One retired general’s opinion on why ISIS such a force in the world. A quick yet still interesting interview tagging social media and the media cycle as contributors to the success of ISIL.
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18 comments
June 3, 2015 at 7:43 am
robert browning
Mc Crystal is also, as the PR piece’s title suggests, laughable. It’s more of the usual: “they’re everywhere, they’re everywhere”. The uh oh at the end is that communication is at their core and government will need to screen the web ” for our safety”.
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June 3, 2015 at 11:52 am
tildeb
Amazing how well McCrystal is able to talk about ISIS without ever once directly mentioning that it is fully modeled on the Koran and so its appeal is global to anyone who thinks the Koran is the perfect word of god. He references 7th Century but fails to explain why that date is more important than, say, the 12th Century. He mentions ideology but fails to mention that it is religious ideology. He mentions the lack of geographical boundaries but falsely attributes that to this age of global communication rather than what it is: populations of Muslims susceptible to actually trying to implement whole scale Koranic teachings.
Until we get the narrative that accurately reflects reality, we’re going to continue to misguide ourselves about the real threat of ISIS: successfully creating a Muslim caliphate.
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June 3, 2015 at 12:28 pm
robert browning
You and the general seem to be trumpeting for the Pentagon; Giving substance to the fringe group(the threat). Christian fundies are just the same in conviction and proportionate size but haven’t been invaded and exploited yet. We stop and they will die out and you will lose your piece rate part time job.
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June 3, 2015 at 12:58 pm
Liam Young
ISIL is so effective because they’re well funded by the Americans, Canadians and other western countries as a means to justifying ridiculous military budgets.
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June 3, 2015 at 3:58 pm
tildeb
I don’t think a military solution is a final solution: that will require people to take personal responsibility for their actions and agree to stop believing that the Koran – or the Bible for that matter – is the perfect word of some god… or even a legitimate and reputable source of morality and ethics.
But I suspect if you were to join a group of, say, Yazzidis being pursued by ISIS fighters with the intention to kill you, you might just reevaluate the usefulness of an allied military… with guns and everything and a willingness to use them in your defense.
Of course, most anti-Americans regularly fail to appreciate just how widespread is A) the need for armed intervention, and B) the call for it. No matter how the US responds, these anti-Americans will always find fault with them and smugly sit back in their luxurious Western secular countries and pretend they know so much better about what ought to be done.
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June 3, 2015 at 4:04 pm
john zande
Promise a sexless unemployed young man sex money and free reign and he’ll answer with bells on.
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June 4, 2015 at 12:36 pm
The Arbourist
@Liam
I’m not sure we fund them directly, but I do think that we have a hand in contributing to their existence due to the policies we have adapted with dealing with many countries in the Middle East.
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June 4, 2015 at 12:41 pm
The Arbourist
@Tildeb
This. This forever. Well said.
Shades of the Jack Nicholson speech. Imperial actions always need to be critically analyzed and talked about in the public realm – the idea being that good for empire is not necessarily good for the world is a important distinction and should not be lightly dismissed as anti-american rhetoric.
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June 6, 2015 at 4:17 pm
Sedate Me
ISIS is nothing more than Shit Your Pants Co’s newest “flavour of the month”. The Military-Industrial-Spy-Complex needs you to be as scared as you’d be if you woke up in a Nightmare On Elm Street dream sequence….24/7! Their corporate gravy train and the careers of many politicos DEPEND on it. (Harper! Harper! Harper!)
Too bad the threat is a complete fucking joke/lie. We’re supposed to be scared of a bunch of Muslim clowns driving around Middle Eastern deserts in pickup trucks? I’m FAR more worried about crossing the street without getting run over by some Canadian clown in a pickup truck.
As for the ISIS domestic appeal, McCrystal almost gets it right on. The terror is the result of a dysfunctional media that doesn’t even remember how to do its job. It plays along with Shit Your Pants Co out of laziness and incompetence. It gives people a completely irrational fear out of proportion with anything approaching reality.
ISIS is little more than a modern version of the 60’s Hell’s Angels. Their “social media” presence is just a low-rent version of 60’s biker movies. Just watch this movie trailer and compare.
“Watch these law breaking bad-asses ride the open
roaddesert, leaving havoc in their wake. Watch them burn churches and fight anyone in their way. Join them and be feared by all! Join them and get to party with women! Join them and be respected! (for the 1st time in your miserable, pathetic, lives)”That’s why delusional, mentally ill, violence prone, losers fall for this ISIS shit. It’s a badge for them to wear, just like bikers wore German helmets & Swastikas. It’s everything your parents hate and a big middle finger to The Man. And just like the bikers, the more attention paid to them, the more popular they will become.
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June 8, 2015 at 3:03 pm
tildeb
I encounter the deeply anti-liberal liberal narrative about Islam in general and of ISIS in particular time and time again. I find it frustrating and depressing that the closest allies to Muslim liberals and reformers are to found more towards the extreme political right wing. I keep trying to get liberals to open their eyes and see what’s going on, open their ears and hear what’s going on, and this most refuse to do… presumably to avoid the charge of being ‘islamophobic’… a tactic used to effect not only by the likes of the dispicible twins Reza Aslan and Glenn Greenwald but award winning authors refusing to attend a PEN ceremony honouring the courage of Charlie Hebdo.
The effect of accepting the illiberal liberal narrative is that this leaves the true reformers naked and exposed for lack of support. The illiberal liberal narrative actually supports the far right wing reactionaries in Islam!
