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ISIS and Horror
We all laugh at The New York Times, but Rukmini Callimachi’s reporting reminds me of its ability to be a great newspaper. Her story today on the front page is so sickening that even the Times’ loyal readers — to judge by the comments — are beginning to grasp that some problems in the world are morally more important than others:
The Islamic State’s formal introduction of systematic sexual slavery dates to Aug. 3, 2014, when its fighters invaded the villages on the southern flank of Mount Sinjar, a craggy massif of dun-colored rock in northern Iraq.
Its valleys and ravines are home to the Yazidis, a tiny religious minority who represent less than 1.5 percent of Iraq’s estimated population of 34 million.
The offensive on the mountain came just two months after the fall of Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq. At first, it appeared that the subsequent advance on the mountain was just another attempt to extend the territory controlled by Islamic State fighters.
Almost immediately, there were signs that their aim this time was different.
Survivors say that men and women were separated within the first hour of their capture. Adolescent boys were told to lift up their shirts, and if they had armpit hair, they were directed to join their older brothers and fathers. In village after village, the men and older boys were driven or marched to nearby fields, where they were forced to lie down in the dirt and sprayed with automatic fire.
The women, girls and children, however, were hauled off in open-bed trucks.
Peter Brooks asks in the Boston Herald,
What’s our plan for when the regime of Syria’s Bashar Assad falls?
Yes, I said “falls.”
I wonder too.
Published in Foreign Policy, General, Islamist Terrorism
Enjoy what you see on your TVs, America. You voted for it. Twice. And then, when you don’t feel like being bothered any more, turn your TVs off.
Great post! Out of Sight, Out of Mind.
Thanks for this.
from the Boston Globe article
Wow. I’d like to hear the difference between what the bad actors would bring to Syria as opposed to pure chaos?
Pure chaos might be preferable.
Does the Obama administration think that the chaotic bad actors in Syria will be confined, or content to remain confined, once they gain power?
Secondly, There is a specific beginning point to sexual slavery by ISIS? or is August 2014 just when people began paying attention?
How would our fight against ISIS connect with our fight against Iran? Same theater, related players. Can we really treat them as separate conflicts?
And yes, I’m assuming war with Iran. Thanks, President Obama.
Just a few passages. More here.
Answering Muslims
So yes, those ISIS animals are acting EXACTLY as instructed by Mohammed.
Claire,
Yes, I coined the phrase micro-genocide to castigate the left but it is not enough. When the gang raped girls and women are committing suicide begging for direct airstrikes to end it all like the Jews in the concentration camps, I am fresh out of rhetoric.
Regards,
Jim
After reading this story along with the others this morning, you just feeling like weeping – I do. But God can’t use wimps – we can’t wait for the mainstream leaders, news outlets etc. to keep ringing their hands and wondering how to handle while a holocaust reappears. I sometimes can’t believe its 2015 and I am witnessing this. I wish every Christian denomination as well as Jewish leadership would form a million person march on Washington demanding solutions for the people being persecuted who have no voice – add the advocates for life too.
After knowing what took place during WWII in secret, we have no excuses since its all there front and center. The Church is begging for help – our leader goes golfing and not a word in a press conference, no plan given to the American people and world. Thank you Claire for your reporting on the Middle East including Turkey and this situation.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/kidnapped-priest-killed-chopped-up-by-isis-as-christians-become-a-form-of-currency-in-mid-east-war-says-aid-to-the-church-in-need-142658/
I didn’t do this reporting, Rukmini Callimachi did. And she managed to get this story on to the front page of The New York Times. It’s been e-mailed even more than the story about Ticks: Summer’s Unwanted Guests. So perhaps it made a few people blink.
The oddest disconnect I see on the world stage is the existence of ISIS and how it treats women, religious and ethnic minorities and yet there is this rabid insistence on focusing on small ball issues like micro-aggression here at home.
It’s like the people who faint at the idea of a bikini-clad model on a advertisement don’t pay any attention to the neo-barbarians right on their doorstep.
Many Americans and British didn’t want America and it Allies entering the WW2 European theater.
Thankfully we had leaders who lead.
I like to think I’ve got a strong stomach where this stuff is concerned but I couldn’t get past the first few paragraphs. There has to be something about the way this religion is being used that is making this sort of atrocity possible. I suppose it will only be discovered by moderate Muslims since the subject is taboo in the area formerly known as Christendom. Thank goodness it’s getting this much publicity although these people seem to delight in the display.
At every utterance of the absurdity “war on women” all Republican candidates should agree among themselves to immediately turn to the subject to radical Islam’s brutalality towards, and sexual slavery of young girls and women. They would do the country a great service by stuffing the press (Fox News included), attacking one of the Left’s most hollow and divisive arguments, and perhaps by educating young women who are patronized by this notion that their lives and rights are (apparently) under deadly assault by other Americans.
