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Sandhill crane

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Isis and kali

Intellect is the ability to avoid belaboring the obvious.
Alfred Bester


Isis, Philae temple

I am optimistic enough to think that most people are thoroughly revulsed and horrified by the actions of Isis terrorists in France last night, as I am. While the six coordinated attacks on innocent westerners were immediately celebrated on social media by Isil supporters, those people have to be a small minority of our fellow humans, or so we hope anyway.


Babe calling his shot in Chicago

The fact that at least one of the perpetrators was a recent refugee with a purported Syrian passport is horrifying although I should admit that I did in fact call it and was and am worried about the export of such atrocities from a region where they seem to be performed routinely for pure sport.

I emailed a friend who shall remain anonymous, while things were playing out in realtime last night. I got this response:
No such thing as a religion of peace.

Killing in the name of one's God seems to be in the nature of humans.

Remember we invaded Iraq killing ten of thousands.

I emailed him back that I saw, if nothing else, a qualitative difference in what we do versus what they do. And got another note:

Yes, they are monsters.

How many theater and school killings have we had here, and when you find out about the killers they usually have been radicalized by some religious or racist groups.

Disenfranchise, desperation, add a little god and boom. 

Or, just carpet bomb and napalm the shit out of little brown people. How about "Shock and Awe" who are the monsters, what is the religion of the monsters, they are of all religions given sick leadership.  

When one group, one country dehumanizes another group it's easy to get people to kill people. 

Do you feel good when you see the bombs we drop on our "enemies" think about it? 


I didn't answer him. I didn't have the energy. The standard liberal response. We're as bad as they are. Are we? Do we deliberately set out to hurt, maim and murder civilians?

While I was against the invasion of Iraq in the first place I still don't feel that the United States has militarily assaulted foreign countries willy nilly, there is usually some provocation or rationality involved in the decision making, while some sorties have certainly proven unwise and ill considered and the calculus for the drone strike casualty figures is beyond self serving. 

I don't accept that terroristic behavior is ever justified, by any rationale and I am one of the apparent few that don't think that our government are terrorists, although our hands are not sparkling clean either by any means.

Some people like to think that Islamic militancy started at 9-11 but we were victims of many unprovoked assaults long before that time. There's a list that looks pretty accurate here but they miss many like the Feb. 26 incident in New York City, when a bomb exploded in the basement garage of World Trade Center, killing 6 and injuring at least 1,040 others. In 1995, militant Islamist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 9 others were convicted of conspiracy charges, and in 1998, Ramzi Yousef, believed to have been the mastermind, was convicted of the bombing. These people like to give the world a constant ration of shit.

Anyway my friend, who we shall call M sounds a lot like my liberal friend W. Here are a few of many similarly written emails:

I always felt who ever owns the actual and approved vocabulary controls the debate......The sole word Terrorism immediately precludes any true debate or critical analysis of 9/11 and is a literal Shibbolith that sanctions every thing from shredding the Bill of Rights to murdering people 10,000 miles away who upon even the most cursory examination have no military capacity except IEDs and K47s.....best...w


I know of "no other" culture besides America that dropped more bombs on 3 of the world's poorest countries 10,000 miles from its borders killing  1,000,000 people than made it into  pop adventure movies like Rambo starring a campy muscle bound "hero......than followed it up with Operation Just Cause (Because) into Panama killing 5,000....followed by the invasion of a veritable dot in the  ocean labeled Grenada... and topped this off with a "video game slaughter labeled"Shock and Awe" killing 1,000s and in the process literally decimating a 3000 year old culture and accompanied with a "play by play" by Wolf Blitzer; all this somewhat  predicated on   $600,000,000 in profits......."one must enter a court of opinion with clean hands"!  ..this in no manner rationalizes  the terrorism and fanaticism of what one   must categorically admit is an iota of the 0ne  and half billion of the Muslims in the world...
I have a tough time with this sort of reasoning from my friends. Not exactly defending terrorism but engaging in an equivalence argument and basically taking the position that whatever the west gets they have coming. I can't come to grips with a group that methodically kills 129 people and injures hundreds more, in order to avenge and/or establish the new caliphate.

It would be certainly ridiculous to maintain that United States and Israeli rockets and bombs don't incur collateral damage. They do. But the general aim is not to take out innocents and civilians. The Israelis even go to the trouble of asking people to vacate certain buildings before they disappear. (The buildings, not the people.) But taking out people one by one at a concert, soccer game or jewish delicatessen in France, burning people in cages, cutting their throats, engaging in this kind of indiscriminate barbarism, I do think there is a difference, at least in initial intention. 

I do think there is a difference between what we do and they do. I don't think the French had it coming, I think it was very noble for Europe to invite these people to live in their respective countries  and they don't deserve this sort of hospitality from the new guests. 

