bullshit to say they are fine with killing *those they deem evil*.
    McK, you’re damned right about the presence of mindreading in this thread, but it’s yours, not mine. Want to declare me guilty of something here? Accuse me of generalizing – of taking conversations with 10s of infantrymen holding the views you so dismissively sweep aside as “bullshit”, taking them at their word, noting that their attitude is neither exceptional, secretive, nor stigmatized even by those who don’t openly espouse, and thus concluding that their views are not abnormal within their demographic. But don’t accuse me of mindreading. That’s your shtick.
    And you’re derailing madly to avoid addressing inconvenient points, but what else is new? Your pious lecture about my perfidy entirely elided the *fact* that there are plenty of Americans who not only express willingness to kill/torture/rape/etc. those that they deem evil, but would actually do so if they can get away with it. There’s evidence beyond their words that they’d do it, too – there’s been more than a few who decided they could get away with it and did it despite clear directives from above to do nothing of the sort and intense scrutiny on their actions. If you want to pretend this isn’t true, knock yourself out. But you’ll be showing yourself to be a delusional, pompous ass. The United States Disciplinary Barracks doesn’t fill itself.
    And that’s not moral equivalency. As Donald Johnson pointed out much less vitriolically above, it’s simply demanding that you actually exhibit consistent moral standards. Your ilk trots out the phrase “moral equivalency” as a strawman which you equate with pardoning evil behavior in our enemies – which is laughably hypocritical, because the sort of thing that’s typically being bristled at is a refusal to pardon evil simply because “our boys” are doing it, rather than forgiving “those people”. Don’t take a self-righteous, holier-than-thou tone and decry the unique evil of things that aren’t at all unique, even if they are evil. It’s not that bloody hard. And before you try to move the goalposts and shout to the sky about the uniqueness of Daesh and its particular set of crimes, allow me to remind you that that was not at all what you were decrying as “profoundly disturbing”. That would have been the willingness of non-destitute youths to make themselves part of something bigger than them, even or especially if it entailed visiting violence on despised “others”. Which again, while disturbing, is very, very from being unique.

  127. To follow up on my previous comment, I am obliged to also recall the folks sitting around the TV watching the missile attacks of Gulf I live on CNN, and approvingly comparing notes the next day around the water cooler.
    The targets of those missiles were folks who had done not one thing to anyone I know.
    We in the US are very fortunate to live bordered by two oceans and two nations who have no interest in causing us harm.
    All of that is not an exercise in moral equivalence, it’s simply an acknowledgement of reality.
    Things don’t have to be “equivalent”, or commensurate, or otherwise held in some kind of balance, in order for both to be sh*tty.

  128. The problem is, using your standards, the next WWII type calamity has to go unanswered until we are certain the moral calculus well and truly favors our side.
    That strikes me as a weakness of using “moral calculus” when it comes to actually undertaking modern industrial warfare to any extensive level. The decision should be made on a hard headed assessment of the dangers, costs, and consequences. And I dare say that those who just about always advocate war just about always also invoke their own particular moral calculus as controlling.
    You can’t have it both ways.
    In the meantime, a lot of innocents get slaughtered.
    Many more innocents die when we engage in all out war. If it is just a matter of counting the corpses, the warmongers always lose this one. Such rectitude is a sign of moral bravery in my view. In fact, I’d say such reticence has traditionally been held to be a virtue in the West (perhaps in practice not so much).

  129. My point is that people who do, and who think (unlike you) they know what the God they believe in wants them to do before they can get there, are the most dangerous of all.
    GFNC–if we go with straight up body count in the 20th and 21st centuries, it would the godless communists who come in first for all around bad stuff. So, I’d say the more correct statement is that zealots/ideologues fairly uniformly produce tragic outcomes. Whether someone knows what’s best for others because God or the Dialectic told them so is beside the point.
    You are pretty astute. I’m an Episcopalian.
    NV–ok, you win.

  130. McKT, yes you’re right, it’s not just religios, it is unquestioning zealots/ideologues, followers of the Great Leader in whatever form. The great mathematician Paul Erdos used to call God “the Supreme Fascist”, but of course there are others.

  131. You can’t have it both ways.
    Wasn’t trying to. I was simply commenting on DJ’s very high bar and noting that even his moral rectitude carries with it a high moral cost–the cost of doing nothing.
    Many more innocents die when we engage in all out war.
    Whatever ‘all out war’ is these days, it doesn’t necessarily mean a higher civilian death count. See Rwanda as one example, Cambodia as another.
    Today, with ISIL, we face a *movement* that, someday, may be a nation-state. That *movement* is diffuse in one sense, and tangibly occupies known real estate in another sense. The latter is amenable to the application of conventional military power. My crystal ball won’t tell me whether innocent civilians as collateral damage will be a greater or lesser number than the innocent civilians who will die if nothing meaningful is done.
    And so that we have all of our hypocrisy on full display–mine as much as anyone’s–everything that ISIL did prior to attacking Paris was widely known and understood. It wasn’t until folks we tend to identify with get hit that we really sit up and take notice. The distinction could be made that, so long as they kept their barbarism local, we could hold our nose and look the other way. How that makes us better people is beyond me.
    All of that to one side, BP, I asked earlier today what you would do. Your insight is always of interest.

  132. And that is always a salient question: if someone doesn’t like what we are doing (or not doing) what alternative is proposed? And why should we believe it has a reasonable chance of accomplishing anything we want to accomplish? Preferably while not involving unintended consequences that we don’t want.
    It’s a question that never got answered with respect to invading Iraq. And never gets answered with respect to ISIS. (Unless you count “just be strong” as an answer….)

  134. Let’s remember that oceans on either side of us and all of the other reasons the American people have been historically reluctant and therefore late to most wars later manifests itself with mounting suspicions we have been duped into giving our consent.
    Think of the lingering suspicions to this day surrounding FDR’s alleged machinations leading up to Pearl Harbor, LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin, and you know who and the second Iraq war, not to mention the 9/11 truthers.
    I’m sure similar suspicions can be cast against other wars over the past 230 years.
    Certainly the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was no legitimate reason to slaughter 30 million, but if you read the history of World War I, the militaries of England, France, Russia, and most certainly Germany the Austro-Hungarian Empire were rearing to go to war and armed to the gills and it didn’t take much more than the spark of the convenient assassination to shut up the cooler heads and set things in motion for the populations who would serve as willing cannon fodder.
    The utter bloodthirsty eagerness today (not speaking of anyone here) of some who should know better to involve ground troops yet again, and this time over a much larger piece of real estate, without thinking about “what next” and showing no signs of learning anything from the last couple of ventures is at best cautionary, and I’m toning down my language there.
    They could create an even more terrible monster than IS, because if Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan are destabilized as a result of blundering intentions, then we’re done for a good long time.

  135. I would add that we need to take care that our actions — combat and draconian immigration measures — do not serve as a much more efficient recruiting tool for IS than their own pathetic social media marketing program.
    I see McKT’s latest link refers to what I just wrote.

  136. Well, it turns out at last some people are trying to find out what motivates ISIS fighters. (I am not surprised to find that Scott Atran is one of these– he is probably one of the best people to read on the subject of what motivates terrorists.)
    http://www.thenation.com/article/what-i-discovered-from-interviewing-isis-prisoners/
    I would guess, though, that the terrorists in France would have very different life stories from these captured fighters in the Mideast, so people who behead prisoners or plant car bombs in Iraq or Syria might not be driven by the same motives as people who shoot civilians in France. Or maybe the are.
    MckT, I’m not sure what you mean by my moral calculus, but if you are saying we should invade whenever civilians are being killed deliberately, I’ve pointed out in previous posts that this would entail declaring war on quite a few of our allies over the past few decades, and probably ourselves as well.

  137. They could create an even more terrible monster than IS, because if Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan are destabilized as a result of blundering intentions, then we’re done for a good long time.
    Yes, this is one possible outcome, and whether we act against ISIL may make it more or less likely or our action/inaction could have no impact at all.
    So, your vote would be to do nothing and let ISIL do as it will?

  138. MckT, I’m not sure what you mean by my moral calculus,
    I mean the method by which you determine that WWII was good to go, morally, but pretty much everything else, not so much. Was it ok not to let Grandfather Kim Il Jung take S Korea in 1950, now that we know how that turned out?

  139. I didn’t intend to go through each war. Stopping the North Korean invasion was justifiable, flattening virtually every town in North Korea and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians ( or more) was not. Vietnam was bad and our proxy wars in various places which probably killed many hundreds of thousands ( or more) were not.
    Maybe the Gulf War was just, as it was an illegal invasion, but then we had supported Saddam’s attack on Iran and then we invaded Iraq ourselves, a move of rather dubious morality. So maybe the US can’t be trusted in making these judgments.

  140. “were not” is missing the final word ” justifiable”. I should have added that even if the Gulf war might have arguably been justifiable, targeting Iraq’s civilian infrastructure was not.

  141. This is an argument we’ve had before, more than once, and fairly fruitlessly, but yes, precisely. Jus ad bellum does not render jus in bello beside the point.

  142. “Yes, this is one possible outcome, and whether we act against ISIL may make it more or less likely or our action/inaction could have no impact at all.”
    Yes, one possible outcome to put in the hopper for consideration, which I haven’t heard anyone else mention, so I thought I would before the polls close.
    “So, your vote would be to do nothing and let ISIL do as it will?
    No, my vote, so far, would be that whatever we do, could we take care not to be blundering fools and cause colossal unforeseen consequences which I’m sure I didn’t vote for.
    Plus, I would never beat my mother, especially in her current condition.
    “We” are doing something. I vote “yea”, so far.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/14/why-the-paris-attacks-could-mark-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-isis/
    I didn’t realize IS has lost “only” 25% of its territory. I thought they’d lost zero territory, according to the eager ones.
    Past wars:
    American Civil War: Had no choice but to vote yes. But I dressed as a woman for the duration.
    I voted No on World War I and I was a German citizen at the time. I was banned from every blog.
    Voted Yes on World War II, but No on the bombing of Dresden, even though I moved to the U.S. after World War I.
    Korea: Didn’t have legitimate ID at the time and was turned away from the polls. It was Mississippi.
    Vietnam: Nope
    Grenada: Naah
    First Iraq: Voted no, was probably wrong, but glad to see Bush I used some restraint.
    Afghanistan: Yes, figured we had no choice.
    Iraq II: Voted No numerous times but my ballot stuffing was no match for the other side.
    World War III: No
    The Next American Civil War: If certain types don’t quit pushing, I may see little choice but to vote yes.

  143. Rand Paul said today (you’ll have to google) that I have no right to pants.
    Besides moving me even more towards the yes camp for the next American Civil War (sans culottes anyone?), this puts me in a tough spot the next time I walk down to the corner store, given local law enforcement’s impression that I shouldn’t be going without me trousers.
    What say you McTX? A right to pants or not?
    Yes or no? Polls close at 6pm.

  146. The problem with US FP in the ME isn’t so much the questionable morality of its goals or the utter hypocrisy of its propaganda, but the incredible incompetence that has been on display time and again – it’s like watching a toddler running around with a stinger missile on its shoulder.
    So yeah, “doing nothing” is very likely our best option here. If mcTex and sapient really think this is the battle for our lives I suggest they sign up to join IS rise through the ranks quickly and then destroy the enemy from within – should be a piece of cake given their rhetorical gifts.

  147. Having listened to the President today, and otherwise having reminded myself of what we’re currently doing, I think we’re doing the right thing by providing significant air power assistance to local fighters.
    We’re not “doing nothing.” We’re doing a lot, but we’re refusing to become entrenched in an extremely long-term and hostile occupation. We might be able to regain the territory run by Daesh, but we won’t be able to eradicate all terrorism.
    In terms of a “the battle for our lives”, I think this war is quite important, but we have to fight it in a way that the American people will support, and that eventually will make room for a diplomatic solution. It’s a complicated project, and extremely frustrating. I don’t see an end to it unless suddenly the Daesh lifestyle model goes out of style.

