Did we really need John Kerry, speaking on behalf of the Obama administration, to formally announce today that ISIS — which he calls Daesh — has committed and is still committing genocide?
Was there anybody on the planet who didn’t know that already?
ISIS is run by money-grubbing, power-seeking thugs who use religion as a pretense. There’s no question about this: people who were part of the organization and have left have verified it. They recruit mercenaries along with idealist, scumbag morons to do their dirty work.
And, yes, they want to kill every Christian on the planet, as well as all sorts of ethnic groups.
They are ruthless murderers — but we have known that since the start. We’ll never bring them to a court of law to face justice: the only way to stop them is to kill them.
Sure, as the Washington Post reported, “The concept of genocide carries a lot of weight in international law. The 1948 U.N. convention on genocide requires signatories to work to prevent genocide and punish perpetrators when it does occur.”
But you can be sure ISIS leaders and their members all laughed aloud today when Kerry made his statement, and responded with something like, “No shit, Sherlock . . . What was your first clue?”
Yes, Kerry & Co. are a little slow on the uptake, eh?
— Jillian
Jillian Page 
Something I’ve been doing a lot of while on hiatus is immersing myself in far right media, and there’s a lot more to this than it appears. Religious groups have been pushing the administration to do this since ISIS (which doesn’t represent Islam any more than would Bryan Fischer represent all of Christianity — there’s a reason the administration uses “Daesh”) first emerged, and there are a complex lot of reasons why they’ve wanted this, and why the administration has resisted.
Some of the religious groups really want a holy war, and a bit of their funding is also coming from military-fed industries and contractors. By creating the impression of a “Christian” U.S. versus “Islamic” ISIS, it can stoke fears about immigration, fears about the “demographic winter” (i.e. that Islam will out-populate Christianity if abortion, contraception and non-procreative relationships aren’t banned or reduced), fears that will drive conservatives to stockpile guns, fears that will drive conservatives to the polls to vote for rigidly conservative politicians, support for more war in the Middle East, etc. It also feeds the “religious persecution” narrative, by pointing to a genocide, and then co-opting it to say that the “seeds” of a similar thing are happening in the U.S. by policies that require the violation of conscience, etc. It also feeds a persecution complex that drives devout religious people into deeper and blind adherence to whatever the religious leaders are saying.
Meanwhile, corporate funders benefit through funding military and gun sales, taking advantage of fears of terrorism to push spying policies, and intertwining Christianity with an almost religious ideation of capitalism. It’s not a conspiracy, mind you, but a convenient (and actually very cynical) process of conservative groups taking advantage of and in return feeding each other.
Make no mistake, a genocide is happening, and Christians are definitely one of the targeted groups. So are Jews, Yazidis, other Islamic sects, atheists, people who aren’t considered adequately Islamic (i.e. not able to recite enough of the Quran)… there’s no issue with calling it a genocide. What is an issue is framing it as a specifically Islamic vs. Christian conflict. And an immense pressure from the right to do that is ongoing.
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Interesting. But I’m not sure how much influence the right had in today’s announcement. I suppose there is far more to it than meet’s the eye, as you suggest, because Kerry & company aren’t that dumb, right?
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Absolutely, it has. Far right media (everything from BarbWire to Breitbart to the Daily Caller to FOX News) have been pushing viewers to contact their local legislators and demand that the Obama administration explain why they haven’t called the conflict in Syria a genocide of Christians. Congresspeople have raised it in the House, and I think there have even been a couple motions along that line, although I can’t remember for certain. So there has been pressure. And of course, the proverbial first rule of politics is that for everything that happens in the public eye, twenty more happen in the backroom.
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Good points. Good discussion . . .
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“No shit, Sherlock . . . What was your first clue?”
No, Kerry isn’t “slow” on this. He is measured and deliberate. Genocide is a legal term at the diplomatic level. When the U.S. uses that term all kinds of legal obligations get triggered in a lot of treaties. Just as the U.S. government can’t call this a “war on Islamic Terrorists” as much as our simple-minded Republicans want to. These Morons don’t even begin to comprehend the complexity of the multitude of Islamic cultures around the planet. Declaring a war on Islamic terrorists would be the same as declaring a war on Islam. This would validate everything the terrorists have been working toward.
You and I can call it Genocide all we want, but the government has to be very careful of any unintended consequences of using that term.
Thank you George, The Moron, Bush.
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I get what you are saying, Steve. It’s just that it has been obvious from the outset that ISIS was committing acts of genocide. I am no fan of Republicans and the far right wingnuts, but diplomatically speaking, you’d think the U.S. would have called it like it is a long time ago.
Regardless, though, it won’t make a bit of difference to ISIS. No doubt, they’ll agree it is genocide. And they will keep doing it, no matter what legal obligations are triggered — though, I heard one report on CBC News today that said the U.S. is not part of the International Court and thus their declaration today may not carry much weight . . . Is that correct?
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The report was not completely correct. The ICC, which the U.S. is not a signatory, only prosecutes individuals. It’s the International CRIMINAL Court. Should we sign and ratify the ICC treaty, there are pending criminal charges in the ICC against Bush-Cheney and some of their other crime syndicate partners. The U.S. would be required to apprehend and expatriate them. (YAY!!!)
But, the reason that ratification hasn’t happened is because it puts our military personnel at the mercy of the ICC. The U.S. drone strikes are not universally popular among ICC states and if the U.S. were an ICC state, the drone pilots in Virginia could be indicted by the ICC.
As much as I would like to see Bush and Cheney behind bars for their war crimes, I don’t want our military personnel to be subject to Sharia Law in Egypt.
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