Two of the most interesting pieces concerning what has happened with regard to ISIS have come from The Atlantic and The Nation. I advise reading both, especially as The Nation’s piece is an attempt to rebut the first article.
Tag ISIS
I am reposting this in response to the terror attacks in France last night, resulting in the deaths of over one hundred people. As ever, the internet is awash with right-wing shouts to “kill all Muslims” and refugees, to the left-wing shouts that it is the Imperial West to blame and not Islam or Muslims. Neither of these positions are correct. It is obviously thoroughly complex, indeed involving international politics. However, to deny the Qu’ran, Muhammad and the Hadith causal responsibility in these atrocities is to deny the self-determination of those very terrorists who claim that they are doing these actions in the name of Islam and their god.
Evan T made this incisive comment: I wonder when the UN is going to get off their collective asses and…
The archaeologist who looked after ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria for 40 years is reported to have been killed by Islamic State (IS) militants.
Khaled al-Asaad had been held for about a month by the group, which seized the Unesco World Heritage site in May.
Tunisia’s second attack in recent times has left the country reeling, and British tour operators pulling out for the next week, at least. This has been the biggest attack on and death of British people in a terrorist attack since the 7/7 bombings in London and the country has been rocked. But not as much as Tunisia itself will be rocked.
I was trying to work out what is going on in Syria, and what the implications of rebel victory were, as well as who, exactly, the rebels were in light of media bias.
I came across this article from an interesting source called EA WorldView (based in the University of Birmingham, UK).
I actually felt sick watching this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RMPJPjtlNg Motherfuckers. Video description: Mosul, the biggest city in the Islamic State group’s self-declared…
I am engaged in many conversations and debates across multiple platforms on the internet. At the moment, and in general recently, I have been wrapped up in many debates with my fellow liberals. The subject has been Islam and as to whether it is in some culpable proportion responsible for the violent extremism which is taking place across the globe. From the Middle East and ISIS (incorporating a number of different countries) to France and the Charlie Hedbo events; from Nigeria and Boko Haram to Kenya and Somalia with al Shabaab, things are not looking good.
This is a really interesting BBC article looking at violent extremism and its sudden apparent arrival on the scene: Boko…
Before I get stuck in, I want to emphasise how I am a liberal commentator and am happy to be shown where I am wrong; I do not want to level accusations at Islam which are wrong and which have developed out of a biased media caricature of what Islam is. It is easy to fire from the emotional hip and to rely on emotional social identity theory of ‘us and them’ such that I present an attack on Islam which is either straw man or unwarranted.
Moreover, there is an issue here with the while notion of causality, something which I have looked at in the post “Have I ever killed someone?” I will not so much deal with that in huge depth here as I want to look at the two ideas in unison in the next post on this matter.