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Pakistani attorney and author Rafia Zakaria wrote an op-ed in Al Jazeera America about the Islamic extremists' war on fun, including sports, music, even dining in a fine restaurant. Zakaria points out that this apparent obsession predates the existence of ISIS by several decades (at least); he suspects this is a big reason why the attackers chose Paris, renowned worldwide for its brilliant culture and joie de vivre.
Terrorism’s targeting of the merry is universal and indiscriminate, a division of the world between those who wish to live and laugh and hope and those who kill and destroy. The latter are deadly and relentless, and they have already squeezed out the mirth from too many of the world’s cities, from Karachi, Kabul and Baghdad to Nairobi and Beirut.
Zakaria experienced this aspect of terror firsthand. A high school friend had just passed a big exam, and was out celebrating with his family at a restaurant in Karachi, Pakistan, when terrorists struck.
Al Jazeera America provides a separate analysis warning that military action alone cannot defeat ISIS (aka ISIL), which of course is not a "nation" in the traditional sense, but more of a guerilla outfit like Al Qaeda, that opportunistically seized a stronghold in chaotic regions of Syria and Iraq. The piece's author, political scientist Rami G. Khouri, recommends that both the West and Muslim nations of the Middle East spend more resources on addressing economic and political problems facing impoverished youths who are potentially attracted by the ISIS' recruiting pitch:
If the underlying threats to ordinary citizens’ lives in autocratic Arab-Islamic societies remain unaddressed — from jobs, water and health insurance, to free elections, a credible justice system and corruption — the flow of recruits to movements like ISIL or something even worse will persist and even accelerate.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by K_benzoate on Monday November 16 2015, @06:31PM
It actually matters why someone dies, why they were killed, and how you react to it afterward. Civilians being killed is an accident. We work hard, but imperfectly, to minimize occurrences. When it happens, we consider it a failure. We don't celebrate it. All of this says something about us.
It's also worth asking what each group would do if they had complete power to force the other to live as they want. How would USA shape the Mid East? We'd want it to look like Arizona; peaceful, prosperous, safe for business, and full of calm benign people who tolerate each other and live freely.
ISIS's plan for us, if they could do anything they wanted, isn't so nice.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Monday November 16 2015, @07:17PM
oh, that sounds so-o-o-o sweet, if only it had a scintilla of truth to it...
YOU may even have such scruples, but so what ? ? ? do YOUR evolved scruples sway your superior officers in any way, shape or form such that they DON'T commit war krimes ? sadly, no...
also, since about WW1, the ratio of civilians to military killed in 'wars', etc has flipped: from time immemorial, it has been about 90% military deaths, 10% civilian deaths, then it flipped to where it is now 90% civilian deaths, and 10% military...
AND you are going to tell me just how gosh darn concerned and worried 'the military' is about killing civilians ? ? ?
GTFO
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday November 16 2015, @07:27PM
We'd want it to look like Arizona; peaceful, prosperous, safe for business, and full of calm benign people who tolerate each other and live freely.
Gabrielle Giffords and those who've come in contact with Joe Arpaio [wikipedia.org] might disagree with that sentiment.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by K_benzoate on Monday November 16 2015, @08:15PM
Add up all the violent crime in Arizona in a year and it's probably less than what you get in a single day in Syria. Or to make my point in the form of a question: would you rather live in Arizona or Syria?
And there is a right answer. It's not Syria.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @08:22PM
> Add up all the violent crime in Arizona in a year and it's probably less than what you get in a single day in Syria.
You do know that muslim countries average much lower murder rates than the US, right?
Furthermore, the problems in Syria existed before IS. You are doing that thing bigots do where they pick one isolated fact and pretend that it defines the entire situation in a way that boosts their tribe and denigrates the other tribe.
(Score: 3, Informative) by K_benzoate on Monday November 16 2015, @08:40PM
You do know that muslim countries average much lower murder rates than the US, right?
