2014 in Iraq

also you could argue that being self-contradictory is a means for an ideology to sustain itself, not implode

but we're talking at such a level of abstraction--floating far above the realities of politics and war--that we may as well be counting angels dancing on the heads of pins

rumor is that al-Baghdadi is dead? all i'm seeing in the news is an article that one of his aides (Abu Hajar Al-Sufi) was killed in a US airstrike?

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/aide-isis-leader-al-baghdadi-among-3-killed-u-s-n195601

The strike on the ISIS stronghold of Mosul killed Abu Hajar Al-Sufi, an aide to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as well as an explosives operative and the military leader of the nearby town of Tel Afar, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Just aides and others

what no wedding parties/children? US is slippin

rumor is that al-Baghdadi is dead?

gamesmanship. such rumors can be useful for prodding a leader to come into the open briefly to prove it is wrong, thereby giving his enemies another shot at him, or conversely disheartening his followers if he is too cautious to uncontestably reassert his survival.

still no word of deif weeks later - so i'm assuming that guy bit it

Upon a closer look, the apparent heroic readiness of ISIS to risk everything also appears more ambiguous. Long ago Friedrich Nietzsche perceived how Western civilization was moving in the direction of the Last Man, an apathetic creature with no great passion or commitment. Unable to dream, tired of life, he takes no risks, seeking only comfort and security: “A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And much poison at the end, for a pleasant death. They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health. ‘We have discovered happiness,’ say the Last Men, and they blink.”

It may appear that the split between the permissive First World and the fundamentalist reaction to it runs more and more along the lines of the opposition between leading a long satisfying life full of material and cultural wealth and dedicating one’s life to some transcendent cause. Is this antagonism not the one between what Nietzsche called “passive” and “active” nihilism? We in the West are the Nietzschean Last Men, immersed in stupid daily pleasures, while the Muslim radicals are ready to risk everything, engaged in the struggle up to their self-destruction. William Butler Yeats’ “Second Coming” seems perfectly to render our present predicament: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” This is an excellent description of the current split between anemic liberals and impassioned fundamentalists. “The best” are no longer able fully to engage, while “the worst” engage in racist, religious, sexist fanaticism.

thought this was the best bit in the piece ^

idk that's kind of facile, that split is eternal in human society afaict - the split between those who benefit/are fine w the status quo and those who hate it and have found an alternative to rally around. you can point to this split in pretty much any culture at any point in time.

militant fundamentalists categorized with "active nihilists" doesn't ring true either

what varies is how far the fundamentalists are willing to go (most are usually cool w a little genocide) and how successful they are

xp

the reductionism is strong in this one (=zizek)

also fuck the whole "it may appear..." coyness

seriously it's disappointing that any of you take to this garbage

I don't really get the cult of zizek (seriously a philosopher who gets a documentary made about him? wtf) he mostly just seems like a troll

OK so should I read Zizek on ISIS

no but you should see Zizek On Ice

that's what his Mao essay is

it's not great. nor was the recent rotherham piece. i hate to disparage an iconic hero such as zizek but he'd probably be the first person to admit he is mailing it in. (i remember he said a few years ago that all his work now was mailed in except some hegel thing he was working on, but still sometimes he's legit funny + transgressive - not this piece tho)

hopefully his mailbox is right outside his brownstone

IIRC there are several philosophers with films about them! derrida has two! and there's that movie "the ister," which has a lot about heidegger.

though zizek isn't really doing anything i would recognize as philosophy these days.

also does "being there" count? :)

Zizek doc pretty funny and plays around with his image and his "beliefs". Also features a great moment where he gets the director to buy him some Criterion DVDs, which are on the pricey side.

lol @ these fools

http://metro.co.uk/2014/09/05/british-jihadists-want-to-come-home-say-they-made-mistake-4857940/

No take backs!

That same page features a story about Muslim fundamentalists attempting to ban Peppa Pig for being a pig.

Again, doesn't mean they were fighting for ISIS.

4 lions was right; these english jihadists are clowns

hmm am i the only one that thinks they should obviously allow them back?

They can't stop people from coming back but they could arrest them for any crimes they might have committed. Again it's a bit tough if you went out to fight for rebels we were supposed to be supporting. For reference:

March 2013: Cameron and Hollande fail to convince EU to arm rebels

March 2013: Syria: David Cameron backs down from saying he wants to arm rebels

June 2013: David Cameron Says UK Will Work With Syria Rebels, Despite 'Deeply Unsavoury' Elements, But Parliament Will Get Vote On Arming Them

July 2013: UK PM Cameron pledges not to arm 'bad guys' in Syria

Assad changing his strategy?

