#Isil

[nimrodel-light]

Tillion

[divinum-pacis]

March 2023: Nuns inspect damaged parts of Deir Mar Mikhael.

"The area where the monastery sits was known to the Mosulites as 'Hawi al-Kanisa' in reference to it [having been] a church, hundreds of years ago," Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa said.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the residents of Mosul have lived in insecurity. In June 2014, the city was taken by the ISIL armed group till July 2017. But even after, Mosulites suffered scattered attacks that added to the feeling of being unsafe. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]

[dailyhistoryposts]

On This Day In History

August 3rd, 2014: ISIL (also known as ISIS, Da'esh, or the Islamic State) begins a genocide of the Yazidi people in Iraq.

The Yazidi people are ethnic Kurds, from Kurdistan, who also follow the Yazidi religion. Yazidism is a monotheistic, non-Abrahamic religion.

[useless-catalanfacts]

Autumn in Isil (High Pyrenees, Catalonia).

Photo by Antoni Targarona (a.targarona.gibert on Instagram).

[nando161mando]

[nicklloydnow]

“Traffic deaths of pedestrians are up by 70% in the last 10 years and pickup trucks are largely to blame, according to a story from The Hill that we ran this week.

The number of walkers killed by “light utility trucks” rose from 732 in 2010 to 1,773 in 2021.

The reasons are obvious. Pickup trucks have long since ceased to be the single-bench-seat, utilitarian work vehicles of my youth, and morphed into monsters. It used to be rare to see a large four-door pickup. Now, it’s practically impossible to buy anything else.

To make them look brawnier, manufacturers raised suspensions and put huge grilles on the front. The hoods are so hard to see over that one congressman has proposed requiring new trucks to have forward-facing cameras and sensors to reduce “frontover” accidents, which is running over people or things you can’t see through the windshield.

There’s a better way: smaller trucks. They exist. We just can’t buy them.

(…)

Every time I see that, I say to myself (or anyone unlucky enough to be in earshot) “There, that’s the truck I want” — minus the machine gun, which I’d only need if I were driving Kris Kobach in a parade.

But we can’t get those trucks here because of two reasons: profits and politics.

Profits, because car manufacturers make way more per unit selling jumbo trucks. And politics because of an antiquated trade policy levying a 25% tariff on imported light trucks, in retaliation for a European tariff on U.S. chicken.

(…)

According to an Axios study, shopping and errands are the No. 1 use of pickups, with 87% of owners reporting they do that frequently. Second was pleasure driving, 70%, and third, commuting, 42%.

Only 28% said they frequently use their trucks for personal hauling, and towing was a piddling 7%.

That same study showed that in 1985, mini-trucks were slightly more than a quarter of all pickups sold. By 2010, that had dropped to zero, and full-size trucks had over 90% of the market.

(…)

So if you want to try to make a dent in traffic fatalities, gasoline usage and global warming, call or write your congressperson and ask them to repeal the Chicken Tax.

That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. U.S. trade negotiators made a deal in 2011 to allow Korean light-truck imports by 2021, but President Donald Trump, a big fan of trade wars, pushed that back to 2041.

Ditching the Chicken Tax might break the big-truck stranglehold on the market. If smaller import trucks sell, as I suspect they would, our domestic manufacturers might be led to retool and compete.

And then, when it comes to buying a pickup truck, we might once again be as free as the Taliban.”

[thepoliticalvulcan]

The New New New Center Left Militarism

I'm one of those cranks that doesn't lose sight of his core values whenever there is a clear and indisputable villain in the world who deserves confrontation. I hate colonialism but I refuse to subscribe to an opposite day narrative where every opponent of the US or the West must be good, actually, solely because they are fighting America or its proxies. I also refuse to lose any and all skepticism about the role of the military in society or my sense of nuance about societies that have elements that are antagonistic to the US or who have done heinous things.

There IS vice in excess in the "defense of liberty" whether its bombing aid convoys as part of a mass counter insurgency operation or engaging in murder of civilians and rape in anti-colonial struggle.

And this loss of perspective is one that I began to fear when ISIL emerged, even as I was rooting for interventions to save religious and ethnic minorities that ISIL was attempting to eradicate. I made a measure of peace with the idea of a military as having some legitimate uses and there being shades of gray in interventions after long years of being almost exclusively anti-interventionist as a consequence of the Bush years. I did feel a duty to people targeted by ISIL because this was a direct consequence of an American war, a war I fervently opposed.

I felt similarly complex feelings when Putin invaded Ukraine. If we can help these people without blowing up the world and making everything worse, we should do that. And I actually feel pretty good about that, the Ukrainians have shown themselves to be an honorable people who don't directly target civilians, even though they have no small amount of edgelords who would see the targeting of Russian civilians as fair and appropriate payback for the suffering inflicted on Ukrainians.