  148. McKinny…merci, you ask me what I would do? With this nest of vipers? You really have it in for me, don’t you?
    Let’s take a little tour of the greater neighborhood:
    Libya – Not exactly an arab spring success. A gangland paradise. Perhaps deploying air power is not the easy solution some think it to be, eh?
    Egypt–lining up folks at the executioner’s wall that we don’t like much, but, hey, they were democratically elected. So supporting this regime demonstrates our contempt for democracy?
    Saudi Arabia-the funders of terrorism, at home and abroad. Some “special relationship” there! But by all means, supporting a feudal regime demonstrates our all out opposition to ISIS inspired Islamic feudalism, right?
    Sudan-a poor nation wracked by civil war. What? No extra bombs for one side or the other there? Since Lindsay Graham doesn’t want to send 500,000 troops there …he obviously “lacks will”.
    Yemen-Another demonstration of the futility of subjugation by air power alone. I wonder who sold those weapons to the Saudis?
    Gulf States-more feudal satrapies. Shameless in their extravagance. More places to sell arms. Whoever gave Qatar the 2022 World Cup should be horsewhipped. Do you realize they are building the facilities with what amounts to slave labor? And I thought we were opposed to slavery.
    Pakistan-Right up there with the Saudi’s for religious nuttery. And they have the bomb. Solution? Well, currently, it seems to be: Sell them more weapons, and play them off against the Hindu religious nutters to the east.
    Iran-Paydirt for blowback. An ancient and proud people. Obviously this cannot stand, so we sick the Shah on them and “tilt” toward Iraq in a bloody war. Hundreds of thousand die, but some claim they hate us for our freedoms! Who could have ever guessed that would happen? But some nutter said bad things about Israel, so clutch the pearls and call for war. I detect a theme here.
    Afghanistan-A country bombed so much that large pieces of rubble are considered strategic targets. We should invite the Russians to come back.
    Iraq-The biggest foreign policy cock up since King Vortigern outsourced the defense of Britain to the Saxons. We took a fine little dictatorship and turned it into a hell hole of civil war, and created space for ISIS to engage in the delusional dream of “caliphate”. Nice work, GW Bush.
    Syria-Deep into a vicious civil war and we essentially support the jihadis, allies of ISIS, because, you know, Iran. I cannot say enough how really stupid that is, but it is really stupid. Outrage about Assad barrel bombing his own people gives me the shivers as it reminds me of anguished wingnut laments about Saddam gassing his. And those poor babies in Kuwait incubators! Don’t forget them. Sometimes I think the only reason we hate Assad so is the Russians and the French cornered the arms market with him.
    Turkey-An almost beacon of democracy. A member of NATO. A slaughterer of Kurds. Nice combo!
    Lebanon-A beautiful country whose place in the greater scheme of things is the doormat of the Middle East. Everybody gets to practice invading it.
    Jordan-Never heard of the place. I hear Steve Forbes sings the praises of some guy who claims to be king. That’s two strikes against him right there.
    Israel-The hot button of all hot buttons. A nuclear armed nation now governed by some other kind of religious zealots intent on stealing what little is left of Palestinian land. A country firmly fixed on the idea that they, unlike all others, can make apartheid work. Another major customer for our arms sales.
    So you have to step back a bit and consider. What do we have here? Guns, God, and oil. This mess is the sine qua non of f*ckups. And you want to do something? Where is the GOP sanity that prevailed when Clinton was bombing Kosovo?
    Now I could come up with a lot of fantasy stuff, like bombing Riydh and Tel Aviv, but what’s the point? I think our goal is to leave well enough alone…stop selling so many weapons, and maybe change our diplomatic priorities, not that these are any more realistic, but here goes: Tilt toward Iran. Make them feel guilty for hating us. Tell the Israelis and Saudis that we are cutting back our unquestioning support for them, and the more stiff necked they get, the less our support. Help the Russians get Assad back in power to end the killing. Then take him out with a drone. Let the Afghan civil war play out. Whoever wins there is the loser. Put diplomatic missions in Gaza and Ramalla.
    All these have problems…more death, undoubtedly more blowback. But let’s try to lessen our footprint in the Middle East.
    We don’t own the place, you can’t win a war against a noun, and, most importantly, make central to our self image that it is not all about us.

  149. Did you see the apoplectic fit thrown when Obama said he’s not interesting in posturing in pursuit of an appearance of “American leadership” or “America winning”? Sadly, I suspect your last clause might be less realistic than fantasy stuff about Tel Aviv or Riyad…

  150. but if you read the history of World War I, the militaries of England, France, Russia, and most certainly Germany the Austro-Hungarian Empire were rearing to go to war and armed to the gills
    Surprisingly the first part is true, the latter not really. I was pretty shocked when I first found out with how small artillery ammo stocks and how few machine guns on all sides the war started. Within weeks each party had essentially run out of shells and given how few there were to start with, they must have used them rather sparingly. Some preparatory barrages later in the war used up more shells than all parties combined had at the beginning of the war.
    It’s another sign that those responsible had no idea what they were doing.

  152. bobbyp’s 11:53 pm roundup of things as they are should be emblazoned on a new, shiny, always waxing, ersatz moon stationed next to the old one in the evening sky so that the self-afflicted parties the world over can read it every night as a replacement for their poisonous bedtime stories.

  153. I want to express my appreciation to McTX for at least laying out a rough strategic military plan up above for taking out IS.
    Something tells me it’s going to resemble Hillary Clinton’s and Vlad Putin’s, or Jeb Bush’s and Vlad Putin’s, should they ascend.
    The ascendancy of the “others” is a nightmare from which we will not awake, unless it’s to find ourselves and a fattened goat tethered to a stake in a meadow near Dabiq, Iowa to host the Olympic Apocalypse Games.
    My first question would be “Which way to the front?”, but if the answer is to point in all four directions, I’ll conclude that we have surrounded ourselves yet again.

  154. Hartmut, by “armed to the gills”, I should have said something along the lines of “the aristocratic generals on each side had their strategic map tables set up and at the ready and their aperitif cabinets full stocked to fortify themselves for the pushing around of little tokens that designated their respective cannon fodder as the fait accomplis of treaty obligations closed around their ankles like quick-hardening concrete, not that they minded, having misread Ivanhoe, etc ….

  155. Now, I’m outta here to attend to more personal outrages and afflictions for a couple of weeks.
    Lay all of yourselves down end to end and try to reach a conclusion with minimum contusions.

  159. Count, on the German side the general (pun intended) thought was that the only way to conduct and win a major war was to do it fast and ‘be home for Xmas’. Why stock ammo for a long campaign when the only successful campaign could not last more than a few weeks? In WW2 the Wehrmacht deliberately did not prepare for the Russian winter because that would have been an admission of failure in advance.
    The heirs of that school of thought sit in the Pentagon and associated think tanks.

  160. Or to quote a famous late German poet:
    Weil, so schließt er messerscharf
    Nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf.
    (For, he reasons pointedly
    That which must not, can not be.)

  161. and all that stuff about the Paris attackers being Syrian?
    likely untrue.

    French officials told the Journal that Ahmad al-Mohammed, who blew himself up outside the Stade de France, was carrying a counterfeit Syrian passport made for him. Al-Mohammed’s fingerprints matched those on the passport found near his body, the French added.
    Greek officials said the information on Al-Mohammed’s passport was run against police databases after he landed in Leros on Oct. 3 and nothing was found. Another man carrying a passport with identical information, but a different photograph, was being used by a man in Serbia who was arrested on Monday.

    not that cowardly lions hiding out in the Governors’ mansions care.

  162. the rebuttal brings up some serious shortcomings on its part, primarily that it’s cherrypicking and generalizing

    Yes, but it commits exactly the same kind of errors that Christians do in objecting to the actions of other Christians who are doing horrible things.
    IS is Islamic. Whether the rest of the world of Islam supports what they’re doing is irrelevant; what is relevant is that they’re doing what they do out of religious fervor. They have pretty much come out and said what they’re up to.
    Now: we can have a long argument over whether they are in fact true Scotsmen, or we could kind of move on and leave the outrage over whether they’re Scottish at all to those people interested in arguing the fine details.

  163. It doesn’t matter, cleek. The point is that they can pretend to be Syrian refugees. In fact, they can pretend to be almost anything, so we shouldn’t be letting anyone in for any reason whatsoever – even supposed “Americans” returning from “vacations” abroad.

  164. IS is Islamic. Whether the rest of the world of Islam supports what they’re doing is irrelevant; what is relevant is that they’re doing what they do out of religious fervor. They have pretty much come out and said what they’re up to.
    The analogy I would use for Christians, particularly in the US, is the Westboro Baptist Church. They obviously aren’t doing things remotely as horrible and violent as IS, but they’re repugnant none the less, so the concept is the same.
    I don’t intend that analogy to suggest that I’m taking a strong position one way or the other on whether IS is or is not Islamic or the Westboro Baptist church is or is not Christian. They are what they are, regardless, and there’s no definitive factual answer on either question AFAICT.

  165. The point is that they can pretend to be Syrian refugees.
    what better way to get into the US than to go through the cumbersome, lengthy and triple-checked refugee process!
    we shouldn’t be letting anyone in for any reason whatsoever
    it’s hard not to conclude that that’s exactly what “conservatives” actually want.

  166. My personal POV is this:
    -There are actual people who are fleeing the not-very-nice ISIS regime. You want to deny those people, whose homes have effectively been denied them, sanctuary?
    -If ISIS wants to enter this country, there’s not a whole lot we can or should do to keep them out. Because the logistics; they don’t work.
    -It might be time for that Mosin-Nagant and crate of ammo that I’ve been wanting. I promise not to shoot anyone who’s not shooting at me.
    -Unless the entire country refuses to accept refugees, they are coming somewhere, and when they get there it doesn’t matter if your state has voted to refuse them. Because it’s fairly easy to travel from one place to another in the states, once you have an entry visa.
    It’s all just about that simple. Except for the Mosin-Nagant part, maybe.

  167. the most prominent voice to tear up the Iran agreement because of ISIS (and Paris) seems to be Huckabee.
    WTF has a Salafi terrorist outfit got to do with Shi’a Iran? They wipe each other out given the chance!

  172. No two things are ever exactly the same, but there isn’t a shortage of movements within the modern US that bear similarities to IS.
    The Christian reconstruction movement is quite explicit about wanting to establish a religious authoritarian government here. It’s influence extends to sitting members of Congress.
    The various expressions of the Christian Identity movement are explicitly a religiously motivated domestic terrorist organization.
    The KKK of course filled that role historically. Nowadays they aren’t that powerful but in their prime they had an enormous influence on public life in much of the US.
    I don’t recognize anything that I understand as being part of the message of Christ in any of those organizations, but they certainly see themselves and present themselves as Christian, and have a reading of the Christian Bible that supports their point of view.
    In not-so-ancient history, the fascist regimes of mid-20th C Europe were fascinated by romantic and heroic visions of creating, among other things, modern versions of the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne and the Teutonic Knights.
    The Islamic State claims to be Islamic. Many, many Muslims around the world want nothing whatsoever to do with IS and their insane bloodthirsty fantasies. I personally am not that interested in trying to parse the various suras and hadiths that each side quotes to try to figure out who is “right”.
    It’s obvious to me that the leaders of IS want to do other people great harm, just like it’s obvious to me that Christian reconstructionists are bigoted religious fascists, and the Christian Identity people are murderous lunatics.
    And it’s obvious to me that the vast majority of Muslims in the world, including every Muslim that I know personally, have no interest in harming anyone, and really just want to live their lives in peace, like most people do.
    So, to me, the theological points are kind of moot.
    If you want to kill me, I’m agin you. If you don’t, I’m not. The reasons you give for wanting to kill me may be important in terms of understanding how to deal with your violent obsessions, but they’re kind of a second-order issue, to me.
    I don’t believe that violence or aggression toward others is an essential part of Islam, just like I don’t believe that those things are an essential part of Christianity, even though I can find lots of folks who claim that it is.
    I don’t believe it because most Muslims, and most Christians, don’t live their lives that way. So either they are crappy Muslims and Christians, or violence is not essential to the practice of those religions.
    I see the same set of issues for pretty much every religious tradition except maybe the Ba’hai. To my knowledge they haven’t gone around lousing anybody up. But, of course, I could be wrong about that.
    The weight of the evidence is that the peaceful folks aren’t crappy practicioners of their faith, whatever it happens to be. So, I hold the opinion that violence and aggression is not an essential part of any religious faith.
    Maybe Kali cultists, other than that, not.

  173. refugees from the middle east seeking refuge in a foreign land and being turned away ? hope there are plenty of stables left the ME.

  174. I haven’t caught up on the thread since yesterday, so I’m guessing there is some stuff I should reply to. Haven’t read it. I just saw the comments above by Cleek and Russell.
    I was friends with a Christian Reconstructionist back in the 90’s. Went to a Bible study with him. I never took his beliefs seriously because there isn’t support for that level of fanaticism–I think Americans are quite capable of committing massive crimes, but we like to do it at a distance or via proxy and have some handy rationalizations as to why we aren’t really doing it, but the Reconstructionist types are really straightforwardly fanatical in a good old fashioned Bronze Age sort of way. They wanted Old Testament Law back in place. Death penalty for all sorts of things. Not very different from ISIS.

  175. And to be fair to the Old Testament and even Reconstructionists, I don’t recall if they pushed for the merciful social justice aspects of OT law. I can’t recall anything about years of jubilee. But maybe the Reconstructionists favored that too.

  176. trying to wrap my mind around the concept of a sharpened bowling ball…..
    Think of it as a misspelled bowler hat and then of Goldfinger 😉

  177. I can’t speak for conservatives, smart people, or smart conservatives; just for myself. I am not a joiner. I am not a bandwagon-jumper, or a movement-adherent. I don’t give to political parties.
    And quite honestly, I think the country would be a better place if more people were like…what am I SAYING?

  178. Slarti, your take on the significance of Daesh being Islamic is fairly reasonable. The same cannot be said about an awful lot of others who find it to be a point of utmost import, because if IS is Islamic that proves that Islam is inevitably and universally evil! You’re willing to view them as a distinct entity and use their behavior to determine how they should be treated, but there’s an awful lot of people hankering to hold them out as typical Muslims and use their behavior to determine how all Muslims should be treated. As the rebuttals pointed out (more clearly the second, I’d say), there are multiple and conflated understandings of “Islamic” in play, and not even in a “no true Scotsman” sense.

  179. I am not in disagreement, NV.
    There do seem to be a lot of people hell-bent on repeating the errors of 14 years ago.
    Yes, the military apparatus of ISIS can be broken with relative ease. But no, just bombing a lot of vehicles and weapons into scrap will not rid the world of ISIS. Or ISIL, or Daesh, or fundamentalist shitbags; whatever label you want to slap on them.
    So, what are you gonna do?
    I have no answers. As of now, it looks like we’re going to let Russia waltz in and kill a lot of IS militia, along with the inevitable women and children.

