Historical causes vs. justification (Iraq and ISIS)

[BainsBane]

Some here seem to have a lot of trouble distinguishing reasons and motivations for action--like ISIS' burning of the Jordanian pilot and beadings of journalists--from the circumstances that gave rise to a movement. I'm trained as a historian. Everyone who has taken a college level history class knows that you learn about causes that lead to key events like, for example, WWII. Any survey course will teach you that the harsh reparations imposed on Germany following WWI set the context that would eventually give rise to National Socialism. Does that mean that England and France were directly responsible for the death camps? No. That responsibility falls to the Nazis.

ISIS would not have come into existence if not for the Iraq War, people insist. That is very likely true. It is also likely true that its rise is in part due to the fall of the Soviet Union and the decline of Soviet influence throughout the Middle East. That also plays a considerable factor in the rise of terrorism. If the Soviets had not invaded Afghanistan, if they had not retreated from Afghanistan, on and on. If the European colonial powers hadn't made a mess of the map of the Middle East in the early twentieth century. There are all kinds of factors that lead to our current stage in history, but NONE of them, NONE, are justifications for the burning of a Jordanian pilot or brutal beheadings. That responsibility lies with the killers alone. Confusing the two leads to some very shaky moral justifications.

[Waiting For Everyman]

1. I see this as a continuum from Arafat

and the first terrorist bombings in the 70s. They saw that it worked and got them misguided sympathy, and status, and kept doing it. Now here we are today. 4+ decades of this shit is enough.

I agree nothing justifies this. I have no sympathy for these psycho predators and their "causes", and no patience for those who do sympathize with it either, they are only helping to enable it.

[BainsBane]

7. Those were not the first terrorist bombings

at all. SDS would be considered a terrorist group in contemporary parlance. Many of the guerrilla groups throughout Latin America. There are many, far older historical examples. The issue of who gets labeled a terrorist is problematic. As far as I see it, the label means far less than the brutal killings. I don't agree with the people who argue that US or other killings explain or justify ISIS actions, but nor do I believe that killings by the US or Israel are less significant than those by ISIS or the PLO. Dead is dead. It is true that the groups we call terrorists find ways to kill that are especially shocking, and I expect that is a deliberate tactic in asymmetric warfare. I see no good or bad guys in these situations. There are acts of evil committed on all sides.

[Fumesucker]

12. Terrorist bombings in the Middle East started before Arafat

Indeed, there was such a bombing in 1946.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

[hrmjustin]

2. K&R!

[geek tragedy]

3. while this is true, for some the explanation seems an attempt to shift or at least

channel outrage at the actions of ISIS to a more familiar and comfortable target of outrage, the US government. Yes, we know what Bush unleashed, but "who is to blame" for ISIS's existence does not provide an answer to "what must be done" to get rid of ISIS and its members.

Cf. "the US also does really bad shit so Americans have no right to condemn this"

[BainsBane]

4. I agree

That was my reason for posting this. Historical causes aren't a reason for a group's behavior. Nor do they lessen the threat that ISIS poses. I see people respond to discussion about the threat of ISIS with "if the US hadn't invaded Iraq." Well, yeah, but they did. The question is now what? The word exists as it does in this moment. We can't change the past, and pointing the finger at the Iraq war doesn't do anything to diminish the fact that ISIS is working hard to install a caliphate and in the process killing lots of people in the most brutal ways possible. They are dangerous. Thinking good thoughts won't make them go away.

[geek tragedy]

5. Yeah, just because we should have left one evil group (Saddam's Baath party)

in power doesn't mean we should leave ISIS to its own devices.

Cheers

[Dreamer Tatum]

6. When my dog shits on the floor, I clean up the shit and THEN I ask who didn't walk him.

Sarcastic barbs about who owns ISIS seem to do little to stop their spread of terror.

[killbotfactory]

8. To me the point is our Ex-President, with the blessing of the honorable houses of Congress

Have done far worse to the Iraqi's over the course of the war and nobody has gone to jail. The shit ISIS is pulling is horrific, and so is what was done in our name in Iraq. The difference is that nobody has been calling Bush and his War Pals subhuman barbarians. In all likelyhood we are going to vote in someone who supported the Iraq invasion as the next goddamn president.

It's the whole "one death is a tragedy, a millions deaths is a statistic" thing that bothers me. It's just too easy to deny the humanity of people doing this horrible shit, especially when they don't look like westerners and do it for "allah" or "islam" instead of "freedom" or "wmd's".

Anyone who is comparing shit the US has pulled with the shit ISIS is doing is trying to point this out, they are not trying to justify it. You know, trying to put a damper on the bloodlust it's riling up, because inevitably some asshole warmongering politician is going to use it to try and get us to once again stick our collective war-dick in the crazy and line his friends pockets with defense industry cash in the process.

[BainsBane]

9. I can appreciate that

and I respect your view. Some others have articulated their positions far less artfully, however, and it does look like they are trying to explain it away.

There is also the problem of what do we do now that ISIS does exist? They are not Saddam. They are far less predictable. They clearly pose a threat to the region and anyone who crosses their path. So what is the solution?

[KingCharlemagne]

10. Bravo! I well remember when Dennis Miller and his cohort sneered at and mocked those of us who

argued that 'an eye for an eye makes everyone blind'. Well, now, we're seeing that maybe we weren't so wrong after all, as what the U.S. did in Abu Ghraib, at Bagram, at Guantanamo and at various black sites in eastern Europe is now being replicated and embellished upon by the very people on whom those horrors were originally inflicted. (ISIS' indigenous force is largely constituted from the remnants of Saddam's Sunni officer corps and enlisted ranks.)

If we're going to get all horrified, sanctimonious and squeamish about ISIS, where's the horror, sanctimony and squeamishness over the 500,000 Iraqi children who died of largely preventable diseases during the 90s, all because the U.S. thought it was 'worth it' to maintain sanctions on supposed dual-use medical and nutrition technologies?

The surprise isn't that ISIS emerged from the ashes of Bush's imperial hubris, but that it took as long as it did for it to emerge.

[BainsBane]

11. Yet ironically some seem to be justifying precisely that

an eye for an eye. ISIS burned a Jordanian alive. If we care, we are told, we're hypocrites because of Fallujah. How dare we judge? I judge because it's barbaric, as US war crimes are barbaric. Claiming it is somehow explained because of Iraq is justifying an eye for an eye, it seems to me.

[Fumesucker]

13. There's quite a large portion of humanity that does not believe in "an eye for an eye"

For instance the Saudi blogger who has been sentenced to death by flogging for daring to speak his mind, the Saudi government seems to be going somewhat beyond "an eye for an eye".