Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I do advocate that. Our foreign policy is, I’d estimate, 30-50% responsible for terrorism of Islamic radicals.
Every American ought to hear that story in total. And the percentage of responsibility we own for it should be assessed.
The current good v. evil narrative we’re running is obvious bullshit. (Except as to ISIS. Those fuckers were a straight up death cult, preying on their fellow Muslims.)
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There is a degree to which ISIS' rather gruesome and extreme tactics are a logical response, to the Shock and Awe tactics used to project American hegemony in Iraq (I think that our military is very much aware of this and does take a lot of steps, especially in the civ-ops world, to minimize it).
If the fundamental message from those dropping bombs with the goal of replacing the existing political and military structure is "if you don't concede we will visit extraordinary terrors upon you from the air and from our overwhelming military force", then someone trying to build a political leadership structure to face that Shock and Awe force needs more shock and more awe to compete, and the message of "they may kill you quickly but we will enslave you, torture you, make your loved ones suffer, and then you'll be condemned to Hell for eternity" is what you may expect back. Couple this with the Bush Administration's determination that they would completely replace the Iraqi military and leave substantially all the trained military and police fighters in Iraq unemployed, and we did a really good job of laying out the powder and the detonator. There have been some excellent articles outlining such things as the pay scale of the ISIS army compared to alternative employment, but these don't get the play the little performances by some of the cretins you favor get.
It's not all cause and effect from the US, there are plenty of other contributing factors to the likes of ISIS, but I wouldn't assume ISIS is some kind of irrational cult like American evangelicals.