  180. Tilt toward Iran. Make them feel guilty for hating us. Tell the Israelis and Saudis that we are cutting back our unquestioning support for them, and the more stiff necked they get, the less our support. Help the Russians get Assad back in power to end the killing. Then take him out with a drone. Let the Afghan civil war play out. Whoever wins there is the loser. Put diplomatic missions in Gaza and Ramalla.
    Bobby, that’s a really great summary. The only caveats I might have are:
    – Why put a mission in Gaza? The one in Ramalla ought to be sufficient.
    – I’d just as soon keep out of the Russian effort for Assad. Focus on helping out the Kurds, and only that.
    It might be worth the whole package, just to watch the apoplexy strike down certain parts of our own population. Which is probably small-minded of me, but still….

  181. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/16/isis-bombs-hostage-syria-islamic-state-paris-attacks?CMP=share_btn_tw

    It struck me forcefully how technologically connected they are; they follow the news obsessively, but everything they see goes through their own filter. They are totally indoctrinated, clinging to all manner of conspiracy theories, never acknowledging the contradictions.
    Everything convinces them that they are on the right path and, specifically, that there is a kind of apocalyptic process under way that will lead to a confrontation between an army of Muslims from all over the world and others, the crusaders, the Romans. They see everything as moving us down that road. Consequently, everything is a blessing from Allah.
    With their news and social media interest, they will be noting everything that follows their murderous assault on Paris, and my guess is that right now the chant among them will be “We are winning”. They will be heartened by every sign of overreaction, of division, of fear, of racism, of xenophobia; they will be drawn to any examples of ugliness on social media.
    Central to their world view is the belief that communities cannot live together with Muslims, and every day their antennae will be tuned towards finding supporting evidence. The pictures from Germany of people welcoming migrants will have been particularly troubling to them. Cohesion, tolerance – it is not what they want to see.

  183. The Baptist church I grew up in had actual KKK members as deacons. It’s sort of hard not to equate Christianity with the KKK. Might be unfair, but conservatives, like everybody else, reap what they sow.

  184. The pictures from Germany of people welcoming migrants will have been particularly troubling to them. Cohesion, tolerance – it is not what they want to see.
    Easy enough to skip those. Just lock the TVs on Fox News, and focus on the latest pronouncements of the Republican candidates. Fits perfectly with the desired narrative. As if it was bought and paid for….

  185. Maybe.
    Why maybe? There is nothing in what they say or do that points to them wanting anything but a clash of civilization, and to drive the Muslims of the world to have no refugee outside their ranks.

  187. Mixed messages from Germany. On the one side an open welcome from many, on the other side numerous occasions of arson against places even just supected of being destined for housing refugees. And then there is the PEGIDA movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegida) drawing out all the xenophobes from hiding for prime time TV. I feel so ashamed.

  189. The pictures from Germany of people welcoming migrants will have been particularly troubling to them. Cohesion, tolerance – it is not what they want to see.
    Maybe. The author knows what IS thinks *and* it fits the narrative. So, maybe.
    The Baptist church I grew up in had actual KKK members as deacons. It’s sort of hard not to equate Christianity with the KKK. Might be unfair, but conservatives, like everybody else, reap what they sow
    Understood. The history department where I got my BA had a couple of Stalinists on faculty. It’s sort of hard not to equate traditional liberalism with mass murdering communists. Might be unfair, but liberals, like everybody else, reap what they sow.

  190. john not mccain is committing exactly the same categorization error that those wanting to keep all refugees out are committing.
    Join the clan hoods, john!

  191. The history department where I got my BA had a couple of Stalinists on faculty.
    McK, you must be a lot older than I thought.
    I figured Stalinists to be circa 1938.
    Your liberals were past their sell-by date.
    🙂

  193. Sure. Just let me iron my hood, and I’ll be right over for a chat.
    have you tried a sharpened bowling ball for that chore?

  196. The author knows what IS thinks *and* it fits the narrative.
    as opposed to everyone in this discussion, he has actually talked to them, extensively. feel free to contradict him, go do your own interviews.
    otherwise, given the choice between someone with first hand experience and the opinion of a random guy on the internet, i’ll stick with the former.

  197. Stalinist are nothing. Wait until you meet a real Trotskyite.*
    *an increasingly rare political species
    Most have become neocons by now.
    I have met some people that are still Trotskyites (that they tried to sell me Trotskyite (news)papers was a bit of a giveaway). Trotsky would turn in his grave about those guys. Not actually intellectuals. Slogans but nothing behind. I am no expert but I could have teached them a lesson on communism 101.

  198. otherwise, given the choice between someone with first hand experience and the opinion of a random guy on the internet, i’ll stick with the former.
    cleek, cleek, cleek. Where oh where did you ever get the silly idea that something is credible simply because it’s a contemporaneous primary source? It still has to to pass the smell test before the grownups will take it seriously.

  199. Slarti–I think John Not McCain might be being sarcastic and making a point about how some people judge all Muslims by the actions of a few, but I’m not sure.
    On Stalinists, I’m surprised any would be left after the early 50’s. My impression is that most American commies (not just the Trotskyites) is that they had their illusions about Lenin, but thought things went wrong under Stalin.
    I once knew a 20 year old who started out as a liberal Democrat and then became a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. They thought that the Shining Path in Peru was great, and that Mao’s Cultural Revolution was the pinnacle of human development. My friend was, I think, just fooling around or not really serious. I think he was drawn in by a girlfriend. I did meet briefly the head of the local group and he really did seem to take himself seriously. But maybe they represent the sorts of Westerners that would go off and join ISIS, on the theory that what virtually everyone in the US (from left to right) said was bad was actually noble. My friend the not very serious RCP type might be the sort who’d go join ISIS while bringing a pet, (I remember reading something like this) and the grim guy might really find the violent fanatical aspect appealing.

  200. “I think he was drawn in by a girlfriend.”
    Fake Stalinists have more sex than real KKK members, which could be viewed as an alternative body count for those keeping track at home.

  202. They were very, very old Stalinists.
    Living in a country filled with lots of really really old people, I tend to give them a pass on their mutterings, loopy ideas, etc. It’s a bit easier to turn it off when it’s not your native language, but I’ve had the occasional unpleasant run-in with geezers here (It’s always men, but that isn’t surprising here) I hope they will grant me the same forebearance when I reach geezerdom.

  204. Donald,
    the Reconstructionist types are really straightforwardly fanatical in a good old fashioned Bronze Age sort of way. They wanted Old Testament Law back in place. Death penalty for all sorts of things. Not very different from ISIS.
    Do they have kosher kitchens?

  205. Those leftwingers are tearing into each other again!
    that was a really weird post by Drum (but it’s approaching 1800 comments, so it didn’t go unnoticed).
    i wonder if he had phrased it differently if it would’ve gone over better. instead of saying liberals shouldn’t mock, maybe he could’ve suggested that liberals might be able to shine some light on the situation by laying out what the current policy really is and asking WTF could be done to improve it? it amounts to the same thing, but Drum’s version came off as scolding.
    i’ve seen dozens of Republicans who seem to think getting accepted as a refugee is just a matter of showing up at the border and making a sad face. they don’t seem to know that there’s a very long and complicated process before you can even set foot in America.

  206. How a Syrian refugee gets to the US, via the BBC.
    I wish we could find a way to respond to terrorism that didn’t involve wetting our pants.
    It’s obviously disturbing when people randomly slaughter dozens or hundreds of people who are simply going about their lives. It’s meant to be disturbing, that’s the point.
    We don’t have to take the bait. At least not every freaking time.
    About 150 Americans have tried, successfully or not, to go to Syria to join IS. They don’t need to send anybody here, there are already people here who are perfectly willing to act on their behalf.
    It’s entirely possible that IS may carry out terrorist acts here. I would say it’s beyond likely that they will try to do so. All of that is so, whether Syrian refugees come here or not.
    We need to decide what kind of country and what kind of people we are going to be, and then step up to the risks of being that kind of people and that kind of country.
    If the idea of letting 10,000 — out of what are probably millions — of refugees come here, via a multi-stage, months-long vetting process, is just a bridge too far, we need to re-visit our understanding of who we are and what we are about.
    IMO the behavior of this country from 9/11 to now is frankly embarrassing.

  208. “john not mccain is committing exactly the same categorization error that those wanting to keep all refugees out are committing.”
    The difference, of course, is that my categorization error won’t result in the suffering or death of any refugees. And as long as the christards leave me alone they need not fear me or my guns.

  209. “I wish we could find a way to respond to terrorism that didn’t involve wetting our pants.”
    I understand the wetting of the pants. It’s human nature.
    It’s the attempting wetting of MY pants and the setting on fire of MY hair by the home-grown demagogues who have infiltrated our domestic governing institutions and media who need to put a sock in it.
    Some Texas fella just the other day said they don’t want to let these folks in because what would happen if the refugees tapped the huge, open Texas gun bazaar.
    The Governor followed up by, what a surprise, making sure the refugees couldn’t tap the limited, by comparison, Texas public health facilities.
    That’ll show ’em.
    It looks like the center of interest in the Paris murders is the tough Molenbeek neighborhood in Brussels, Belgium. One of the defining characteristics of that locality, unlike much of Europe, is the ease with which weapons are available for the asking.
    You would think the hardheads who were taking France to task the other day for not permitting citizens to carry would step up and notice that Molenbeek is basically an American enclave and should be to the liking of the usual suspects, given the similarities in attitudes about making it easy for crazy people and terrorist sh*theads to access killing machines.
    Aren’t Waco and Molenbeek sister cities?
    Plane leaves in a few hours.
    Have a good one, friends.

  210. I understand the wetting of the pants. It’s human nature.
    I understand it, too.
    At some point you have to gird up your loins and carry on.
    Or, live with wet pants.

  211. the pants-wetting isn’t just cowardice. it’s also a political move. the GOP is deliberately inflaming its base, during primary season, for electoral reasons, as it always does. there is always a GOP-fanned fire before every election cycle. always. it’s always the same thing: “The liberals are weakening our great country by _______ ! Only we can protect you! And we’ll do it by being xenophobic, belligerent, pants-wetting, tough guys! G!O!P!”
    that people haven’t caught on to this transparently manipulative ploy by now puzzles me greatly.

  212. this is awesome…
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/17/this-is-the-group-thats-surprisingly-prone-to-violent-extremism/?postshare=4541447781822370&tid=ss_tw-bottom

    More than twice as many members of violent Islamist organizations have engineering degrees as have degrees in Islamic studies. Nearly half of those terrorists who had degrees had degrees in engineering. Even if you make extremely generous assumptions, nine times as many terrorists were engineers as you would expect by chance. They find a similar pattern among Islamist terrorists who grew up in the West – fewer of these terrorists had college degrees, but even more of those who had degrees were engineers.
    Significantly, Gambetta and Hertog find the opposite pattern among non-violent Islamic groups. In these groups, people with other degrees than engineering were over-represented.
    Gambetta and Hertog also examine non-Islamic terrorist organizations, where they find that left-wing terrorists are likely to be humanities graduates rather than engineers, except in movements in Turkey and Iran. However, there is weak evidence that leaders of extreme right-wing groups in the U.S. may be more prone to be engineers than chance would predict.

  213. Obama has been at his best responding to the Republican hysteria over refugees.
    I read the engineering article. It’s not exactly the same thing, but I remember reading that among the modern day creation “scientists” you usually find a disproportionate number of engineers. Which sort of makes sense–they would be prone by training to expect design. I’ve also read the claim that engineers and experimental physicists are more likely to be conservative, but that was in John McPhee’s The Curve of Binding Energy, written in the 70’s, so I don’t know if it would still be true or for that matter, if the generalization was true back then.

  214. Though on the other hand when I read a history of creationism by Ronald Numbers many years ago (“The Creationists”, I think, was the original title), some of the early creationists were politically progressive by the standards of the time. Darwin and evolution were linked to social Darwinian philosophies and militarism (not without reason) and so people like William Jennings Bryan were horrified by it on that ground. Steven Jay Gould wrote about this somewhere.
    The correlations between various types of beliefs and professions probably change from generation to generation–you wouldn’t look at modern day creationists and expect them to be staunch liberals.

  216. the pants-wetting isn’t just cowardice. it’s also a political move.
    That’s true, but the only reason it’s effective is that so many folks are afraid of the bogeyman in the first place.

  217. That’s true, but the only reason it’s effective is that so many folks are afraid of the bogeyman in the first place.
    The consensus here may be right. Or, it may be what happens when people who see things the same way get together and have a chat.
    How long ago was it when Obama dismissed ISIL as the JV and said they weren’t a problem? How long ago did Obama, after Jihadi John was killed, declare ISIL contained?
    Post-Paris, he has stepped up the air campaign hugely. Why wasn’t that done before? Fair questions can be asked about his assessment of ISIL from the get go and about his strategy.

  218. the pants-wetting isn’t just cowardice. it’s also a political move.
    That’s true, but the only reason it’s effective is that so many folks are afraid of the bogeyman in the first place.
    I suppose I should just avoids this topic but WTF? I simply don’t understand the desire to act like there is nothing to see here and that any reaction, anger or caution, is pants wetting. There are evil people doing bad things, we should be angry, we should make sure we err on the side of caution.
    I love the logic that there are plenty of people already here that will blow us up so why worry about some more? Really?
    I think calling people cowards for simply not wanting to have ANOTHER thing to worry about is pretty sh*tty. The politicians are just reacting to that fear, whether through empathy or self interest is pretty unimportant to the people they are making feel better.
    Lastly, shorter me, the people here are as important as the people there. And the primary responsibility of this government is the people here.

