Copyright 2015 by John T. Reed
The media and Republicans have their hair on fire about IS. Tonight, Hannity said in a near panic that they have 25,000 members and are seeking more.
The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor has 28,000 undergraduate students. They are also seeking more. I don’t think anyone is setting their hair on fire about it, not even Ohio State.
For perspective, the population of Iraq is 33 million; Syria, 23 million. If the 25,000 IS members are a problem of some sort, the 56 million Syrians and Iraqis ought to be able to handle it—with switchblades.
If they need the “white man” to “pick up his old burden,” to borrow phraseology from Rudyard Kipling, I refer them to the 700 million white men in Europe or perhaps their fellow Muslims could help them. There are 1.6 billion Muslims.
The distance from Syria and Iraq to Europe is zero miles. Turkey is Europe and it borders both countries.
We 317 million Americans, in contrast, are 5,284 miles away from Syria. It’s not our problem.
We should knock the oil producing facilities they have captured out of action so they cannot makes oodles of money—enough money to enable them to strategically threaten us. But if the Sunni want to kill the Shia and vice versa with their little AK-47s and RPGs, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of “Death to the USA” chanters.
I have never been much for poetry, but Rudyard Kipling is the great exception. He is the John Wayne of poets. Here is his “White Man’s Burden” poem:
The White Man’s Burden (The white man in this discussion is the U.S. military, the other people in the poem are the populations of Syria and Iraq.)
Take up the White Man's burden, Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile, to serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden, In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit, And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden, The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden, No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper, The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living, And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard—
The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:—
"Why brought he us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden, Ye dare not stoop to less—
Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man's burden, Have done with childish days—
The lightly proferred laurel, The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood, through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers!
To recognize how long this IS type crap has been going on, please note that Mr. Kipling wrote this poem in 1899 and it was subtitled The United States and the Philippine Islands, which we had just acquired in the Spanish-American War.
Here are some Facebook comments about the above article:
John Ross Dane-Geld (Another Kipling poem—Ross intends the reader see the invaders who ask for cash to go away as the Baltimore rioters and similar persons in other cities)
It is always a temptation, to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation, for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff, and look important, and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested, to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"
Derek Wade Jack, you need to either research this or stop talking about it. This was the focus of my master's degree. ISIS has used social media more than any other terror group in history. They are well funded and organized, and have brought small-cell and lone wolf terror into the backyards of several countries already, notably Australia and England.
Lee Rigby was killed by lone wolf terror without an overt link to ISIS, and Alton Nolen hacked a woman's head off in Oklahoma in large part due to their inspiration.
The State Department, as well as British Royal Services have both declared ISIS to be a credible threat to the west. They've done a lot more research into this than either of us have, and I've done more than you and trust their findings and recommendations.
You are welcome to read any of my papers on the subject, but there have been THREE Armed Forces force protection elevations because of this organization. Burying our heads in the sand and saying, "Oh they're a long ways away!" when they have better funding than Al-Qaeda ever did and plane tickets are a couple grand is insane. Moreover, the fact that they can inspire copycat attacks in cells too small to be noticed by law enforcement makes them even more dangerous. Alton Nolen acted alone. Rigby was killed by just two people. Two brothers injured three hundred and killed three at the Boston Marathon. A cell of four attacked a cafe in Australia. Pamela Geller was attacked by a cell of two.
By its very nature, lone wolf terror uses statistics against us. "We're safe because we've never been attacked" makes no sense at all. The TSA is a mess of security theater. Schools are soft targets. Shopping malls have no defense. A cell of three armed with kitchen knives could wipe out a grade school in a few minutes. Col. Dave Grossman has an article about the "Perfect Day" and the Sepoy Mutiny you might want to read.
By the way, it might be 5,284 miles from Syria to the United States, but given that I'm replying to this post from 2,955 miles away from where you posted it, less than a day after you did so, I think your point doesn't make sense.
John T. Reed
Re Wade: Not persuasive. Well-funded and organized does not nullify 5,284 miles. Lone wolf terror is invalid as small sample size. There have been lone wolves throughout my life and before, like the Texas tower sniper.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
The State Department and Royal Services have no credibility with me or most people. Hillary was recently head of the State Department. Swift Boat John “Ghengis Khan” Kerry is the current Secretary of State.
The little attacks you cite are further proof of my point. I am trying to show people who are getting excited about these attacks that you are reacting illogically to because they are a more vivid way of dying, but not one that is significant enough to matter. Look up all the causes of death in the world.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate Terror does not even make the list when you include the 9/11 deaths. I frequently find myself arguing here with people who fail to have a sense of proportion. And the actual main cause of premature death is not on the list: poverty.
