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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJuan Cole: Is ISIL’s ‘Shock and Awe’ more Awe-ful because One Victim?
Is ISILs Shock and Awe more Awe-ful because One Victim?
By Juan Cole | Feb. 5, 2015
The Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) burning of a captured Jordanian pilot alive produced justified revulsion globally, resulting in the terrorist organization being termed barbarous and similar epithets. Why did it behave this way? Because it wants to terrify its opponents into submission and underline that it is too crazy to be messed with. In short, it was a form of shock and awe. It was all the more horrible for being inflicted on a single, known individual with a premeditated and inexorable viciousness, and for being carefully filmed and shared on the internet (successfully tempting Rupert Murdochs Fox News into rebroadcasting it).
Shock and Awe was the slogan pushed by the Bush administration for its massive bombing campaign against Iraq in March-April of 2003. It conducted 29,200 air strikes in the course of the initial invasion. Many of those missions were flown against what turned out to be empty Baath government facilities in hopes of killing high government officials (mostly that did not happen). But you cant drop 500-pound bombs on a densely populated city without killing innocent bystanders. Likely the first two months of US bombing left at the very least 2,760 civilians dead.*
A study based on the conservative Iraq Body Count found that in Iraq, 46 per cent of the victims of US air strikes whose gender could be determined were female and 39 per cent were children.
But the slaughter from the air was great not only among civilians but among military personnel, many of whom had no opportunity to surrender or run away (when US ground forces approaching the capital were surprised to come upon elements of a Republican Guard tank division they thought had been destroyed, the Iraqi tank personnel exited their vehicles and decamped en masse; those discovered by A-10 tank killers or Apache helicopters were not afforded that opportunity).
Speaking of burning people alive, one technique the US used was the BLU-82B, a 15,000 pound bomb detonated near the ground with a blast radius of about 5000 feet, but leaving no crater. It was intended to intimidate by burning up large numbers of infantrymen or armored personnel. (It is sometimes misidentified as a fuel-air bomb or daisy cutter but is much more powerful than the latter). It was retired in 2008 in favor of something even more destructive. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.juancole.com/2015/02/shock-because-victim.html
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)if a million die, it's a statistic.
Or something like that.
valerief
(53,235 posts)One murder a villain, millions a hero. Numbers sanctify, my good fellow.--Monsieur Verdoux.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsieur_Verdoux
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)which, as it turns out, is probably a misattributed quote:
This quotation probably was originated from «Französischer Witz» by Kurt Tucholsky (1932): «Darauf sagt ein Diplomat vom Quai dOrsay: «Der Krieg? Ich kann das nicht so schrecklich finden! Der Tod eines Menschen: das ist eine Katastrophe. Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!»» («At which a diplomat from France replies: «The war? I can't find it too terrible! The death of one man: that is a catastrophe. One hundred thousand deaths: that is a statistic!»»)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin
NewJeffCT
(56,827 posts)I thought it was kill one man, you are a murderer, kill 10 and you are a monster, but kill one million and you are a conqueror.
valerief
(53,235 posts)"Ask not..." line. From what I can recall, that's been regurgitated many times in different ways throughout history. I have (or had) a book somewhere with famous quotations that have been repackaged and reused throughout history.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)He will probably never be punished in a court of law but at least he and his cronies can't leave the country for fear of prosecution abroad, so that is something I guess. But I don't think it is wise or really honest to try to draw parallels to the medieval/communications age broadcast of the horrific burning death of a man in a cage for public spectacle.
Because all of it is a horror no matter whether it's up close and personal or dropped down from above.
But when you 'don't do body counts', somehow those deaths are instantly forgotten and never mourned.
erronis
(14,955 posts)Remember Westmoreland (et.al.) getting up in front of the T.V.s and spouting the number of enemy combatants killed? Day after day, month after month, year after year - same old lies.
Same old lying about who you were killing from napalm, gun ships, massive bombs dropped from 30,000 feet, land mines. Same old lying military apparatus that lies to us now. Same "light at the end of the tunnel", "Mission Accomplished", "Objectives have been accomplished".
Same lying about who is actually being killed. It is the innocents. It is the children, non-combatants, even the soldiers that have been conscripted to fight to let some behind-the-lines officer write his glowing report.
Juan Cole is always worth a thoughtful read. Thanks for posting.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)actions that have fueled more misery around the ME and beyond.
K&R
marmar
(76,985 posts)...... too many people still buy into the virtuous nation bullshit.
valerief
(53,235 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)for some who prefer to highlight the problems to be inherent to Muslims and or Arabs.
Don't connect all the dots sort of thing...no matter how apparent they are.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)'fighting terror', is no different than those who believe they have the right to do it for their own sickening reasons, whatever they may be - though I'm sure they, too, see them as noble.
