Like most of humanity, I have been stunned by the sheer savagery and cruelty of the Islamic State. Yet, thousands have flocked to the ISIS forces from the West. For me, it has been a particularly shocking phenomenon. The images that repel us, attract them. Religion is clearly a release for these people. A release from the obligations of decency and humanity. Images show Islamic State fighters laughing and enjoying the torture and murder of captives. Muslim clerics with ISIS assure them that they can treat non-Muslims as lower than animals and commit rape as an Islamically pure act. It has been an incredibly depressing time for those of us who believe that humans can aspire to true greatest of spirit and caring. This Christmas, however, my daughter showed me the YouTube clip below of a man named Matt Harding who goes around the world getting people to dance with him. After watching him, my faith in humanity was restored.
What is so striking about the Islamic State and other extreme Muslim groups is that they most hate joyous expressions from dancing to singing. They throw acid on little girls trying to become educated and destroy the houses of worship of other groups.
Nothing could be a greater antithesis to the hate of these extremists than Matt Harding and people like him:
What is even more reassuring is that he is not alone. Around the world, people are spontaneously singing and dancing. These are a few clips shared by our readers this year. Watching them restores some of the faith in the future that these extremists really cannot extinguish the joy in the world.
Professor Turley, thank you for giving us these videos together to view a few minutes of human joy and happiness instead of the endless stream of pain and suffering we see every day on the mainstream media news.
Yeah Nick, can’t we all just get along?
This is heartwarming and inspiring. Being a positive person, I BELIEVE things can and will change. JT is justifiably proud of his daughter, her attitude bodes well for her future. Reading people here begrudging this good man, Matt Harding, for the support he gets tells you there is too much resentment and envy in his world. God bless Matt Harding, and keep him safe.
Anarchist,
The floor is open for you to counter his claims.
Your on the clock……….
Hey Eric, nice little filibuster you’re launching in these comments. I see you’ve taken the Bush/Cheney/Goebbels tactic of “truth through repetition” to heart. Good luck babbling nonsense endlessly. Maybe you’ll win a convert or two.
po@minutebol: “In real life however, there is a great amount of practical work to be done, not only in order to counter ISL, but to also make sure its ilk never rises again. None of that work would happen however until we start at the essential starting point, get the US to stop invading and destabilizing other countries.”
Actually, the Qutbist movement has decades-older older, deeper, and independent roots from Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Pointing to the US as the source of the problem is like walking into an emergency room and blaming doctors for the ill patients that you see for the 1st time.
Excerpt from http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html :
“some which have not even been publicly exposed.”
And every other horror unknown to anyone that knows they don’t know all that other people in the know know they can’t let anyone publicly know or else it wouldn’t be private and unknown by those that weren’t in the know in the first place.
Is that about right?
Inga: “I hope he doesn’t decide to try it in Isis controlled territory, he’d be dancing to bullets like in the westerns.”
With this, you just reminded me of the ISIS victim, Peter Kassig, the former US Army Ranger who volunteered to go to Syria as a humanitarian aid worker and exercised great initiative in that endeavor before ISIS took him.
When Professor Turley wonders whether there is a “greater antithesis to the hate of these extremists than Matt Harding and people like him”, I offer Peter Kassig and US veterans like Kassig who, in an out of uniform, put their lives on the line for the sake of peace operations, often in direct counter to people like the Qutbist terrorists.
When you say things like “Religion is clearly a release. A release from the obligations of decency and humanity.”, I do not know whether to laugh or to break my computer, either one out of disappointment,
I mean, I can see that some here might subscribe to the belief that ISL exists solely in a religious vacuum, created by religious decree and operating on a religious sphere alone. I however, would not think that an informed, intelligent person like you, Prof Turley, could be so stubbornly simplistic.
You are doing your integrity, and your readers a huge disservice by your refusal to address the elephant in the room, and continuously speak of issues as if they exist in a vacuum.
While you keep being selective about your outrage, my Christian brothers are upholding the value of their faith losing life and limbs across the globe trying to bring relief and care to those in need. My Muslim brothers are, too, present in Syria trying to help a population under great oppression based on the tenets of their faith. And so it is for my Jewish brothers, and my Buddhist brothers…
I so wished the evil of ISL could be countered by mere singing and dancing…that would certainly be the laziest and most fun method.
In real life however, there is a great amount of practical work to be done, not only in order to counter ISL, but to also make sure its ilk never rises again.
None of that work would happen however until we start at the essential starting point, get the US to stop invading and destabilizing other countries.
ISL exists because we invaded and destroyed Iraq, simple as that.
Much of Isl’s weapons are American made and American sourced, flooding the globe and making sure that any little group with a grievance has means and methods to express them with violence.
The Yemenis do not need some singing and dancing, they need the US to stop its 12 year long drone war…”Last year, London-based forensic psychologist Peter Schaapveld presented research he’d conducted on the psychological impact of drone strikes in Yemen to a British parliamentary sub-committee. He reported that 92 percent of the population sample he examined was found to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder – with children being the demographic most significantly affected. Women, he found, claimed to be miscarrying from their fear of drones. “This is a population that by any figure is hugely suffering,” Schaapveld said. The fear of drones, he added, “is traumatizing an entire generation.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/death-from-above-how-american-drone-strikes-are-devastating-yemen-20140414#ixzz3N9bJ8tY0
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
Some how the joy inspired by Matt Harding just can’t ever compensate for the severe trauma that has been inflicted by sadistic, sociopathic, psychopathic, and criminal behaviors, regardless of who commits the violent acts.
