ISIS suprises US Pundits
Note: as for my current physical fitness, I've been doing six-mile walks in less than 120 minutes.
There has been alot of attention paid to the new ISIS group that has achieved 'spectacular' successes against the Iraqi Government Army summer of 2014. The successes of ISIS have come as a big surprise to the pundits.
There has been alot of attention paid to the new ISIS group that has achieved 'spectacular' successes against the Iraqi Government Army summer of 2014. The successes of ISIS have come as a big surprise to the pundits.
Ya well, 'pundits' are hindus, what we are talking about here is Muslims.
Iraq which the US took from Sunni Hussein and then left to Shia Al-Maliki, is 63% Shia. Neighboring Syria where the US opposes the Shia Assad government however is only 15% Shia.
Following a lines drawn in the sands mentality, The US has sided with the Sunnis in Sunni-majority Shia-ruled Syria, and the Shia majority in Shia-majority once-Sunni-ruled Iraq.
The borders drawn in the sand are what we seen on a map, but the more powerful natural borders in the Iraq/Syria area, are the borders between Shia and Sunni.
Counting Syria and Iraq together as one entity, only 43% of the total 37 million population is Shia; and on top of this, you have all the foreign fighters and support ISIS draws from a Muslim world that is 90% Sunni.
Sunnis comprise 90% of the 1.4 billion Muslims in the world; Shias only 8%. Time after time during the course of the past 100 years, Sunni Muslims have shown themselves to be great fighters (Indians Pakistanis, Bangladeshis in World Wars One and Two for example).
The US fighting against the previously Sunni government of Iraq, far outweighs what little it has done against the Shia government of Syria.
Yet somehow it has come as a big surprise to the brilliant pundits in Washington DC, that ISIS has enjoyed such great successes.
Naturally the Sunni resistance against the US attack on what was once a Sunni government of Iraq (Saddam Hussein), has produced a highly competent band of Sunni militants, ISIS.
The US seems to have failed to consider that perhaps: the Shia minority in Syria are more militarily competent compared to the Syrian Sunni majority; the Sunni-minority in Iraq are more militarily competent compared to the Iraqi Shia majority.
Then again, sometimes positive results are obtained luckily and accidentally by way of bumbling and fumbling; perhaps the (again surprising to pundits) new camaraderie between Shia Iran and the Christian US will make the world a better place.
As for the attacks upon Christians and Shias perpetrated by ISIS, conceivably they are forgivable, given that: aside from a little token help for the enemies of Assad's Shia government, Christian US involvement in the middle east has resembled a crusade against the Sunnis; the Sunnis are the majority looking at Iraq and Syria combined; the Shias of Iraq are seen as the political offspring of the US occupation.
Blaming the Iraqi Christians for whatever sins have been committed by the allegedly Christian US, is suspect for several reasons: a persons should not be held responsible for the sins of a co-religionist; every faith contains persons of varying levels of morality; the fact the US is majority 'Christian' does not mean it is controlled by Christians; a person can claim to belong to some faith while internally not believing in it and not abiding by it.
In My Humble Opinion (IMHO) as of now:
Muslims do not have a right to place a tax on Christians in regions Muslims control, which is not also paid by Christians. Such constitutes bullying of the type that is not practiced in Christian-controlled regions against Muslims.
The Koran, which was created 1200 years ago, has roots in the Old Testament of ancient Israel of 4000 years ago, and also in the New Testament of Christ of 2000 years ago.
Muslim belief re Christ springs from that time in Christ's life, when Christ admonished his disciples that they should tell no man that he was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Christian belief re Christ springs from the later time when Christ allowed his disciples to publicize the fact that he was indeed Christ the Son of God, and also One with God, because there is only one God.
Who knows, how much of the wisdom found in the Koran, is rooted in what Muhammad and his colleagues heard from Christian preachers?
Jews did not seek converts. For 700 years after Christ until Muhammad, the Christian preachers were the only ones preaching the One and Only Supreme God to the pagan Arabs. According to correct interpretation of Muslim doctrine, the Christian preachers who preached to the Arabs of the time between Christ and Muhammad, must have saved many Arab souls from the eternal hell-fire.
