There are no words.
From the BBC:
Jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS) have burned to death 45 people in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, the local police chief says.
Exactly who these people were and why they were killed is not clear, but Col Qasim al-Obeidi said he believed some were members of the security forces.
IS fighters captured much of the town, near Ain al-Asad air base, last week.
Col Obeidi said a compound that houses the families of security personnel and local officials was now under attack.
He pleaded for help from the government and the international community.
The fighting and poor communications in the area make it difficult to confirm such reports.
This comes just two weeks after the world stood aghast at footage released by ISIS showing Jordanian pilot Moath al-Ksasbah locked in a cage and burned alive; and just days after another video showed the brutal beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Iraq.
Al-Baghdadi and the base at Ain al-Asad together compose a key location in the United States’ partnership against ISIS. Ain al-Asad is home to over 300 Marines and other military personnel tasked with training Iraqi troops; before last week, Al-Baghdadi was one of just a handful of areas in Anbar province still controlled by the Iraqi government. Now, the town is firmly in the hands of insurgents, and ISIS forces are busy moving both man and firepower into the region from strongholds in Syria.
This is why we’re fighting—and why many Americans are so disgusted with the Obama Administration’s rhetoric about the current conflict in the Middle East.
Earlier today, Kemberlee Kaye shined light on State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf’s disastrous interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Go read the whole thing, but here’s a snippet that exemplifies the problem with our response:
We’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians. They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war.
We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people. You’re right. There is no easy solution in the longterm to preventing and combating violent extremism. But if we can help countries work at the root causes of this. What makes these 17 year old kids pick up an AK-47 instead of trying to start a business, maybe we can try to chip away at this problem, while at the same time, going after the threat, taking on ISIL in Iraq, in Syria and helping our partners around the world.
Here’s the problem. Anyone who has done any meaningful study at all into how radical insurgencies grow knows that poverty and top-down neglect both contribute a great deal to an insurgent’s ability to attract and retain other potential insurgents. So, thanks, Marie, for proof that at least someone at the State Department has read a book in the last decade.
But most people, for better or for worse, don’t know that, and furthermore, don’t really give a damn about the root causes of international terrorism. All they know is that 45 people were burned alive, that 21 people had their heads sawed off, that an American aid worker was held prisoner and then killed, and that the people who did those things are still on the loose while Obama uses words like “despicable” and “cowardly” and “reject” instead of something along the lines of, “If you continue to do this we will wipe you from the face of the planet.”
Jordan and Egypt are currently bombing the hell out of key ISIS targets, and in the process not pulling any punches about what’s really going on. Aleister pointed out in an earlier post that most Americans disapprove of the way Obama is handling the ISIS threat—I wonder why?
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Comments
At this point, I would be saying:
Because of everything you did, we will wipe you from the face of the planet.
Don’t give them an opportunity to do it again.
Don’t wait till they do it again.
They did enough already.
we’ve been hearing this poverty excuse about islam for decades.
didn’t expect to see an enabler here.
they kill like this because they want to and their religion gives them a built in excuse.
just as it has for centuries.
even in regions where they controlled all the wealth.
how many more have to die before people wake the hell up?
the root cause is islam.
simple.
Funny how they ignore that a number of the radicals are living among us, or in first world Europe.
They have access to education.
They have access to jobs.
What the heck!!
They have access to welfare and government handouts !!!!!!
And still they get on a plane and go enlist to commit heinous acts of terror. Tiny little detail that doesn’t fit the narrative: ignore and deny.
Cognitive dissonance can be a real biatch.
An awful lot of Islamic terrorists to hit the West have been well-educated financially comfortable professionals: doctors, engineers….
I doubt a free Obamaphone would have changed anything.
“And still they get on a plane and go enlist to commit heinous acts of terror.”
You missed a small point. When they go ‘over there’ they are beyond the reach of anybody who would stop them from killing. So they can put on a ski mask, do what they enjoy doing, and later come back and pick up where they left off.
They pay no price for the thrill of killing. The only part I’m unsure about is whether there is a sexual aspect to what they do.
It’s past time to apply the Old Yeller solution to these rabid vermin. All of them, where they are found. And their families.
“I want a decent job!” shouted the Army Psychiatrist as he killed 12 and wounded 31 at Fort Hood.