I also ask my liberal friends to consider, as hard a concept as it admittedly is, that some of the bombing campaigns against Isis, Al Qaeda and the Taliban were actually undertaken by the evil americans to help free the islamic miscreant's countrymen from their barbarity and reign of terror. And while religion is certainly pernicious here at times, I haven't heard about any southern baptists strapping on suicide vests yet.

President Obama said the usual things, condemning the attacks without uttering the dreaded i or m words. What he said was interesting if you feel like parsing such utterances; the attacks were an "outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians."

More than an attempt, Barack. I'd say they delivered.

Jihadi John prepares to cut off Alan Henning's head
The British group CAGE, which is a total front for non repenting terrorists, had this to say regarding the recent targeting of Jihadi John, Emwazi;
CAGE reaffirms its opposition to extrajudicial killing of any kind. State sponsored targeted assassinations undercut the judicial processes that provide the lessons by which spirals of violence can be stopped. Emwazi should have been tried as a war criminal.
Dr Adnan Siddiqui, Director of CAGE, said:  “Killing Emwazi is evidence that the US and UK do not consider the families of hostages in their actions. This is backed up by reports that US authorities threatened families if they negotiated payment of ransom money.” “Emwazi’s execution of defenceless hostages was inexcusable. But all avenues that led him to that point need to be investigated.” “CAGE’s repeated efforts and offers to negotiate for the release of Alan Henning were obstructed and squandered by the UK government and serious questions remain regarding these failures.” “CAGE has acknowledged mistakes were made in our handling of the Emwazi affair, but we reiterate our call for a full inquiry into what caused Emwazi to feel so alienated in the UK that he felt his only option was to leave. Such an enquiry is essential if we are to understand and put an end to individuals being drawn into political violence.”

So Jihadi John should get a trial but none of the people whose heads he cut off deserved to get one? And we need to find out what drove all these poor boys to seed, what was the motivation for their heinous crimes? Hire a bunch of shrinks? It's the United States fault because they didn't pay a ransom? These people have surrendered their humanity, I think they have relinquished the right to have us worrying about their motivations.

Sick fuckers. Die soon.

I was thinking about gods, well at least the ones I am familiar with, and with only a few exceptions, can't think of many omnipotent deities that are so weak and insecure that they require their followers to mortally avenge any real or imagined slights to their reputation. Maybe Mictlantecuhtli, Yama, Erebus, that crowd. You would think that absolute powers would be above that sort of thing.


Darkseid - Jack Kirby's New gods

23 comments:

Douglas Keller said...

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

Blue Heron said...

Not sure I understand. Do you detect a false flag conspiracy designed to hook the American populous at play?

Unknown said...

My Mom used to tell me stories when I was a little boy about her trip after college to Europe and the Middle East. How beautiful Beirut, Lebanon was (her favorite place), and that it was called the Paris of the Middle East. Looking at the photos she took on that trip versus what you see today on the news, it's mind boggling what's happened there. Sadly the average citizen in this world is going to find it more and more difficult to move around as governments close borders and take away personal freedom in order to make this world more "secure". As long as developed nations exploit the resources of less developed countries in collusion with their leaders, the general populations will suffer and resent the US and Europe. The cycle of conflict will continue as these oppressed peoples have nothing to lose but their lives. Unfortunately, it looks like energy and defense stocks will be a solid part of an investment portfolio for decades to come. What will civilization look like in the future? It's not going to be a pretty picture. Prayers for peace to all of us in this troubled world.

Anonymous said...

1. Suspension of constitutional rights never mentioned.
2. Method of killing is usually a function of the weapons at your disposal. Thus in a macabre scenario beheading as a means would gladly be exchanged for the capability of modern and impersonal technology. A raid of 300 bombers each carrying 30/500 lbs. Bombs dropped on a country with literally no military industrial capacity is not civilian "collateral damage" but the express object of the bombing. Also the burning flesh of Napalm and chemical defoiliation.In the end amounting to more bombs dropped in WW 2 amounts to a lot of dead and wounded. One million++ deaths. In Iraq over 100,000+dead and one million refugees. 1990s Iraq blockade UN estimate of infant deaths over 200,000. Panama 5000 dead and wounded.."just because!. Primary $ource illegal secret funding of Saddam in Iraq/Iran War. Initial funding to the muhadin to fight the Russians in Afghanistan who are the "birthright" of our current terrorists". 25,000 "combat missions" flown in the last 2 years in various Midfle East countries, I leave to you the estimate of dead and wounded. The idiscriminate dissemination of weapons to multiple sects, nations, and Allies" who in many instances abandon and $ell" them to our enemies. The literal intervention in Syria and the foreseeable chaos it spawned which we are now dealing The Israelis certainly more complicated ,but the massive and blatant weapon capabilities of destruction make civilian casualties an integral part of any invasion. In the last invasion so serious that members of the military refused to take part. Paris a horror but simply must suffer a gruesome pardeigm of brutality and violence . Axiomatic and never factored into the American Policy of violence..."When you shoot at people they sooner or later shoot back...wb

Anonymous said...