You're disingenuously pulling out a subset of causes of death by violence and ignoring war and civil unrest when for this purpose they are all relevant. And you're probably forgetting about every Muslim majority country in Africa which, even using your inappropriately strict definition, outrank us in murder rate.
And my point wasn't contingent on when ISIS began to exist, so your digression was meaningless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate [wikipedia.org]
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @08:49PM
> You're disingenuously pulling out a subset of causes of death by violence and ignoring war and civil unrest when for this purpose they are all relevant.
Actually that is false too. Muslim countries average lower rates of death from war and civil unrest than non-muslim countries.
> And you're probably forgetting about every Muslim majority country in Africa which, even using your inappropriately strict definition, outrank us in murder rate.
You are disingenuously counting countries not people - your analysis gives equal weight to a tiny country of a million people as it does to a country of 100 million people.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/15/no-islam-isn-t-inherently-violent-and-the-math-proves-it.html [thedailybeast.com]
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @09:28PM
Throwing in Indonesia, an Asian country, to gin up the stats of the Middle East is obviously silly--and a transparent bit of sophistry for every reader here.
It's true. Indonesia proves Muslim countries CAN be just as peaceful as any other (although they still have trouble respecting women and gays). But I never made the claim that Islam is solely responsible for the violence of Middle Eastern Muslim countries--so bringing up Indonesia as a counter-example is a straw man fallacy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @09:56PM
> bringing up Indonesia as a counter-example is a straw man fallacy.
Did you actually read the link?
What part of "Homicide rates in Muslim-majority countries average about two murders per annum per 100,000 people. In non-Muslim countries, the average rate is about 8 per 100,000." Do you think is cherry picking? The numbers for civil unrest were for all countries too.
Indonesia was used to compare like to like for population size of the USA. The author also used Turkey, Senegal, Iran and Egypt as examples to compare against smaller non-muslim countries.
To paraphrase the article - any way you slice it, you are wrong.
> I never made the claim that Islam is solely responsible for the violence of Middle Eastern Muslim countries
Sure sounded like it. Maybe that's what you get for trying to be vague. Spit out then. What do you claim?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday November 16 2015, @09:08PM
would you rather live in Arizona or Syria?
Having spent time in Arizona, that would be a tough call.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @11:14PM
Not for me it isn't. Don't get me wrong. Arizona has it's share of problems. I know; I lived there for over a decade. But I am absolutely certain that I would take life in Arizona over Syria any day of the year. Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday November 16 2015, @11:31PM
would you rather live in Arizona or Syria?
Having spent time in Arizona, that would be a tough call.
Not for me it isn't. Don't get me wrong. Arizona has it's share of problems. I know; I lived there for over a decade. But I am absolutely certain that I would take life in Arizona over Syria any day of the year. Just sayin'.
I guess snark isn't as obvious as it once was. My apologies.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @08:18PM
Civilians being killed is an accident. We work hard, but imperfectly, to minimize occurrences. When it happens, we consider it a failure.
No, instead we redefine civilians into enemy combatants. [thebureauinvestigates.com]
We don't celebrate it. All of this says something about us.
Do you really think that if we didn't have a million to 1 advantage in dollars to spend on equipment like drones and satellites that we would be so 'careful?' Sounds like self-congratulatory back-patting to me because we have the fortune to be on the well-resourced side of an asymmetric war.
To the dead and their families, it doesn't mean shit that we aren't cheering. We are still making choices that we know will kill innocents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @11:40PM
That is true. Unfortunately, there are always plenty of innocent bystanders in wars; currently the best we can do is to minimize these bystander casualties as much as possible. It sounds like this has been weighing on your mind quite a bit; as a civilian working for a USAF R&D lab it weighs on my mind too. Do you have any ideas on how we might completely eliminate innocent bystander casualties in future conflicts? And, please don't bother responding with "just don't start any more wars". To Daesh and their supporters there are only two categories of others: those marked for death today and those marked for death tomorrow. Personally, I refuse to insist that the Kurds should meekly roll over and die so that my conscience will be assuaged. So what are your ideas on how to eliminate deaths of innocent bystanders in wars? I am genuinely curious to hear your ideas.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @11:58PM
> Do you have any ideas on how we might completely eliminate innocent bystander casualties
> And, please don't bother responding with "just don't start any more wars".