  220. And, does anyone but me see the irony in Cleek and others claiming, in effect, “if we halt immigration, ISIL wins!” Maybe I’m the only one who remembers the mockery going the other way post 9/11.
    Also, even though Cleek’s sources assure us that ISIL will be crushed to learn how open and welcoming the West is, there are two sides to this particular slice of baloney:
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/555434/Islamic-State-ISIS-Smuggler-THOUSANDS-Extremists-into-Europe-Refugees

  221. I suppose I should just avoids this topic but WTF? I simply don’t understand the desire to act like there is nothing to see here and that any reaction, anger or caution, is pants wetting
    nobody is acting like there’s nothing to see here. literally, i’ve yet to see anyone say that about IS. but, the GOP (top to bottom) is in PANIC! mode, as usual. and that makes it hard to have a reasonable discussion.
    for example, a person can’t even talk about the GOP’s S.O.P. overreaction (whether it be cynical or real or both) without being accused of being all “why worry?”

  222. I think John Not McCain might be being sarcastic and making a point about how some people judge all Muslims by the actions of a few, but I’m not sure.

    Ah. Sarchasm.

  223. And, does anyone but me see the irony in Cleek and others claiming, in effect, “if we halt immigration, ISIL wins!”
    i’m not sure where i claimed that, directly or indirectly.
    but…
    if we halt immigration because the GOP has whipped itself into another fact-free frenzy of xenophobia and cynical political opportunism then we will have done the wrong thing for the wrong reason.
    which would be wrong.
    in other words: i’m not interested in letting the GOP set frame the debate according to their fantasies and electoral desiers. i’m going to try to push the debate back to the facts.

  224. I simply don’t understand the desire to act like there is nothing to see here and that any reaction, anger or caution, is pants wetting.
    I’m not saying there’s nothing to see here.
    I’m saying that making public policy based on an immediate natural reaction to mass murder is not wise. It’s foolish.
    And, I’m saying that, from 9/11 to now, most of our public actions in response to acts of terror have been reactive, foolish, and harmful.
    It’s natural and correct to be disturbed by the events in Paris.
    Going from there to refusing to admit any and all refugees *who are fleeing the people committing the atrocities* is fearfully reactive to the point of being neurotic.
    It’s freaking madness.
    Read the BBC piece on what the drill is for admitting Syrian refugees to the US. They first have to get to a UNHCR camp, then they have to be vetted for relocation by the UNHCR, then they have to be interviewed and vetted by Homeland Security.
    It takes 18-24 months. A year and a half to two years. Somebody who is already in a UNHCR camp and applying to relocate here will arrive here in the summer of 2017, or later.
    There are already people in this country who are willing to fight for IS. Get a warrant and monitor them until the cows come home. I’m all for it.
    If we find during the vetting process that some would-be emigrant seems shady, don’t grant them permission to come. Fine with me.
    That’s not what is being called for.
    The folks who are, today, beginning the arduous process of trying to get out of the freaking hell-hole in Syria in the hopes of landing in the US sometime in freaking 2017 are not the problem.
    I’m not saying there is no problem, I’m saying we need to quit shaking in our freaking boots every time some jihadi gets lucky and deal with it like rational human beings.
    Hollande is standing behind the French commitment to take in 30,000 refugees in the next two years, *after* the events of last week.
    Cheese-eating surrender-monkey France.
    Because doing so honors and affirms what France claims to be all about.
    I’m not joking when I say this kind of crap makes me ashamed of my country.

  225. Is the word “christard” allowed in lefty circles these days?

    I thought it was part of the lexicon.
    As is “pants-wetting”, but only when not in the context of the evil that private gun ownership represents.
    All good, and none of it results in any refugees going unhomed.
    My own view, here, is not that we don’t have anything to worry about. It’s that there are concerns here that can be managed. Also: that there is no 100% safety for anyone, so stop trying to kid yourself that there is.
    That goes for everyone, including me.

  229. My own view, here, is not that we don’t have anything to worry about. It’s that there are concerns here that can be managed. Also: that there is no 100% safety for anyone, so stop trying to kid yourself that there is.
    yeah, this.
    and everything russell has said.

  231. Ok, I’m convinced. It isn’t a big deal one way or the other, no one gets here in less than 18 months, no one should care where they live because heck we have lots of people getting killed already. They are vetted in incredible detail, (which really no one believes),and then.
    Since at least 5 of my family members have been murdered in my lifetime I understand that 100% is not a reasonable goal. (Brother-in-law to first cousins). Manageable is not even the question. How much risk is acceptable to add, to an already risky existence?
    Its like the border issue, how many criminals is it ok to let in so others can get in. 10%, 5%? Any?

  232. Let’s look at it another way.
    Just random criminals would probably find easier pickings elsewhere. Getting into the US on refugee status is probably not the route most criminals would take.
    Terrorists, on the other hand…would have to perhaps take the risk of being recognized by some of the very people who are fleeing them.
    Really, what do you think your risk is? Have you considered the upside risk? By that I mean: have you considered that risking this might bring some reduced risk, later on?
    If you don’t want refugees in your house, no one is going to force you to take them.
    And, really, you’ve lost 5 family members to murder? That seems…way out of family, statistically speaking. I’ve lost one member to a major chunk of cleek’s gun violence chart: she killed herself with a gun.
    Everyone else has expired naturally or by accident. But maybe I am (again, statistically speaking) out of family.

  233. “Have you considered the upside risk? By that I mean: have you considered that risking this might bring some reduced risk, later on?”
    No and I would love to hear that yarn, is later measured in centuries?

  234. How much risk is acceptable to add, to an already risky existence?
    A reasonable amount. An amount that is based on an appraisal of actual information, rather than scary pictures of things that happened an ocean away.

  235. given that it’s apparently pretty easy to get convincing fake passports, it seems likely that ISIS would try to come here as vacationers or temporary visitors. or, even easier, just recruit people who already live here.
    the idea that some guy is going to volunteer go through the refugee process on the off chance that he’ll get approved to be allowed in after a year and a half is something out of a cold-war spy movie.
    if you have the skill and means to set up a back story to get in through the refugee process, you can certainly set up a story that will get you in as a tourist.

  238. Scary pictures of things that happen an ocean away… as we discuss bringing those scary things here.
    So, I don’t much care about 16000 or 30k refugees coming here. I do object to the characterization of people concerned by that as pants wetting etc. You aren’t worried? Great, I respect that. If they are, I respect that too. I still know people who haven’t gone a above the third floor of a building since 2001.

  239. Its like the border issue, how many criminals is it ok to let in so others can get in. 10%, 5%? Any?
    I understand the fear that a few terrorist event can engender. That’s the whole point of employing the tactic. So, an over-reaction, in some (note. I did not say ALL)sense is actually helping them obtain their goals.
    I put this out there as a middle ground.
    As for Marty’s question. We can ask that same question in other contexts. To wit:
    1. How many domestic gun deaths and mass shootings are you willing to tolerate in lieu of trampling on sacred 2nd Amendment rights? 75,000? 10,000? A few? Any?
    2. Some innocent people get convicted of crimes. How many wrongful convictions should be tolerate? 10%? Some? None?
    How is your question relevant wrt this issue, but not others?

  240. How is your question relevant wrt this issue, but not others?
    I haven’t said it isn’t relevant to the others. And, in the case of gun deaths the alternative argument is there would be more not less if the populace at large weren’t armed. Including terrorist attacks.
    The goal of the criminal justice system should be o5 but the most compelling argument against the death penalty is that it isn’t 0. All great things to discuss.
    What is the downside to us if we don’t take refugees from Syria? Does that increase our risk?

  241. Well, if the refugees wind up in a camp somewhere, without the means to make their own decisions in life, don’t you think that might kind of do the opposite of endearing them to us?

  242. Looking at the upside of that, as I said I would, it might serve to create some goodwill where perhaps there wasn’t any before.

  243. I do object to the characterization of people concerned by that as pants wetting etc. You aren’t worried? Great, I respect that. If they are, I respect that too.
    I’m talking about public policy, and the people who make public policy, not individual people who are disturbed by acts of terror.
    And I’m not talking about “concerned”, I’m talking about reacting – taking tangible actions – in ways that are enormously out of proportion to the actual danger.
    Anybody with a brain in their head is concerned. What we aren’t all doing is calling for refugees from a horrific war to be banned from our communities, or for mosques to be closed, or for refugees already here to be sent back, or any of 100 other responses that are either borderline hysterical or profoundly cynical, depending on whose making them.
    We all know people who have been uncomfortable in tall buildings, or are afraid to fly, or afraid to travel outside the country, since 9/11. I have no disrespect for them, the events we’re talking about are disturbing events.
    The people I don’t respect are folks who respond to situations like this out of ignorance or bigotry. And I don’t respect folks who are in positions to make or influence public policy doing the same, and/or exploiting the emotions and reactions of people who are understandably freaked out to further their own interests.
    If you object to the phrase “pants-wetting”, fine. There is a rich vocabulary available to use in talking about it all, I’ll use that instead.

  244. Looking at the upside of that, as I said I would, it might serve to create some goodwill where perhaps there wasn’t any before.

    I should clarify that I am not making a claim that this is true; it’s more of a suggestion of something for people to consider.

  245. Well Slart, I gave up on anything endearing us to the Syrians or those in the ME about a decade ago. They kill each other and blame us. For a decade, or more, they have killed each other in Iraq and counted every casualty against the US. I don’t see getting 30k people here changing that. Except for some of that 30k. Now they blame us for ISIS. We didn’t even have any troops there and we were getting blamed for Kurdish cities falling.
    Put down your guns and no one would die. Then you could just go back to your homes.

  246. Looking at the upside of that, as I said I would, it might serve to create some goodwill where perhaps there wasn’t any before.
    To the degree that our conflict with IS is ideological — i.e., that it represents a difference in values, and a difference in how we view the world and understand what is and is not good — I would say that helping the people who have been victimized and displaced by IS is one of the smartest things we could do.

  247. given that it’s apparently pretty easy to get convincing fake passports, it seems likely that ISIS would try to come here as vacationers or temporary visitors.
    Cleek makes an excellent point. Or has everybody forgotten that the 9/11 guys were all in this country legally, as visitors?
    If you really want to keep out all potential terrorists, you basically have to shut the borders to ALL visitors. Not just all refugees. Not just all immigrants. All visitors. Good luck with that.

  248. They kill each other and blame us. For a decade, or more, they have killed each other in Iraq and counted every casualty against the US.
    “they” aren’t all MEers. your “they” are actually people who find something the average person is re mad about and divert that anger onto an external target. “they” are people who exploit fear and misunderstandings of others for their own political gain. sound like anyone you know?

  249. in the case of gun deaths the alternative argument is there would be more not less if the populace at large weren’t armed.
    I’ve heard that argument (as, I’m sure, we all have). And I can see it as a theoretical view. But we don’t have to limit ourselves to theory. We have real-life data.
    The world has countries with a wide range of restrictions on gun ownership and use. And there is a stark correlation between violent deaths (both in general and specifically gun-related ones) and how widespread gun ownership is. With the US as a major outlier (approached only by failed states like Somalia), but right on the trend line.
    (The only thing close to an exception to the pattern are the handful of countries where every male is required to serve in the military/reserves. They have their military service weapon at home. They also have rigorous training in how to use, secure, etc. their weapon.)
    I suppose that you can argue that every other country in the world is a viscious tyrrany — a fate we only escape due to widespread gun ownership. But it’s hard to argue that with a straight face.

  250. What is the downside to us if we don’t take refugees from Syria? Does that increase our risk?
    Downsides:
    1. Betrayal of our values, history, heritage as an immigrant nation.
    2. Probable reduction of young educated members of the workforce (the ones leaving are the ones with the resources to do so). The “bed wetters” who decry the “crisis” of the aging of our workforce should welcome more young and educated workers!
    3. Adoption of a policy that deliberately choses to increase human suffering on a large scale.
    4. Provide our enemies with another propaganda weapon.
    5. Likely to create more hardened terrorist types than otherwise would exist.
    Does it increase our risk you ask?
    My judgment is a definite “yes”.
    We could also easily part with $30-50b/year to support other nations to handle the influx of refugees from the horrors of the middle east civil wars.

  251. they” aren’t all MEers.
    Well are they or aren’t they, make up ya’lls minds. All we hear, we meaning every frigging blog comment ever and most of the editorial pages of the papers and every magazine article or think tank report, is that the people in the ME are anti American and their whole violent way of life is a direct result of the invasion of Iraq and the desertion of the Kurds years earlier mixed with the careless deaths caused by drone attacks in Afghanistan and elsewhere so when they start killing each other it is just because we have been so stupid in how we dealt with them so every casualty is our fault.
    Did I miss anything?

  252. ” But we don’t have to limit ourselves to theory. ”
    Well yes, yes we do. Those other countries aren’t culturally the slightest bit like ours. Not in population, diversity, or the guaranteed freedoms. France closed its borders. Closed. No one in. England has a bunch of laws allowing them to gather information without a warrant, or an easier to get warrant. Their populations are mostly less than a tenth of ours over a smaller land mass with more cultural homogeneity.
    So yes we must limit ourselves to theory.

  253. Those other countries aren’t culturally the slightest bit like ours.
    It’s one thing to say they’re not exactly like ours so we can’t expect identical outcomes. It’s quite another to say they’re not the slightest bit like ours and we must thus restrict ourselves to abstract theorizing.

  256. maybe you should read different think tank papers? 🙂
    i’m not the most cosmopolitan guy, but even i have met people from the ME who didn’t think any of that stuff.
    and the people trying to migrate here from the ME certainly don’t think that way.