To help explain how this has come about, Sarah Haider has courageously given a talk here. It is long (about 45 minutes) and she’s not the best public speaker but her words are right on. In particular, from about the 21 to 25 minute range she addresses how illiberal liberals buying into the liberal narrative are very much a central problem causing power to be given to the reactionary Islamists.
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June 8, 2015 at 5:38 pm
robert browning
tildeb, this ‘ illiberal liberal narrative’ seems a bit of gobbley goop. SEDATE ME has it right, tho the H Angels thing was unnecessary. Giving a small faction of extremists any credence, Koran or Bible is a waste of energy. ISIL, like the Tea party, exists bc of the military/ corporate media then people like you following w ” ..needing protection from it”, etc. PS., your blue underlined HERE link didn’t work
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June 9, 2015 at 9:16 am
tildeb
Try this link.
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June 9, 2015 at 9:17 am
tildeb
And an excellent article here.
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June 9, 2015 at 4:25 pm
robert browning
Jon Stewart has demonstrated that he can be trusted. Any discussion that kind of sort of in any way goes along w the capitalist media’s demonizing needs to be challenged. Maybe if she pushed for reforms, like a Geneva Convention set of civil rights and code of conduct in any society, pertaining to Christians as well..
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June 10, 2015 at 3:13 pm
Sedate Me
“SEDATE ME has it right” – Robert Browning
You bet your sweet bippy, I do!!! And you’ll be right too…for as long as you agree with me, man.
However, the Hell’s Angel comparison is both accurate AND necessary. Despite decades in time and vast cultural differences separating them, they have a similar appeal to a similar (North American) audience. Also similar, their relationship with the media.
The Hell’s Angels were merely a small group of common criminals aimlessly riding around California (a desert) causing random violence. Like ISIS, they use drugs to fuel their actions & sell them to pay the bills. Like ISIS, some were ex-military. (The name “Hell’s Angels” was stolen from a 1930 war movie.) Yet in almost no time, the Angels went from nobodies to an international organized crime phenomenon. They were THE poster children for criminal mayhem. Just like ISIS, other groups were eager to “patch over”.
The Hell’s Angels used the media and the media used them, even those condemning them. The mainstream condemnation is the most important part of both group’s recruiting efforts. Recruits are, or identify with, angry, violence prone, societal outcasts. They desperately want to be members of a brotherhood of badasses that everyone is scared of. Despite the mayhem, bikers have a hierarchical structure with strict rules & codes (Just try to use their logos!) Radical Islam just happens to be the code of ISIS, yet it STILL doesn’t stop them from promising recruits sex with women. The idealistic-hedonistic, band of brothers approach is very similar.
Everybody prattles endlessly about “social media” and how ISIS uses it.The Hell’s Angels also used New Media. They used counter-culture books, music & movies that didn’t previously exist. Via drug sales, they had close associations with The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, Merry Pranksters, etc. “New Journalist” authors like Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson wrote positive 1st person accounts of them.
Hundreds of biker movies were made in the 60-70’s. Almost half had “Hell” or “Angels” in the title. The Hell’s Angels themselves were heavily involved in at least 3 movies I’ve seen, including the above trailer. The Club President had a cameo, appeared in other movies and wrote several books. Names like Nicholson, Fonda, Dern, Ginsberg, Garcia all featured. prominently in their media presence. As the Mad Men say, “They had a positive product association”.
While no bigger, or more effective, than rival bike gangs, the Angel’s counter-culture image and the mainstream media’s fear mongering combined to swell their ranks. ISIS was just one of dozens of rag-tag “crazy rebels” to emerge from the anarchy of Iraq & Syria. Like the Hell’s Angels, the media is their best asset. The media has determined (just like they do with politicians) that they’re “legitimate, big league, players”, even though they aren’t. They’re merely a few thousand guys in pickups who can’t even take over a failed state on their own turf. The media’s irrational fear only builds up the street cred of ISIS and helps them recruit misguided, disgruntled, delusional, Westerners.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to restock my “supply” from my friendly, neighbourhood, Angel who just got a shipment in from ISIS.
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June 10, 2015 at 6:07 pm
robert browning
you are excused.
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July 4, 2015 at 11:28 am
tildeb
For those who continue to support the popular but liberal narrative that ISIS is not Founded and driven by the central tenets of Islam but a fringe bunch of radicalized extremists who attract only radicalized and like-minded fringe extremists, try listening to Megan Phelps-Roper… yes, from that Phelps family (Westboro Baptist) here.
A few choice quotes:
“Aslan is absolutely wrong” (that everybody brings their moral values to the scripture they then follow; rather, literalists like the Phelps and members of ISIS put aside their personal morals and submit fully to God’s Word in scripture. To do anything else is Arrogance beyond measure and a sin of death-worthy punishment here on this world and everlasting torment in the next.)
“Theology is really on the side of the literalist.”
“A more literal hewing to the text (scripture) has a kind of self-consistency and power…”
“Any effort to make them (scriptural direction) seem metaphorical, or more elastic than any plain reading of the text, would suggest that effort itself is clearly being driven not from some scriptural imperative the reader finds from the text but an imperative that is coming from outside the text… (thus) the deck is stacked against the moderate.”
Submit to Koran as written and you get ISIS. It’s really just that simple.
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July 4, 2015 at 11:29 am
tildeb
The link seems broken. It is here: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/leaving-the-church
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