I Don't Even Know, But I'll Leave this Here

Trump's top agenda item after report he gave classified intel to Russians: Call Jordan's King Abdullah https://t.co/WrXSkU3Wc3

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) May 16, 2017

It's been a little while since I mentioned the stupidity of how some folks want to relate to the sacrifice of Muslim-majority nations in the Global fight on terror when it happens to be Islamic-based. 

I don't really have anything else to add. If Trump is contacting King Abdullah of Jordan because he inadvertently (we assume, charitably) burned a Jordanian source and means to apologize, I don't even know what I want to say. But...

I am sorry our democracy has produced someone so inadequate as to fail the relationship we should have with our nearest allies in the struggle against the ISIS threat. I recognize, even if our current President does not, that Muslims are so often the main target of ISIS' violence(and even still, the threat of al-Qaeda). And if the Islamic allies that the US still has are soured on the United States' comradeship because of this event, I consider it my challenge to work to place better, wiser, more understanding government officials in place, who understand the sensitive relationship between stable regional governments, and extremist groups that have no capacity to govern. I do not know that my current government has this understanding, but maybe they can listen if approached with a will to inform.

That is all I can do with them.  Hope. And with my little platform, maybe inform--if not my government, then anyone who might listen.

ISIL is to Blame for the Death of Kayla Mueller

The death of US hostage Kayla Mueller was confirmed today. The family of the deceased were contacted by the terrorists and provided a picture of her that gave no indication of the manner of her death.

ISIL had indicated that she had been killed due to the Jordanian airstrike--but that sounds really self-serving for them, and they obviously lie about this sort of thing because they were going to try to bargain with the already-dead body of Moaz al-Kasasbeh. Who can really say if they didn't actually slay her in a tit-for-tat over the execution of Sahida al-Rishawi, and only realized later how really, really shitty that would look?

As the "crime scene" is in ISIL's hands, the possibility of an investigation is highly difficult because the evidence is already going, going, gone. But in the end, ISIL is responsible, because they took her hostage in the first place. She was a humanitarian who genuinely cared about the displaced and suffering people of the world. She had not done one thing that the murderers who comprise that group could call any threat to them. Her death is senseless. But ISIL is absolutely to blame, whether they directly harmed her, or whether their holding her put her needlessly in harm's way.

Tu Quoque, My Ass.

King Abdullah of Jordan responded swiftly and forcefully to the actions of ISIL against one of his subjects and airmen, the hostage Moaz Al-Kasasbeh. He authorized an airstrike against ISIL. (No, FOX News and FOX News fans, he did not participate in the sortie himself, nor was he an actual crewman of the Federation ship Voyager.) It was one of many air missions flown against ISIL--in addition to a US-led coalition.

The US is actually doing something against ISIL. Has been. Like, it's been a problem we are dealing with--although even I use the shorthand of "getting into it" to mean "ground troops" when shooting up folks from air certainly counts for something (Kosovo, for example, was an air war). King Abdullah is our ally. And this is obviously just background for the point I want to get into--so why don't I just?

When I wrote about the offense taken by certain parties about the historical reality of President Obama's comments at the National Prayer Breakfast, I was largely addressing what I perceived as a deficit in understanding that ISIL was not some unique threat doing things we'd never seen before historically, and that it was absurd to think that the religion of Islam was the sole reason for their emergence. And yet, I have read instances online and even from liberals indicating their belief that this constitutes a tu quoque argument against doing anything against ISIL because westerners, Americans, or Christians are "just as bad."

Moaz Al-Kasasbeh Apparently Burned Alive.

 



I have no interest in watching the death by fire of this man which Jordanian intelligence indicates may have been from a month beforehand. A death of a man in a cage by fire is an extraordinarily painful thing, and watching snuff porn was never an interest of mine.  

 

If this is what ISIL wants to show about themselves; they aren't happy enough that they behead a handful of people here or there, but let it be known they also sometimes set a human being on fire. What can we do about that kind of mentality?

 

Is this supposed to be attractive? Is this supposed to be how they recruit? By gleefully, publically, being the worst sort of monsters that can exist?

 

The Jordanian government has swiftly responded by executing ISIL jihadist prisoners.  Did ISIL think something else would happen?