AlterNet
6 Keys to Understanding ISIS' Barbarism, Apocalyptic Vision and Desire for an End-Times Battle in Syria
Stephen Rosenfeld
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Stephen Rosenfeld — 6 Keys to Understanding ISIS' Barbarism, Apocalyptic Vision and Desire for an End-Times Battle in Syria
AlterNet
6 Keys to Understanding ISIS' Barbarism, Apocalyptic Vision and Desire for an End-Times Battle in Syria
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
OT, but related to Syria & economics. Tragedy of the commons in Syria.
.
"Civil war in Syria is the result of the desertification of the ecologically fragile Syrian steppe, writes Gianluca Serra - a process that began in 1958 when the former Bedouin commons were opened up to unrestricted grazing. That led to a wider ecological, hydrological and agricultural collapse, and then to a 'rural intifada' of farmers and nomads no longer able to support themselves.
"In 2009, I dared to forecast that if the rampant desertification process gripping the Syrian steppe was not halted soon, it could eventually become a trigger for social turmoil and even for a civil war."
Hardly OT, Dan.
There are a lot of factors involved in matters social and isolating causes and ranking variables is difficult — therefore, the plethora of theories.
Americans are fed the line about the Islamic state not being a real state, not being real Islam and all that. The media trots out a local Muslim to say they don't support this type of Islam and they are frustrated having to continuously defend Islam from criticism. And that is that. Not polite conversation, most are good. It's comforting to think that everyone are really peace loving, liberal minded people if only given a democratic chance. A few bad apples, mental illness and that is all.
Not true though. ISIS are Islam in its purist form where the words of the prophet are followed in the most absolute literal meaning, nevermind the 1383 years since his death. And they strictly follow interpretations of the greatest early leaders of Islam.
A few months ago, I read alot of their stuff, bookmarked many of their websites and everything is gone and scrubbed clean from Google. What impressed me at the time was that everything was translated into multiple languages, perfectly. It would take thousands of hours of painstaking work to make careful, thoughtful translations like they had. The comment sections were active and carefully mediated by well spoken, patient, educated people. Their social media accounts are gone.
The words of muhammed and teachings about his words are horrifying and the culture, morality and violence of the 7th century is completely foreign to westerners today. It's why I think they should leave the materials up. More people need to read religious texts from the period. It is the same barbaric stuff that exists in old biblical christian texts.
Our supposedly free & open two party government is able to completely remove and scrub this content from existence without breaking a law? Freedom of speech and religion doesn't extend out to forms of religion and types of speech that threaten the two party government and liberalism, I guess.
The secular regimes in the ME have exacted their share of barbarism, no distinction to be made there. Also note that ISIS supporters include Baathists, who were not known for their religiosity.
Post a Comment