Conflating the Koran with God is what in the Islamic world is called 'Shirk', because the Koran contains only some of God's thoughts words and actions.
There are and always have been: evil phonies pretending to be Christian; Christians pretending they are not Christians; Muslims proclaiming that they are not Muslim, non-Muslims pretending to be Muslim.
The fact a Muslim commits a crime against a Christian, does not give Christians the right to retaliate against a Muslim who was not involved in the crime.
Likewise, the fact a Christian commits a crime against a Muslim, does not give Muslims the right to retaliate against a Christian who was not involved in the crime.
The fact a Muslim is imperfect in terms of his thoughts words and actions, does not give Christians the right to oppress the imperfect Muslim.
Likewise, the fact a Christian is imperect in terms of thoughts words and actions does not give Muslims the right to oppress the imperfect Christian.
Regarding music, music is an art-form, that allows man to express his artistic bent, without violating the Scriptural prohibitions against the making of images of things found in the world. The courts of King Solomon and King David featured instrumental and vocal music; their scriptures extolled the use of music as a way to commune with God. Coming after them, Christ and his disciples sang songs together. Christ scolded those who lusted with their eyes, Muslims endorse or demand that women hide their beauty under clothes; but music allows one pleasure without violating the prohibitions against visual lust.
I see it as a form of 'shirk' (Muslim term for conflating that which is not God with God), when persons have such a high opinion of themselves that they persecute religious practices that according to God's Will, should be tolerated. This because the 'Shirker', arrogantly and mistakenly considers his will and his opinion regarding Scripture and the Will of God, to correspond with or to transcend in importance the Will of God. And because the 'Shirker' treats the men who were involved with the production of the Koran, as being gods, when in fact they were humans far beneath God.
I've heard that Muslims believe that all things that happen on earth are the Will of God. Not so Christians. Christians pray that God's Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. They recognize that God's Will is not always done on earth. The fact that God allows something to happen does not mean that what he allowed to happen was His will regarding what is done on earth. God allows things that are not his will to be done on earth because he is a God who hides Himself.
The fact that some Muslim attacks an innocent Christian and kills him, does not in and of itself prove that it was God's Will that the Christian be killed by the Muslim.
Christians were persecuted by Paul before Paul became a Christian. There were at most three days between Paul repenting of persecuting Christians and Paul receiving the Holy Spirit. Christians did not punish Paul or ostracize Paul for having persecuted them. This was because when Paul persecuted the Christians, he did it in good conscience, he believed that the Christians should be persecute.
Hence we have the idea of 'freedom of conscience'. A persecutor Akbar might truly believe that he should persecute Jahangir because of Jahangir's heretical religion. But Akbar might despite being in good conscience, be incorrect to persecute Jahangir. Therefore laws prohibit Akbar from persecuting Jahangir on the basis of religion. Could be that Jahangir is following his conscience despite being incorrect, in which case Jahangir, despite being incorrect, would possess the dignity of conscience, a dignity laws guard against defilement.
Details of above paragraphs:
Blaming the Iraqi Christians for whatever sins have been committed by the allegedly Christian US, is suspect for several reasons: a persons should not be held responsible for the sins of a co-religionist; every faith contains persons of varying levels of morality; the fact the US is majority 'Christian' does not mean it is controlled by Christians; a person can claim to belong to some faith while internally not believing in it and not abiding by it.
In My Humble Opinion (IMHO) as of now:
Muslims do not have a right to place a tax on Christians in regions Muslims control, which is not also paid by Christians. Such constitutes bullying of the type that is not practiced in Christian-controlled regions against Muslims.
The Koran, which was created 1200 years ago, has roots in the Old Testament of ancient Israel of 4000 years ago, and also in the New Testament of Christ of 2000 years ago.
Muslim belief re Christ springs from that time in Christ's life, when Christ admonished his disciples that they should tell no man that he was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Christian belief re Christ springs from the later time when Christ allowed his disciples to publicize the fact that he was indeed Christ the Son of God, and also One with God, because there is only one God.