  257. From CNN, another discussion of the resettlement process for refugees seeking to come into the US.
    I’m sure that IS will continue to try to do harm to people living in the various nations that are currently at war with them. That includes us.
    I’m not seeing embedding jihadis among the Syrian refugees seeking to immigrate to the US as a particularly practical way to go about that.
    In a nutshell, it doesn’t make sense. There are many easier paths they could take.
    So I’m not seeing Syrian refugees as a high-threat thing. Not because I’m some bleeding-heart liberal hippie, but because it just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
    Of course, threat or no threat, we don’t have to let any of them in at all. It would just be a good thing to do, considering the conditions in their home country.
    We aren’t exactly the same as France, or the UK, or Germany. I don’t see how the ways in which we are different from those places has any bearing on the question.

  258. Suppose that in order to possibly save the lives of 10,000 Americans you had to risk the lives of 129 Syrians. Would you do it? Depending on the odds, I certainly would.
    Suppose that in order to possibly save the lives of 129 Americans you had to risk the lives of 10,000 Syrians. Would you do that?
    For me, it would again depend on the odds. How likely is it that the 129 Americans will die if I don’t? How likely is it that 129 Americans will NOT die if I do? How big a risk to the Syrians?
    For others, the answer may be brutally obvious: however small the risk to 129 Americans and however large the risk to the 10,000 Syrians, American lives matter so much more than Syrian lives that only a libtard would hesitate.
    I recognize that these questions are “theoretical” but I’m only trying to abide by Marty’s pronouncement that “we must limit ourselves to theory.”
    –TP

  259. hose other countries aren’t culturally the slightest bit like ours.
    Marty, you really might want to spend some time in Australia or Canada — just for openers.
    The cultural differences are pretty minimal. Lots of diverse immigrants, for example. Definitely 1st world population, similar educational standards, etc., etc. But gun deaths? Nothing like ours.

  260. wj, and the entire population of Canada is 35 million spread into small enclaves that, while ethnically diverse are small. My last cab ride in Toronto the driver said, with no prompting, that the real threat to the US was from Canada’s immigrant community. One of those more convenient ways to get onto the US. A very polite people west of Quebec. Very passive aggressive mostly unless you get into the oil fields where they are less inclined to be nice for its sake. I have been there. Australia, haven’t been.

  261. I’m not joking when I say this kind of crap makes me ashamed of my country.
    I hope you’re staying off facebook. I’m ready to disown family members.

  262. Russell, you keep talking about Isis embedding jihadis. I’m pretty sure that isn’t the only risk that concerns people. No matter how desperately people want to leave Syria, they are Syrian, Arab and by default highly likely to be anti American.
    Wait, wait don’t type yet. After decades of hearing at every turn how roundly hated the US is in the Middle East and that Syria is basically a cold war Russian satellite, how neither side in their civil war liked us so we weren’t even sure who to support, it should surprise No One that many Americans see this as importing the enemy. Having nothing to do with ISIS.

  263. You’re being far too nuanced, based on what I’m seeing. The hoopla is about terrorists, not people who don’t like the actions of the government of the United States, whom you refer to very loosely as “enemies.”
    Beyond that, I don’t particularly like what Russia does as a nation, nor do I like Putin. Does that make me some kind of danger if I travel to Russia?
    You’re really stretching here.

  264. There seems to be a sizable number of red-state GOPers that “people who don’t like the actions of the government of the United States”. Perhaps they should take a foreign vacation, and the rest of us could refuse them re-entry.
    Theoretically, it would make the USA safer.

  265. hsh, I think you are the one stretching. If suddenly Russians were asked to take in a sizable, pick a size, number of US refugees they might very well consider them s risk, and I’m not sure that’s even an apples to apples comparison. And,while I used the term enemy, it is clear that enemy would be considered s terrorist risk.

  267. Marty, I’d argue that your original statement is rather more the stretch. Do we or do we not admit Cuban refugees, and if we do [spoiler: we do] how exactly is admitting those individuals from a dictatorial, oppressive former-Soviet-client-state different?

  269. NV, Really? Cuba? All those Cuban terrorists that blow up the infidels? Death to America?
    All wtf aside, we arent talking about Syrians escaping a dictator, they are being forced out at gunpoint and decided the US would be a good place. Or, for that matter, someone told them it is where they should apply. We don’t even know if they started out wanting to co e here, just that they didn’t want to have to be afraid, every day.
    Or, everybody loves us when they are in trouble. Once they aren’t hungry and tired will they like us then. I doubt it.

  270. Marty, really?

    After decades of hearing at every turn how roundly hated the US is in the Middle East and that Syria is basically a cold war Russian satellite, how neither side in their civil war liked us so we weren’t even sure who to support, it should surprise No One that many Americans see this as importing the enemy.

    If you don’t want discussions of Cold War attitudes, don’t broach the subject.

  271. Also, Marty, if you really want to point to potential sources of anti-US attitudes, you should be highlighting that there’s probably a non-trivial number of non-Syrian refugees among the “Syrian” refugees, as Syria experienced a major influx of Iraqi refugees following our invasion thereof and the subsequent ethnic cleansings by both insurgents and our client government’s paramilitaries.

  272. The last is a good point, displaced Iraqis most likely don’t make anyone feel better. Cuba has one of the several things I mentioned about Syria. I don’t think many folks are worried about Polish immigrants either. Not really two things alike. There probably are a few more radical places out of the former USSR that would warrant concern, as the marathon bombing points out. It also points out that you don’t have to be a refugee to be inadequately screened or monitored.

  273. You contradicted yourself, Marty. Your point was that terrorists weren’t the only risk to consider, but you made your point about Russia not wanting to take some number of refugees because of the risk of terrorists being among them.
    The overall point here isn’t that there should be no concern whatsoever at any level about terrorists coming into this country among the refugees we would accept. It’s that said concern is being sufficiently addressed through the strict screening process that’s already in place.
    People are reacting as though refugees are being chosen at random at the Turkish border to be shipped off the United States.

  274. I recently heard an Alice Cooper fan back in the day complain that he couldn’t get his head around the fact that Cooper spends much of time on the golf course these days.
    If you think that’s weird, I saw a long interview with Cooper about the joys of watching cricket.

  278. Thanks to the “wet foot/dry foot” policy, those Cuban refugees don’t get screened even a little.
    But hey, commie sleeper agents? No biggie. And a question: did you always feel that way? When did you wake up to the non-menace of communist infiltration?

  279. I’m pretty sure that isn’t the only risk that concerns people. No matter how desperately people want to leave Syria, they are Syrian, Arab and by default highly likely to be anti American.
    First, I disagree that being Syrian and/or Arab makes anyone anti-American by default.
    Second, I would assume that a specific anti-American bias would probably become evident somewhere along the line of an 18 to 24 month long vetting and resettlement process.
    Were someone with a strong anti-American feeling to end up settled here, that person would also have to be inclined to express that animus by killing people in order for your concern to have weight.
    And, would have to be sufficiently deliberate about it that no-one would notice and intervene to prevent them doing so.
    I don’t know where all of those conditions leaves us, statistically, but it’s probably comparable to the risks we incur just by letting people in the country at all, on whatever basis.
    It’s true, it’s possible that we will admit potential killers among whatever Syrian refugees we admit to the US. Anything is possible.
    How likely is that, how does that risk compare to other factors in the decision, to what degree does that risk increases the risk we live with each and every day already?
    I come down where, for example, slarti does on this. It’s worthy of concern, but it’s as manageable as everything else we already live with.
    My opinion only.

  280. If you think that’s weird, I saw a long interview with Cooper about the joys of watching cricket.
    Nothing weird about that. A game that unites all creeds.
    Sound man.

  281. in the past decade, the US has taken in at least 85,000 Iraqi refugees.
    where are the hordes of Iraqi terrorists?
    what makes Iraqi refugees so different from Syrian refugees?

  282. “Were someone with a strong anti-American feeling to end up settled here…”
    Hey, if they’re bitching and complaining about the US government, doesn’t that mean that they’ll fit right in?
    And if they want to collect a bunch of guns and stand against Federal agents over unpaid grazing fees, wouldn’t they get plenty of FOX/Limbaugh/GOP support?
    Heck, it’s not like there’s a couple of Cuban anchor-baby sleeper agents trying to take over the US government or anything like that, so why the fuss?

  283. And if they want to collect a bunch of guns and stand against Federal agents over unpaid grazing fees, wouldn’t they get plenty of FOX/Limbaugh/GOP support?
    Snarki, that’s utterly ridiculous. After all, they aren’t, you know, Christians (well, unless Trump et al get their way). And they are therefore exempt from any such embrace — even if their attitudes towards our government, and our culture and traditions, might be similar to identical.
    /sarcasm

  284. And in today’s edition of “trashing American values”:

    Yahoo News asked Trump whether this level of tracking might require registering Muslims in a database or giving them a form of special identification that noted their religion. He wouldn’t rule it out.

    I have to wonder, do he and his supporters want something like a yellow crescent work on the clothing of anyone who is a Muslim? You know, like the yellow Star of David used for Jews in mid-20th century Germany. Sounds like they just might. Which is reasonable, given that there was the same level of threat to national values in both cases….

  286. @wj, wait, hypocrisy and historical amnesia aren’t ‘American Values’?
    It seems that I was misinformed.

  289. I come down where, for example, slarti does on this. It’s worthy of concern, but it’s as manageable as everything else we already live with.
    We believe that today. Actually, until events unfold, we won’t know who has the right of it in terms of how hard, if at all, to push the panic button.
    civil liberties are for LOOOOSERS!
    Please keep this in mind when the conversation shifts to (1) speech codes and other left wing campus antics and (2) religious liberty.

  290. you be sure to let us know when a University policy has any effect at all on anyone who isn’t a student or faculty member of said university.

  291. Campus antics aren’t federal law. Religious liberty includes freedom from having the religious beliefs of others imposed on you. Those things need to be kept in mind, too.

  292. We believe that today.
    What we understand to be so, today, is all the information that is available to us to make decisions, today.
    Unless you have a crystal ball.
    There are Syrian refugees here now. There are tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees here now. There are millions of Muslims and/or Arabs here now.
    And yet, we live to see another day.
    Acts of terror are disturbing. They are meant to be disturbing. At their worst, as causes of death or harm they are, statistically, noise. Every single person reading this willing takes on risks every single day that render the risk of harm from a terror attack negligible.
    How much do you want to change the character of the culture and society you live in, or for that matter your own life, to try to rule out the possibility that some fanatic is going to shoot you?
    You’ll never get it down to 0%. Never.

  293. If nothing else, I personally object to giving assholes like IS that much power over my life.
    Prudence is one thing. Unreasoning fear is another.

  295. Thanks for that link, cleek…but reading the comments shows a disturbing number of “UNTRUE because argle bargle derp and besides they misspelled a word on the application!”
    Defending the undefensible is just hard, I guess.

  296. My last thought on this. Simply because it is easier to just conflate these refugees with(pick your truly downtrodden past group of choice) and get hysterical about how America is going to heck in a handbasket than actually look at the dangers of accepting a substantial number of people who probably hate the US.
    russell, You continue to live your life with no impact, super. The next bomb that goes off in a crowd built by someone who came in as a refugee impacts lots of other people.
    Completely unnecessarily. Any risk from this is too much. They are an identifiable and easily isolated threat. There is no reason to put a single American civilian life at risk. No life is risk free, but no one is required or should be expected, to add to that risk unnecessarily.
    The difference is they are not the tired and huddled masses yearning to be free. They are determined enemies forced to flee so here is where they have decided to come, for whatever reason that we shouldn’t assume we can figure out.

  297. The difference is they are not the tired and huddled masses yearning to be free. They are determined enemies forced to flee so here is where they have decided to come
    I’m not sure where you get this from.
    Every person trying to get out of a horrific civil war in Syria is a determined enemy of the US?
    If I believed this, I wouldn’t want to let them in either.

  298. russell, You continue to live your life with no impact, super.
    Also, I don’t know why you think I would be particularly exempt from anything.
    I don’t live in freaking Wyoming, I live about 15 miles outside of Boston. I spend a lot of time in Boston and other large cities, I fly, I travel on various forms of public transportation, I quite commonly find myself in public places in the midst of large numbers of people.
    I’m as affected by it as most other people. I’m as vulnerable and at risk as other people.
    I’m not especially brave, on the contrary I would say.
    I just find the arguments against letting refugees from the various overlapping conflicts in Syria and Iraq to be, basically, fantastical.
    It seems to me that the procedures that are in place to vet and resettle the refugees are about as good as things like that can possibly be.
    And, in fact, they provide a degree of security that is orders of magnitude greater than what we employ for letting somebody into the country to go shopping in NYC, or to visit their uncle Stan in Chicago, or to go to graduate school wherever you like.
    People come in and out of the country all of the time. Millions and millions and millions of them.
    The level of fear seems, to me, to be utterly unreasonable. That kind of reactive thinking and behavior leads to folly, and error, and trouble.
    So I’m opposed to it.

  299. If you get to make stuff up about the refugees, Marty, you can make any argument you like. You’re talking about people who are fleeing a complete shit storm.
    Why you think we can’t tolerate any non-zero risk whatsoever in letting in Syrian refugees, as opposed to any other matter involving risk (including just about everything in life), is beyond me. It’s simply not reasonable or rational. Frankly, it’s fantasy.
    What’s also strange is that you wouldn’t put a single American life at risk for the sake of thousands of other people. Is there really something so magical about human beings who happen to be American as opposed to other human beings. I can understand favoring your countrymen over others to some degree or another, but this seems a bit out of whack to me. It’s a weirdly uber-nationalist way of thinking.
    I hope your concern for American lives extends to military adventures we might undertake as well.

