{"id":39,"date":"2015-02-16T15:17:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T21:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/isis-have-you-seen-these-links.html"},"modified":"2015-02-24T21:14:20","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T03:14:20","slug":"isis-have-you-seen-these-links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/isis-have-you-seen-these-links.html","title":{"rendered":"ISIS: have you seen these links?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cWhat ISIS really wants<\/a>,\u201d from The Atlantic, is a pretty in-depth profile of ISIS and its supporters, which says pretty clearly that the Islamic State is, indeed, Islamic, and simply takes the teachings of mainstream Islam to their logical conclusion, that Muslims are compelled to support a theocracy such as they have declared, and wage war to expand its borders.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the author is pretty fatalistic about what the West can do about it, other than, basically, wait it out.<\/p>\n

Which is a reaction that we haven\u2019t seen in a while. \u00a0Beheadings? \u00a0Enslavement? \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not our battle.\u201d \u00a0\u201cWe\u2019d probably make it worse.\u201d \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not worth American lives.\u201d \u00a0Really? <\/p>\n

Yes, of course, we have a long tradition of not-our-problem-ism, beginning with the Holocaust. \u00a0And in the case of Rwanda, the West again sat on our collective hands. \u00a0\u201cIsn\u2019t that terrible what\u2019s happening there?\u201d \u00a0\u201cCan\u2019t be helped.\u201d<\/p>\n

In how many times, in how many places, have we in the West shrugged off genocide and mass murder? \u00a0I suppose if I thought a bit harder I could come up with counter-examples, when we truly could do nothing, and, of course, there are the cases when intervening may have made things worse, such as our bombing in Libya that toppled the regime but left a void for Islamic extremists to fill.<\/p>\n

But sometimes it seems like there\u2019s a calculus: \u00a0what\u2019s the value of an American soldier\u2019s life? \u00a0Is there a trade-off: \u00a0military intervention is acceptable if each such death can save the lives of 100 or 1,000, or 100,000 innocent civilians elsewhere to would otherwise be put to death or enslaved? \u00a0No guarantees? \u00a0Then it\u2019s a non-starter.<\/p>\n

Mind you, the White House goes a step further, and, as quoted by Breitbart<\/a>, even denies the reality of what happened this weekend, with the murder of 21 Coptic Christians by ISIS in Libya, deliberately targeted for their faith. \u00a0The press statement<\/a> refers to these martyrs as only \u201cEgyptian citizens,\u201d as if it was merely a coincidence that they all shared a Christian faith. \u00a0(More details in this Reuters article<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

And while the statement calls on the international community to \u201cunite against ISIL\u201d \u2014 but at the same time, the President\u2019s request for military authorization is so watered down as to raise the question of whether Obama is particularly interested in winning. \u00a0As the Chicago Tribune\u2019s editorial today<\/a> said,<\/p>\n

The president wants permission to engage, but he also wants Congress to tie his hands. He\u2019s asking Congress to sign off on a plan to fight a limited war that excludes \u201cenduring offensive ground combat operations.\u201d He would tie the hands of the next president by setting a three-year expiration on the resolution. . . \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Few people anticipate a substantial deployment of U.S. ground troops, \u201cenduring\u201d or not. But no one can predict how the war to defeat Islamic State will go. It\u2019s a chaotic situation, involving an unpredictable foe against a coalition that includes a feeble Iraqi force and a motley collection of militias in one of the most unstable regions of the globe.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Congress should give the president broader authority. Taking away options and setting a timetable constrains our ability, complicates later decision-making and helps the enemy.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Give the president the authority he needs, not the authority he seeks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last link: The Anchoress offers us a prayer<\/a>, recognizing that, in the Catholic tradition, these victims are martyrs, killed for their faith.<\/p>\n

And last observation: \u00a0I suppose you can tell when a cause is of great concern to those on the right, but not so much those on the left, because there doesn\u2019t even appear to be a hashtag with when one can tweet one\u2019s outrage. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat ISIS really wants,\u201d from The Atlantic, is a pretty in-depth profile of ISIS and its supporters, which says pretty clearly that the Islamic State is, indeed, Islamic, and simply takes the teachings of mainstream Islam to their logical conclusion, that Muslims are compelled to support a theocracy such as they have declared, and wage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-isis"],"yoast_head":"\nISIS: have you seen these links?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""What ISIS really wants," from The Atlantic, is a pretty in-depth profile of ISIS and its supporters, which says pretty clearly that the Islamic State is,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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