German journalist embedded with ISIL: Since 2001-"We Have "Created Terrorists & Increased Terrorism"

[kpete]

Q&A: German journalist on surviving ISIL
Al Jazeera spoke to Jurgen Todenhofer who embedded with ISIL fighters - and lived to tell about it.


I had three strong impressions of ISIL. The first one was that ISIL is much stronger than we think. They have conquered an area which is bigger than Great Britain. Every day, hundreds of new enthusiastic fighters are arriving. There is an incredible enthusiasm that I have never seen in any other war zones that I have been to.

Secondly, the brutality of their intended religious cleansing is on another level. And thirdly, I think the strategy of the western countries regarding the Muslim world is completely wrong. With our bombardment, we have never been successful. We have not been successful in Afghanistan; we have not been successful in Iraq. The bombardments are a terror-breeding programme. We had much fewer terrorists before 2001 and these bombardments, which killed hundreds of thousands of people have created terrorists and increased terrorism.

MORE (just as we have been saying here at DU: We have created terrorists & Increased Terrorism:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/2014/12/qa-german-journalist-surviving-isil-20141224164752725983.html

[hootinholler]

1. Needs a kick for sanity n/t

[WillyT]

2. K & R !!!

[whatchamacallit]

3. September 12 - A Toy World

An old flash game illustrating the folly of our foreign policy. The object of the game is to try to position the reticle to "surgically" strike terrorists (white keffiyeh) among the general population. When you hit civilians, and you will, some of their mourners transform into terrorists. Try as you might, your actions inevitably skew the population ratio to terrorists because you create more than you kill. Truly brilliant.

Short video
http://m.

Link to actual game
http://www.gamesforchange.org/play/september-12th-a-toy-world/

[JonLP24]

8. +a billion

Terrific find

[Blue_Tires]

4. Sadly, he doesn't answer any of the questions I would have had for him

and some of his remarks are not just overly simplistic, they are blurring the line between proper analysis and propaganda...Although that bullshit meme of "The West did X-Y-Z to Islamic nations, so they are justified in terrorism" is gaining popularity, but it's a dangerous road because once you start perpetuating that overly generalized but-the-other-guy-did-something-first circle, then all of a sudden European cities are justified in protesting and cracking down against Muslim immigrants...

Still, if there is a further in-depth interview of him somewhere, I'd be interested in seeing it...

EDIT: Meanwhile, IS is about to slaughter a group of Japanese hostages because of Japan's nonstop bombing of their regio- Oh, wait...So when does DU finally wake the fuck up and stop making apologies for terrorism?

[sabrina 1]

5. Why do you object to what WE did while trying to defend it apparently? 'The other guy did something

first' was exactly what was used to begin the illegal, immoral slaughter in Iraq.

I agree with you, that WAS NOT A REASON that should ever have been used to start such a horrible war.

BUT IT WAS and IT WORKED. It got support from 70% of the American people.

'Look what those bad guys did to us. Now we can kill hundreds of thousands of them in the wrong country because they DID IT FIRST'

Thanks for reminding me of why most of those smart enough to see what would happen, tried so hard to STOP them from using the crimes of a few to bring their horrific WMDs to a country that had nothing to do with it anyhow.

But they knew that. They lied. And untold numbers of people died and were tortured all because 'they did it first'.

[Blue_Tires]

9. So the real question is, how to break the cycle?

Brighter minds than my own will have to figure that one out...

[sabrina 1]

13. Politicians who are not beholden to donations from Corporations, including Defense Contractors is

all we need to break the cycle.

Refusing to vote for those who continue the cycle, for the war mongers, the Hawks etc, is how to do it. But so long as people say 'well, I'm not happy about (fill in the blank) candidate but I will hold my nose because the other guy is worse, that is all that is needed to keep the cycle going.

Voters appear to have decided they won't do that anymore. They are focusing their attention on where they have some power still, in their local communities, building from the ground up and refusing to reelect those who are not interested in their issues because 'they are better than the worst'.

I have hope that now the system has been completely exposed, we can begin the process, and have, of tearing it down and rebuilding our own party so it reflects the voters rather than the war mongering Corporations who up to now have been controlling DC.

[Scuba]

15. +1

[jwirr]

6. What he is saying is quite obvious - they are using us to recruit fighters all over the world. No

one is apologizing for terrorists. What is being explained is that THEY are angry because of X-Y-Z and they are using it to recruit. The entire ME war activity is used to fight back against their common enemy. Further, they do not see what they are doing as terrorism. To them it is war - gorilla warfare.

If we continue to play their game their way it will never end. The journalist told the truth of what he saw and we do not want to hear that. IMO no war is justified. At least none of the wars we have fought since WWII.

[Blue_Tires]

10. So just a hypothetical question...

If the west stopped any and all military/covert action in the ME, would ISIS just lay down their rifles and go home to live quiet lives??