That's a dismissal that you've made deceptively binary.
What makes the Kurds deserving while other groups in other parts of the world are not deserving? Where is the line?
While you ponder that I will give you another answer:
Stop relying on ordinance to win wars. Wars require tons of resources that don't kill indiscriminately - intelligence, supply lines, medical facilities. We don't have to fight the war for the Kurds, we can do all kinds of things to support them that don't kill. We also need to put way more resources into enabling civil society after the war - none of this "mission accomplished" bullshit. Instead we need more Marshall Plan thinking, not just cash but good advice (not self-serving advice either). ISIS wouldn't exist if we hadn't done such a piss poor job with Iraq after the war with not only the de-baathification which gutted the civil service, but also letting the shia majority shit all over the sunnis up north.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 17 2015, @01:06AM
??? You expressed a concern about collateral damage. I'm concerned too! We've actually done quite a bit to minimize collateral damage. Just a few short decades ago we would have had to level several city blocks to make sure we got one high value target. Now, we can localize the damage to one building but I gather that is just too much collateral damage for your taste. Actually, I agree. I would like to see no innocents get caught in the cross fire. So, how do you propose we do this? Unfortunately, bombs currently don't have the means to judge the intentions of those caught in the blast zone and kill accordingly. If you have any ideas on how to do this, I and my colleagues would be eager to hear them.
I specifically mentioned the Kurds because they are currently among the few willing to go to the front lines to fight Daesh, which is the subject of the story. This has nothing to do with the Kurds being any more deserving than others.
I largely agree with this, but I want to know how you propose that we do all of this without micromanaging their internal affairs or creating a puppet government that merely dances to the tune we choose to play. Stop the shia majority from "shitting all over the sunnis up north"? Fine. How do you intend to stop them from doing this? How do you propose we hold a newly formed Iraqi government accountable so that they spend that Marshall Plan money wisely? All too often that Marshall Plan money just ends up in the personal overseas bank account of yet another petty tinpot dictator. This needs to be done in such a way that the Iraqis learn how to be responsible and self-governing while respecting the rights of all their citizens. These details are largely out of our control. Also, helping with intelligence, supply lines, and medical facilities typically would require that we put American service members in harm's way (i.e., boots on the ground); there is no easy way to avoid that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 17 2015, @01:51AM
> ??? You expressed a concern about collateral damage.
And you gave me a singular choice of a perfect answer or the status quo. That smacks way too much of a passive-aggressive "you can't handle the truth."
> This has nothing to do with the Kurds being any more deserving than others.
Of course it does. Because the question can be asked about any group that is suffering at the hands of another group. You think they are deserving, but there are lots of people who are deserving. Look, you tried to dismiss the idea that we just shouldn't be so ready to go to war. And I am pushing back on that. It's not binary. We make decisions about when to get involved and I am saying we are way too trigger happy.
> I want to know how you propose that we do all of this without micromanaging their internal affairs or creating a puppet government that merely dances to the tune we choose to play.
Yes micro-managing is part of it. We have a department of peace, its called the state department. They have groups that study local communities and liaison with them. That needs to be beefed up a thousand-fold. We can put in "military advisors" without a second thought, we can also put in political advisors. I'm not saying its easy, its a lot harder than dropping bombs. It takes cultural literacy, the kind of thing you get from sociologists and cultural anthropologists. It takes economists. It takes linguists. It takes political scientists. It takes trust-building and institution building. And it takes a lot of academic study to learn what works and what doesn't so that the next time we do it, we can do a better job. This isn't some "three cups of tea" superficial shit.
> Also, helping with intelligence, supply lines, and medical facilities typically would require that we put American service members in harm's way (i.e., boots on the ground); there is no easy way to avoid that.
