11.18.2015 01:04 PM

Three paragraphs from my next Hill Times column

It’s a doozy.

Anyone involved in daily politics, as I once was, knows immediately what this means: resentment, then anger, then hate. Every campaign seeking to replace a powerful incumbent trades in resentments. It works.

It is not by coincidence, to me, that ISIS has embraced YouTube and Twitter to broadcast its beheadings and mass-murders: the Islamic State is simply making efficient use of the same technologies through which it was alerted to our excesses in the first place. The Internet let them know how we live: to them, too secular, too immoral, and too suffused with greed and self-indulgence.

‎They saw that, via a flickering blue screen somewhere in Pakistan, and they are hitting ‘reply all’ to express what they think about it. And what they intend to do about it: convert us, or murder us for our excesses.

40 Comments

  1. Al in Cranbrook says:

    One aspect of this that I’ve heard several times now, including in a documentary last night on CNN by Fareed Zakaria…

    What ISIS wants is to draw the US (and western civilization) into an all out battle on their turf, a literal Armageddon, during which they belief the “Twelfth Imam” will return and impose Islam on the entire world. This is, incidentally, also what motivates the most radical elements of Iran’s government.

    I don’t think very many people understand this, and a lot fewer actually take it seriously.

    Which would be a grave mistake, IMHO, as these fundamentalist Muslims hold an exceedingly serious belief in this. In the same manner arguably that fundamentalist Christians await the second coming.

    The attraction among vulnerable young males otherwise struggling with life’s challenges is, in essence, the same thing draws youths into street gangs: Comradery, purpose, belonging. It’s not Islam in and of itself, but the use of it to facilitate this, in turn to be exploited by extremists adhering to a radical interpretation of their religion/ideology. To these extremists, their recruits are nothing more than cannon fodder for their greater purpose.

    This reality makes this entire situation incredibly dangerous.

    • Montréalaise says:

      Excellent post.

      • MonteCristo says:

        The post is partially inaccurate.

        Twelvers are Shia muslims, ISIS and Al-Qaeda are Sunnis.

        ISIS and Al-Qaeda leaders regard liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other sects as heretics.

        Both have diverging views of how the “end of days” will occur.

        ISIS does wish to draw the west aka the crusaders into an area called Dabiq (also the name of their propaganda magazine) and according to their faith interpretation they will overcome the crusading infidels with the intervention of their God, a final battle of good vs evil.

        If IRIS manages to draw ground troops from Russia, China, US, UK, France etc… into Dabiq all they will accomplish is be total destruction of their so called Caliphate.

        Lets not forget, ISIS is taking on nuclear powers with the sufficient combined military might to bomb every square inch of ISIS controlled territory.

        Sooner or later, the less patient military powers will get tired of ISIS and just flatten the area.

    • doconnor says:

      This is why saying we shouldn’t accept refugees is counter-productive. It makes these disaffected young people feel more excluded and will push both Muslims in the west and refugees trapped without hope towards IS and makes them stronger.

      • billg says:

        There are millions of refugees.
        Are you saying take them all in….empty the country?
        Do you honestly think Canada taking in 25,000 refugees and leaving hundreds of thousands in camps is productive?
        Its nice of us, but, it really doesn’t even come close to addressing the issue.

        • doconnor says:

          Not all of them are willing to face the culture shock that comes with moving to a country as different as Canada, but seeing a country doing its best to help as many as possible will raise their respect for the West and our values.

      • Matt says:

        Nobody is saying we shouldn’t accept them. We’re saying slow it down.

        Article in the National Post today has people from the UN saying they were hoping the events in Paris would force Trudeau to come off his timeline.

        http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/clock-ticking-on-canadas-refugee-plan-while-un-diplomats-express-concern-over-timeline#pq=1BJnXC

        Another UN official gave a bewildered look when asked about the Canadian timeline.