I'm not saying that journalist is lying about anything, only that his interview conveyed a very poor, incomplete message of what life is like for people in ISIS controlled regions, top to bottom and how their society operates...I'd be hoping for a damn sight more for a journo who spent 7 months breaking bread with them instead of the same old tired "moral equivalency" argument....

[jwirr]

12. And in this I yeild ot you. No they would not. It is too late for that. Remember these countries

still resent the medieval crusades. The time to think about that would have been when poppa bush was going into Iraq.

I am afraid that this understanding comes way too late. Maybe something drastic will happen in this world to end this useless fight we are in. Something that will require the attention of all nations to fix. We can always hope.

[JonLP24]

7. I'm hardly a fan of ISIS

but I wonder how many of their young male soldiers were orphans during the early run up of the Iraq war?

It isn't about making apologies but understanding the situation that years of alliance between Saudi Arabia & US has spread the Wahabbi movement -- with the petro dollars this what the Wahabbis invest in. When will we stop making apologies for Saudi Arabia?

[Blue_Tires]

11. I can agree with your points

I've never seen a breakdown of ISIS demographics, but I'm interested to know what percentage of their fighting force comes from outside their countries -- By most accounts it's a considerable amount...

[JonLP24]

21. It is

What may surprise some people is a large % comes from Tunisia & Kosovo

[OldEurope]

29. The Paris terrorists were orphans, too!

I think that many young men feel attracted by those who seem to provide an easy way for revenge or for simply letting out bad feelings. And, boy, do they have bad feelings! Growing up in permanent fear (the war victims) or a climate of racism and permanent frustration (the French or German muslims).

[Scuba]

14. Hey, you can't have a war on terror, and the resulting profits, without creating more terrorists.

[msanthrope]

16. He reads like he has Stockholm. nt

[leftynyc]

19. I thought the same thing

Absolutely nothing about how isis is mostly killing other Muslims for not adhering to their strict and twisted view of Islam. Not to mention the utter brutality of their actions.

[JonLP24]

22. He says their brutality is on another level

That is a little more than nothing.

[leftynyc]

23. Just barely

when in conjunction with the rest of the article. And how about how they're killing thousands, tens of thousands of other Muslims? Because he can't blame the west for it?

[JonLP24]

24. I don't disagree our actions created more

They want a ground war with the west, it helps with recruiting, its part of their propaganda. That Baghdadi dude recruited from American run detention facilities and having things like not allowing them to use Habaes Corpus to challenge their detention as well as civilian deaths which led to their mourners becoming terrorists. Not to mention the petro dollars we gave to Saudi Arabia throughout the years.,

[sabrina 1]

25. When the neocons decided to invade the ME 'we will turn the ME into a glass parking lot'

they completely destabilized the entire region. And they gave Extremists the ammunition, both figuratively and materially, to point to the West as their enemy, which we proved to be, so it was easy to do.

How many of those members of ISIS lost loved ones in our invasion of Iraq?

4 Million Iraqis were driven out of the country, formerly many were middle class, into Refugee Camps in both Syria and Jordan. They are still there. And now that the west is attacking Syrian, those refugees are again subjected to violence.

How many of those in the refugee camps, hopeless, anchorless, with little help for the West who are responsible for their awful plight, are now part of ISIS?

How many of those we armed in Libya to completely destabilize that country, (it is now in total collapse with gangs of brutal terrorists killing and torturing its people, thanks again NATO) have joined this organization, or those who were the victims of that disaster?

Iow, thanks to the Neocons, who are probably quite happy with ISIS emerging to give us a reason to continue their forever wars, a monster was unleashed and we will not be able to control it.

Doing more of what caused it certainly won't stop it.

Maybe if we focused our attention and money to the development of Alternative Energy sources, destroying the money source that is now funding them, rather than pouring more money into more killing and more reasons for more people turning to them for protection, it could eventually reduce their membership, their ability to buy weapons, or steal ours as they have done.

But to go back and repeat what caused the problem in the first place, is just plain stupid imo.

[leftynyc]

26. That recitation of

why we're to blame for isis in no way whatsoever explains how or why they're killing so many of their fellow Muslims. Are you seriously claiming that if we just left right this second, they would stop killing those kids watching soccer, or the women who don't wish to cover, or whatever their latest excuse for being fucking animals is? One thing you are right about is that the neocons are loving isis - they're proving all the crap the neocons said about radical Islam is correct.

[sabrina 1]

28. Yes, it does. Because, this may be news to you, not all Muslims are the same.

Can you explain why Christians kill other Christians, I mean, they must be all the same also, all marching in lockstep.

Are you aware that Saddam Hussein eg, was viewed as a traitor by fundamentalist Muslims which is why the LIE Cheney et al told was so egregious.