Does anyone ever wonder if the acts committed by ISIS are a reaction to the torture, killings, human experimentation, and GOD only knows what other crimes and atrocities are being done by Americans in the CIA and Military run Prisons, like Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, and the other secret US prisons, like Poland and other locations most people are ignorant of?
Does anyone ever wonder why the world sees Americans very different than many Americans see their country?
Do most Americans even care about anyone but themselves and their own comforts, to let these crimes committed by their own so-called “Leaders” be swept under the rug or pardoned, and then dare look at the violent acts committed toward Americans with horror?
Many of the people who work for the US government are worse criminals than most of the people in our prisons and Americans dare judge the crimes of other people in other countries when our own Government Personnel are involved in some of the worst crimes on the planet, some which have not even been publicly exposed.
Anarchist 2.0,
The UNMOVIC finding of “about 100 unresolved disarmament issues” (Cluster Document) that was the final (though not only) trigger for Operation Iraqi Freedom wasn’t “illegally obtained false info”.
It was true and obtained legally via the UN inspections conducted under the UNSCR 1441 mandated “aim of bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process established by resolution 687 (1991) and subsequent resolutions of the Council” (UNSCR 1441).
I know less about the provenance of the UN Commission on Human Rights finding of “systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in an all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror” showing Saddam in violation of the Gulf War ceasefire pursuant to UNSCR 688, but I assume it was legally obtained information, too.
Peace operations is actually the technically correct term for the US-led mission in post-Saddam Iraq.
Here’s the DoD definition of peace operations:
You can google ‘peace operations’ – different organizations offer various definitions of the same theme.
This is the basic US statutory grounds for the US-led peace operations in Iraq pursuant to Public Law 105-338, the Iraq Liberation Act (1998):
This is the basic UN authorization for the US-led peace operations pursuant to UNSCR 1511 (2003) et al:
“Religion is clearly a release. A release from the obligations of decency and humanity.”
Has your logon been hacked? ISIS is no more motivated by religion than Warren Jeffs. Religion for them is an excuse; not a release. I seriously doubt they had invested much effort towards decency and humanity anyway. And in an ignorant culture absent a unifying, secular social contract well, isn’t that where religious fundamentalism thrives?
Apparently Matt can afford his extensive travel because he’s got a contract with some chewing gum company and Visa. It’s much more fun traveling in style, no wonder he looks so happy, Oh well good for him, he found the golden goose and is dancing and prancing happily, spreading good will. I hope he doesn’t decide to try it in Isis controlled territory, he’d be dancing to bullets like in the westerns. Anyway, the joyful dancing videos are uplifting
doglover: “One can only hope that those being tortured are folks similar to dick cheney who believe it is only “enhanced interrogation” and therefore perfectly fine.”
Actually, the folks who are being tortured by Qutbist terrorists are among the folks that VP Cheney and others meant and tried to protect with the enhanced interrogation of captured Qutbist terrorists.
lester macgurdy,
Actually, Operation Iraqi Freedom was right on the law and justified on the policy.
The UN Security Council resolutions enforced by 3 US Presidents under US law plainly show the Gulf War ceasefire enforcement from 1991 to 2003 was compliance-based pursuant to UNSC resolutions 687, 688, etc.
Findings from UNMOVIC as well as other agencies confirmed Saddam’s regime was noncompliant with the UNSC resolutions at the decision point for OIF. After the regime change, the Iraq Survey Group corroborated UNMOVIC’s confirmation that Iraq was in violation of the disarmament mandates.
Saddam was guilty.
In fact, Saddam was never out of material breach of its ceasefire obligations from beginning to last. Saddam could and should have complied with the Gulf War ceasefire in 1991-1992, as he agreed to in order to avoid regime change in 1991, let alone 2002-2003. Eventually, Saddam was given a “final chance” to comply by President Clinton in 1998, failed that and triggered Operation Desert Fox, the penultimate enforcement.
Then Saddam was given a last “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441) in 2002-2003 under threat of the ultimate enforcement, regime change. When Saddam squandered his “final opportunity to comply” in 2002-2003, he triggered Operation Iraqi Freedom.
One can only hope that those being tortured are folks similar to dick cheney who believe it is only “enhanced interrogation” and therefore perfectly fine.
If only joyful dancing would be the cure, Matthew could be like the Pied Piper…
However as you say, we can aspire, whether humans as a whole can achieve it, doubtful.
” US-led peace operations”
Possibly the most oxymoronic phrase ever uttered.
We start a war based upon illegally obtained false info, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands to millions of deaths, and there are apparently Americans that are so opposed to reality that they are still willing to refer to our soldiers activities in the region as “peace operations”.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
“Nothing could be a greater antithesis to the hate of these extremists than Matt Harding and people like him”
The coalition soldiers who conducted the US-led peace operations in Iraq, especially the Counterinsurgency “Surge”, were a greater antithesis to the Qutbist terrorists than Matt Harding.
“Like most of humanity, I have been stunned by the sheer savagery and cruelty of the Islamic State. ”
Whatever dude. Save your propaganda. ISIS is just one more military force in opposition to our goals in the middle east that is engaged in the same types of atrocities that we ourselves regularly engage in.
Let me ask you, does ISIS have prisoners in black sites that they’ve spent over a decade torturing? Did ISIS declare an unjust war on Iraq, in which millions have died, because of false confessions obtained by said torture?
If we don’t like how despicable these opposing forces act, we shouldn’t have set the bar so low.
ISIS may be despicable, but not as despicable as the savagery your selective outrage supports.