For John, BLUF: I like "no boots on the ground", but this is an important fight we are fighting against ISIL. Nothing to see here; just move along.
Out of Florence, Alabama, we have this article by Reporter Lara Jakes, published in the TimesDaily—"US: Militants use beheadings to make up for losses". Here is the thrust of the argument:
WASHINGTON (AP) — For months, Islamic State militants rampaged across Syria and Iraq, seizing cities, taking hostages and terrorizing all who dared to confront them.The article includes a graphic showing the timeline discussed in the article.The tide began to turn in mid-August, when U.S. airstrikes pushed them from key Iraqi battlegrounds. Then, on Aug. 19, the group released a video that showed the beheading of American freelance journalist James Foley.
The pattern continued.
Within days of a military defeat, the group would release images of more beheadings — at least nine over six weeks — of Western journalists, aid workers and Muslim soldiers.
This argument that the beheadings are a sign of weakness on the part of ISIL is plausible. But, as the end of the story says, increased success against ISIL, with Western assistance, means more beheadings, until ISIL is put down and ISIL prisoners set free.
One thing to keep in mind. ISIL is not a terrorist organization. It is an insurgency that uses terror to achieve its goals. It wants to be as big as the Caliphate was back in the 1400s, stretching from Spain and Portugal in the West to India and Indonesia in the East. It wants to be a Government and a Religious Faith. With an ISIL Caliphate, even if you are an Atheist, it will probably be easiest to go through the motions of religion. ISIL is a bad thing for civilization. And, it is bad for Islam. It is an extremists distortion of Islam. It must be stopped.
Regards — Cliff
1 comment:
I think the only way to keep ISIS from benefiting by the beheadings is to prosecute the TV/newsprint media who display these same video images, in any form. I ask any sitting judge out there, would you allow murderous images from a snuff film to be broadcast for profit by the industry which created it? I believe the same legal statutes could be used to prevent the images, still and/or moving, of any beheading from being broadcast in the USA and then eventually throughout the western world. It may be impossible to keep off of the internet, but that does not mean that we cannot employ criminal sanctions against the public and cable media who broadcast these murderous acts to our families. I have read that children under the age of 12 who view these images are unable to discern the difference between make-believe and reality, no matter how much they are told of the difference. These pieces of propaganda are a form of reality TV that has become a Hydra, literally.
People can and do become desensitized to these types of violence after observing enough of them. The USA media is conditioning their viewing public to accept these images as the norm. Are they hopeful that when ISIS gets here they can have first right of refusal to broadcast the public beheadings which by then would have become as much sought after viewing as any of the prime-time sporting events.
I recall reading there were large crowds for every French beheading during its revolution. Do you know why the punishments required executioners to force the nobles to lie down face to the ground when receiving their decapitation. It was because it was the last and ultimate insult to their dignity as nobles. It had been customary that a French Knight was always given the right to accept their death by a beheading outdoors as they knelt upright, their face to the heavens so that France (meaning upon azure) was the very last thing these Knights beheld.
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