        Representatives from Canada and the UN and diplomats from other embassies posted in the region privately expressed grave doubts about whether such a large resettlement project could be completed in a safe and responsible way in such a short time frame.

        Independent of each other, several of them said they were surprised and disappointed that the prime minister had not used the terror attacks in Paris and Beirut as justification for slowing the Canadian resettlement program down to a more manageable pace.”

      • Al in Cranbrook says:

        Or could it be argued that ill conceived immigration policies too often result in disaffected young people, whom thus become vulnerable to the attractions of radical groups such as ISIS?

        Pay attention to where security forces ultimately are hunting down and finding terrorist cells in Paris and Brussels, it’s somewhat instructive.

        • doconnor says:

          Canada is better at integrating refugees then France thanks to our long tradition of immigration and acceptance. The ghettos in suburban Paris are far worse then those of Toronto.

          While disaffected youth killing in the name of extremism makes headlines, disaffected youth killing in gangs may well kill more people.

      • SG says:

        If we are to focus on the groups most persecuted and most at risk of annihilation, it would be morally just (nay, morally obligatory) for Canada to accept refugees from the Yazidi and Christian communities exclusively. The safest Christian in Syria is more at risk than the most insecure Muslim.

    • Luke says:

      Al,

      I usually can’t relate to your posts, probably because I’m off on the left somewhere and you are definitely not. Really, I sort of caricaturize your posts as cooky. (I know I sound like an asshole, which is only sort of true; I caricaturize anything on the internet.) This one, however, I find quite understandable. It makes sense to me. It warms my heart a little to read, from a conservative author, a post that reads as fairly and mild-tempered as this one, at this time when everybody seems to be becoming much too reactionary and nationalistic. Thanks Al.

      -Luke

      • Al in Cranbrook says:

        Appreciated, Luke. 🙂

      • Tired of it All says:

        Ditto, Luke. Al, you’ve hit the nail on the head -as well as with your rejoinder on refugees. Glad we are helping, but is this addressing root causes? This is a dangerous millennarian fundamentalism. Ironically, if you go back to read the Bushies’ National Security Strategy, and its progenitors developed why Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, et al during their time at the Project for a New American Century, it discusses the necessity for security Mesopotamia for the upcoming Apocalypse. Same motivations, different side of the coin.

  2. nobonus4nonis says:

    that’s why i envented FersterVus. one day per year for all the angry, hating, and festereing resenters can give full voice to their misplaced rage. these folks tend to make up the rapidly shrinking conservative base who’ve bored us to tears with their fears for years.
    you have someone who posts here 11 times per day which by my rough count will total 20.075 by the next election. now that’s excessive. i say let him bay at the moon for one day on FesterVus and we can then all go back to solving real problems.

    • Matt says:

      Weren’t you the guy babbling on and on about the hijacking of threads with useless, inane, off topic bullshit………

      Pot, meet kettle.

      • nobonus4nonis says:

        twas the night before christmas
        and all through the house
        the conbots were festering
        the election they’d lost

        there was jason and rona
        and old stevie too
        repeating resentments
        till they turned blue

        some post their bias
        online the new wine
        where they drink the rot
        that poisons their mind

        that’s enough. you can’t fix stupid.

        happy festervus to cons everywhere

    • JH says:

      You know, this is such an excellent website provided to us by WK, that most of us stay with it, even when we have to put up with posts like yours. The exchange of ideas, the heated opinions and the many very educational offerings make it all worth while. If the man choose to let you and a few others continue with this style of commenting that’s fine with me. It’s worth having to read folks like you, so as to enjoy the value added benefit from the majority.

      • JH says:

        Matt the comment was for the guy who definitely is nobonustous, not you.