Who knows, how much of the wisdom found in the Koran, is rooted in what Muhammad and his colleagues heard from Christian preachers?
Jews did not seek converts. For 700 years after Christ until Muhammad, the Christian preachers were the only ones preaching the One and Only Supreme God to the pagan Arabs. According to correct interpretation of Muslim doctrine, the Christian preachers who preached to the Arabs of the time between Christ and Muhammad, must have saved many Arab souls from the eternal hell-fire.
Conflating the Koran with God is what in the Islamic world is called 'Shirk', because the Koran contains only some of God's thoughts words and actions.
There are and always have been: evil phonies pretending to be Christian; Christians pretending they are not Christians; Muslims proclaiming that they are not Muslim, non-Muslims pretending to be Muslim.
The fact a Muslim commits a crime against a Christian, does not give Christians the right to retaliate against a Muslim who was not involved in the crime.
Likewise, the fact a Christian commits a crime against a Muslim, does not give Muslims the right to retaliate against a Christian who was not involved in the crime.
The fact a Muslim is imperfect in terms of his thoughts words and actions, does not give Christians the right to oppress the imperfect Muslim.
Likewise, the fact a Christian is imperect in terms of thoughts words and actions does not give Muslims the right to oppress the imperfect Christian.
Regarding music, music is an art-form, that allows man to express his artistic bent, without violating the Scriptural prohibitions against the making of images of things found in the world. The courts of King Solomon and King David featured instrumental and vocal music; their scriptures extolled the use of music as a way to commune with God. Coming after them, Christ and his disciples sang songs together. Christ scolded those who lusted with their eyes, Muslims endorse or demand that women hide their beauty under clothes; but music allows one pleasure without violating the prohibitions against visual lust.
I see it as a form of 'shirk' (Muslim term for conflating that which is not God with God), when persons have such a high opinion of themselves that they persecute religious practices that according to God's Will, should be tolerated. This because the 'Shirker', arrogantly and mistakenly considers his will and his opinion regarding Scripture and the Will of God, to correspond with or to transcend in importance the Will of God. And because the 'Shirker' treats the men who were involved with the production of the Koran, as being gods, when in fact they were humans far beneath God.
I've heard that Muslims believe that all things that happen on earth are the Will of God. Not so Christians. Christians pray that God's Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. They recognize that God's Will is not always done on earth. The fact that God allows something to happen does not mean that what he allowed to happen was His will regarding what is done on earth. God allows things that are not his will to be done on earth because he is a God who hides Himself.
The fact that some Muslim attacks an innocent Christian and kills him, does not in and of itself prove that it was God's Will that the Christian be killed by the Muslim.
Christians were persecuted by Paul before Paul became a Christian. There were at most three days between Paul repenting of persecuting Christians and Paul receiving the Holy Spirit. Christians did not punish Paul or ostracize Paul for having persecuted them. This was because when Paul persecuted the Christians, he did it in good conscience, he believed that the Christians should be persecute.
Hence we have the idea of 'freedom of conscience'. A persecutor Akbar might truly believe that he should persecute Jahangir because of Jahangir's heretical religion. But Akbar might despite being in good conscience, be incorrect to persecute Jahangir. Therefore laws prohibit Akbar from persecuting Jahangir on the basis of religion. Could be that Jahangir is following his conscience despite being incorrect, in which case Jahangir, despite being incorrect, would possess the dignity of conscience, a dignity laws guard against defilement.
Details of above paragraphs:
Notes (condensations of articles found on internet):
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Two battalions of Iran’s (93% Shia) Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are reported to be operating in Iraq (63% Shia) to combat...(ISIS) attacks against the Iraqi government. In late June 2014,...ISIS changed its name to the Islamic State and said it would rule...as a Sunni Muslim caliphate overseen by...Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Islamic State, an al-Qaeda offshoot, has seized... northern Iraq since June 2014.
...August 3 2014... death of IRGC Colonel Kamal Shirkhani, who was killed in a mortar attack by Islamic State militants... in the city of Samarra, Iraq.
