i’ve posted v little on ISIS because i feel we don’t know enough about this “flavor of the month terrorist organization” (as jeremy scahill calls it) and i am wary of sharing any kind of propaganda which would only add to existing misinformation. here is an article which makes a lot of sense to me, not least because it’s in line with my understanding of the brand name “taliban” and how it’s covered by mainstream media. the article is nuanced and explains some of the facts on the ground that i have heard from journalists and iraqi activists i trust. if u want to understand the ISIS “emergency” and delve into whether it’s justification enough for us to be involved in another war in the middle east (for the umpteenth time), pls read. i don’t believe in biblical evil. i believe in studying the political context of violence in order to do something about it. it’s not enough to say “jihadi” and think we’ve accurately captured an insurgent movement. bombing is not a panacea for eliminating what we don’t like or don’t want to understand.
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Alireza Doostdar: Focusing on doctrinal statements would have us homogenizing the entirety of ISIS’ military force as fighters motivated by an austere and virulent form of Salafi Islam. This is how ISIS wants us to see things, and it is often the view propagated by mainstream media. […] The problem with these statements is that they seem to assume that ISIS is a causa sui phenomenon that has suddenly materialized out of the thin ether of an evil doctrine. But ISIS emerged from the fires of war, occupation, killing, torture, and disenfranchisement. It did not need to sell its doctrine to win recruits. It needed above all to prove itself effective against its foes. In Iraq, the cities that are now controlled by ISIS were some of those most resistant to American control during the occupation and most recalcitrant in the face of the newly established state. The destruction that these cities endured seems only to have hardened their residents’ defiance. Fallujah, the first Iraqi city to fall to ISIS, is famous for its devastation during U.S. counterinsurgency operations in 2004. It still struggles with a legacy of rising cancer rates, genetic mutations, birth defects, and disabilities blamed on depleted uranium in American munitions. In Mosul, many of those who joined ISIS last summer had been previously imprisoned by the Iraqi government. They numbered in the thousands and included peaceful protesters who opposed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s increasingly authoritarian rule. The situation in Syria is not entirely different. ISIS emerged on the scene after a long period of strife that began with peaceful protests in 2011 and deteriorated into civil war after President Bashar al-Asad’s military and security forces repeatedly deployed brutal force against the opposition. […] The anthropologist Talal Asad has questioned the presumptions that guide these distinctions between what we might call “humanitarian” and “gratuitous” violence and cruelty. It is not my intention to pursue that line of thought here. Instead, I want only to point out that once again, ISIS’ brutality did not emerge in a vacuum; rather, it is part of a whole ecology of cruelty spread out over more than a decade. More here.