“We’re safe because we’ve never been attacked” is straw man. No one said that. We were attacked at Pearl Harbor and on 9/11. Each killed about 3,000. Japan was a sort of 1941 superpower at the time, not 25,000 guys with AKs.
Whether we’re safe is not the issue. The issue is whether IS is so much of a threat that we should exalt it over heart disease and smoking and poverty as a priority. We should not. IS is the problem of the Middle East and maybe Europe. You do not address why it’s our problem instead of theirs. My Unelected President (novel I’m writing) does not deal with IS because it predates them, but he would just drone their oil business to zero revenue and otherwise let the eastern hemisphere folks worry about it.
The fact that you did your masters thesis on this strongly suggests confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) and effort justification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effort_justification). The act of selecting that subject presuppose that it is very important.
You are also suggesting I must shut up because you outrank me resume wise. http://www.johntreed.com/debate.html #s 3d, 12, 20, 27, 49.
Your point about being able to communicate with me by Internet easily and quickly does not indicate the 300 meter range of AK-47s has been similarly increased by the invention of the Net.
And the notion that we should set our hair on fire because “they have social media?” Give me a break. The Democrats had social media in 2010 and 2014 and lost both houses of Congress. I have social media. This is Facebook. I also do a little Twitter and Linked in. It is hard to prevent all 317 million Americans from misbehaving. As evidenced by the fact that some have been misbehaving since the beginning of recorded history, including before “social media.”
John Ross "RE Ross: I don’t understand who are the Danes in the IS situation."
My post was to say that I, too, have little interest in poetry in general but a tremendous admiration for Kipling. You noted a poem he wrote in 1899 was relevant to the IS situation today. "The Dane-geld" is equally relevant today, though not about IS. Think Welfare State, BGI (Black Grievance Industry), etc. I apologize for the slight thread drift.
Derek Wade No, Jack, you give ME a break. Allow me to roughly quote from your very own book on coaching youth football, regarding a meeting you held with parents:
"Is anyone here an expert on coaching youth football? Has anyone written a book on the subject, been published, etc? Fine, then let ME be the expert because I have."
Apparently, it's common sense when YOU point out that you have the chops and have done the research on a subject, but when someone ELSE has done so, it's confirmation bias and effort justification.
I never said or even hinted that ISIS was not the problem of the middle east. I said, hinted, and still say that it is ALSO the problem of the rest of the world.
Did the democrats use social media to convince ideological youth to travel 4,000 miles and join a killer cult? No, but ISIS has. Did the democrats use social media to convince copycats to cut the heads off of anyone or shoot up an art gallery for making pictures they didn't like? No, but ISIS has.
Democrats are constrained by a thin veneer of civility that would see them lynched if they broke the law so blatantly. ISIS doesn't care.
I really don't care if Hillary was head of the State Department. What the hell kind of argument is that? In what way does that invalidate the data of thousands of researchers and analysts who study these things as their job?
You're a real estate expert, financial expert, and football expert. On these things, I come to YOU for advice. I listen patiently. I respect you.
Do NOT tell me in the areas I have studied that I do no deserve the same respect. You come to me here.
ISIS isn't stupid enough to try to shoot you from 5,000 miles away. No, they'll convince a neighbor kid, probably 13-23 years of age, to build an explosive vest to set off in your shopping mall, or to steal a gun and go on a killing spree.
Actually, they don't even have to make direct contact to inspire copycats to do the same thing. Alton Nolan didn't have direct contact with ISIS, and neither did the guy who shot up the Canadian Parliament. They inspire and convince the people living NEXT TO YOU to be a threat.
Your fiction novel is irrelevant. Luke Skywalker doesn't fight ISIS in the new Star Wars movie, either. I don't think Gru sent any of his Minions after them in the Despicable Me series, either.
John Ross Derek, I believe the issue Jack has with your argument is one of statistical probability. Terrorist attacks here (such as the Ft. Hood shooting) are flashy and newsworthy, but of no real significance in that more people probably died of choking on pretzels in the same time frame as were killed by terrorists while in America.
If your claim is that terrorist attacks here are likely to increase by several orders of magnitude in the near future, that's a different argument, and one that would require some pretty convincing facts to make me take it seriously.
The notion that IS fanatics across the water are going to recruit someone in my zip code to blow themselves up while I'm within the blast radius strikes me as about as likely as my being killed by a meteorite.