But! When St. Javelin became a thing, I grew concerned. Because like ISIL, once more I saw people who argue for universal healthcare and put pronouns in their bio making asinine arguments about this or that escalation or intervention that seemed to leap the bounds of a slow but steady boiling of the Russian frog and extremely likely to get us into a nuclear war. This was not exclusively the arguments put forward by left of center types nor does it make their commitments to inclusivity and health justice some sort of signal or invalid. Lots of traditional American supremacists on the right were offended at the idea of Russia doing anything without checking with us first wanted Russia taught a lesson.

Then comes 10/7 and my worst fears unfold. While a lot of the progressive left fiercely opposes Israeli retribution for a mix of reasons I agree with and many I don't, once more I see people I know who have argued for civilization at home becoming more, well, civilized, snarling about Israel taking the gloves off and making arguments about there being no real civilians in Gaza or that a high civilian death toll is unavoidable and comparable to other instances of fighting dug in militants in urban warfare. As if it were a foregone conclusion that an all out ground assault and saturation bombing was the only sane or moral response to the 10/7 atrocities. And they were atrocities. I will not mince words on this. Historical trauma and modern oppression is not an excuse. But what has happened to Gaza is also an atrocity. Hamas being assholes doesn't make it not an atrocity. If the enemy is using human shields, you are not automatically in the right to attack anyway to "teach" them that this tactic won't work so they shouldn't do it in the future. Because that completely misunderstands the finer distinctions between a state actor engaged in territorial defense and an actor who is trying to incite a regional uprising to topple what they perceive to be an invalid state and people squatting on stolen land.

So what's the point here? Honestly I'm just trying to organize my thoughts, compare notes, and see if anyone else has been in this discourse long enough to notice this same phenomena. Namely that a willingness to go along with militarization and militarized "solutions" to complex international issues seems to get supercharged by the availability of villains we don't need to feel too terribly bad about seeing harm come to. But giving ourselves permission to feel good about seeing cities turned to rubble because they were "full of bad guys" has a way of numbing us, numbing our critical thinking skills, and making it such that when such intense and ruinous violence is a choice, not a necessity, we automatically are inclined to accept that it is necessary.

[theythemitalian]

today is the 10th anniversary of ISIS unveiling their territorial ambitions via Victoria II map (complete with 1860 borders, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, etc.)

[dfwbwfbbwfbwf]

I've never heard anyone who thought the moon represents negative things. The moon has always been more associated with protection and balance. Guardian, knowledge, keeper of dreams. Silver was believed to be solid moonlight, hence why it's so effective against evil. Silver usually has a more positive association than gold. Silver is pure (which is why it's so effective against evil) whereas gold is a corrupting influence. I guess it could have negativity associated with it, but so does the sun - pride and arrogance, for example.

Plus, there are cultures with a male moon and female sun. The Norse. The Japanese. Egypt has male moon gods (but most of their gods are male in general....)

There's a reason the moon is associated with femininity, and it's in large part due to menstrual cycles.

Also, an association with dragons isn't necessarily a good thing. At least in most places in Europe.

Last night I remembered another of my favourite Tolkien wifeguy facts.

So in Western mythology we've often personified the Sun as masculine and the Moon as feminine. Off the top of my head: The Sun is associated with purity, reason, scholarship, illumination, constancy, dragons, gold, and masculinity. On the other hand, the Moon is associated with darkness, silver, impurity, flux, change, uncertainty, fickleness, and femininity.

You can see all this imagery being adopted, eg, in the Mozart opera THE MAGIC FLUTE, in which a benevolent scholar wizard (with solar imagery). straight up kidnaps the daughter of the evil, passionate Queen of the Night so that she can be properly educated in Enlightenment rationalism, purged of all those icky feminine night/lunar influences, and turned into a good submissive little wife for the scholar's young disciple. Guys the music slaps but the story is SO gross and misogynistic.

Anyway, what does this have to do with Tolkien? I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

In Middle-Earth, Tolkien does a GENDERSWAPPED Sun and Moon. The Sun is She, the Moon is He. And, like, it's not that he just thought "oh how can I make this mythology Different" - he really thought this through. In THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien tells us that the Sun and Moon are two vessels made from the last flower of Telperion and the last fruit of Laurelin, the Two Trees which once gave light to Valinor. Two Maiar were chosen to pilot these vessels. The pilot of the moon is Tilion, a hunter of Orome, and the pilot of the sun is Arien: "Arien the maiden was mightier than he", a spirit of fire whom I strongly suspect to be an unfallen Balrog.