  300. Is there really something so magical about human beings who happen to be American as opposed to other human beings.
    Come on now hsh, do you know how much harder it is to be born in the U.S. as opposed to, say, Botswana? Like, lots.

  301. The next bomb that goes off in a crowd built by someone who came in as a refugee impacts lots of other people.
    Completely unnecessarily. Any risk from this is too much.
    And this zero-risk policy doesn’t apply to our gun laws why? After all, the number of deaths involved is far higher. (Please use simple words so I will understand.)

  303. wj, it doesn’t apply to donuts, or cars either. Both of which kill Americans every day. Oh, and beer. Even more. Those are things that Americans disagree on. So is this. Lots of people believe we should outlaw guns and accept the refugees. Why would they do that? Because the two things are completely different.

  304. OK, I’ll buy that they are different. Guns exist for one and only one purpose: to kill. And they do it quite effectively.
    Refugees, at least the vast majority of them, have other purposes. For most, their purpose is to avoid themselves and their families being killed.
    Put a thousand refugees in a city, and assume the most pessimistic fraction of terrorists among them. You see maybe a handful of deaths. Put a thousand guns on the streets of a city, and how many deaths do you see? A whole lot more.

  305. Marty,
    You have said you currently live in MA. So there’s a 1 in 9 chance your Congressman is Seth Moulton, who knows a thing or two about vetting refugees. Also, he’s neither a coward nor a panderer to cowards. Poor guy will never, ever become POTUS. Mercifully, you won’t either.
    –TP

  306. Please keep this in mind when the conversation shifts to (1) speech codes and other left wing campus antics and (2) religious liberty.
    …I’m pretty sure the conversation is already quite firmly on the subject of religious liberty. How else would you classify Teh Donuld’s musings on singling out a particular religion for LEO profiling, surveillance, harassment, and closing down their houses of worship? But I suppose I could be mistaken, as we aren’t talking about a religious group that’s truly persecuted in America, like, I dunno, conservative Christians.

  308. Please keep this in mind when the conversation shifts to (1) speech codes and other left wing campus antics and (2) religious liberty.
    Also, speech codes are left-wing antics? It’s sadly pretty common for all large institutions in the US to restrict free speech – and when corporations restrict free speech, they’re typically more arbitrary and offer even less due process than universities. But “speech codes” are a left-wing problem limited to universities?

  309. But “speech codes” are a left-wing problem limited to universities?
    of course!
    plus, anonymous college students are equivalent to the leader of the GOP race so: same/same.

  310. Marty, if you’re going to make something of the distinction between refugee and asylum-seeker you ought to explain its relevance to this discussion.
    Here, I’ll give you a hand: asylum-seekers have to be in the US already; refugees have to apply from outside the US.
    –TP

  311. As were the marathon bombers.
    Yes, the Tsarnaevs came here initially on a tourist visa, then poppa Tsarnaev applied for asylum. The sons gained US citizenship via that path.
    So we have to decide if the actions of the Tsarnaevs and whatever other collection of disaffected people have seized upon “radical Islam” as their reason for engaging in murder and mayhem outweighs our desire to help 10,000 people who are trying to get out of a really horrendous civil war.
    And, whatever other tens of thousands are in similar situations.
    You land on side of the question, I land on the other.
    What I think about the whole question is this:
    It’s reasonably likely that somebody will succeed in carrying out some kind of more or less dramatic act of terror, in the name of radical Islam, in the US, sometime in the forseeable future.
    It’s not a sure thing, and it’s not out of the question. It could certainly happen.
    Do we take it in stride, or do we freak out?
    What are we willing to give up and how much of how we live are we willing to change to move the needle some unknown number of clicks in the direction of “less likely to happen”?
    Are we going to ban *any* immigration by Arabs? Or Muslims? Or people of whatever ethnic or religious background from the Middle East? Or, from anyplace that we have any kind of troubled or fraught relationship with?
    Are we going to start monitoring every Muslim or Arab person in the US, whether citizen or not? How about Turks? Pakistanis? Indian Muslims? Central Asians? How about Bosnians, a lot of them are Muslims, too?
    How about all of the people who come here as students? What about people who come here to visit family?
    The Tsarnaevs acted in 2013, after living here as US citizens for over a decade, during a period of extraordinary scrutiny of the American Muslim community. They were investigated in response to tips from the Russian security services. No evidence of radicalism or tendency to violence found.
    Tamerlin was apparently involved in an especially violent triple murder prior to the bombings, and somehow escaped notice for that.
    You can’t prevent everything. You can not get to 100% safe.
    So IMO we need to live our lives as we would want toe live them, regardless of the threat, because it’s kind of baked in at this point. And it kind of always has been, there really isn’t anything all that new about political terrorism, here or anywhere.
    People engage in terrorism specifically to freak us all the hell out, and to make us react in fearful ways.
    I don’t want to play.
    We should be prudent, we should do our best to prevent acts of violence, but I don’t want to live in a freaking locked-down police state of a country.

  312. TP, I didn’t actually need to make the distinction, however in my ridiculous fb feed it was a big argument. The marathon bombers don’t “count” in the discussion it seems because they aren’t technically refugees.
    And, to say this again, I am making this side of the argument because I very much dislike the way folks are talking about the people who have legitimate concerns about this.
    I come down on the side of intense screening and accepting refugees. I’m pretty sure that wins the day also. But I think the administration needs to show leadership with compassion for both sides of the discussion. As usual Obama is being a petty whole threatening to veto anything Congress comes up with that wasn’t his idea.

  313. I come down on the side of intense screening and accepting refugees.
    That’s where I’m at.
    I appreciate what you’re saying about regular folks who find the Paris attacks disturbing, but I have no regard for folks who want to seize on this as their latest occasion for hating on Muslims and brown people with funny names.
    Most folks are just trying live their lives.

  314. Marty, I haven’t seen anybody here argue that there is zero reason for concern. What most of us seem to be saying is that the level of concern is out of all proportion to the real risk involved.
    Some of those who are talking about the subject really are concerned. It appears that a rather larger number, at least among those making their voices heard, are either a) hysterical about anything and everything, especially if it differes from their fantasy about how the world used to be, or b) opportunisticly playing on those individuals’ concerns for political gain.

  315. My main point, wj, is there are more than normal legitimate concerns about this. I can understand both sides, and empathize. It’s not really cut and dried for me.

  316. I’m also for admitting refugees, with careful scrutiny, which is probably what’s happening now.
    I do think there’s a situation in Iraq / Syria that’s not going to solve itself. I’m a huge fan of Obama, and I understand what he’s saying – if we wanted to eradicate Daesh with ground troops, etc., we’d be talking about a very long occupation and nation building. We did that in WWII and in Korea. The American people aren’t up for that anymore – they used to think (Iraq war) that problems could be solved for no tax money, by marching through and taking names, shock and awe, Republican children creating businesses, and all is over and good.
    That’s not the way it works. It involves going in, killing people (sometimes making mistakes, or killing people who shouldn’t be killed), getting troops killed, staying a long time with lots of killing happening for a very long time, and maybe even then not getting it right if the people there don’t see things our way.
    Part of the reason the German people and the Japanese people saw things differently was because they were traumatized. It’s a good thing that they did come to their senses, IMO, even for them, and especially for us, but when would this have happened (if ever) if they hadn’t had horrible civilian losses as well as military loss?
    I recognize that this is a very sad statement. I grew up during Vietnam when my friends wondered why we just couldn’t kill the people who were making policy (or trouble), which is why perhaps I think drones are so much better than what came before (not perfect obviously). “Collateral damage” was the order of the day in the past.
    This is why I’m not convinced by the human rights articles that Donald posted upthread. The Kurds have to win decisively or they lose. Period. Ethic cleansing is horrible, but they can’t afford “careful scrutiny” of their adversaries tribal allies. I’m not going to go post by post, but the conflicts and alliances are way to complicated to sort out on the basis of moral superiority, at least it’s way beyond my knowledge of the region to weigh in on that. I’ll leave it to people who speak some of the languages, anyway, to figure some of this out.
    Again, Obama’s bombing campaign has reduced the geographic control of Daesh perhaps to the point where they have to act like stateless terrorists. I’ll support his program, and also his plan to admit refugees.

  317. What most of us seem to be saying is that the level of concern is out of all proportion to the real risk involved.
    I’m really, really sorry wj, but I am forced to agree with this.
    …but when would this have happened (if ever) if they hadn’t had horrible civilian losses as well as military loss?
    Yes. There must be a lesson here. See American, Confederate States of. Or maybe not….

  319. You can support the Kurds on lesser of two evil grounds without defending their crimes. Forcing people out of their homes will probably just lead to further sectarian hatred. It might be hard to defeat ISIS without cooperating with thugs, but I don’t want America acquiring yet another special friend which gets to indulge in ethnic cleansing while being praised for its democratic principles.
    As for the rest of your post, yes, terrorism or violence aimed at civilians may sometimes “work”‘, for at least some definitions of ” work”.

  320. Marty: As usual Obama is being a petty whole threatening to veto anything Congress comes up with that wasn’t his idea.
    When you are this blind to both reality and irony, Marty, it’s hard to keep humoring you. There may, possibly, be serious people whose fears are worth taking seriously because they live in the same universe as I do. Concerns from your alternate universe don’t worry me as much.
    –TP

  322. As usual Obama is being a petty whole threatening to veto anything Congress comes up with that wasn’t his idea.
    what does this bill do that isn’t already being done, and why those changes are needed?

  323. It might be hard to defeat ISIS without cooperating with thugs, but I don’t want America acquiring yet another special friend which gets to indulge in ethnic cleansing while being praised for its democratic principles.
    I would like to think that all countries and cultures are perfect, or at least are headed in the right direction. Also, I know people who were ethnically cleansed, and it wasn’t a good experience, but they survived it and are leading comfortable lives now (in the US, which is why we need to support refugees). Some areas of the world don’t have the experience or the luxury of democracy and pluralism. We should applaud them for doing what they can, and for embracing the potential to improve. This is especially true of countries that are under the immediate threat and recent experience of atrocious barbarism. I’ll withhold judgment of the Kurds for now. And sure, if there are ways to help refugees, from any situation, I think that’s what we should do. We do have the capacity to try to convince our own government to do that much.

  324. Okay, sapient, I don’t want to have a nice polite discussion on why war crimes are okay when done by the good guys. Not in the mood for this crap.

  325. Thus, btw, is what I despise about the Republicans. They lower the moral level so far down a hypocritical jerk like Hillary Clinton looks wonderful in comparison. I could go on a rant about this, but no time. Anyway, that’s our country for the foreseeable future, the choice between bad and awful.

  326. why war crimes are okay when done by the good guys
    Not what I was arguing. You’re very frustrating, but that’s okay.

  327. I recognize that this is a very sad statement.
    William Tecumseh Sherman, to the mayor and city council of Atlanta, on the eve of burning the city to the ground:

    You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country…
    You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.

    The situation in Syria and Iraq is probably the dictionary definition of FUBAR. There are so many different collections of groups on the ground, with guns, each with their own agendas. I find that I have no opinion about what the “right thing” to do is, because the situation is so confusing that I can’t even begin to comprehend it.
    Everybody over there is a bad guy, in some way or other. It’s not a peaceable part of the world.
    We are, in comparison, very fortunate. I’m not sure if that entitles us to moral high ground, or not.
    I find sapient’s 6:33 sad, and regrettable, and harsh, and sobering, and I find little in it to disagree with. It’s left me with many thoughts to try to sort out.

  328. yeah, sapient sounds very much like the good ol’:
    “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
    christ on a bike…
    Also, the way syrian refugees have now been reframed as potential terrorists is disgusting, especially since the US and its allies created the current situation.

  329. One point about Syria being utterly FUBAR is surely that the moral calculus for intervention is rather different than that for the Iraq invasion ?

  330. One point about Syria being utterly FUBAR is surely that the moral calculus for intervention is rather different than that for the Iraq invasion ?

  331. And if the various international actors were able, in advance, to agree to the desirability of a tripartite partition of the country, there might actually be a chance of intervention succeeding.
    Absent that (as is likely), it’s possible to imagine such an intervention making things significantly worse, but one would have to be something of a pessimist.

  333. Also, the way syrian refugees have now been reframed as potential terrorists is disgusting, especially since the US and its allies created the current situation.
    it certainly is.
    but potential is generous. as Marty assures us, they aren’t refugees, they are “determined enemies”.
    just like that, out of the blue, people running away from the war that the friends and enemies of our friends and enemies are fighting are now our enemies.
    it makes not a lick of sense.
    but don’t call it hysteria.

  334. “…but don’t call it hysteria.”
    No, it’s clearly a reaction to ‘real world’ issues. Because who, after all, would NOT be scared of 3 year old orphans?
    Toddlers are objectively terrorists.

  335. At the risk of being out of line and singling out Marty for a meta sort of thing, I find it hard to fathom how he could write such an insightful comment about why people become radicalized to the point of committing acts of terror, but then be so ridiculous about the refugees.
    I could scratch my head bald figuring that out.

  336. just like that, out of the blue, people running away from the war that the friends and enemies of our friends and enemies are fighting are now our enemies.
    It’s just like immigrants. They’re not coming here to make a better life for themselves, they’re coming here to live under the awful circumstances they’ve grown accustomed to, but in a more temperate climate.