Obviously. But these kinds of boots aren't about fighting first, they are about defending the process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 17 2015, @05:57AM
Look, your original assertion was that we are "making choices we know will kill innocents". I think we both agree we want less collateral damage. Can you at least bring yourself to admit we agree on that much? The real question is when does the status quo become so unbearable that we feel compelled to act in spite of the fact that innocents will inevitably get caught in the cross fire? And, following on to that, how de we act in such a way as to minimize such collateral damage and achieve a just (or at least acceptable) outcome? In the case of Daesh I think we do have a compelling interest to act; they have repeatedly made it quite clear that they are at war with us. Ignoring that is suicidal. The tricky part is figuring out how to minimize innocents getting caught in the cross fire. Or, so it would seem to me. FWIW, I agree that too often our political leaders are trigger happy, mostly because they don't want to appear "weak" to their constituents; at least that is the way I read it.
And, if we really do try to micromanage them, we give up any pretence that we are there to liberate them; we are really there to impose our will on them. Also, you should consider that sometimes the locals just aren't interested in your notion of peace. You see, just like our political leaders, sometimes their leaders really are more interested in divide and conquer. Just like our political leaders, some of them are power hungry sociopaths. And sometimes the people really aren't interested in peace. It will take a lot of wisdom and patience to sort out who we can work with and who we can't; it will also take a lot of patience to cajole them into "doing the right thing". But in some (many?) cases, no amount of prodding is going to get them to do the right thing. Unfortunately, sometimes, the people on the other side of the negotiating table really aren't acting in good faith. And in the case of Daesh, they aren't making any pretence at negotiating, good faith or otherwise. They have really only offered us the option of converting to their brand of Islam or death. In that case, we really have only one choice: kill or be killed.
Tragically, they are also frequently considered "soft targets" by the enemy. It looks to my eye like you are really suggesting we trade one type of collateral damage for another. Our service members won't be too fond of that idea. How are you going to get them to go along with it? Also, do you really think it is sustainable for the long term to offer up such sacrificial lambs for the slaughter? Other than assuaging your conscience that we (they) gave it our (their) best shot, what do you hope to accomplish by this strategy?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday November 16 2015, @09:31PM
I'm sure that's what you'd like to believe. But there's a lot of evidence that it's not true:
- Based on what we US civilians know about the drone program, if, for example, we can take out somebody that we consider a Really Bad Guy, and it would also kill 15 other people who may or may not be Bad Guys, we do it and mark all the other military-aged men killed as being insurgents unless they are provably not (and rarely if ever do they bother figuring out if they weren't). This happens routinely in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and probably quite a few other countries that we don't hear about because it's all classified.
- Recently, the US military got into all sorts of hot water because they bombed a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Afghanistan. MSF had done everything they were supposed to do in a war zone: The hospital was well-marked from the air, the US military had the GPS coordinates of the hospital, when the attack came the hospital administrators called up the military and told them they had hit the wrong target, but the bombing continued for another 30 minutes. There is some evidence the pilots questioned the order and had it confirmed by their commanding officer, indicating that the pilots knew something was unusual.
- The Collateral Murder video, in which a helicopter crew guns down: A reporter. The reporters' camera crew. A bunch of civilians that happen to be nearby. A van that had pulled up to rescue the wounded (including 2 kids in the front seat of the van). The driver of the van (the gunner is encouraging the driver to touch something that looks like a weapon to give him a good excuse to pull the trigger). None of the people killed were armed. This was all, according to the US military, in accord with the rules of engagement at the time. Oh, and conveniently, this just happened to be a reporter who had opted to report outside of the "embedded" reporter program where the military decides where the reporter goes and what they would see.
