zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — the DoubleQuote as déjà vu, and as moral contrast and comparison ]
.

The targeting of innocence seems particularly reprehensible —

but in this instance, the Islamic State is only following in the footsteps of the Soviets in Afghanistan.

**

Perhaps someone can help me understand whether training young boys to kill —

or killing children — is the more heinous crime.

Or sin?

**

Sources:

Armament Research Services, Islamic State employs improvised explosive devices

Christian Science Monitor, The Afghan child and the bright red plastic truck

Daily Mail, ISIS release shocking new video of child soldiers from Kazakhstan

We Write What We Like, Defying the media lies about Syria – finding truth

[ by Charles Cameron — once again learning the language i already speak ]
.

**

Okay, now the humor:

Pursuant to my interest in learning the language which is now my mother tongue — including such terms as sperg out and edgelord —– Adam Elkus today updated me on the concept of the Dank Meme —

Dank meme? It’s another of those serpent eats tail things:

— scrambling my mind in time for breakfast by introducing me to Thomas the Dank Engine:

I must admit I’m more used to his Tank Engine cousin:

**

I’m a big fan of Gordon, the fictional anthropomorphic tender locomotive, by the way — it’s a clan thing.

[ by Charles Cameron — shifting fashions in “some are more equal than others” ]
.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Further, we believe the equality therein described applies also to women and children.

Accordingly, we note:

According to the UN, 72% of those fleeing to Europe in this crisis are men, only 13% women and 15% children. http://t.co/1QHjPHryXQ

— Peggy Noonan (@Peggynoonannyc) September 11, 2015

or bring forth this comparison:

Titanic survival rates: women 75%, children 50%, adult men 19% http://t.co/mPR4CSE0vo https://t.co/ebc5mMuiBZ

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 11, 2015

[ by Charles Cameron — in real estate it’s location, location, location — in thought space it’s context, context, context ]
.

Timothy Furnish offers us context for the newly released video of Islamic State beheadings of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians (screencap in upper panel, below) with two striking images of precedents, one of which I have reproduced in part (lower panel), illustrating how the Ottomans beheaded tens of thousands of Georgian Christians:

Furnish’s post is titled ISIS Beheadings: Hotwiring the Apocalypse One Christian Martyr At A Time.

**

I am saddened to say that this is indeed part of the history of Islamic relations with Christianity.

I am happy to add, however, that it is not the whole story. In the upper panel, below, you see Muslim and Christian at a very different form of battle, as found in the Book of Games, Chess, dice and boards, 1282, in the library of the monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial:

Religious tolerance in Islam is illustrated as found today in India, in this picture of a Muslim mother in full niqab taking her son, dressed as the Hindu deity Krishna, to a festival — very probably the Janmashtami or birthday celebration of the child-god (lower panel, above).

**

It will be interesting to see how President Sisi repsonds to this murderous IS attack on Egyptian citizens.

[ by Charles Cameron — thoughts triggered by the Jeremy Scahill & Lawrence Wright documentaries ]
.

I don’t really enjoy writing this, because I’m loath to suggest that sixteen year old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was in fact a combatant, though it seems to me that he might have been. I was viewing documentaries the other night, though, and when Jeremy Scahill‘s Dirty Wars [upper panel, below], which deals with Abdulrahman, was followed directly by Lawrence Wright‘s My Trip to Al-Qaeda [lower panel, below], the age at which Ayman al-Zawahiri began his career as a radical stuck out like a sore thumb:

Here, then, is Wright’s commentary on the young al-Zawahiri:

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the man behind Bin Laden, a doctor, product of a distinguished family, from an exclusive suburb of Cairo called Maadi, his father was a professor of pharmacology; his mother — the daughter of a diplomat… Ayman had started a cell to overthrow the Egyptian government in 1966. He was 15 years old.

How much agency do we believe fifteen and sixteen year olds have, anyway? Do we allow them to drink a beer?

If we are ever going to have a debate as to the moral high ground in matters of the extrajudicial killing of US citizens, it seems to me that Abdulrahman al-Awlaki rather than his father Anwar should be the test case we focus in on.

The truth is that young people, sometimes very young people, do on occasion play with fire. I don’t think that means we should “burn” them on suspicion, but I do think it’s part of the larger picture. And in this case, that means “drone warfare” and “targeted killings” aren’t the only relevant categories: we may need to factor the issue of “child soldiers” into our considerations as well.

**

Here, to give the Awlaki family’s side of the story, is an ACLU video with Abdulrahman Awlaki’s grandfather:

**

And how did I wind up here?

Well, as I said, I was watching documentaries… but the first thing that caught my eye, to be honest, was this shot from Dirty Wars [upper panel, below], which ineitably reminded me of the rosary-and-rear-view-mirror shot from Manhunt [lower panel]…

which I’d talked about in an earlier post, Manhunt: religion and the director’s eye.

I’m beginning to think no documentary about jihad and counterterrorism is complete without one…