“When the Islamic State reached Shi’ite areas in Iraq, the Revolutionary Guards had forces there who fought them...A number of them were killed,”
...Iraqi security forces have “largely dissolved” as fighters against the Islamic State advance on Baghdad...
...Iran has now mobilized up to 20,000 Iraqi militiamen from groups it funded and trained. Those same militiamen had attacked U.S. troops ...
June 11 2014...during the battle at Mosul...Iraqi security forces outnumbered ISIS fighters by ...15 to one...government troops suffered...“a dramatic collapse of morale.”
...Iraqi Prime Minister...al-Maliki on June 11 2014...said, “The commanders who retreated and wavered must be punished.”
After...ISIS seized...Mosul...150,000...fled...ISIS...issued an edict expelling...Christians who...ISIS...destroyed Christian and Jewish religious artifacts...
David Curry, president/CEO of Open Doors USA:...
According to Open Doors, the Islamic State gave Christians an ultimatum...July 19-20 (2014): 1) Stay....convert to Islam; 2) Pay Islamic tax (...too much for most families...); 3) Leave Mosul taking nothing but their clothes. Christians who stayed would be executed.
...July 14 2014...Iraqi army... desertions in June 2014 during...fall of Mosul ... government has relied heavily on Shiite militias and volunteers ...
Saddam Hussein, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Egypt’s Anwar El Sadat. All of these rulers were tolerant toward Christians and other religious minorities living in their countries....anti-Western revolutionaries who took...Iran in 1979 established ... Shia ... government intolerant of...religious nonconformity.
...ISIS is allied with rebels fighting Assad in Syria who have received U.S. support...
Senator ...Paul (R-Ky.)...aware of...connection between...anti-Assad rebels and...ISIS...May 21, 2013...“...You will be funding...allies of al-Qaeda.”
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BEIRUT—...U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
...Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an offshoot of al Qaeda, rapidly gaining territory...
Iran has invested...resources over the past decade to ensure Iraq emerged... a strong Shiite-led state. The so-called Shiite crescent—stretching from Iran (93% SHIA) to Iraq (63% SHIA), Lebanon (41% SHIA) and Syria (15% SHIA) —was forged ...
Two Guards' units...were tasked with protecting Baghdad...
Iraq's military was trained and equipped by the U.S...in several cities...Iraqi soldiers surrendered without a fight....
...U.S. opposes Iran's support for Syrian (15% SHIA) President Bashar al-Assad...
...Assad regime...is an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Shiite militia trained by Iran, weapons and cash ...flow from Iran to Syria via Iraq.
...ISIS,...urged the group's Sunni fighters to march toward..."filth-ridden" Karbala and "... city of polytheism" Najaf,... "settle...differences" with Iraq's Shiite PM al-Maliki.
Iran's view:...sectarian battle between...Islam-Sunni and Shiite...proxy battle between...Saudi Arabia (3% SHIA) and Iran (93% SHIA).
"...Islamic Republic of Iran, won't tolerate...violence and terrorism…. We will fight...violence and extremism and terrorism..."
...short-term,...crisis in Iraq will only strengthen ...Iran ...
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...160 computer flash sticks revealed the inside story of Isis...that came from nowhere with nothing to having Syrian oil fields and control of Iraq's second city...Isis swept through...northern and central Iraq over three stunning days... three divisions of the Iraqi army shed their uniforms and fled.
The capitulation of the military ...allowed Kurdish forces to seize ...Kirkuk...
... "Before Mosul, their total...assets were $875m ...Afterwards, with the money they robbed from banks...military supplies they looted, they...add another $1.5bn..."
ISIS leaders had been meticulously chosen. ...top tier – all battle-hardened veterans of the insurgency against US forces nearly a decade ago ...strategic acumen of Isis was impressive – so too its attention to detail. "They had itemised everything...Down to the smallest detail."
...Isis secured massive cash...from...oilfields of eastern Syria, which it...commandeered in late 2012...some of which it...sold...to the Syrian regime... reaped windfalls from smuggling...raw materials pillaged from the crumbling state...antiquities from archaeological digs.
...in less than three years, Isis had grown from a ragtag band...to...the most...rich and capable terror group in the world.