        • nobonus4nonis says:

          wrong. festervus was inspired by meg ryan in the movie french kiss co starring kevin kline where the dialog went

          “You know, why shut me out.” Kate says. “You know what happens to people who shut everybody out?”
          “They lead a quiet, peaceful life?”
          “No, they fester.”
          “Fester. I am festering?”
          “Inside. Fester and rot. I’ve seen it happen…”

          this is a great description of posters like Matt and his ilk. they fester all day reading and watching whatever media reinforces their bias and then they belch it out online or wherever someone will listen. the world is changing beneath their feet and they can’t stand the idea that anyone might have another point of view.

          ergo.. a special holiday just for them. FESTERVUS. think of it as a pythonesque take on rabid conservatism.:-)

          • Matt says:

            You’re obsession with me is flattering, but really it ain’t going to happen.

            I like women.

          • DougM says:

            It would seem with your posts that you’re the one who can’t stand another point of view. The rest of us enjoy good discourse, to which there must be at least two points of view.

          • The Doctor says:

            Keep on cranking out those straw men . . .

  3. A Blanas says:

    The Internet did not cause this sh*t.

    It is the next epochal struggle for the human race. It is a titanic 1,000 year struggle between religions.

  4. billg says:

    There are mass graves now being unearthed in Sinjar province.
    Eldery men, eldery women, and, young women. The young women would be the mothers who hid their young daughters. The young daughters are raped, sodomized then murdered.
    I don’t know how it could ever come to this.
    I find it very hard to believe this is George Bush’s fault as the left would have you believe.
    I find it very hard to believe this is the result of Barack Obama’s foreign policy as Fox news would like you to believe.
    I find it very hard to believe that while all this goes on we naval gaze and argue whose fault it is.
    500,000 soldiers. House by House. Building by Building. How ever long it takes. The answer is so simple.
    I work right next to CFB Petawawa. These men and women would buy their own plane ticket if you said this was the next step.
    The umpteenth hundred Climate Change conference is set to start.
    I’m sure the mothers who were brutally executed trying to save their daughters breathed a sigh of relief.
    How the Internet has molded ISIS is a great question.
    How the Internet has numbed our humanity would be a better one.

    • Larry Rhodes says:

      And it’s an ominous image looking at the Syrian refugees fleeing and noticing that most are young men who are escaping to the West. The UN has estimated that 70% of the refugees are young men. I hope they are triaged out of those being accepted into Canada because that portends a breeding ground for domestic terrorism. Only complete families please and those with relatives in Canada who will house and care for them. Leave the young single men in Europe where they can cope with the looming disaster.

      • Dave says:

        The collapse of the Syrian drafted Army is what passed through Europe this past Spring. Scared but Military trained individuals that voted with their feet. Ironic that most will be housed in former German Army and U.S Army Europe facilities.

    • cynical says:

      So, to paraphrase:
      “Kill them all. God will know his own.”
      We’ve come a long way since the thirteenth century, haven’t we?

  5. dean sherratt says:

    …at least we can be relatively confident that the 12th Imam isn’t likely to emerge…

  6. Al in Cranbrook says:

    Perfectly stated truths from Rona Ambrose…

    http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/rona-ambrose-who-are-we-in-an-age-of-terror-canadas-airstrikes-should-continue

    Set aside the politics, Trudeau, and deal with the realities in front of you.

  7. Dave says:

    Islam is in the midst of a 300 Year Civil War that most other Great religions has experienced. Christianity knew it as the Dark ages until the Renaissance took the West out of it. The West then went on to slowly pull away from Religious based daily living and founded the rule of Law. Thanks King John and your Magna Carta.

    When a man gets to keep what he can grow, make or create then that is the start of true freedom. He creates a surplus and sends a kid to higher education where the next generation never Farms, Slaves or is indentured ever again. So the West is successful for three main reasons. Rule of Law mainly in the keeping of what a man can produce . The bigger guy can’t take it without a price . Surplus of Agricultural production . Every Western society provides more than enough of the basics of life. The West also provides a publically funded Education to unleash Human potential.

    Have ANY Islamic community’s achieved these levels of now basic Western expectation?

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