Graeme Wood, writing in The Atlantic, on what ISIS really wants. An excerpt:
There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.
Lee Harris: "It is tribal. We don't understand tribal."
ReplyDeleteKurt,
ReplyDeleteTribal and cultish. We understand neither.
Michael
I would hope we'd stop wringing hands over their motivations and what to call them. we must focus on their ultimate goals, which are well stated in the Atlantic article. We need to confront and defeat them, which means killing them. Too bad we squandered what was won in Iraq. We probably shouldn't have gone there, but once we did, we needed to stay and institute a Marshall plan approach. That will be much harder now.
ReplyDeleteBob,
ReplyDeleteI hope that we can still salvage what was won in Iraq. ISIS is simply evil and they need to be destroyed.
Michael