This is a problem. Chaotic Evil death cults are, of course, horrid: but they also can be slaughtered with relative impunity. Lawful Evil cults, on the other hand, tend to want to stick around for a while. As we are seeing in the Middle East right now.
While no one is predicting that the Islamic State will become steward of an accountable, functioning state anytime soon, the group is putting in place the kinds of measures associated with governance: issuing identification cards for residents, promulgating fishing guidelines to preserve stocks, requiring that cars carry tool kits for emergencies. That transition may demand that the West rethink its military-first approach to combating the group.
Yes, I’m sure that the slave markets and sacrificial altars are being run with a basic efficiency and attention to detail, too. If I sound exasperated, it’s because I am. I’m partially exasperated at the Obama administration, which decided to just let this situation develop because it somehow figured out how to retroactively lose a war that George W Bush won; and I’m partially exasperated at the author of the article itself, who is apparently determined to somehow gild that particular lily by suggesting that Obama’s incompetence will eventually not matter.
And how am I certain about that? Easy: the author decided to write an article about the situation in Iraq and Syria without once mentioning the Kurds. Who are also setting up a state, while somehow managing not to throw gay people off of buildings and/or burn captured troops alive. The Kurds would also like some of the territory currently controlled by the death cultists. You’d think that even the New York Times would agree that this would be a good thing… if you actually thought that the New York Times has an agenda that aspires to something higher than Protect the Precious.
Yes. I’m really exasperated about this.
If ISIS has trains I’ll wager that they will run on time.
Being that trains and authoritarians seem to go well together.
Both things that the NYT does approve of.
If ISIS ran trains they’d execute engineers who ran late.
Did you miss the fact that they put out quarterly reports that make them look like a Fortune 500 company? On the other hand they do seem to be momentum driven. A few large victories with high body counts should cause them to crumble just like the Iraqi military. It would certainly end the influx of foreign fighters. The Kurds problem is they don’t have any Air or Armored forces. It’s hard to execute Blitzkrieg tactics with only infantry and from what I can tell only light infantry at that. So I think they are still Chaotic Evil but are adding a veneer of lawful organization to keep up morale and maintain stability. I believe there was a story recently about a local Isis leader who was executed for taking bribes. And they recently executed a bunch of fighters who survived a defeat by the Peshmerga. So I think the writer isn’t trying to give a complete picture he’s trying to gild the lily like you said.
Another minor point, when they toss a gay guy off a roof and he survives as I understand it Allah has judged him and he’s supposed to go free, not be stoned to death afterward because the fall failed to kill him as has happened a couple of times. The article was the equivalent of “Mussolini’s not so bad at least he got the trains to run on time” crap from the 1930’s.
I am reluctantly coming to the belief that Obama is not acting incompetently in this matter, but that events are proceeding more or less as he prefers…
I did not read the quoted article, but it seems to me that fighting a STATE would make the “military-first approach”, uh, lemme see, here… yeah, much, MUCH, easier.
I’m thinking it’s the whole here’s-the-border-everything-on-that-side-is-fair-game thing.
Did I miss something?
Yep.
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The DOD will use handcuff-grade ROE to “prevent unnecessary harm to civilians” … even if those same civilians approve entirely of their government and will happily stab a Marine in the back, given a chance.
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This ignores that, after the fighting’s over and we start reconstruction efforts, the civilians who couldn’t bring themselves to stab marines will be in a position to funnel aid to the nigh-inevitable insurgency.
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Mew