"...They had done this all themselves. There was no state actor at all behind them, which we had long known. They don't need one."...
Foreign jihadists, many from Europe...stormed into Mosul and have spread through central Iraq...
..."We knew they had infiltrated the ministries..."
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(CNN)...al Baghdadi, who has transformed a few terror cells...into the most dangerous militant group in the world.
The ISIS has thrived...during...civil war in Syria and...security vacuum that followed ... departure of...American forces from Iraq.
...aim of ISIS:...create an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and in Syria.
...2006, al Qaeda in Iraq -- under...al-Zarqawi -- ...brutal treatment of civilians as it tried to ignite a sectarian war against...Shia....bombing...an important Shia shrine in Samarra, which sparked retaliatory attacks...moderate Sunni tribal leaders nearly destroyed the group.
... Iraqi forces ...lack of professional soldiers...division of military units along sectarian lines...lack of...equipment ...such as attack helicopters and reconnaissance capabilities.
...ISIS exploited...perception among...Sunnis that they were being persecuted by the Shia...government led by ...al-Maliki...arrest of senior Sunni political figures...suppression of Sunni dissent...
...Baghdadi...Ph.D. in Islamic studies from a university in the capital....He formed his...group in...Samarra...Diyala areas, where his family was from, before joining al Qaeda in Iraq....served four years in...U.S. prison camp...developed a network of contacts and honed his ideology .... released ... 2009 ...
ISIS wants...Islamic...state, stretching across the region.
ISIS...Sharia law in the towns... Boys and girls must be separated at school; women must wear...full veil...brutal justice, music is banned...fast is enforced during Ramadan.
...al Baghdadi focused on secrecy ...money....Extortion... robbing banks and gold shops was another.
...suicide attacks...assassinations...recruitment of Sunni tribal fighters... prison raids that liberated hundreds of fighters...attacks on police patrols...large-scale attacks aimed at capturing...territory.
...Al Baghdadi...avoiding the alienation of powerful tribal figures....One of the group ... al-Adnani ... : "...our mistakes, we do not deny...we will continue to make mistakes as long as we are humans. God forbid that we commit mistakes deliberately."...it is trying to win favor through...social welfare programs ...recreational activities for children ... food and fuel to the needy ... clinics.
...Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lost control over large parts of the North and the long border with Iraq...ISIS...could build a rear base where it could recruit foreign fighters, organize and escape from any Iraqi army operations.
Al Baghdadi ... sent operatives across the border as early as ... 2011...group...changed ... name -- adding "al Sham" for Syria.
...For western counterterrorism agencies, the combination of fanaticism and disciplined organization is the nightmare scenario.
...ISIS' success against what are seen by ... Sunnis as loathsome Shia regimes in Syria and Iraq has attracted thousands of foreign fighters to its ranks, enabling it to ... prepare ... offensive in Iraq.
...ability to...suicide bombings and attacks on the security forces ... in several regions at once... resilient force...sophisticated attacks. ... fighters used bulldozers to remove barriers
...ISIS ...little ability to govern... unpopular, and has no sway outside the Sunni community in either Iraq or Syria."
...weakness of the governments ISIS is confronting -- and the hatred for those governments among Sunnis -- means that a few dozen truckloads of fighters can seize...cities, overcoming forces many times larger by their sheer ferocity and battle experience.
..."ISIS has become indisputably the most effective and ruthless terrorist organization in the world."
"It...has attracted...fighters, not just from Iraq and Syria, but also from Saudi Arabia...Jordan."
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1483 million Muslims in world. 113 million (7.6%) of these are Shia.
Shia majority nations: Azerbaijan (75%, 5758K Shia) ; Bahrain (61%, 362K Shia); Iran (93%, 61732K Shia) ; Iraq (63%, 20780K Shia);
Iraq (63% Shia, 13389K Shia, total population 21422K);
Syria (15% Shia, 2388K Shia, total population 15609K);
Iraq & Syria combined: 15777K Shia, total population 37031K; 43% Shia.
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Labels: Iraq, ISIS, Muslim, naivete, Sunni, surprise, Syria, US
posted by David Virgil at 2:04 AM
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