If only Osama bin Laden hadn’t been born the child of poor, black sharecroppers …
My father and his parents left the coal mines of Scotland in 1931 to escape the brutal poverty and dirth of hope for better. Illiterate, my grandfather was unaware that he was bringing his family into America during the Great Depression. Of course, what happened next was obvious and eminently predictable to scholarly superbrains like Marie Harf and her compatriots in the White House. Saddled in poverty, my grandfather, grandmother, and my father, a boy of six at the time, bombed neighborhoods in the Detroit area, walked along the downtown streets randomly shooting non-coal miners and the occasional Irish bastard. They drew up posters declaring their hatred of all things Detroit and nailed them to posts all over the city. Their reign of terror went on for several years. Thousands died. Boy, was it a big mess.
And then one day it happened. Henry Ford himself offered my grandfather a job – and he took it. After a couple weeks of popping hubcaps onto Fords coming down the line he was nailing down a full paycheck and often got overtime pay for extra hours he worked. He slowly lost his affinity for bombing, raping, pillaging, and killing. By 1937 they were killing maybe 2-3 people a week, tops. Then my grandmother got a job at a downtown greengrocers. Within a year they weren’t killing anyone at all.
That’s all it took, a couple jobs, to end the terror. You folks would do well to heed my family’s history and give insightful geniuses like Marie Harf a more thorough listen, eh?
“He slowly lost his affinity for bombing, raping, pillaging, and killing.”
Ach, mon. Na tru’ Scotsman, tha’…!!!
Wanker!
This is why we need a stimulus package for ISIS. It can be shovel ready and cost less than a trillion dollars.
ahh Henry, you always add such a good perspective.
that reign of terror in detroit was surely scary, the world was glad to see it stop.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Actually, I made up a lot of that story.
“We cannot kill our way out of this war.” So, finally! Even a typical Obama administration imbecile (who’s characteristically managed to go directly from graduate school to the public payroll) admits it’s a war.
It’s a start.
All Harf said was that Obama’s current strategy isn’t working, but what would work ain’t gonna happen before 2017 if Obama can do anything to prevent it.
Last I checked, Osama bin Laden had a family business, and a LOT of money. He wasn’t the only one. And, the people being recruited are not necessarily po’ folk.
Before we jumped to conclusions we need to debate what the motivation was for this act and whether the persons doing the burning were acting alone . . .
Islamic terrorists are not poverty-stricken fools. The leadership of Islamic terror groups are the most educated of the bunch, because the “best” education in a Muslim country includes the most thorough grounding in the texts and tenets of Islam. They brilliantly play the Western media and subvert our political systems.
Obama, the UN, Peter Beinart and Jodi Rudoren of the NY Times will no doubt blame all this on the Jews.
If you think the Islamic State is just another terror organization like al Qaeda or the IRA, you’re dead wrong. al-Baghdadi has proclaimed himself to be the caliph, and according to Islamic teachings has the legitimacy to do so. He is ushering in an era in which all Muslims are required to follow the exact, literal teachings of Muhammad. They want the apocalypse to happen. They plan on being nearly defeated in Syria and coming back to defeat Western powers in Jerusalem. They are dangerous. They do not need jobs. They do not need welfare. They need to be killed–every. single. one. of. them.
*Disclaimer: I do not usually read The Atlantic but this article is very enlightening. http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
These guys are just the thug de jure for the ring of hell known as the middle east. History is riddled with them.
Bullies with guns trampling peasants who refuse to shoot back.
Message to the locals:
Pick up a gun and shoot these bastards. The calvary is not coming to your rescue. You are on your own.
We had our troops there. We had PMCs there. You got mad because our guys “violated the rights” of these monsters. Many of our brothers, sons and fathers are dead, many others are injured, a few others are actually in jail for handling these devils with the actions needed.
We armed you. We trained you. You set down your weapons and surrendered. If you think I’m sending my son over to save your ass, you’ve got a long wait.
Pick up a gun and fight. They aim to kill and oppress you. I suggest you and your family and friends take the appropriate actions to be sure that doesn’t happen.
You have lived in a war zone for the past 40 years, I’m pretty sure these actions are not new to you. You may die, but do so with the satisfaction that 10 of them died trying to make that happen.
But look on the bright side.
They are not part of the western empire, nor are they suffering under an occupier who is there only for the oil.