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.
My personal opinion is anyone that believes the Islamic State exists because of ONE American administration’s foreign policy, or TWO for that matter, isn’t firmly fixed in reality. They exist because they NEVER didn’t exist; something is going to fill the vacuum when you depose the existing form of government. What was the ME before the West (and Russia) decided to treat it like a game of Risk?
We need more Matt Hardings in this world.
What drivel.
Hard to believe that all it takes is a Visa marketing effort to renew Prof. Turley’s faith in mankind and wipe out the image of freezing Syrian refugees.
Yep. Matt Harding (and Visa) sure know how to comfort a broken child.
You are right, Olly, meant to make note of it.
“Trying to use it now to avoid actual debate is meaningless.”
Olly, If you pay real close attention, you’ll see that I’ve never responded to the substance of Eric’s posts. However, to humor you- the only thing that would be meaningless is debating some propagandist about whether the invasion of Iraq under the pretense of removing weapons of mass destruction was reasonable given there were no weapons of mass destruction.
Obviously someone still bent on arguing the legitimacy of the Iraq war (or his little cheerleader, for that matter) has a screw loose. What he requires is medication, not debate.
“I must say though, this whole post is ridiculous…”
Po,
I absolutely agree. That was the point of my first question in the thread.
Keep Dancing!
Olly: “The floor is open for you to counter his claims.”
You know, my “claims” are really as simple as reading the primary sources of the mission: the UNSC resolutions and US laws that set and enforced the standard of compliance, the UN agency findings that triggered enforcement, the US agency findings that corroborated Saddam was in violation. And the historical record of the 1991-2003 enforcement, especially Saddam’s track record therein, that provided necessary context to understand 2002-2003 events.
In fact, the best source for understanding the grounds for OIF isn’t President Bush. It’s President Clinton. Bush had the Saddam problem on his plate for only 2 years at the decision point for OIF, and merely managed its coda. The Iraq enforcement progressed to regime change while Clinton struggled with Saddam’s noncompliance for 8 years, from the day he took over the White House from HW Bush to the day he handed the White House over to Bush. Clinton, the lawyer he is, developed the basis used by Bush to resolve the Saddam problem. Bush’s case against Saddam was really Clinton’s case against Saddam.
No FOIA needed. In the internet age, no university library document requests, or road trips to the Library of Congress needed. The primary sources are easily accessed on-line. Google finds them for you instantly and for free.
Moreover, the Gulf War ceasefire wasn’t obscure. Saddam’s malfeasant behavior was frontpage news for over a decade before OIF. Given all that availability of primary sources and long publicity, it’s disconcerting that the law and policy, fact basis for OIF isn’t common knowledge.
My “claims” about the decision for OIF are just pointing out the obvious, or what should have been obvious.
I must say though, this whole post is ridiculous…
Olly, I can see why Anarchist doesn’t wanna jump into the pit..nothing is worse than debating propaganda. You cannot win, not because you do not have the tools to win, but because the nature of propaganda is such that winning against it requires total dedication and the necessary time.
it also relies on widespread ignorance, and Anarchist sees, as I do, that this forum leans heavily the other side.
Responding to a first salvo is warranted, in order to attempt changing the narrative, However, when the person is doubling down on the propaganda, one must decide to pull out or go all in. Anarchist is obviously pulling out, as I am , for we have had these debates before and we recognize the trails.
I don’t know that a dancing brigade is going to the trick against this people.
Eric:
There’s no chicken and egg debate here. Our counterterrorism, particularly since the Clinton administration, has been a reaction to the Qutbist terrorist movement with al Qaeda, etc.”
Ain’t that a chicken and egg statement?
Also, please drop the propagandist lingo…qutbist…who uses Qutbist other than someone trying to link a great many into one simple code word that further establishes the them vs us narrative?
AL Quaeda is not the Muslim Brotherhood which isn’t ISL…to frame all as Qutbist is deceptive. I noticed you didn’t bring in the Taliban, which is a direct US creation…
Colonel Wilkerson, the former aide to Colin Powell said that in the run to the Iraq war, the push was to force detainees to “reveal” that Sadaam was working with Al Qaeda. The CIA interrogators were sent back time and time again until they came up with the rationale for war that the administration needed. Colin Powell was uncomfortable about that assertion and removed it out of his speech to the UN.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/23/bush_cheney_should_be_charged_with
po@minutebol,
Indeed. The fact is, while we were in Iraq, we had earned the peace. This is a snapshot of post-Saddam Iraq in 2011 at the last stage where US-led peace operations were in place.