  337. I find sapient’s 6:33 sad, and regrettable, and harsh, and sobering, and I find little in it to disagree with. It’s left me with many thoughts to try to sort out.
    The thing is, just about everybody on all sides uses that language or variations thereof. Thus the sadness, for it reduces inhumanity and brutality to an axiom: They, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder.

  338. On the iPad, so forget linking.
    Could someone ask Marty why pigf&cking domestic terrorists in Congress haven’t confirmed Adam Szubin, who might be just the guy to handle his concerns.
    Our government is deliberately hobbled and sabotaged from functioning by killers whose families sneaked into this country in past generations to serve as anchor enemies.

  339. Rubio is saying we need to close any place where people are being radicalized or radicals are being inspired.
    i agree.
    let’s start with GOP campaign rallies.

  340. The thing is, just about everybody on all sides uses that language or variations thereof.
    If you are saying that nobody has really clean hands, I don’t disagree with you.
    Here is what I take away from all of the discussion about IS.
    There isn’t going to be a political or diplomatic resolution to the conflict between IS and basically everybody else on the planet. Sooner or later it’s going to be real war, by which I mean not air strikes, not drones or cruise missiles, but hands-on door to door retail level war.
    Should that be how it plays out, whoever ends up taking it to IS is not going to be presented with the option of killing only ‘bad guys’, or with leaving not-bad-guys’ homes and property intact.
    It’s going to be a f***ing mess.
    If you see a way around that, all good. I don’t.
    let’s start with GOP campaign rallies.
    Trump has proposed requiring all Muslims in the US to register.
    No gold stars, but maybe green crescents instead.
    He’s the front runner.
    Marty says he objects to ‘bed-wetting’. Instead of bed-wetting, I will say craven cowardice.
    If Trump somehow actually does become POTUS, I may be buying a gun, because the wheels will be coming the hell off.

  341. If Trump somehow actually does become POTUS, I may be buying a gun, because the wheels will be coming the hell off.
    I actually thought about that for the first time in my life, the possibility of buying a gun because the country’s in such a dangerous place. And I’m not talking now about Daesh, or al Qaeda, or refugees or Muslims being the danger.
    I’m going to hold out though.

  342. I’m not talking now about Daesh, or al Qaeda, or refugees or Muslims being the danger.
    Me either.
    I’m going to hold out though.
    Same here, for now.
    It’s not something I’d look forward to.

  343. Forcing people out of their homes will probably just lead to further sectarian hatred.
    If by this you mean that it won’t reduce the existing level of sectarian hatred, you are doubtless correct.
    But it sort of sounds (to my tin ear) like you are thinking that there is some way that this, or anything else, could increase the current level of sectarian hatred. And I’m not really sure that is possible.
    Certainly there are, and have been all along, lots and lots of Muslims who are not particularly filled with hate for members of other Muslim sects. Nor for members of non-Muslim religions. But the folks who matter at the moment are the minority who are. And there isn’t really room to radicalize them further.
    Of course, you may just mean that the number of fanatics could be increased by outside actions. But from what I am seeing (including on links above) the folks fighting with ISIS who have that motivation are not becoming sectarian fanatics. Indeed, they don’t seem to have become radicalized on that front at all. They are just trying to survive in a war zone.

  344. I actually thought about that for the first time in my life, the possibility of buying a gun because the country’s in such a dangerous place.
    And, really, why is that? Things are far from perfect in the US, but they’ve been worse, and not all that long ago. It seems like everything that is wrong is amplified or magnified by both mainstream and social media as well as cynical, opportunistic and/or delusional politicians and political operatives.
    Far be it from me to complain about stuff or point out what I think is wrong, but I don’t see the sort of immediate doomsday scenario that I would expect to push people to the sort of political extremes we’re now seeing. I’d take George W. Bush over Donald F*cking Trump, and that’s saying something.
    My hope is that this will pass before it comes to the general election or, at the very least, Trump (or whatever other loon) gets trounced in the general election.
    Not that that’s the only political weirdness going on, but it is the biggest.

  346. HSH, dare we hope that Trump (assuming, God forbit, he gets the nomination) might be the Republicans’ McGovern? Not in his sensibility on the issues, but on how well he does in the general election.
    Nah, probably not. But a man can hope….

  347. the various polls out right now (which mean basically nothing 12 months out) have HRC and Trump much closer than i’d like.

  348. And, really, why is that?
    Because I feel like there are about 100 ways the whole situation could break really weird. Trump as POTUS would basically just be further evidence to me that the nation had utterly lost it’s remaining marbles.
    It’s not something I’d look forward to, it’s just something I would consider.
    To each his own.

  349. Because I feel like there are about 100 ways the whole situation could break really weird.
    Oh, I get that. What I don’t understand is what the nation is losing its marbles over. It’s definitely getting weird, but there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason.
    If I can go Godwin, it’s not like the country is in anything like the kind of mess Germany was in when the Nazis rose to power.
    We all have our beefs, no doubt, but none of them rise to the level where I would expect so many people to be seriously considering the likes of Donald Trump for POTUS. That’s just nuts.

  350. At the risk of thread-jacking (and when there is a new open thread, too!), something occurs to me.
    The Trump base seems willing to believe anything he says. So how many of them could be sucked in by a spam e-mail scam claiming to be from him? Might be a great business opportunity for some Nigerian prince who is looking for new fields to conquer….

  351. To continue the threadjack, one thing that’s confused me a little is how we’ve not heard one peep of the traditional concerns voiced that candidates his age normally get about whether he’s “too old” to be president, despite his being the second oldest major candidate in play. Sanders is only four years older than him, and I’ve heard it crop up frequently. But Trump, who’d be nearly 71 on taking office? Nada. Is it really nothing more than Trump not “looking old”?

  352. the press still isn’t taking Trump seriously, so they haven’t bothered asking their traditional questions of him.
    he’s starting to look a bit worn-out in his pics, tho. IMO.

  356. Returning to the thread topic, more or less, it’s probably correct to say that over a quarter of Syria’s population is displaced outside of its borders.
    Of those displaced, nearly a half reside in (our fellow NATO member) Turkey.
    In that context, the debates on accepting refugees and/or intervening within Syria seem ridiculously parochial and petty… to me, at least

  357. I made the case in an exchange elsewhere that failing to accept refugees – while our allies were accepting so many – does not keep us in good standing in the international community, and that we need the cooperation of our allies in the fight against global terrorism. Is diminished cooperation between us and our allies something we want to risk? Does that make us safer?
    But, you know, many Americans don’t care what those other countries think of us, ‘cuz wur Murica (and so awesome). Therefore, *beat chest.*

  359. “Not that that’s the only political weirdness going on, but it is the biggest.”
    When the politics gets weird,the weird politicians turn pro.
    I heard, from a friend in Europe, that Iceland had signed up for something like 500 Syrian refugees; they asked for volunteers to host them, and 10,000 people signed up.

  360. I heard, from a friend in Europe, that Iceland had signed up for something like 500 Syrian refugees; they asked for volunteers to host them, and 10,000 people signed up.
    My guess is that if a call in the US were made for people to host Syrian refugees, that there would be a large response. The problem is getting them approved to arrive in the first place. Lots of Americans care about this. The loudmouth Republicans are the ones who get the news.

  362. Lots of Americans care about this. The loudmouth Republicans are the ones who get the news.
    I both hope and believe this is true.

  364. What the ‘interveners’ have thus far failed to spell out, is what a post-IS Syria is going to look like.
    Realistically, any military campaign seriously backed by the West is likely to be over in a couple of weeks. What happens then ?
    Is there any intent at all to stay in country for the arduous task of nation (re)building ?
    Is that even possible without partitioning Syria into two (or more likely three) parts ?
    Are we just going to leave it to Russia and Iran ?
    And if we can’t produce a state/states to which the majority of the four million refugees want to return to, would the whole exercise be a failure ?
    I’m hearing a lot of talk from politicians (and generals) about the military options, and almost nothing of significance about the harder and far more important question of what afterwards…

  365. Some interesting words on this subject!
    Cracked magazine has gone from being a Mad-magazine wanna-be, to one of the best sources for thoughtful comment about public issues.
    They’re smart-@sses for sure, but amazingly worth reading. About almost anything.

  366. Realistically, any military campaign seriously backed by the West is likely to be over in a couple of weeks.
    All of the questions you’re asking are more than worthwhile, I’m just chiming in to say that IMO this estimate is overly optimistic.

  367. These words from Bobby’s link are really to the point on a number of fronts:

    if your god is real, he/she/it doesn’t mind being mocked. By definition, an all-powerful being isn’t going to have those kind of insecurities. So that knee-jerk urge to smack down the critics is coming purely from the terrorists, from their own human fears and rage — proving, in other words, that those violent men don’t really have faith that their god is all-powerful.

    We see that from Muslim fanatics. We see it from Christian fanatics. We see it from Jewish fanatics. We would probably see if from fanatics of other religions as well, if they were high enough profile to come to our notice. Somehow, their all-powerful diety cannot manage to control the world (let alone the universe) unless they act out violently in support. Which is to say, their faith is weak — more like nonexistant. Even if they cannot admit it, even to themselves.
    We see that kind of thing over and over. People getting all worked up because someone (god, person, place, thing) that they claim is mighty is being threatened by something which any average guy walking down the street could cope with without raising a sweat. “America will be destroyed if we let xxx kinds of marriages happen!” xxx can be gay marriages, or interracial marriages, or whatever is the excitement of the moment. Are they saying that their personal marriage is that fragile?
    “They’re saying nasty things about [fill in your farovite]!” As if whatever that favorite is will be massively damaged by the words. Certainly, some kinds of words can do damage, even enormous damage. But somehow the words in question never seem to be those kinds of words.
    I suppose this is the reason that sarcasm is such an effective tool against the fanatics. And why they hate that even more than whatever they are nominally crusading against.

  368. if your god is real, he/she/it doesn’t mind being mocked. By definition, an all-powerful being isn’t going to have those kind of insecurities.

    With an added dose of assumption that the deity in question is ‘good’.
    Now, if you assume that said deity is both extremely powerful AND extremely EVIL, then an attitude of “whatever you do, don’t get their attention!” is much more understandable, and Sithrak (the god that hates you) is your guy. Accept no substitutes.

  369. The general idea is that the deity itself is not hurt by people blaspheming against it (or violating its commands) but among the duties of the faithful is to act as if it were. So, it is not the deity’s problem but that of the faithful who expect to be asked ‘did you defend me properly, i.e. violently?’. Faith is proven by deeds. The faithful therefore have to hope that enough violations happen, so they can prove their faith by acting against it.
    Same logic with sacrifices and prayer. The deity does not need them but the faitful do.
    Confer the logic of Rasputin’s theology. G#d loves to forgive repentant sinners, so one has to give him ample opportunity by sinning and then repenting those sins.
    Some (Far) Eastern saints showed the strength of their spirituality by always keeping scantily clad women around without showing any bodily reaction.
    Faith not constantly trained weakens like an unused muscle. Fundamentalists therefore are the Schwarzeneggers of spirituality.
    What would steroid abuse be in this context, btw?

  371. Nah, that’s just sports.
    There are (or were) Thorah memorization competitions in Israel that don’t require any religious affiliation. They work like phonebook contests in other countries.
    None of the original authors could compete even in the junior league (according to Kishon).

  372. overly optimistic
    I don’t think so, in a “mission accomplished” sense.
    It’s what happens after IS has been destroyed as a military force – as opposed to guerilla – that’s the true problem.

  373. Snarki, just a note of thanks for recommending “Man in the High Castle.” I binge watched it – it was very good.

  376. there are about 100 ways the whole situation could break really weird. Trump as POTUS would basically just be further evidence to me that the nation had utterly lost it’s remaining marbles.

    We could actually go and elect Vermin Supreme. That’d be one step beyond, with extra baritone saxophones.
    At least our sense of humor would be intact; alone of all of our senses.

  378. I’m curious what the other arm-chair foreign-policy experts here think of bobbyp’s links. I’m particularly curious about what the containment strategy described in the first link would look like in practice. (What would we do about the behind-the-scenes sponsors of terror, for instance?)
    Another related thing that’s been bugging me, mostly after reading so much not-self-aware Islamophobic stuff, is how political instability is the main cause for radicalization among Muslims. An area comprising North Africa, the Middle East, and going into Central Asia is highly unstable and happens to also be largely Islamic.
    If one were to make the argument that Islam was the reason for that instability, then I guess it wouldn’t be much of an “excuse.” But I don’t see people even getting that far, because they don’t seem to consider what a geopolitical mess that region is in, the historical reasons it’s in such a mess and the West’s role in that, and don’t consider that some (statistically very small) minority of self-identifying Christians would be doing the same crap if, say, Europe and North America were just as screwed up of places.