Now, just as in our world, the Moon in Middle Earth has a reputation for waywardness and unreliability. Because, get this, apparently Tilion falls in love with Arien: "But Tilion was wayward and uncertain in speed, and held not to his appointed path; and he sought to come near to Arien, being drawn by her splendour, though the flame of Arien scorched him, and the island of the Moon was darkened."

And I just. Here's Tolkien, standing up in the face of centuries of unveiled misogynistic symbolism and saying, "oh, we've got two celestial entities, one of which is powerful and bold and glorious, and the other famous for being kind of lame in comparison? SOUNDS TO ME LIKE A SWAGLESS LOVER BOY ABANDONING HIS DUTIES TO WORSHIP HIS GODDESS. I MEAN OBVIOUSLY. WHAT ELSE COULD THE EXPLANATION BE"

[eltristanexplicitcontent]

Islamic State-linked plot at Taylor Swift show in Austria foiled | REUTERS

Really? Not what I would've guessed; Macedonians tend to be pale, Balkin religious Orthodox types. 19 - 17 years old gets you frustrated incels or young misogynists, usually.

[thoughtfullyblogger]

Αποκάλυψη Kontra News: 800 μαχητές του ISIS πέρασαν στην Ελλάδα μέσω της Κύπρου

ΓΙΑ μια ακόμη φορά αποδεικνύεται ότι τα σύνορα της χώρας έχουν γίνει σουρωτήρι. Με μεγάλη καθυστέρηση οι αρμόδιες υπηρεσίες ανακάλυψαν ότι 800 μαχητές του ISIS που ήταν επικηρυγμένοι από το καθεστώς Ασαντ πέρασαν στην Ελλάδα με ό,τι συνεπάγεται μια τέτοια εξέλιξη σε μια περίοδο κατά την οποία η κρίση στη Μέση Ανατολή εγκυμονεί κινδύνους για τρομοκρατικά χτυπήματα. ΟΙ ΣΥΡΟΙ αντικαθεστωτικοί που…

[divinum-pacis]

March 2023: "ISIL looted all the property of the monastery and deliberately vandalised and distorted it with graffiti. The monastery was also bombed by planes because ISIL was sheltering in it and using it to store weapons and manufacture explosives," Moussa told Al Jazeera.

The damaged altar is seen. A number of churches are now being reconstructed by UNESCO and with the support of the UAE, other churches are being rebuilt through efforts and donations of the congregation. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]

[dailyhistoryposts]

On This Day In History

March 19th, 2003: US President George W. Bush orders air strikes on Baghdad., beginning the US-Iraqi War.

This war would last over 8 years and failed to find any supposed weapons of mass destruction or connection between Iraq and the terrorist attacks in 9/11/2001. The war directly resulted in the death of an estimated 300,000 civilians, and indirectly more due to factors like poorer healthcare, increased lawlessness, and degrading infrastructure. The created power vacuum also contributed directly to the rise of the terrorist group the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/Da'ish).

[useless-catalanfacts]

Sant Joan d’Isil, a Romanesque church built from the 12th century in Isil (High Pyrenees, Catalonia). Photos by SBA73 on Flickr.

A medieval relief of Adam & Eve in the outside walls of St. Joan d'Isil church. The destruction of their private parts was done centuries ago, by some puritan fanatic, probably a priest.

The 12th-century Romanesque church of St. Joan d'Isil is rather unique. This quite big church has its three apses built right in the fierce Noguera Pallaresa mountain river. I don't know of any other Romanesque (or any other) church built almost inside a river, and specially such a savage river. It's known that several times the apses have had to be rebuilt.

Now the church still serves as part of Isil village cemetery.

[eclecticstarlightblogger]

Αποκάλυψη Kontra News: 800 μαχητές του ISIS πέρασαν στην Ελλάδα μέσω της Κύπρου

ΓΙΑ μια ακόμη φορά αποδεικνύεται ότι τα σύνορα της χώρας έχουν γίνει σουρωτήρι. Με μεγάλη καθυστέρηση οι αρμόδιες υπηρεσίες ανακάλυψαν ότι 800 μαχητές του ISIS που ήταν επικηρυγμένοι από το καθεστώς Ασαντ πέρασαν στην Ελλάδα με ό,τι συνεπάγεται μια τέτοια εξέλιξη σε μια περίοδο κατά την οποία η κρίση στη Μέση Ανατολή εγκυμονεί κινδύνους για τρομοκρατικά χτυπήματα. ΟΙ ΣΥΡΟΙ αντικαθεστωτικοί που…