He was a secular leader, hated by the fundies, which is why he made sure there was no Al Queda, Bin Laden followers in Iraq. They wanted to kill him. They let us do it for them!

How could that be? After all, they are all Muslims and could not possibly have any independent thoughts!

[leftynyc]

30. What horseshit

I SPECIFICALLY called it radical Islam so let's not pretend I said anything like what you've shoving into my mouth. You really don't want to compare numbers when it comes to who is killing who these days. But I do think that the last 8 years have proven that dick and bush were utter morons for thinking democracy would bloom in any of those countries. It's bloody apparent (figuratively and literally) that only a strong brutal dictator can keep the religious freaks in line.

[sabrina 1]

31. Actually that is not apparent at all. But again, this is has been the Western View, see Churchill eg

and the Imperial Rulers of Great Britain. Radical fundies grow out of brutal oppression.

The West has been backing brutal Dictators, toppling moderate leaders in the ME for over a century. Each time a country, Iraq eg, elects someone who is democratic in their views, WE in the West either assassinate them or encourage and support such brutal acts.

That's what happened when we replaced Iraq's last moderate, left leaning leader with SADDAM HUSSEIN.

He wasn't there to do quash fundies, he was there to prevent the democratization of Iraq.

We support these dictators, who brutalize their populations especially those who object to these coups and the toppling of their chosen leaders.

After a while, all that brutality leads to what we call 'fanaticism'. I often wonder how we would react if a foreign nation toppled OUR elected leaders and installed a Brutal Dictator to make sure we never get our country back?

Muslims are no different essentially from anyone else, however, they are sitting on OUR OIL, the Imperial West's Oil, and as a result, we have to continue to keep them under the thumb of dictators in case they get any ideas that it might be THEIR Oil.

See Maliki, yet another Western puppet, brutalizing his people, warned about by Chelsea Manning who was persecuted for telling the truth.

[leftynyc]

32. Don't you ever get tired

of treating all these people and entire countries like babies who simply can't help themselves from behaving badly? Your habit of blaming the west for every single evil in the world is very tiresome.

[sabrina 1]

33. I never get tired of facts. I do get tired of the lumping of all 'brown people' into a simple

category as if they were 'naughty children' who need Western Superior Beings to keep them in check. Which of course cannot be done.

If it were up to me, respecting other peoples, many of them way smarter obviously, than we are, I would remove every military base we have forced into their countries, apologize for the wrongs we have done to them and their beautiful cultures and countries, their children and loved ones, and trust them to work out their own issues. They've been around for milleniums longer than we have.

Babying 'brown people' in foreign lands is exactly what our Western allies have been trying to do, for over a century at least.

And failing, spectacularly, then blaming THEM for those failures.

[leftynyc]

34. I'm not the one treating them as babies

That would be those who simply cannot put the blame where it belongs and come up with excuse after excuse for them not being able to get their shit together. How you can continue to do this when looking at Syria is completely beyond me. Why do they need a fucking apology from the west before they do the right thing? How is that not behaving like a baby?

[randome]

17. And his second point, the brutality, is glossed over as practically irrelevant.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers, it's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

[woo me with science]

18. K&R

[polly7]

20. No-one for waging war on Iraq could not have believed anything otherwise would happen.

Perpetual war and the weapons industries and those who make billions off of it all fully understand you can't sell it very well unless there are enough bad guys. The trick is to support the right ones just long enough, then stand back and watch it spread until intervention is once again necessary.

'War is a racket.'

[DirkGently]

27. We keep ignoring the forest for the trees.

Increasingly, it seems like a part of the diametric division we have in our culture is deciding whether problems -- like "terrorism" -- are due to individual bad people or a situational dynamic. That dictates how we address the problem, and so far we're not doing well.

At heart, all of this "stuff" is just another resource / territory contest, isn't it? The West interferes with the Middle East for strategic reasons -- largely oil but also control of certain ports in that part of the world. The response in that part of the world has been the rise of radical Islam -- take away all the Western interference, and what support does it have?

But once things get nasty, everything gets characterized on the basis of whatever horrendous thing happened last. Sure, we annihilated hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq, but then those guys cut that man's head off, so let's go back and do it again. And again ...

What's more, all of this has become a business for the combatants on both sides. McCain / Cheney et al. apparently get paid by the bullet or by the American body bag, so they will beat the drums of war at every opportunity.

But Al Quaeda and Isis are in "business" too. They're the Coke and Pepsi of jihadism at this point. They recruit on the Internet; advertise on social media. Hold prisoners for large cash ransoms. We are being manipulated into a cycle of war because it's making people on all sides MONEY.

We have built this beast, and we're not going to take it down by whack-a-mole-ing every group that arises to take advantage of the cash and the chaos to be had.

We're certainly not going to stop the cycle with drone strikes or another war in the desert or with more rhetoric over whose version of a 2,000 year-old religion is better.