The REAL significance of these random (and statistically trivial) terrorist attacks is their psychological effect on otherwise intelligent Americans. When the two Nation of Islam "snipers" were popping random people in D.C., my own mother was terrified that my sister (who lives in nearby McLean, Virginia) would be killed. Pointing out the population of that area and the handful of people they had killed, I explained that her daughter at much greater risk from a thousand other things that didn't worry Mom at all.
I think Jack is doing the same thing here--trying to inject logic and reason into a flashy phenomenon. You may have more knowledge of IS recruitment of "lone wolf" terror than anyone around, but that alone doesn't make such terror a statistically significant (and thus legitimate) concern for people who live here.
John T. Reed I mentioned Hillary and Kerry because you cited the State department as authority. Now you suggest the subordinates of Hillary and Kerry are experts who got it right and Hillary and Kerry are irrelevant to the lower-level experts. No one in those organizations deviates one iota from the party line publicly.
Ross is correct.
I wrote an article years ago that terrorism is a publicity stunt. I read the book What Terrorists Want after hearing the author spoke at a Harvard Business Reunion. She was the daughter of terrorists—IRA, and is now a college president back in Ireland. She said they want the three Rs: revenge, recognition, and reaction—actually overreaction.
America’s overreaction to 9/11 is exactly what they want and exactly why they do spectacular things rather than strategic things like killing 100,000 Americans. Ross called them “flashy and newsworthy.” Just so.
The media is complicit. I said in my publicity stunt article that the media are the paymasters of the terrorists, paying them in fame and provoking overreaction.
With regard to the youth youth football parent meeting analogy, Derek and I met when he became a youth football coach for the first time then took a brand new youth team to an undefeated season in his first try at coaching football. My youth football books are extremely detailed and technical. Youth parents, on the other hand argue all sorts of idiotic things based primarily on NFL approaches or faded memories of their 30 years ago playing days. To let them do much of that in a parent meeting is a total waste of time that I did not have.
Here the subject is whether IS should be getting tons of air time every single night on Fox News and whether there should be a great outcry for America to do whatever it takes to stop IS because they are a clear and present danger to us.
My debate tactics list gives credit for things like doing a masters thesis on a subject, but it prohibits stating that as why you are right as a substitute for showing where I am wrong. My failure to have written a masters thesis about IS may indeed be why I am wrong, but let’s first point out where I am wrong with facts and logic rather than assume I am wrong because my lack of particular experience might cause me to be wrong.
I did graduate from West Point, and another year of Army officer schooling after that—ranger, jump school, communications officer courses. I was in the 82nd Airborne and did a tour in Vietnam. (Derek was a Coast guardsman and in his 30s now I believe.) I learned a little bit about wars in general from that training and experience. I am also professional writer and have written thousands of articles generally performing research for each. I have written 38 books—each the equivalent of a thesis in length typically. In particular, I have studied current military affairs by reading various books, attending talks by Petraeus and other participants, watching TV and movie documentaries.
So I am not going to defer to your thesis experience to the extent that I take notes silently when you speak. I am not as ignorant of this IS subject as youth football parents are of coaching. They typically never coached or attended a coaching clinic or read a book about coaching. Most probably never played the sport. To say that I am to you on IS what youth football parents were to me on football coaching is way off base.
I would defer to your knowledge of Coast Guard operations, which I have no training or experience with. On that subject, I would be like a youth football parent talking to me about coaching a team.
The issue here is, as Ross says, distance, statistics, weaponry. I think the total number of noncombatant Americans killed by IS in the last two years is something like three: the two reporters who were beheaded and the woman who was murdered. All went there on their own nickel in spite of State Department warnings not to go there. Here is an article about the stats: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-terrorism.../5382818
http://www.johntreed.com/publicity.html
. Derek lists a number of attempted terrorist incidents like Pam Geller. There were also the underwear and shoe bombers, neither of whom caused a detonation. The LA airport bomber was detected and stopped in Seattle. With each additional such incident, Americans should be less scared, not more scared. The main successful incidents were the WTC twice and a couple of U.S. Army soldiers who went postal. This is not a reason to spend half a trillion dollars sending boots on the ground to Syria or Iraq. We already know how that would go: IEDs, “friendly” Iraqis or Syrians suddenly turning on us and shooting, and the enemy spending all their time in buildings with human shields to prevent us from killing them. We should not consider more of that because of three morons who wanted to impress their friends with their dangerous adventure and got themselves killed in the process.
John T. Reed