"What killed Kassasbeh was not Islam. What killed him are the new dynamics of globalisation and transnational violence that have consumed the Middle East and the Islamic world, unleashed by the 2003 Iraq war and the 2011 Syrian civil war." Asst. Prof. Ibrahim al-Marashi
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016113712
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/04/folly-us-war-terror-looms-jordan-and-isis-exchange-executions
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)Or are we supposed to sit quietly and think about our sins until Cole decides we can come out of our rooms?
polly7
(20,582 posts)It's every leader from around the world who needs to rethink what they're doing to humanity. Imo, Bush/Cheney/PNAC's dream for Iraq and destabilization of the ME succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and has spread now to Africa and other areas of the world. Corrupt gov'ts and gov'ts not able to control it are now also involved. Who has the courage to accept it though and actually DO something, as you say? Not the ones making money off of it, or spreading their corporate giants, IMF loans and control into places previously unaccessible. Why is it up to Cole to tell anyone when? He's just reporting it, like many others. Stop the funding for ISIS, stop the 'war on terror' that creates more cruelty and terrorism than it does anything else. But again, who will have the courage to admit their part in it and act? And, none of us are innocent, so I'm not blaming any country for all of it - but - Bush's war certainly did start it. Jmo.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)They shouldn't and won't stop us from doing what needs to be done in the here and now, however.
B2G
(9,766 posts)It's one video.
They are committing atrocity after atrocity over there. Please do try to keep up.
7962
(11,841 posts)McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)People who drop bombs are just good little foot soldiers.
Bombing was invented because it is just about the only way that you can get ordinary people to attack and kill civilians short of hiring murderous thugs who enjoy that kind of thing.
War has always been hell. But those who do it with relish are still the scariest.
Oh, and BTW, it now appears that ISIS has murdered their female hostage. Making this an enormous pr shit storm for the group that tried to claim that it was "political." Anyone giving them money to support their "cause" might as well be answering one of those Nigerian spam e-mails, because it is now clear that ISIS is nothing but an organized criminal mob trying to make money.
killbotfactory
(13,566 posts)The people responsible for this are walking free today and living rich lives.
Think about that the next time someone unironically says we should "turn the area into glass" because of a video of ISIS barbarity.
7962
(11,841 posts)If they havent surrendered by the time an A-10 arrives, too bad.
A prisoner in a cage is totally different. Eta, I'm not in ANY way saying the Iraq war was justified.
Cole loves to toss around his own term of "Zionofacists" and is notoriously anti-Israel and a Hamas apologist.
Warpy
(110,913 posts)who were incinerated by white phosphorus. The news didn't even call them women and children, only "collateral damage." However, they were there and we did that to them.
ISIS is not made up of nice people. Neither is our military command. We need to own what people do to each other when someone in power gives them permission to.
There is no glory in war, only misery and death.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)And they were trapped and every bit as captive as any person ISIS has burnt alive. Both sickening, disgusting acts against humanity. ISIS was created by the vaccuum left after removing Hussein and probably to a lesser extent, Gaddafi. Was that the plan all along - to create endless turmoil in the ME and watch it spread, necessitating 'intervention after intervention' and assuring a need for constant presence, more military bases, more military weapons produced, more foreign involvement to 'fix' devastated economies, etc. etc. etc.? I believe so. And the only way to stop this horror is to stop the funding and support for it. We all know who's doing it, but will they sacrifice their billion dollar gains from constant war and terror for it, or is this just only the well-known results of something long-planned for by PNAC, the Saudi's and anyone who's for a decade with their actions allowed these hate groups to form and operate? I think it is, and I don't see anyone with enough integrity and courage to stop it.
pampango
(24,692 posts)There can be little doubt over the effectiveness of ISIL's hostage-taking as a tactic. By contrast to the large scale indiscriminate bombing of a city that kills and maims hundreds (the scenes like those we fleetingly see from Aleppo) hostage-taking allows attention to zero in on the very human story of an individual.
ISIL, the extremist offshoot of an extremist organisation, is using the tools of globalisation to enact spectacular acts of hostage killing to capture and shape the agenda of the Syrian and Iraqi crises.
The horror and profile of these acts puts decision makers in a difficult position. While each killing brings out a round of condemnations and lots of use of words like "barbarians", "sadistic" or "savages", it also alters the dynamics of the US-led coalition currently operating against ISIL.
In short, the taking and killing of hostages provides compelling narratives within large scale and complex conflicts and their value to ISIL is clear, as we see for the investment they put into the films of the executions themselves and the responses from the political actors involved.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/02/terror-political-theatre-isil-oscar-winner-150207065650097.html