Isis in Kobani: Why we ignore the worst of the massacres

[Jefferson23]

World View: The Syrian Kurdish town witnessed the deaths of 164 civilians this week

6/28/2015

Gunmen from Isis disguised as members of the security forces entered the town at dawn on Thursday. They immediately killed at least 18 civilians, including women and children shot at close range whose bodies were later found in the street. “The body of one child bore the impact of five bullets,” says the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. At least 120 people were murdered in their homes or killed by Isis rockets. “[Isis] doesn’t want to take over the town,” a local journalist was quoted as saying. “They just came to kill the highest number of civilians in the ugliest ways possible.”

The mass slaughter took place in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, on the Turkish border, which Isis failed to capture in a 134-day siege that ended in January. At the time of writing Isis was still holding 70 people hostage in buildings in the town and, including 26 people executed in a nearby village, the total civilian toll has reached 164 dead and 200 injured, making it one of the worst massacres carried out by Isis in Syria. “Every family in Kobani has lost a family member,” a Kurdish activist, Arin Sheikhmous, told a news agency.

The killing and wounding of at least 364 people at Kobani was far and away the worst atrocity, in terms of casualties, carried out by Isis last week. The number of dead was twice the 67 people shot, blown up or decapitated by Isis adherents in separate attacks on Friday in Tunisia, Kuwait and France. But the media reporting of these three events was far more extensive than the coverage of the much bigger Kobani massacre, even though news of all four atrocities broke at about the same time.

Some of this skewed emphasis can be put down to an understandable anxiety in Britain to find out what had happened on the beach at Sousse in Tunisia where 37 died, because so many of the victims were British. Likewise, in France there was the grisly beheading of one man and an attempt to kill many more by ramming a car into gas containers. But this wasn’t just the foreign media putting exaggerated emphasis on dead white folk at the expense of brown, because there was plenty of detailed reporting of the suicide bombing at the Shia mosque in Kuwait City where 27 worshippers were killed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/isis-in-kobani-why-we-ignore-the-worst-of-the-massacres-10350268.html

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. A virulent plague of religous pyschopathy is spreading

Clearly, the current methods of fighting the disease has failed.

[Jefferson23]

2. I try and read as much as I can on the issue here and from a variety of sources. The

religious angle is unsubstantiated in my conclusion. I do not pretend to be able
to establish for you a coherent seamless understanding of their inspiration/rage, but relying
on their religion to explain it is off the mark.

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. In their recruiting, religion is a substantial part of the appeal.

They appeal to youth who are feel disaffected, left out of the mainstream. There is also some appeal to the poor.

Their military leadership began, in a substantial part, with Iraqi officers who were not religious. There is also an appeal to a pan Sunni nationalism but Sunni Islam is primarily religious.

As long as they continue to lay claim to to being a modern Khalifate, which is led by " the civil and religious leader of a Muslim state considered to be a representative of Allah on earth" and many "radical Muslims believe a Khalifah will unite all Islamic lands and people and subjugate the rest of the world" the link to religion can not be refuted.

Even if their leader is an areligous atheist, his army follows him primarily because they believe he is anointed by Allah.

I think there is a lot of non-religious lust for power and the desire to throw off centuries of Western domination, but at the level of the common fighter and tactical command, they are motivated mostly be religion.

[Jefferson23]

5. If they were primarily motivated by their religion there would not be rampant abuses and looting.

If you listen to the women who have given their personal accounts, the corruption is
extensive, you can buy your way out of terrible scenarios..there is no basis to refer
to their actions as it would relate to their religion.

As I said, this phenomenon has a lot going on and to place it as a primarily inspired religion
effect, that does not explain it well. Fundamentalism does not even explain it. I look at what
they do, not just what they say. They're a force not to be ignored, I have no idea what is
coming next..no one seems to know and considering we're ignoring those states who have
fueled these men in many ways, nothing looks good in the near future.

[Fumesucker]

6. Extreme hypocrisy is practically a hallmark of fundamentalist religion

I don't know Islam very well but Christian fundies are quite familiar and with them hypocrisy is an art form, what you profess is much more important than what you do.

[Jefferson23]

8. Once you've stepped out of your respective religious form, be it a fundamentalist form

or not, ( looting, raping, pillaging ) you're out of it. Relying on their religion as the primary
issue here, which seems to be what you're suggesting would require ignoring other
behavior and to categorize that other, as mere hypocrisy, tells one nothing about
their inspiration and rage they're running on.

[Jefferson23]

3. Noted excerpt:

Thus the US, Britain and their allies are supposedly seeking to combat Isis, but they simultaneously oppose the main enemies of Isis such as Iran, Hezbollah, the Syrian army, Shia militias in Iraq, and the PKK in Turkey in the shape of its Syrian branch, the PYD. This attempt to ride two horses heading in different directions has led to some extraordinary political contortions. US aircraft have been aiding PYD by furiously bombing Isis positions around Kobani over the past few days, but the US still denounces PKK as a “terrorist” movement. On the other hand, US planes did not target Isis war bands when they were advancing to capture Palmyra from the Syrian army. As long as the US and Western Europe do not confront their Sunni allies over their tolerance or support for extreme jihadis, they are keeping the door open for more attacks like those we saw last week.

[KoKo]

7. ....!

This attempt to ride two horses heading in different directions has led to some extraordinary political contortions.

[Jefferson23]

9. I know, right? You don't know what to say sometimes.

[KoKo]

10. Some of us are really Agast..at what's going on in the MENA....

How did it go so far...when we know what Bush/Neocons did?

But, then, Peace Movements & Supporters--are not so favored in the Dialogue of how we Elect our NEW PRESIDENT. "Foreign Policy" is a "No.No." Even though the Draining of Funds to help the American People goes on for War, More War and Security while the Population is in Revolt but NEVER targeted towards the draining of funds for those who Benefit from Endless Wars and Empire" WE...THE PEOPLE SUFFER...while our PROTESTS AT HOME....INCREASE...

It is what we are these days.. Many of us...worked hard to do better. THEY wouldn't Listen. But, we keep "Calling Out!"