2016/06/15

Daesh

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Two days ago approximately 1,300 people died in the United States to a single cause, and accurate numbers aren't available yet.

The cause was tobacco. Same thing yesterday. And today. And tomorrow. And so on.

Meanwhile, everybody who makes it into TV nowadays seems to lose his or her mind about Daesh, a.k.a. IS / ISIL / ISIS because some U.S.-born man with a huge internal conflict has committed a mass murder and apparently chose Daesh, the terror group du jour, as his label.

This fits to a generally excessive attention on that group, which is a losing civil war party in Syria and Iraq and a weak civil war party in Libya.


It appears that my excessive reading of history and military history doesn't allow me more than one perspective on Daesh:

Daesh is doomed by its own arrogance and strategic idiocy.

Nobody but Asian steppe people, Napoleon and Nazis were equally proficient as Daesh in regard to making enemies. The Asian steppe people got away with this most of the time due to their mobility. Napoleon and the nazis showed what happens if you cannot simply run away after inviting almost the entire rest of the world to hate you.
Daesh is doomed, and neither Europe nor any American country needs to lift but a little finger to seal Daesh's fate. The continued intervention may accelerate Daesh's ultimate failure as a wannabe state, and that's about it.

All that background in history and military history reading completely obscures the more common perspective to me, in which Daesh is supposedly a grave threat.

Sorry, I totally cannot see this. It's a ludicrous idea in the context of what mankind remembers about organised violence. Maybe Daesh can cause 20-200 deaths per year (average) in NATO or EU countries for two or three  years, which would put them somewhere low into the top 100 of mortality factors. Daesh simply has shown no potential to become a real major problem. It sure is entertaining enough to be perceived as one, though.

S O
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4 comments:

  1. ISIS/ISIL/DAESH: the strongest force on the planet? (Irony) [1/2]

    Targets of ISIS/ISIL/DAESH violence

    In the USA, Muslim community is not more violent that other communities.
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/non-muslims-carried-out-more-than-90-of-all-terrorist-attacks-in-america/5333619
    ‘Islamic terrorism’ has nothing to do with neither Islam nor any religion. It is an islamophobic myth. The majority of the victims of terrorism (including so-called ‘Islamic terrorism’) are Muslims.
    http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30883058
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-attacks-isis-responsible-for-more-muslim-victims-than-western-deaths-a6737326.html

    80% of 2013 terrorism deaths occurred in just 5 countries.
    http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/the-10-countries-where-terrorist-attacks-kill-the-most-people--ekK-zVZl_g
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/11/19/in-2013-80-of-deaths-from-terrorism-occurred-in-just-five-countries/#21225dcb1d55

    ISIS/ISIL/DAESH leaders systematically plan, target and kill predominantly more Muslims than any other religious community in the world. ISIS/ISIL/DAESH leaders systematically plan, target and spread their terror even in Southeast Asia (even in China), and in some countries that most of us did not even know that there were even Muslim minorities living there. Terrorists obviously have a better international education that some scholars and academics!? ISIS/ISIL/DAESH leaders targets mainly secular countries (including Assad's Syria), as well as multiethnic and multiconfessional countries, trying to foster a general civil insurrection, ethnic and religious tensions (African continent, Belgium, France, Europe in general, Southeast Asia…).

    Usually, when we talk about ‘Islamic terrorism’ we understand ‘Islamic crusaders’ that come to ‘Islamize’ the West (Europe and North America) and their only Middle East ally, secular, free and democratic Israel. It is interesting to notice that Israel performed better that the rest of the world at protecting its security (and its interests in the world) against the attacks from Al Qaeda and ISIS/ISIL/DAESH. For the past 20 years of so, Al Qaeda and ISIS/ISIL/DAESH have not scored a single attack against Israel interests. (Congratulations!) Yet they scored three (3) bloody attacks in France and Belgium in only one (1) year on innocent civilians.
    It is also interesting to notice that ISIS/ISIL/DAESH leaders have prioritized actions (attacks) in far away Southeast Asia (with an elaborate knowledge of all those language) rather than helping the Palestinians near them. Just considering their translation and language capabilities and skills surprisingly surpass those of Nazi Germany!?