The evidence is all over the place that what the US military is trying to guard against is not civilian casualties, but bad press in the US about civilian casualties. The reason for this is that the generals believe that the reason the US lost the Vietnam War was because those pansy liberals stabbed them in the back with all that video about what the soldiers were actually doing in 'nam. In other words, the problem with My Lai etc was not that they happened, but that they got caught. They mostly succeed at this, as evidenced by the fact that you didn't question the view that the US tries to avoid civilian casualties wherever possible.
Which "we"? Many soldiers have in fact shown up on camera celebrating kills and torture and other atrocities. And there is a large segment of the US population who believes that the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim, who see any death of any Muslim as cause for cheering.
There is a large segment of the US population for whom the plan for the Middle East is:
1. Kill all Muslims / Arabs (this segment of the population isn't smart enough to differentiate between those two groups).
2. Expand Israel to the borders promised by God to Abraham back in Genesis (from the Red Sea to the Euphrates).
3. Fight the battle of Armageddon against the forces of Evil, which are presumed to Muslim.
4. Jesus comes and saves the day for all the Good Guys.
Compare that to Obama's plan for ISIS, which looks something like:
1. Supply arms and air support for all the local factions who want to destroy ISIS.
2. Try to convince the Russians to attack ISIS rather than the non-ISIS rebel forces currently attacking Russia's ally Assad.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 17 2015, @12:42AM
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"It actually matters why someone dies, why they were killed, and how you react to it afterward."
OK let's consider the USA drone killings, the same ones that killed more than 100 civilians in a single month in Pakistan. Let's consider all of the drone strikes in countries where USA is not officially at war, although it's not like USA can make a humanitarian argument for invading any of the countries it invaded lately. All of these killings are extrajudicial, and some of them are clearly war crimes. As we have long suspected, and now know for sure thanks to the leaks, the targets are based on rumors, the effectiveness is around 10%, and some 90% of the causalities are civilian. (By the way, here's how you count civilian deaths when you bomb a wedding, a hospital, or any civilian compound based on a rumor: everyone who is not positively identified as a combatant is a civilian. The US army counts the other way, which tells you how much they care.) All of this is known to the US strategists, so we can safely conclude that the program's main intention is to terrorize the population: to scare the civilians away from the Islamic militants. You seem to have a hard time catching on, but so much is clear to the people under the drones, at least: the USA drone program is the largest, meanest, deadliest, and the most shameless terrorist action on the face of the planet today. I would even go as far as to call it cowardly, which is hardly a fitting term for terrorists who are suicidal bombers, but is pretty apt for the people who use remote-controlled drones.
"Civilians being killed is an accident. We work hard, but imperfectly, to minimize occurrences. When it happens, we consider it a failure. We don't celebrate it. All of this says something about us."
You are woefully misinformed, up to and including the celebration. Many of the ordinary US residents do in fact celebrate the bombings, and they vote accordingly. As for the soldiers on the ground, the strategic command, and the drone pilots, it's pretty much exactly the opposite of what you claim. They view all Arabs as subhuman and shoot them just as readily as Israeli soldiers shoot unarmed Palestinians, that is, like rabid dogs, and with just as much consequence. There are exceptions, of course, such as PFC Manning, and we all know how well they fare within the system.
"It's also worth asking what each group would do if they had complete power to force the other to live as they want. How would USA shape the Mid East?"
Judging by their current actions, USA would nuke it and take the land. They are basically trying to get as close to that goal as they can with conventional weapons. Everything USA and its allies have done so far only served to destabilize the region, but the course is still the same. The strategy must be to drown the region in war until the civil society ceases to exist: no more laws, no more infrastructure, no more schools or hospitals or doctors or teachers, or any kind of educated people. And once there's no one left but a few partisans, the land will be declared empty, just like Australia and Americas were declared empty not so long ago, and then the "civilized" people can draw the new borders and move in.
I don't believe this strategy will work, as the unintended and unpredictable consequences are already turning out to be much much worse than imagined, but it looks like USA and its allies are going to stay the course for a while longer, so it will get a lot worse before it gets better. The ocean may not protect the USA for much longer.
~Anonymous 0x9932FE2729B1D963
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