No Republican should respond to the war on woman question unless in the context of the depraved, horrific treatment of females occurring daily in the good old Middle East.
Given real events in this world, the so called war on women seems like a big fat target .
Any ideas on how to get our candidates to communicate and agree?
I think it’s more important to focus on electing a candidate who has a plan for destroying ISIS than one who has a plan for telling Americans that they shouldn’t be silly about this war on women business.
I don’t know how to communicate, but I think in spite of the #BringBackOurGirls twit campaign, the victims of ISIS are not truly perceived as “ours.” That is the only explanation I have.
As far as the PTB/elites/etc are concerned the more backwards Christians are dead the better. As long as those that believe in religion kill each other off who cares?
CLAIRE, I don’t disagree with your ultimate point. It seems to me it only broadens the argument not only against the Left, but in favor of what I think many of us know which is, we are ultimately going to have to fight and destroy these people and their organizations.
I am looking for the candidate who can best take this on.
JULES PA, true “the Sisters” are no more a block than the Brothers. They are not our own. My thought is the total hypocrisy of the left on this subject of protecting women, is a target. From where I sit the only way I can have an effect on ISIS is to elect someone dedicated to destroying it. The more light shed on the ineptitude of the dems., especially on this subject, the better. Enough said . The point of The NYT article, is of course the real subject here.
The Obama administration has stated over and over that they will not start a new war; if he does, then his “legacy” is in danger. He has also come out against the Hassad regime. Therefore he’s put himself into a corner. He supports ISIS fighters in Syria, and but opposes them in Yemen.
We should prepare for the fall of Hassad and that parts of Syria and Iraq will be mini Afghanistans for terrorism. Christians will be wiped out (Hassad did leave them alone for the most part) in that region, and we will have a repeat of 2001 all over again.
Jeb Bush just had a fine speech on getting America re-involved in Iraq and the middle east, which is exactly what is needed to stop this ISIS horror, and yet I saw dozens of conservatives knock his speech and American involvement. Those who criticize Obama from doing nothing are being hypocritical if you knock Jeb’s aggressive plan. We’ve got to stop Islamic terror and stabilize the middle east, and the only way to do it is to be there. American leadership is vital.
I would participate in this.
I guess it is good that this story is getting out there, but then again this isn’t a new story. People have reported about ISIS’ open air slave markets for some time now. These people are pure and utter evil, and they will not stop of their own accord. They will rape and kill for as long as they are able, because as the article quotes “it pleases God.”
no, we didn’t we were directly attacked. but, if we hadn’t been, the US would have sat on their hands even longer. sadly, we sat back with our Ocean Privilege, as Gutfeld calls it, and enjoyed our own safety. and ignored the horror happening all over the world.
Germany to the Jews and associates, and Japan, as we found, committed atrocities every bit as horror filled against civilians and later to our soldiers, as the psychopaths being nursed by daesh.
and we sit.
And we will continue to sit, as long as Obama is in charge.
In the name of multiculturalism we spend millions importing these barbarians to places like Rothenham or Malmo or Minneapolis instead of spending the funds on helping to rescue these girls where they live. God will judge us.
Looking over the NYT recommended reader comments on this piece it strikes me that they are quite effective at illustrating the starkly different world views of the Left and the Right in this country today.
So the wisdom of the crowd comprising NYT readers have concluded this outrage can be indirectly attributed to the United States itself and more directly to anyone foolish enough to have not embraced atheism unless that individual is a follower of Muhammad.
A stark gap indeed.
Interesting — those are the “NYT pick” comments, but not representative of the comments generally.
Karon, agreed. Before Pearl Harbor occurred Churchill was facing massive resistance at home to intervene and unsuccessfully lobbied Roosevelt multiple times to secure America’s intervention. FDR was just happy to financially support the allies. The British people across a thin strip of water from the conflict had Chamberlain stating the absurd.
America, still reeling from the Depression, was isolationist. Right after Pearl Harbor Germany declared war on the U.S. but there was not an attack by Germany. Many believe it was Churchill’s insistence that pushed FDR toward war.
My point was there were large numbers of Americans and British who wanted nothing to do with fighting Hitlers expansion using the same non-interventionism we hear today. If America, Britain and Russia did not lead, I would not be here today.
Culled from their “Reader’s Picks”, it does not appear that the NYT’s own editorial view is misrepresenting the views of their readership.
Could be. Scroll through the comments at large, though.
What surprises me about some of the comments is that a many readers really do seem only to be hearing about this for the first time.
The religion is not being used, it is the religion. Go to citizenwarrior.com and study.