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  2. ISIS/ISIL/DAESH: the strongest force on the planet? (Irony) [2/2]

    ISIS/ISIL/DAESH ‘incredible’ warfare capabilities

    I read in this blog that ISIS/ISIL/DAESH is as doomed as Nazi Germany. YES, BUT ISIS/ISIL/DAESH, with Toyota 4x4 and AK-47s, and under heavy surveillance and bombing of the most powerful coalition (Russia-Assad-Iran-Hezbollah, USA, GB, France, Turkey, Kurds…) outperform in tactics, strategy, combat, survivability, intelligence, communication, supply, logistics… better and longer than Desert Fox Rommel, Manstein or the entire WWII Wehrmacht, the SS, the Gestapo (and all Axis forces) with all their tanks, artillery, AAA, V2, Luftwaffe, fleet… vs Allies!? Their performance and secrets should be thoroughly studied in Military Academies and Intelligence Agencies around the world, because they just humiliated the most notorious. Generals’ stars are hopelessly falling from the epaulettes.

    Everybody read the stories of so-called European (or non European) group of djihadists enrolling in ISIS/ISIL/DAESH, in Syria, ‘to fight Assad’s unjust massacre of civilian populations’. They came back bitterly disappointed. When they arrived in Syria, the groups were dispatched into several different factions. Result? The ones shooting against the others, friend against friend. Those who understood what was happening, deserted and came back to Europe, the less fortunate died in battle or were executed by the ISIS/ISIL/DAESH ‘mysterious secret Gestapo-structured police’. Even Goring would be jealous.


    Observation, analysis and (in-)conclusion

    Considering all the above facts, Sherlock Holmes would have wondered:
    What is ISIS/ISIL/DAESH? Who are their leaders? What is the Ultimate Objective of ISIS/ISIL/DAESH leaders? Who is their Supreme Leader? Every organisation has some kind of Supreme Authority.
    First, media mislead us with several names; ISIS/ISIL/DAESH, to name one organisation. Then, it seems to be a polymorph gaseous shadowy organisation, from where even Russian FSB came out beheaded or executed in the desert. But after much failure the FSB came out with a lot of interesting results, as other Intelligence Agencies. It seems that ISIS/ISIL/DAESH ‘was’ very difficult to penetrate…
    We knew the leaders of Al Qaeda, as they were frequently appearing on TV, newspapers, propaganda tapes, the list of most wanted terrorists (even children knew about Ben Laden). In France and Belgium, after 3 bloody attacks in 1 year, if we ask anyone in the street to name a single high ranking ISIS/ISIL/DAESH figure; no one knows. Moreover, they are actually surprised and almost ashamed to be so ignorant. But it is not that surprising, since the media talk about ISIS, ISIL, DAESH and no names except those of the mass murderers.

    If we consider the above facts and that most victims are Muslims, secular countries and countries with multiethnic and multiconfessional traditions of peacefully coexisting together; and that the Net Result of ISIS, ISIL, DAESH (like Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorism) strategy produce the exodus of the historic existence of Christian populations and other minorities of the Middle East; then we can deduct that, at least one of their Ultimate Objective, beside spreading fear and mayhem is to foment total chaos everywhere.

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  3. Sven, in all respect I think you are missing the point here. Terror campaign's success is not measured by the number of casualties, but by the terror it spreads to the target society.

    People are terrible in measuring abstract threats or statistical propabilities. We are, however, well adapted in understanding narratives and stories. Thus a random act of coordinated violence is lot scarier than a statistical probability.

    Smoking tabacco is not the only example. Some people are afraid of flying, when they should be afraid of driving to the airport. People are (succesfully) campaining to phase out nuclear power, only to replace it by more dangerous and uncertain forms of energy. Etc etc. It makes no sense, but that's how human mind operates.

    Another matter is whether a terror campaign is a viable method of reaching meaningful political goals. Historically I don't recall many (any?) succesful ones and I fully agree Daesh is doomed thanks to its innate craziness.

    scip10

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, they're convinced of irrational nonsense and I make use of my right to publicly correct that. I intentionally skipped what derogatory terms I have on offer for what I called "the more common perspective" unlike other times, when I called war hawks "cavemen" et cetera.

      "Historically I don't recall many (any?) succesful ones"
      Depends how you define "terror". Haganah suceeded.

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