02-26-2019, 11:26 AM
(02-25-2019, 02:13 PM)Dill Wrote: LOL you "hope" that I'll condemn ISIS unequivocally--because I have given people so much reason to doubt that? Also I don't think they are an "Islamic cause" any more than white nationalism (which I hope you'd be willing to condemn) is an American cause.
ISIS clearly is an islamic cause as its tenants spring directly from the teachings of islam. All kaffirs should be subjugated or converted (by the sword if need be!), taking slaves is permissible (if not encouraged). You can certainly argue that it's a perversion of islamic teachings, but you absolutely can't logically deny that ISIS and it's tenants are directly supported by islam.
You are also correct that white supremacy is not an American cause as there are "white people" all over the globe.
Quote:And I guess I don't know or can't tell what "benefit of the doubt" could mean here. Like maybe Muthana thought she was moving to Jordan and it turned out to be Syria? Soon there'll be a video showing she is a good mother? We should wait till we have the "whole" story?
In this case it would be enabling her to return to a country that she willingly fled to join the most vile organization this planet has seen in almost a century. Honestly, the only difference between Isis and Nazi Germany is that Germany actually had the means to enable their monstrosities on a larger scale. Given the means ISIS would have been easily as bad.
Quote:At the moment my interest in Muthana concerns only two issues--
1) the legal ramifications of her claim to citizenship--the ones I can imagine, like difficulty assigning "state" status to ISIS, and ones I can't, like where the denial of her citizenship will lead as Trump officials cross legal/policy lines.
A fair policy question. I'll throw a second wrinkle in here. She has no US passport. As far as I know there is no legal requirement for us to provide her with one or to go and fetch her from her self-imposed exile.
Quote:2) the policy effects--e.g., What use could be made of her and Begum's stories to counter ISIS propanganda; and how will ISIS use this and the Begum case for propaganda purposes within the US and the UK (and other places). How will these countries deal with ISIS "traitors" and how will that look in AFrica and Asia?
A truly progressive view. I'll again offer second alternative. She broke the law in Syria, let her be tried there as any US citizen would be tried in another country in which they broke the law. These ISIS brides were often, if not always, complicit in the forced marriage and rape of enslaved women such as the Kurds or Yazidi. She can stay in Syria until she is properly tried. If she somehow makes it back to the US she can be tried by us for providing material aid to a terrorist organization. Sorry, but I don't buy into your idea that she can somehow be used as a propaganda tool against islamic extremism.
Quote:In short, I don't see any useful point in setting a MAGA smirker who spiraled into prominence on an amateur video beside a case brought before the world by news media seeking to report and inform--and then arguing over who got a "pass."
Quote: The proper distribution of vilification between these two may eventually become interesting to me as a register of MAGA grievance against the "unbalanced" liberal press, but I am just not there yet.
You wrote this in bold so I assume it's really important to you and I read it multiple times to ensure I absorbed every ounce of nuance and meaning available. Having done so I am forced to come to the conclusion that you have completely missed the point. That there are people who are more sympathetic to a woman (which I'm sure has nothing to do with the sympathy at all) who willingly joined a vile terrorist organization that burned people alive, beheaded children, engaged in mass rape and drown people in cages, then they are to a kid who wore a MAGA hat and "smirked" at a Native American guy is a rather telling of the mindset of some people in our society. Oh, lest I forget, some of the kids in his group were acting insensitively by doing a "tomahawk chop". That alone may explain the enhanced level of outrage.
