ISIS on the offensive in Iraq

[Rhyfelwyr]

Oh for goodness' sake. Why do we keep talking about the Islamic world as if it is in some sort of permanent state of apocalyptic war, as if every guy on the street is strapped with C4 and runs around shouting "derka derka jihad a jihad!"?

Across most of the Islamic world right now, most people are living peaceful lives and are concerned only with getting their breakfast and getting to work on time.

Are we forgetting what Europe looked like within our grandparents' lifetimes? The massive wars that were waged continually for hundreds of years? The bloody revolutions? The ethnic cleansing? The suppressed revolts?

The Islamic world is just working through some things the same way we did in Europe. I've said before I think what is going on there is a sort of mixture of a Reformation/Counter-Reformation on the one hand, and 20th-Century style ideological wars on the other. It has went from being a land of goat herders to having a fairly substantial and well-educated middle-class - they are flirting with nationalism, ideology and populist religion in the exact same way the people of Europe did when they first became exposed to them. They will also move on from these things eventually, just like we did in Europe.

When did the latest technology become handheld cameras and bad photoshop?

We care because, for whatever reason, these stories are being latched onto. 2 vets under 30 a day commit suicide (BY THE GOVERNMENTS admission). They come home, get their hand shook by some gelatinous vietnam era draft dodger "thanking them for their service", and get a 10% discount at Luby's. Then they blow their brains out and everyone shakes their head and says "how sad". Then they turn on CNN and demand we send toops back. Pathetic.

Im over it. I wash my hands of it.

All we have to show for two wars is more debt and a bunch of dead young men. I wish I could tell you. Well, I wish I could say it was all part of some grander plan. At least that would satisfy my need for a bad guy. We are in there because people thought it looked good on a chess broad.

I didn't say anything about whether or not we should be sending troops back again.

But on the technology point, I would say that the way that ISIS uses social media and the like to deliberately manipulate Western media and create a certain image for itself is unprecedented amongst similar groups. I suspect that the decision to have a man with a strong British accent carry out the recent beheadings was another of their propaganda ploys - they will have known that having a Briton do it would make it stand out above a regular Iraqi/Syrian Arab. Everything they do is about grabbing the headlines. That's why people are talking about them.