It’s important to distinguish between how the administration describes ISIS in its public pronouncements and how it understands and reacts to ISIS. Other than Obama’s eminently understandable policy of mostly avoiding the word “Islam,” there’s no evidence AFAICT that the administration fails to understand that in ISIS they’re dealing with Muslims, albeit of a twisted and non-mainstream variety. Yes, they haven’t sent 100,000 troops to Dabiq to give these guys the apocalyptic ass-whooping they so desire, but that could be because Woods is wrong that this would be an effective strategy.
Anyway, droning into oblivion hundreds of terrorists (and innocent civilians) over the course of 6 years, probably 100% of whom were Muslim, is an odd way to telegraph that you don’t view the current terrorist threat as predominantly involving Muslims.
I think Wood gets some things right and other things wrong. That’s pretty much true for all of us. It is just frustrating to me that this article–among the many good analyses of ISIS–is getting all the attention, when it happens to have war-mongering and vaguely Islamophobic errors among its correct points.
More than that, the Obama Administration’s approach to terrorism considers it almost exclusively a Muslim phenomenon, when the reality is that more Americans (and Europeans, for that matter) are the victims of terrorists motivated by right-wing ideologies–to say nothing of the exponentially higher odds of, say, drowning in your own bathtub. Yet the White House “Countering Violent Extremism” Summit, for all the much bally-hood downplaying of calling terrorism Islamic, was exclusively focused on Muslims.
In some cases, the Muslim terrorists are more organized than the kind of guys who lynch a random black dude out of white supremacist motivations, or who shoot up a federal building because of anti-tax views. And I think that’s the best case you can make for focusing on them. But increasingly that is exactly the kind of Muslim terrorism we face, from the Boston Bombing on–actors radicalized by extremist Islam in very much the way that some dudes in Mississippi sentenced for lynching last month were radicalized without any particular connection to the organized KKK.
Al Qaeda ideology is far more orthodox than that of the DAESH. You are confused. Their common points are about justifying violence, but even al Qaeda has not taken the takfiri logic this far.
I think you are not understanding, the point that has been made is that the manner which they are cherry picking to support their violence is very far from the mainstream islamic traditions that go back even to the early times.
They have a very distorted and perverted approach even if we take the ancient standards. Can you call that unislamic - yes if you are of al Azhar or al Qaraouine.
it is sad unfortunately he got so many things incorrectly explained.
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In other words, contra to the OP, DAESH needs to be contained. Not destroyed. Contained. That way they can collapse on their own and provide the power of a bad example.
Or the regional players could wake up, combine, and run them over. That would be ok too.
DEASH may have discovered that videos with high production values can be shot cheaply today while professional editing software can be run on an inexpensive laptop. But the fact remains that Syria’s Assad has a far higher body count. DAESH must be struck with a thousand cuts.
Vox: ISIS is losing. It turns out they lack friends. Who woulda thought? The sort of ideological demands outlined in Wood’s Atlantic article lead them to blunders. [INDENT]So ISIS troops will remain out in the open, making them vulnerable to American and coalition bombs. They’ll engage in conventional fights with superior enemies, because they need to keep them out of ISIS territory. And they’ll continue attacking neutral parties or potential partners, because they hold territory that ISIS wants. [/INDENT] Then again, “As ISIS has retreated, the al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat al-Nusra has advanced, standing to gain both territory and recruits.” So even after DAESH is crushed (and it will take a while) there will still be plenty of fodder for pit threads. Yay!
Absolutely! That point would be to make MONEY. (Whaddaya think this is? Russia?)
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In the news, Obama is debating sending special op guys to call in airstrikes when the Kurds move to take Mosul. So we very well may see some fatalities.
Republican Presidential candidates want Obama to do more. An astonishing 71% of Republican primary voters want US ground troops fighting ISIL. I oppose this.
Mosul is about 5 times the size of Fallujah and would require perhaps 2-3 times as many troops to take over. 15,000 coalition troops fought in Fallujah. I say ISIL is primarily a Middle Eastern problem and I commend the Kurds for stepping up to the plate. The US, IMO, should provide assistance in the form of blood and treasury. But it’s not our battle, grisly videos of a handful of Americans notwithstanding.
If a Republican Presidential candidate says we should do more to fight ISIL, patriotic Americans should demand details. What, exactly, should the US be doing that we’re not doing now?
I think the idea is for the Iraqi Army taking Mosul. The Kurds will play a supporting role. Of course, the underlying problem is the same now as it was when Mosul first fell: The Iraqi Army is overwhelmingly Shia, while the population of Mosul is overwhelmingly Sunni…
You sure? I thought the Kurds wanted Erbil as their capital. With Kirkuk, “the Kurdish Jerusalem,” as a kind of symbolic bonus capital.
This article describes Mosul as “a largely Sunni-Arab city that historically had only a small minority of Kurds and is outside the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan.”
When or where
Could you compare
High life
To the life you find here?
Not since Nineveh, not since Tyre,
Not since Babylon turned to mire
For a sin of a kind we never mind here!
Where or when ever again
Low life
Like the life well known here?
Not sine Nineveh, not since Sidon,
Not since Jericho started slidin’
From the din of a horn that’s never blown here!
Define the problem as primarily the Middle East’s. Provide air support, strive to work in concert with regional allied ground forces to take ground against ISIL. If regional allied ground forces prove insufficient, and if American air power alone cannot stop ISIL, then ISIL conquers the entire Middle East. At that point it is one-on-one America v. ISIL. America conquers ISIL, installs a Governor and is done with the whole shit-show forever.