Islamic State kills at least 500 from Iraq's Yazidi minority: Baghdad
Source: Reuters
Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in northern Iraq, burying some of their victims alive and kidnapping hundreds of women, a Baghdad government minister said on Sunday.
The insurgents' advance through northern Iraq has forced tens of thousands to flee, threatened the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region and provoked the first U.S. air strikes in the area since Washington withdrew troops from Iraq in 2011.
Iraq's human rights minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told Reuters that he had evidence that the Sunni militants had thrown the Yazidi dead into mass graves, adding that some of those buried alive were women and children. About 300 women had been forced into slavery, he said.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/10/us-iraq-security-idUSKBN0G808J20140810
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840high
(17,196 posts)RiverNoord
(1,150 posts)Every genuine member of the IS movement has forfeited his right to live on this planet. There should be no mercy when dealing with those bastards.
I respect that they genuinely believe that they are doing God's work, and their commitment to the cause is impressive. However, they've murdered vast numbers of people - men, women, children, and I personally hope that not a single one survives the next two years.
Sadly, this may be exactly what Iraq needs to remain a single, federalized country. The tribes in the Sunni areas will eventually turn on them, and, hopefully, the government will shape itself into something approaching a truly representative body.
potone
(1,701 posts)Many Sunnis are against them but they are too cowed by their violence to oppose IS. I saw a truly terrifying video about IS made by a VERY courageous journalist who traveled with IS that showed how they are indoctrinating young boys into thinking that all infidels should be killed. They have set up training camps for religious indoctrination for young boys and military training camps for teenage boys. The video also showed a public meeting in a town they had captured in which they celebrated the establishment of the caliphate and vowed further--and apparently endless--war against all infidels, everywhere. I didn't see one woman in the entire video, which tells you something about "public support" for them. They are maniacs who need to be stopped!
Igel
(35,300 posts)It says what they think the role of women is, their opinion of mixing of women and men in public, and the propriety of women being videotaped by strange men.
As for this kind of video, it was all the rage 10-13 years ago because a number of madaris in Afghanistan and Pakistan were on par. Whether IS is more extreme is a question that involves debating things at the margin. The same kind of video was coming out of Somalia and Yemen. (That this is in S. Asia, the Jazeera, the Middle East, means the thinking is widespread. It shows up in Salafist and Deobandi thought on a regular basis, and was also popular at various times over the last 1300 years. In Egypt a couple of times, in the Sudan, in Spain, etc., etc. It's not new and at some point moderates or is squashed. Often it takes the death of the leader and the following power struggle to cause it to moderate.)
At the time, however, calling attention to the videos probably would have been discounted by DU as "RW" and inciting Islamophobia and interethnic hatred, as well as being war-mongering. This was back when CAIR was all "Islam is a religion of peace" and really couldn't bring itself to say bad things about other Muslims. Even now the real qualms about IS come from two kinds of Muslim states: Those adjacent, and therefore threatened; those Shi'ite, and therefore able to throw the rotten tomatoes outside their group at "the other guy".
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)
Turbineguy
(37,320 posts)to the first millennium. Islam seems to be going into some new form of the dark ages.
RiverNoord
(1,150 posts)Back when the Arab empire (which was Muslim, but generally, with periodic exceptions, very tolerant toward other religions) was at its height (just at the tail end of the first millennium), Muslim culture and science was leaps and bounds beyond everywhere else in the world. After the Mongols came, and by mere chance (the timing of the death of the Khan) did not conquer Europe, the Christian wars began in earnest. Hundreds of thousands died in wars supposedly justified because the other side wasn't the right kind of Christian. And Jews were treated like utter crap.
Naziism was considerably intertwined with Christian mysticism, and, well, they came around just a couple of years or so after the end of the first millennium....
It doesn't take a religion to drag people into 'Dark Ages,' but it doesn't hurt. Mostly it takes people who feel a need to fight - they'll find their excuse somewhere, and religion is very convenient.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Yes, Religion is often used as an Excuse when people fight for other reasons. The "Religious" wars of the 1600s came out of a HOW the Reformation evolved in the 1500s. While the Reformation started out as a reform of the Catholic Church, it quickly expanded to include taking lands from Catholic institutions and giving them to supporters of the Reform movement. This could be extreme, for example in Sweden if an ancestor gave land to the Catholic Church as early as the mid 1300s (the exact cut off date escapes me), you could claim the land back after Sweden embraced Lutheranism in the mid 1500s. That is like a "Reform" movement in the US letting Native Americans to take back lands take from them in the 1700s and 1800s and kicking off the present owners without paying the present owners the value of those lands.
Henry VIII did the same thing in England, it was the largest take over of property by the Government of England ever, in percentage of the economy exceeding the takeover of companies in post WWII Britain. Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the Protestants in England in the 1600s, was raised and owned land that had been part of a Monastery in the early 1500s.