Life's a bitch all right and it is not at all cooperative with those who would file it away in liberal or conservative bureau drawers. I don't see either the left or the right formulations accounting for a hell of a lot of what is going on these days most especially in the hell hole known as the Middle East. Proper responses will have to draw from both the dove and the hawk. With Isis it is getting pretty clearly into hawk territory and some sort of significant escalation is going to have to happen. With the hordes of refugees a bit of dove is in order. These poor SOBs are fleeing Isis and co. and it is important to give them a break as it is important if not critical to locate the terrorists in their midst. Importing lots of Syrians, Iraqis and Afghanis is clearly a recipe for trouble and that is an intrinsic burden to the whole damn process.
Dual Nobel prizes to the first clown to figure this out and to have any effing idea how to cope with it. Meanwhile, like the Three Weird Sisters we will have to mix a bit of this and a bit of that from liberals and from conservatives to handle it. KaliMa is having quite a party we can only hope for a lot more of the original Isis (of Ancient Egypt)

Anonymous said...

Shalom Aleichem vs. As-Salamu Alaykum vs. Pax Vobis vs. Reality

Robert,

The U.S. is hardly moral, but your liberal friends are mostly clueless.

In 1901, Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud, a fifth generation descendent of Muhammad ibn Saud, began a military campaign that led to the conquest of much of the Arabian peninsula and the founding of present-day Saudi Arabia, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The result that safeguarded the vision of Islam-based around the tenets of Islam as preached by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was not bloodless, as 40,000 public executions and 350,000 amputations were carried out during its course, according to some estimates.

I wonder what the US did in 1901 to stir up Saudi Arabian Wahabbists ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism

The Shia’ are not much better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah

Islam is the religion of peace ?

Orthodox Shia’ and Sunnis, hate the U.S. and Israel, all Western culture really, and they hate each other too.

(Had a long conversation with a religious Sunni a while back who talked for 15 minutes straight about how he hated the Shia’, told me how the Iranian Imams are demonic child molesters etc., etc..)

Arab/Muslim culture is incredibly backwards, brutal. Little boys get raped, little girls get their labias cut off, and some get their vaginas sewn shut except for a small opening for menstrual flow.

On and on as you know.

Best,

K

Anonymous said...

I was opposed to the Iraq war from the beginning. I knew that it would disrupt the balance of power in the Middle East and no one knew what would happen after that. One of the unintended consequences of that war has been the rise of ISIS. With the attacks in Paris we are now clearly engaged in a world wide struggle against radical Islam. What now? I think it is time that we engage our allies, from Western Europe and the Middle East, to initiate a serious ground war against ISIS in the Middle East. We also need to work with those same allies to stamp out the radicals where we live, in Western Europe, the Middle East and here at home. This will be no small task.

Sanoguy

Anonymous said...

K,
Thanks for the history lesson. Look what's happened since we retaliated after 9/11. My sons won't be going to fight in the middle east to maintain the lifestyles of the families in power or the balance sheets of big oil. We're treating symptoms instead of causes. How about you K, are you sending your children? Sanoguy? Anyone else?
Clueless Liberal

Blue Heron said...

Ludicrous Clueless. These guys aren't killing innocent people at rock concerts because they are sore over big oil. There is a cultural and theological war going on that seeks to impose its ghastly parameters on the rest of the world. Yazidis, Kurds, Christians ae being murdered on purely religious grounds. Obama has a brilliant strategy. Ben Rhodes announced today that he would be doing nothing. You should be really happy.

Douglas Keller said...

No, Blue, I haven't detected a false flag op. But, of course, that doesn't mean that it wasn't one. They're common as dirt these days, aren't they? All sides taking advantage of the latest and greatest propaganda tools to achieve their strategic goals. That said, the Goring utterance I found intriguingly prophetic...and vexing. I mean, ok...back in his day, it was probably relatively easy to fool one's citizenry into wars even though history would have taught them that the outcomes of such conflicts were almost always advantageous to elites...while horribly devastating to the 99%'ers. Reading Goring made me sad because I realized that, despite all of our seeming sophistication and technology and education, etc...it still seems so easy to get the masses fired up by fears of being "attacked." I mean, even though we here in the States were all schooled at great length after 9/11 that the attack was a "staged" event...brilliantly engineered and choreographed for maximum effect...with the sole goal of getting our citizens angry enough and afraid enough to go halfway around the world to attack what were essentially a loosely-governed tribe of box cutters. We were schooled about how our newfound enemies' could only thrive by getting us to spend untold amounts of blood and treasure on such an adventure. So what did we do? We went over...spent our treasure...and lost the limbs and lives of so many of our young men. And, of course, in the process...we killed enough of the innocent, peace-loving family member bystanders that our enemies thrived. How, I ask you...is going back over there for more of the same a smart plan for us 99%'ers?

