Another one that hurts

In your view, then, we should separate our analysis of ISIS when it supports and promotes terrorism in the West, from our analysis of it when it operates in its own back yard in Syria/Iraq ? Does that not lead to a severely selective conclusion ?

1.61803 writes:ISIL has to be stopped. Why? Because they are fuckin stuff up and killing people and all manner of bad things.

But then we're being selective about analysing individuals within ISIS.

To view those attacks as separated from the depravity which ISIS exhibits in Syria/Iraq is to paint a highly selective picture of those who carry out the attacks.

It would be like focusing upon Halliburton's charitable donations (I'm assuming it makes some), whilst putting into a different box the billions it made from the Iraq war.

Percy writes:You can ignore me.

Percy writes:This isn't the topic

Percy writes:. . . supposedly immoral prime minister

I don't think they're cartoon evil baddies either and I think treating them as such doesn't seem like the path of least blood to me.

ProtoTypical writes:You cant execute doctors and aid workers under the banner of respect for life.

Nevertheless, I would disagree with your conclusion.

If we allow the sorts of rhetoric you quoted earlier (which paints terrorists as noble freedom fighters, with holy character and unassailable morality) to be separated from the amoral depravity that is the actual reality of the organisation which wants to recruit idealistic young potential bombers, then we make the job easier for them.

vimesey writes:If on the othrr hand we emphasise that the self-same ISIS which wants to give you your AK47s and IEDs is also raping, murdering, beating and torturing innocent people, including other Muslims, I suggest that the recruitment spiel becomes less attractive.

So, hypothetically, if the US was guilty of fuckin stuff up and killing people and all manner of bad things, like ISIL is doing, you would strongly urge similar consequences to the US, right?

My conclusion is that western suicide terrorists do indeed value life.

My apologies for not being clearer - I was referring to your conclusion that treating them as baddies (I prefer to say "part of a depraved organisation", but just because the word "baddies" utterly fails to capture it) is not the path to least blood.

I am quite sure that a number of actual and potential recruits are idealistic and captivated by the sorts of rhetoric you've quoted.

But I do not think that we assist ourselves by ignoring the murders, rapes, torture that ISIS is perpetrating.

~1.6 writes:Suicide bombers, blowing themselves up because they are more committed to their causes is no more laudable than Hitlers cowardly act of shooting himself hunkering in a bunker.

~1.6 writes:Whether you like it or not there is a right side and a wrong side....

~1.6 writes:Fuck them and anyone who wants to legitimize them.

1.61803 writes:Most all countries have a horrid violent hegemonic past.

1.61803 writes:Your ability to sit back in your safe comfy home spewing pacifist simplistic diatribes on your computer is of course a direct result of someone else doing the very things you find abhorrent.

Modulous writes:Do you suppose that once they are persuaded by the jihadists, they lose their emotions?

The Islamic State group on Thursday posted online a gruesome video showing six of its child soldiers killing Syrian security forces held captive by the jihadists.Titled "To the Sons of Jews," the slickly-produced video shows dozens of boys, who appeared to be about 10 years old, studying religious texts and learning hand-to-hand combat.Six of the boys are chosen by their instructor to "send a message" to IS's opponents by executing security forces held by the group.IS's "Cubs of the Caliphate" programme provides intense military and religious training to children throughout the jihadist group's areas of control in Syria.Although child soldiers have been typically used to man checkpoints or gather intelligence, IS has been increasingly using them to execute prisoners.In the video, each of the six selected boys is depicted individually running through a crumbling fortress, with dramatic music and grim action shots, until he finds a captive.Footage appears of each captive giving his name, his year of birth and describing his role in the security forces or in pro-government militia.The boys are then each shown killing the captives. Five are shot to death, and one has his throat slit.

Only the likes of psychopaths really value life cheaply, and I would imagine they rarely kill themselves for causes.