  380. hairshirthedonist regarding bobbyp’s links:
    I’m particularly curious about what the containment strategy described in the first link would look like in practice.
    I don’t think that Bacevich defines the problem very well. He states it as “whether further war can provide a remedy to the problem at hand: widespread disorder roiling much of the Greater Middle East and periodically spilling into the outside world.” But it’s not merely “disorder” that’s going on: it ongoing war. Multiple wars, in fact, among various actors, with different geographic and historical elements.
    Further war as a remedy isn’t the issue, because further war is a given. The issue is whether Western countries (counting Russia) have enough of an interest, and can help stabilize the current conflicts.
    As I’ve mentioned, I think that Western countries do have an interest, and theoretically have the power, but exercising it to resolve the conflict would require prolonged, bloody intervention and expensive, unpleasant occupation, that is not supported by the people. We can’t prevail unless that kind of intervention (and sacrifice) is so broadly supported such that it could be sustained throughout many political administrations. I don’t see that happening.
    What Obama is primarily trying to do is to use air power to weaken political organization of radical Islamic movements such as Daesh and al Qaeda, in order that more responsible governmental alternatives can stabilize. I think that’s a legitimate strategy, and it has diminished the geographical footprint of Daesh, but it’s not going to completely eliminate terrorism. In fact, for awhile, until governments in the Middle East can stabilize (and somewhat represent their people), terrorism will be worse.
    As far as Ian Welsh is concerned, I have never appreciated his writing. He makes one unsupported assertion after another, in order to conclude (always) that Obama has it all wrong, no matter what the issue (including Obamacare, which is really none of his business, since he’s Canadian).
    For example, in the linked article, he says, “First: Airpower not in support of ground troops is largely, though not entirely, worthless. This has been demonstrated over and over again since, and including during, World War II. It does not significantly degrade the your opponent’s fighting ability, and disproportionately harms civilians.” A lot of people say things like this, but what does it mean in the context of what we’re doing in Syria? In fact, the Daesh controlled territory has been reduced by 25% by coalition air strikes working with Kurdish ground troops, and that was accomplished while our rules of engagement were so strict that we wouldn’t bomb oil tanks being conveyed by truck for fear of killing the truck driver. The idea that sending in more ground troops would have saved civilian lives during this stage of our involvement is very questionable.
    I don’t think that Ian Welsh casts much light on anything, except to boost the morale of those who are on his “side”.
    As to the Middle East being a mess, its stunted political development probably has more to do with the oil industry than the religion, but why radical Islamic fundamentalism has taken hold as an answer to people’s frustrations is certainly a mystery to me.

  381. First: Airpower not in support of ground troops is largely, though not entirely, worthless.
    […]
    In fact, the Daesh controlled territory has been reduced by 25% by coalition air strikes working with Kurdish ground troops
    Emphasis added.
    As to the Middle East being a mess, its stunted political development probably has more to do with the oil industry than the religion, but why radical Islamic fundamentalism has taken hold as an answer to people’s frustrations is certainly a mystery to me.
    For a long time in a lot of countries, the only safe venue for dissent was the mosque. If that’s been established as the accepted context for political struggle, it’s not terribly surprising.

  382. In fact, the Daesh controlled territory has been reduced by 25% by coalition air strikes working with Kurdish ground troops
    Yes, I got that, which is why I said it. But again, in the context of Ian Welsh’s writing, what light is he shedding on anything? We’re not using airpower without ground troops, and our efforts have not been worthless, and we’ve made significant progress, although we haven’t solved all of the region’s problems.
    This is my beef with him. His concluding complaint is that the West can’t decide between ISIS and Assad. Can he? Can he help anyone decide? He certainly didn’t do so in the linked article.

  383. For a long time in a lot of countries, the only safe venue for dissent was the mosque. If that’s been established as the accepted context for political struggle, it’s not terribly surprising.
    It’s mystifying to me that people embrace an oppressive, sadistic religious framework as an alternative to an oppressive, sadistic political framework. Maybe I should understand it, but I don’t.

  384. “Forcing people out of their homes will probably just lead to further sectarian hatred.”
    Said by me, I think. I’m too lazy to look, but it sounds like me. So the question to me was–
    “If by this you mean that it won’t reduce the existing level of sectarian hatred, you are doubtless correct.
    But it sort of sounds (to my tin ear) like you are thinking that there is some way that this, or anything else, could increase the current level of sectarian hatred. And I’m not really sure that is possible. ”
    Of course it is possible to increase the level of sectarian hatred. We’re nowhere near the upper limit. Sure, ISIS is already at or near some sort of maximum in the sense of “sectarian hatred per individual person”, sectarian hatred treated as an intensive variable in chemistry lingo, but in terms of total amount of sectarian hatred (extensive variable version), there are still plenty of people who aren’t at their personal maximums or they’d be out there actively committing crimes themselves.
    So if the Kurds have decided it makes great sense to expel Arabs from their homes, guilty or not, then, yeah, I think we are looking at a process which could increase the number of Arabs who hate Kurds. I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb to point out that past histories of ethnic cleansing sometimes lead to long term problems. If the US were actually implicated in the process or starts yammering on about the wonderful democratic nature of the Kurds, the way we’ve been BS’ing about Israel for decades, then we will also increase our own personal level of hypocrisy and while I sometimes think it is already at a maximum, it’s not. One can always be worse.
    The Kurds as best I can tell are the least bad group fighting in the multi-sided Iraq/Syrian civil wars, but I don’t think we should be lying to ourselves about their exaggerated virtues, the way we have regarding our own virtues and that of Israel . Aside from the morality, it just makes us stupid. And we probably aren’t as stupid as we possibly could be, not just yet anyway.
    I’m also going to re-mention the other point I made way upthread, which is that siding with Saudi Arabia as they blow up children and with Israel when they blow up children doesn’t help the situation, nor do our own happy fun times with drones when we aren’t very careful about who we blow up. And I don’t really buy the big moral distinction between targeting homes with bombs and the sort of crimes ISIS commits. We haven’t gotten to the “we’ve always been at war with Eurasia” stage just yet, so a great many people in the US still remember that Assad’s own use of indiscriminate firepower in Syria is actually the biggest source of civilian casualties in Syria–just a couple short years ago he was seen as the genocidal maniac we had to stop. So apparently bombing civilians is a bad thing to do, when some people do it.

  385. a great many people in the US still remember that Assad’s own use of indiscriminate firepower in Syria is actually the biggest source of civilian casualties in Syria–just a couple short years ago he was seen as the genocidal maniac we had to stop.
    Again, in the context of Ian Welsh’s article, thanks for reminding us all why it’s difficult for the West to “decide” between ISIS and Assad.

  386. It’s mystifying to me that people embrace an oppressive, sadistic religious framework as an alternative to an oppressive, sadistic political framework. Maybe I should understand it, but I don’t.
    It’s a matter of the only alternatives available being a real and present oppressive, sadistic regime, and a religious framework where the oppression and sadism are only potential. Or, if you prefer, better the maybe devil you don’t know than the devil you know all too well.
    You will note that, once the secular oppressive government is replaced by a largely religious one (cf Egypt) the enthusiasm for the religious framework evaporates rather quickly. As if it’s only attraction, for the vast majority, was as a way to get rid of the old government.

  387. “a great many people in the US still remember that Assad’s own use of indiscriminate firepower in Syria is actually the biggest source of civilian casualties in Syria–just a couple short years ago he was seen as the genocidal maniac we had to stop.”
    That’s because Assad uses ‘barrel bombs’, which are unacceptably brutal; instead of the completely good & wonderful and not at all ironic ‘freedom bombs’.
    If you can’t tell the difference, you must be some sort of left-wing traitor.

  388. It’s mystifying to me that people embrace an oppressive, sadistic religious framework…
    Your hatred of Islam is noted.

  389. But it’s not merely “disorder” that’s going on: it ongoing war.
    War is a subset of ‘disorder’. Bacevich is correct in his assessment. You are essentially claiming that adding to the disorder will somehow lead to the reduction of that disorder. Given the geopolitical facts wrt the ME, I could not disagree more.
    We can’t prevail unless that kind of intervention (and sacrifice) is so broadly supported such that it could be sustained throughout many political administrations. I don’t see that happening.
    Absent utter genocide, more than likely an accurate assessment.
    What Obama is primarily trying to do is to use air power to weaken political organization of radical Islamic movements such as Daesh and al Qaeda, in order that more responsible governmental alternatives can stabilize.
    So basically, anything short of utter genocide most likely won’t work, but Obama’s strategy somehow will?
    I really don’t get this.
    Ian Welsh comes up with some interesting stuff, but it is not, by any means, gospel.

  390. There are different levels of “won’t work”. That includes not only how badly they fail to achieve total success, but also how expensive they are while failing.
    In general, I would say that the more limited, and clearly defined, the goals are, the better the chance of coming somewhere close to achieving them. That is, “eliminate terror (or terrorists)” is simply not achievable. “Eliminate group xxx of terrorists as a significant threat” may be partially achievable. “Eliminate the current leadership of group xxx (thereby disrupting, at least temporarily, their capability to do damage)” is doable — whether a particular approach will work is then a reasonable discussion to have.

  391. Eminently sensible wj, but it all begins with overarching policy goals. They tend to be a bit fuzzy:
    “defeat terrorism”
    “peace”
    “promote democracy in the middle east”
    You get the picture….

  392. Your hatred of Islam is noted.
    I take that one back. Apologies. At first reading I thought you were painting with a very wide brush.
    You still may be. I’d wager neither you nor I have much of any idea of what goes on inside a typical ME mosque or even one in areas held by ISIS.
    Let’s try to begin with a simple axiom: Most people just want to lead relatively normal peaceful lives with some degree of social civility, a bit of economic security, and raise their kids.
    I’m not quite sure if populations under ISIS are subjected to the degree of totalitarianism we’ve witnessed elsewhere, and the mosque may be the only social refuge from the loathsome politics.

  393. Airpower not in support of ground troops is worthless?
    Depends on what you mean by “in support of”. Define that, and we can argue (or not) in some meaningful way.
    Also it helps to define what you mean by “airpower”.
    Just as an illustration: dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima wasn’t, by any normal sense of the word, air support. Yet is was arguably extraordinarily effective.
    There are a great many other examples.
    Point being: air strikes aren’t going to take and hold ground for you; that’s fairly blazingly obvious. But it can certainly put a damper on another party’s ability to take ground themselves.
    It’s not an end of any sort, no. But neither is it ineffective.

  394. Let’s try to begin with a simple axiom: Most people just want to lead relatively normal peaceful lives with some degree of social civility, a bit of economic security, and raise their kids.
    I’m not quite sure if populations under ISIS are subjected to the degree of totalitarianism we’ve witnessed elsewhere, and the mosque may be the only social refuge from the loathsome politics.
    I agree with your simple axiom.
    Don’t know what populations under Daesh feel when they walk out of their house and see children being crucified for failing to fast, see the local archaeologist‘s decapitated body strung up on a pillar of an ancient ruin that he had studied, and see women being stoned for allegedly (but maybe not really) having committed adultery. I don’t know how that could possibly be a comfort in any way no matter what happens in the mosque that I can’t possibly know.
    That’s not an anti-Islam statement. I don’t understand the attraction to ISIS.

  396. Google “Scott Atran” and Isis if you want to understand the attraction. He’s been making a career studying the appeal of terrorist movements.
    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/15/terrorists-isis
    I think the appeal in Iraq and Syria is straightforward– for many Sunnis, Isis is the lesser evil.
    The appeal in the West is that it turns out ISIS is pretty good at appealing to people who want to believe they are fighting for a utopia and against those who persecute Muslims. The appeal is false, of course, but given the history of the past century it shouldn’t come as news that a great many people can be seduced by a noxious political philosophy that promises a utopia. The extreme violence can be explained as what is necessary to fight evil and achieve the promised utopia.

  397. I think the appeal in Iraq and Syria is straightforward– for many Sunnis, Isis is the lesser evil.
    Maybe in a lot of Syria and Iraq the appeal is ISIS or death.
    So, maybe “appeal” isn’t really the right word.
    I don’t know, I’m just guessing. But my guess is that motivations vary pretty widely.
    There are certainly a lot of people who seem to be embracing the whole thing with both hands, though. Human beings are a really strange species.
    Maybe other kinds of beings are equally prone to fanatic mass violence – I gather than ants and termites, at least, engage in collective total war between communities – but I can’t really think of anything else quite like us.
    Imagination is a two-edged sword.

  399. …and you ignore Shiite atrocities.
    And lastly, there is the fact that by intervening in the Syrian Civil war, we are objectively siding with Assad.
    How can such a policy resolve anything? It is only prolonging the agony.

  400. I’m sure many people under ISIS hate them, but it’s not any big mystery why many Sunnis sided with extremists–as bobbyp points out, the Shiite militias are horrific and in Syria the government bombs civilian areas. Civil wars are usually like this–ISIS and al Qaeda are different not in their cruelty, but in their global pretensions and their apparent appeal to people in other countries. It is like the appeal communism had to some Westerners, including idealists, long after it should have been clear communism was a disaster. It’s not obvious to me that further intervention in the Mideast will necessarily deal with the problem of Westerners who join up with extremist groups. Maybe we should intervene, but if so it should be on other grounds. And if we end up siding with people who also violate human rights in a big way, we might just be setting the stage for more fun down the road.
    And wait for global warming to really kick in.
    On the cruelty angle, not speaking of anyone here now, but Americans have the historical memory of a mayfly. During the 90’s there were articles coming out about how the very worst claims about America’s allies in Central America were being verified by forensic anthropologists and truth commissions. Atrocities as gruesome as anything we read about today. Then 9/11 happened and Americans couldn’t fathom how anyone could support people who would do such things and great liberal intellectuals like Bill Maher ( yes, sarcasm) assumed it must be Islam that caused atrocities. No, I’m not linking 9/11 to Central America, just pointing out how weird public conversations about enemy cruelty seem to me.

  401. My global warming comment just sorta hangs there– I mean that I expect refugee flows and vengeful groups to arise that will make us see this as the golden age.

  402. What Russell said.
    For those of you who believe there is a readily identifiable political solution in Syria….read this.“>http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-rubble-strewn-road-to-damascus?mbid=social_twitter”>this.
    It is to despair.

Comments are closed.