Showing posts with label beheading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beheading. Show all posts
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Panic Attacks!
Ebola
Well, Dallas kind of screwed up, but I'm still not too terrified of an epidemic on this side of the Atlantic. Now that the idiots have figured out that doctors and nurses really should talk to each other, and the CDC (not always perfect, but still pretty good) is involved, the USofA will get it worked out. Getting it worked out in West Africa will be more difficult.
Beheadings
The latest terminology is "the group calling itself the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL." I guess we don't want to offend the Saudis, whose state supported the Salafist, Wahabi ideology which was mainly responsible for the growth and financing of IS. Now that we're producing more oil than the Saudis, though, maybe we could step on them a little harder.
Secret Service
I gather that a lot of black Americans think the SS (yes, the same acronym) is less committed to protecting their allegedly black president than they might have been to John McCain. Personally, I think that assholes will be assholes, and that race is not a factor. They're just incompetents.
Hong Kong
I am so afraid that those "Occupy" kids who are too young to remember Tiananmen will find themselves lying among the dead. State Capitalism, I am inclined to believe, has to be worse than State Socialism — but, then again, maybe it's all just plutocracy. It's always plutocracy. Isn't It?
Friday, September 12, 2014
Here We Go Again
Yes, those guys from the Islamic State are truly terrible. As you may have gleaned from my previous post, I was not terribly impressed by the beheading of those two American journalists — nobody is a war correspondent except by personal choice. There have been a lot of other beheadings, though. Every time ISIL overran some Iraqi army position, they sorted out the Shi'a "heretics" and lopped their heads off. They made pretty convincing attempts at genocide against the Yazidis and the Maronite Christians. I suppose somebody ought to stop them.
Somehow, though, I don't think the USofA can manage the job. Yes, I know — we were the ones who broke Iraq, so, supposedly, we bought it. Maybe it's time, however, to toss the broken pieces in the trash and move on.
Right now, we're arming and training Shite militias that were trying to kill us five years ago. We're looking for "moderate" Syrian militias to arm and train, although that requires stretching the term "moderate" to include quite a few extremists. Sadly, we seem pretty inept at the arming and training business, as witnessed by the collapse of the Iraqi army.
Air strikes seem to be the only approach the American public is comfortable with at this stage of the game, and you can't use air strikes without killing a lot of innocents, and radicalizing their friends and relatives. Let's face it: nobody over there likes us, or really wants our presence.
Politically, though, Obama has to do something, so he will. But it won't work.
Somehow, though, I don't think the USofA can manage the job. Yes, I know — we were the ones who broke Iraq, so, supposedly, we bought it. Maybe it's time, however, to toss the broken pieces in the trash and move on.
Right now, we're arming and training Shite militias that were trying to kill us five years ago. We're looking for "moderate" Syrian militias to arm and train, although that requires stretching the term "moderate" to include quite a few extremists. Sadly, we seem pretty inept at the arming and training business, as witnessed by the collapse of the Iraqi army.
Air strikes seem to be the only approach the American public is comfortable with at this stage of the game, and you can't use air strikes without killing a lot of innocents, and radicalizing their friends and relatives. Let's face it: nobody over there likes us, or really wants our presence.
Politically, though, Obama has to do something, so he will. But it won't work.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Those Dead Journalists
Disregarding the messiness, beheading strikes me as a rather humane means of execution. I know it has to be very upsetting to family and friends of the victims, but if I had to choose between beheading and lethal injection in certain states of the USofA, I think the beheading might be far preferable.
What makes a person a journalist? Both Sotloff and Foley were freelancers, selling their reportage to many different news outlets. They enjoyed no worker benefits — not life insurance, nor health insurance, nor any formal backup when they got themselves into very serious trouble. Blame the Islamic State by all means — it is the very definition of terrorism — but also blame the news media, the deprofessionalizing of reportage, and a media culture that encourages young people to toss themselves into extreme danger for a small chance of "success."
The photojournalists and videojournalists are in more peril than the print journalists, albeit more likely to be killed outright on the battlefield than captured and used as propaganda tools. Reporters of all stripes need much more professional training if they will work in war zones, and the media should accept that responsibility.
What makes a person a journalist? Both Sotloff and Foley were freelancers, selling their reportage to many different news outlets. They enjoyed no worker benefits — not life insurance, nor health insurance, nor any formal backup when they got themselves into very serious trouble. Blame the Islamic State by all means — it is the very definition of terrorism — but also blame the news media, the deprofessionalizing of reportage, and a media culture that encourages young people to toss themselves into extreme danger for a small chance of "success."
The photojournalists and videojournalists are in more peril than the print journalists, albeit more likely to be killed outright on the battlefield than captured and used as propaganda tools. Reporters of all stripes need much more professional training if they will work in war zones, and the media should accept that responsibility.
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