Some thoughts, several years before the start of the Tenth Crusade.

“History does not always repeat itself: sometimes it screams ‘Why won’t you ever listen to what I’m SAYING?’ and then hits you with a club.”

Michael Totten, on the looming danger of ISIS to Lebanon:

A serious invasion of Lebanon by ISIS could unleash a bloodbath that makes the civil war in Syria look like a bar fight with pool sticks and beer mugs. It would be tantamount to a Nazi invasion. Every family in Lebanon is armed to the gills thanks to the state being too weak and divided to provide basic security, but people anywhere in the world facing psychopathic mass-murderers will fight with kitchen knives and even their fingernails and teeth if they have to.

The only good thing that might emerge from an attempted ISIS invasion is that the eternally fractious Lebanese might finally realize they have enough in common with each other to band together for survival and kindle something that resembles a national identity for the first time in their history.

Continue reading Some thoughts, several years before the start of the Tenth Crusade.

The Activist Left’s Poor and Paltry Rhetorical Toolbox, ISIS edition.

This exchange really does say a lot:

…not least because it illustrates the primary problem with moral relativism: that is, that moral relativism does not have a goram clue about how to handle capital-E Evil. Oh, Good it can deal with all the time, mostly by ignoring/liberal-explaining it away; but pretending that Evil does not in fact exist does nothing from keeping Evil from doing, well, evil. Rationalizing this problem away can lead to some rather startling mental contortions. Continue reading The Activist Left’s Poor and Paltry Rhetorical Toolbox, ISIS edition.

State Department blames uptick in recent ritual human sacrifices on global unemployment rates.

Come, I will show you a wonder: Chris Matthews saying something that most of the people reading this will agree with*. Transcript via Right Scoop (video of all of this over there, too):

[CHRIS] MATTHEWS: Are we killing enough of them [Islamic State cultists]?

[State Department spokeswoman MARIE] HARF: 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 need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs, whether —

MATTHEWS: We’re not going to be able to stop that in our lifetime or fifty lifetimes. There’s always going to be poor people. There’s always going to be poor muslims, and as long as there are poor Muslims, the trumpet’s blowing and they’ll join. We can’t stop that, can we?

HARF: 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

Continue reading State Department blames uptick in recent ritual human sacrifices on global unemployment rates.

CNN/ORC: Americans getting unhappy over US response to the Islamic State Death Cult.

It’ll be interesting to see whether this poll is part of a trend:

The CNN/ORC poll found 57% of Americans disapprove of how Obama is handling the threat posed by ISIS, a significant decline in support for the President over the past few months. In late September, that number was 49%.

Fifty-seven percent disapprove of his handling of foreign affairs more broadly, and 54% disapprove of how the President is handling terrorism. Another 60% rate Obama negatively on his handling of electronic national security.

Continue reading CNN/ORC: Americans getting unhappy over US response to the Islamic State Death Cult.

Three things to take away from this Atlantic article on Islamic State.

In order:

  • Islamic State (IS) is, literally, an apocalyptic death cult. Which is to say, they believe that they are all going to die in a violent fashion that will lead to the end of the world; that the various atrocities that they commit in the process are all pleasing to the entity that they worship; and that there is no point to reason with IS on this, because they’re right and will gleefully die for their beliefs.  Your basic High Fantasy Evil-With-A-Capital-E Cult, in other words.
  • You probably didn’t need this Atlantic article to tell you this, although it’s nice to have the background material on the aforementioned death cult.  It’s a very detailed article, by the way. Well worth your time.
  • Under no circumstances should anybody who can write “I even enjoyed their company” after meeting one or more of IS’s High Priests should be allowed anywhere near a position of authority or responsibility or influence when it comes to American foreign policy. I understand and appreciate that author Graeme Wood went on to write “…and that frightened me as much as anything else,” but unfortunately better safe than sorry when it comes to possible ethical infections.

Continue reading Three things to take away from this Atlantic article on Islamic State.

Jordan REALLY wanted IS to understand that women helped kill a lot of death cultists today.

Admittedly, I am basing that solely off of the video images, given that I don’t speak Arabic.  But when I watched this:

Continue reading Jordan REALLY wanted IS to understand that women helped kill a lot of death cultists today.

Jordanians to reportedly to execute all of their IS prisoners…

…in retaliation for the Islamic State ritual sacrifice of Jordanian military pilot Moaz al-Kasasbe. Lt. al-Kasabe has been reportedly burned alive by the death cult: the New York Times is visibly ill at the idea of showing the footage to that, and I can’t make myself blame them*.  You need to know who you’re fighting; but some stuff you don’t need in your head.

No links to the reported plans because the Jordanian response is currently being reported at a level that’s just a half  step up from Internet rumors. But I will say this: we forget, sometimes, that the relatively civilized and not-entirely-grotesque state of foreign affairs that we ‘enjoy’ today is the product of a sixty-year American hegemony over half the world, and a twenty-year one over all of it.  Burning people alive is from older days.  Older, nastier days: it will be interesting to see whether Jordan decides to indicate that it’s going to go back to those days too when it comes to their response. I hope not: the pax Americana was a good thing, all around.  We’re going to miss it, when it’s finally gone…

Moe Lane

*Just that, though.  I can easily blame them for a whole other bunch of things that are related to this story.

More on Islamic State, the God-damned* death cult now running large sections of Iraq and Syria.

Remember when ‘ritual human sacrifice’ was an archaic term? …Yeah, I miss those days, too.

Yes, I am being perfectly serious.  You have probably all seen the image of Islamic State (IS) ritually slaying two gay men by throwing them off of a building, but I want you to look at this: Continue reading More on Islamic State, the God-damned* death cult now running large sections of Iraq and Syria.