Blue Heron said...

At the risk of sounding gauche Doug, the most fashionable culprit in these sorts of conundrums are the Israelis and the jews did have a head start in the movie business. Problem solved!

Douglas Keller said...

You're not getting it, Blue. It doesn't matter who is pulling our strings. It is that they can be so easily pulled. We need to learn more about the 1%.

Anonymous said...

Happy? Hell no, I'm not happy. I've seen young soldiers returning from Walter Reed to our community with TBI's, amputations and PTSD for the past decade. What do we have to show for their sacrifices? Do you think that our ground troops in Syria and Iraq will prevent future attacks like the ones in Paris? Doubt it. Sure the ethnic minorities would fare better. But my kids aren't going to be there. So would you encourage the young adults in your family to sign up for a tour in Iraq or Syria? BTW you voted for Obama, not me. I'm pro Israel. I've heard you argue against the war in Iraq and expanded interrogation techniques. That was a cheap shot about the fashionable culprit. Where do you really stand Robert? Talk is cheap, but my kids lives are priceless. Violence only begets violence.

Blue Heron said...

I'm not getting it? I think I am getting it just fine. Doug, Why is it so hard for people to accept that a culturally backward group of religious zealots that have no respect for any creed but their own wish to sow murderous havoc? Why is it always the 1%, is it because they are a more convenient target? Isis wants to strike a blow at what they regard is the depravity of the west, music, food and sports and they hit those targets in France.

Anonymous, if you are going to tell me that you've heard me argue one point or another, have the courtesy of signing your comment so we both know who we are speaking to. Not really sure about your comment, your children's lives are not going to go on the line to save some "ethnic minorities?"

I have said it before, that is the kind of attitude that allows killing fields and dachau's to occur but that is your right. One day maybe someone will be gunning for you to and someone can ignore your plea for help.

Anonymous said...

If you don't want anonymous comments then remove it as an option or don't publish them. Your choice.

Blue Heron said...

Big of you to tell me how to run my affairs on my blog. I have published thousands of anonymous comments since its inception but never from people who hide behind the curtain of anonymity and claim to be privy to my personal arguments. That is just rude. Feel free to be a pussy.

Anonymous said...

Someone who becomes a hawk in their 50's and sends other peoples children to fight their wars is the biggest pussy known to man. Feel free to be full of shit.

Blue Heron said...

Hey anonymous douchebag, the draft ended in 1973. Nobody is sending kids anywhere. They sign up for this shit voluntarily, they pay them and everything.

Anonymous said...

That's funny because I was just thinking that your a douchebag! I pay taxes and know how the US military operates. Go ahead have your war. I'm against it.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Blue Heron said...

Your is a possessive adjective. You're is a contraction of you and are. Your first usage is incorrect but your latter usage is correct. Takes a little practice but you will catch on in time.

On to the subject of your comment, fellow d.b., I find it curious that I am now a warmonger, never having advocated for war. What we need to do is not bury our head in the sand and pony up with a more robust and vigorous containment response to ISIS. Many independent and knowledgable experts are critical of Obama's response which seems to be mostly talk.

If there is a rabid dog in the neighborhood you shoot it. There were three ISIS related tragedies this week, in the Sinai, Paris and Beirut, causing many hundreds of mortal casualties. Another was narrowly averted in Turkey. I think that we can take them at their word. They want to do the west in.

Anonymous said...

Well by crikey you got some folks riled up Blue Heron. When I look at the media coverage, the talking heads and the politicians it seems clear to me that we are in the following stage: "When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout!" It may take some time for more coherent ideas to take hold and become a consensus view of the body politic (if this is possible any longer). Meanwhile it seems gloriously hysterical out there.

Anonymous said...

Robert,
Back from Dallas, reread your blog this morning. I think you're right on!!
One of your liberal responders made a comment about we were responsible for destroying their culture? Killing gays, stoning women adulteress to death,must wear Burgas , sodomize young boys, etc,etc, that's a culture? Yes a culture of barbarians!! You might point out to him about the Museums, ancient architectural sites they have destroyed in the name of Allah. So who's is destroying their culture? Isis has over a million dollars a day coming in a day and instead of uplifting the poor , downtrodden and un educated they chose to use the money to blow up innocent civilians instead helping to get themselves out of the stone age .
True evil !!
Mike