When Mary became queen at the death of her brother, the fear in England was NOT that she would impose fines and taxes on Protestants (which she did and they paid) but she would return land taken from the Catholic Church and return it to the Catholic Church (She did not and confirmed the confirmation of those lands, but that was NOT enough for the Protestants who owned those lands for if a Catholic was ruling England, that ruler could always undone what Henry VIII had done (Remember Henry took the land and sold it, without paying the church ANYTHING for the land, if that could be done by the King as to Church land, what prevents a future king from doing the reverse?).
Thus the "Religious" wars of the 1600s did NOT start in the 1500s, you had some internal fighting in France, but over who was to rule France, the coastal areas and those areas where trade was important turn Protestant, for that way the new middle class, heavy into trade at that time, could take over the churches where most people met and transactions occurred. In rural areas with heavy concentration on farming stayed Catholic (You see the same in England and Ireland, people adopted religion that reflected they economic self interest). Thus the religious fights in most countries in the 1500s was between people whose best economic interest was reflected in the religion they embraced. Catholic's farming, Reform Church (By this I mean Calvinism, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists) tend to support trade (and those rural areas that supported trade, included areas where flax was a main product, flax was needed for sails and canvas for wagons in addition to clothing).
Thus the reformation reflected economic changes in the Economy of Europe given the increase in trade from the high to late Middle Ages onward.
This is also true of the Middle East today, the radical muslims are addressing the concerns of the people of the Middle East. We may disagree with them, but are we address those problem? In the 1560s the Catholic Church held he Council of Trent which address most of the issues of the Reformation and started the counter Reformation, as the Catholic Church WON back people it had lost between 1520-1560.
As the Counter Reformation accelerated after about 1580, the Protestant started to use violence to resist that movement, that Resistance ended up in the 30 year war. That war started as one area decided to return to a Catholic Ruler, and the middle class in that area revolted against the new ruler and received assistance from other northern German States for they had similar fears.
The Comparison with the Middle East and the lead up to the 30 year war in Germany is striking. America has been the main power in the Middle East since WWII, and with the Collapse of the Soviet Union, the only real power in the Middle East. Like the Catholic Church of the 1500s also unwilling to accept changes in Germany that needed to be address, especially how the raising power within the economy (The Middle Class in 1500 Europe, the poor in today's Middle East) are demanding NEEDED changes that many in the main power even refuse to address.
Just a comment that the US has to talk to and accept what the lower classes of the Middle East wants, for it the US does not, just like the Catholic Church could NOT stop the Reformation till it address the concern of the people who were the BASE of the Reformation, the US will find itself always on the defensive.
Second Comment:
While the Mongols did stop after attacking Poland and Hungary and retreated to elect a new leader, after that election, they then ended up attacking Persia and the Middle East for the Arab ruler of Persia had killed a Mongol Ambassador and that was unacceptable.
While the reason for the switch in where to attack was explained by the desire to take Baghdad (which the Mongol called the largest and richest city they ever took, richer then many Chinese Cities they had taken by that time), the area was getting unfriendly to their tactics.
Mongol tactic involved heavy cavalry moving over a flat Steppe. In Persia, and Germany they were already running into areas where that tactic could not be used to its full effect. The best way to describe this is the comments of Roman Empire Time period German and Hunnic Tactics on defeat. When a Germanic army was defeated, they retreated to their fortified wagon camp. The Huns would scatter to the winds. THis was NOT an absolute rule, when Attila the Hun was defeated he retreated to his camp, but he was in France and the traditional Hunnic and later Mongol Tactic was NOT doable. The reason for the difference in tactics on defeat was simple, in Germany and Western Europe you had forests, rivers, lakes, mountains and other impediments to such vast movement.
On the other hand, on the Steppes you have one vast flat terrain, intersected with rivers with long sloping banks, not the channeled and quick drop off on Western European Rivers (This came up in WWII, the US had an amphibious Jeep, that the Russian loved for they would drive into their rivers with ease, the US and the UK hated it, for it could NOT readily entered into the rivers of Western Europe do to the sharp banks of such rivers in Western Europe.
Just a comment that the main reason for the Mongol Stopping its movement Westward with Poland was they were getting into areas where they tactics had to change. Unlike Attila the Hun, they were NOT ready to make the switch and thus preferred to attack the Middle East (where they ran across similar conditions West of modern day Iraq and thus tried to recruit Crusaders as the Infantry that they saw they needed).
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)I hope that the victimized groups can be protected and stay safe from now on; it's truly unbelievable.
candelista
(1,986 posts)"Iraq's human rights minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told Reuters that he had evidence that...."
Let's wait for confirmation before we emote, ok?
former9thward
(31,984 posts)They are trying to lure the U.S. back into another war to save their own skins.
Rhinodawg
(2,219 posts)"Can your car company do this ?"
"Can your religious fundies do this?"