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Raids by Syrian warplanes killed at least 25 people, most of them civilians crowding into a bakery, in the northeastern Syrian province of Raqqa on Saturday as government forces continued air attacks on territory controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the extremist Sunni militant group.

The Syrian government has increased airstrikes on the group in recent months after it took over government military outposts in Raqqa in a series of newly assertive attacks.

Government critics, and increasingly some supporters, complain that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces allowed the foreign-led ISIS to gain strength and establish its proto-state over the past year, focusing the army’s attacks more on Syrian-led militant groups whose main aim is to oust the president. ISIS has a broader goal, to remake the Middle East and establish an Islamic caliphate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/world/middleeast/syria.html?_r=0

Heard some analyst on BBC this morning saying that Lebanese Hezbollah is now trying to spin their troops involvement in Syria on behalf of one of their patrons, Assad, as actually being intended to keep Isis from going to Beirut. Lebanese are not happy that Isis beheaded both Suni and Shia Lebanese soldiers and are holding 19 more. Lebanon PM says he is trying to get Qatar to help free them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-george-w-bush-was-right-about-iraq-pullout/2014/09/08/6ddd91b2-374e-11e4-bdfb-de4104544a37_story.html

torture supporter and former Bush administration employee who wrote speeches for Rumsfeld knows that if Obama had simply forced Maliki and Iraqi government to keep 24,000 or so US troops there, Iraq would be perfect now

can we just airdrop about 24,000 pro-bush chicken hawks in raqqa?

remarkably durable, that joke

on the still top secret pages from the 9-11 report:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/twenty-eight-pages

new mixtape dropping soon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td9SyiIRHWs

http://www.thenation.com/article/181601/whos-paying-pro-war-pundits

But what you won’t learn from media coverage of ISIS is that many of these former Pentagon officials have skin in the game as paid directors and advisers to some of the largest military contractors in the world. Ramping up America’s military presence in Iraq and directly entering the war in Syria, along with greater military spending more broadly, is a debatable solution to a complex political and sectarian conflict. But those goals do unquestionably benefit one player in this saga: America’s defense industry.

still don't know what i think the US's role should be here, but this kind of thing is always worth keeping in mind.

Trailer needs a final jump-out-and-go-boo moment.

i don't really understand why they are marketing themselves as evil. shouldn't they be the good guys in their minds, avenging injustices and serving allah?

☮

dexter filkins gave a possible explanation to my question in the new yorker:

It’s hard to watch the video of Steven Sotloff’s last moments and not conclude something similar: the ostensible objective of securing an Islamic state is nowhere near as important as killing people. For the guys who signed up for ISIS—including, especially, the masked man with the English accent who wielded the knife—killing is the real point of being there. Last month, when ISIS forces overran a Syrian Army base in the city of Raqqa, they beheaded dozens of soldiers and displayed their trophies on bloody spikes. “Here are heads that have ripened, that were ready for the plucking,” an ISIS fighter said in narration. Two soldiers were crucified. This sounds less like a battle than like some kind of macabre party.

i don't know if or to what extent this matters. i guess i am just questioning the extent to which radical Islam is at the root of this or if they are just thugs/assholes and no amount of de-radicalization could read them.

*reach them.

violence + mayhem only code as evil to yr western liberal colonized mind, treesh

But those goals do unquestionably benefit one player in this saga: America’s defense industry.
still don't know what i think the US's role should be here, but this kind of thing is always worth keeping in mind.

― Treeship, Wednesday, September 17, 2014 1:17 PM

similar to u.s. prison industry. why decriminalize drugs when there so many jobs and so much money tied to locking people up

The more outlandishly barbaric ISIS is, the stronger the call in the west for action. Would have to assume that they think US intervention will consolidate their support base with Sunni ppl. They're not mugs - they know that the videos of beheadings are going to have the opposite effect to the professed desire to warn the US / UK off. They may rethink that when the bombs start falling in earnest.

in some ways they're very sophisticated but like all geopolitical actors they probably mischaracterize/misunderstand the US/UK based on their own personal views of how humans react/behave -- just like the US is constantly surprised when Middle East actors don't act in accordance w/ our own view of rationality.

yeah this is just provocation. their thinking is the wider the conflict, the more support for them will grow/solidify as they become the main oppositional player against the west. the cynical calculus of warfare...

xp

Mordy otm!

man the trailer

http://cdn.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/iron-man-3-poster-ben-kingsley.jpg

i was thinking the same thing---- CONSPIRACY!!!