Excerpt from http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html :
To wit, in May 2011, President Obama marked Iraq’s “promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy … poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress”:
In the same vein, the “U.S.-Iraqi Relations” section of the State Department’s U.S. Embassy in Baghdad website anticipated in 2011, “Iraq emerge as a strategic partner in a tumultuous region … that can act as a force for moderation … in the national security interests of the United States”:
The fact is ISIS happened after President Obama committed the elementary, catastrophic strategic blunder of prematurely withdrawing the US-led peace operations from Iraq and choosing a feckless ‘lead from behind’ approach to the Arab Spring, which left great gaps that were exploited ruthlessly by the Qutbist terrorists.
We were only in Iraq for 8 years, with the COIN “Surge” only about 4 years old at the point we left. Look back and imagine what might have happened with our guardianships in Europe and Asia had we prematurely removed our peace operations from them a mere 8 years after WW2. In fact, we got a nasty taste of the consequences in Korea just by pulling back in the late 1940s after liberation from Japan.
The world is competitive. When we don’t compete, our competitors take advantage.
“I won’t dignify blatant gibberish with a response.”
You blew that when you initially responded. Trying to use it now to avoid actual debate is meaningless.
“Anarchist,
The floor is open for you to counter his claims. ”
Olly, I won’t dignify blatant gibberish with a response. It might give the kids the false impression that it merits one. You don’t debate propagandists, you ignore them.
po@minutebol: “There is no such thing as a peace operation at least from these sides of things.”
Like I said, peace operations is a technical term. Peace operations have particular operational features, and it is in fact the technically correct term for the US-led mission in post-Saddam Iraq.
Google it. I didn’t coin the term. If you want to “call BS on [Eric’s] use of the peace operations”, do it with the universities, UN, State Dept, other GOs and NGOs, etc. that use it and define it.
Eric
Try as you may, the facts are the facts, and they are well-established. You may offer as many revisionist quotes as you’d like but, to quote Colin Powell, we broke it, now we own it, ISL and all.
Crystal Starheart: “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?”
There’s no chicken and egg debate here. Our counterterrorism, particularly since the Clinton administration, has been a reaction to the Qutbist terrorist movement with al Qaeda, etc.
The Qutbists are an affirmative movement with affirmative goals. They’re not a reaction, although their ideological roots do contain an ideological, wholesale rejection of Western culture that is similar in that respect to Marxist ideology (beyond that similarity, they’re against Western Marxism, too).
Characterizing the Qutbist terrorists with no more agency than a reaction is ignorant about the enemy’s nature and even profoundly disrespectful of the enemy.
To educate yourself, I recommend watching this video of a Sept 2014 information panel by Columbia University professors for a nuts and bolts explanation of ISIS:
http://www.siwps.org/event/isis-in-iraq-syria-and-the-us/
If you prefer to read, instead, I suggest this article on the Qutbists (h/t Olly):
strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/07spring/eikmeier.pdf
Finally, I suggest this open anti-ISIS letter from Islamic scholars for ideological insight:
lettertobaghdadi.com/
The enemy is competitive, zealous, and totalitarian – and affirmative. Stopping the Qutbist terrorists will require counter-terrorism that measures up to the enemy’s commitment.
Eric, i agree with “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 …”, but I must, like Anarchist 2.0 call BS on your use of the peace operations… Propaganda always starts with taking a word hostage and assigning it an innocuous meaning in a charged idea. There is no such thing as a peace operation at least from these sides of things.
Crystal Starheart: “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?”
There’s no chicken and egg debate here. Our counterterrorism, particularly since the Clinton administration, has been a reaction to the Qutbist terrorist movement with al Qaeda, etc.
The Qutbists are an affirmative movement with affirmative goals. They’re not a reaction, although their ideological roots do contain an ideological, wholesale rejection of Western culture that is similar in that respect to Marxist ideology (beyond that similarity, they’re against Western Marxism, too).
Characterizing the Qutbist terrorists with no more agency than a reaction is ignorant about the enemy’s nature and even profoundly disrespectful of the enemy.
To educate yourself, I recommend watching this video of a Sept 2014 information panel by Columbia University professors for a nuts and bolts explanation of ISIS:
http://www.siwps.org/event/isis-in-iraq-syria-and-the-us/
If you prefer to read, instead, I suggest this article on the Qutbists (h/t Olly):
http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/07spring/eikmeier.pdf
Finally, I suggest this open anti-ISIS letter from Islamic scholars for ideological insight:
lettertobaghdadi.com/
The enemy is competitive, zealous, and totalitarian – and affirmative. Stopping the Qutbist terrorists will require counter-terrorism that measures up to the enemy’s commitment.