What Do We Really Know About The Islamic State?

OK, let me get this house cleaning out of the way before I proceed with the topic.
There are numerous definitions of what is currently referred to by the current conquerors as The Islamic State. So here are the two other more prominently used ones. First is the one preferred by the Dear Leader, President Obama, and the state department and that is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL. Then there is the one that much of the media uses and that is Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (which information on this is available at the link above) or ISIS.
For me, they refer to themselves as the Islamic State and that is what I will refer to them as. It is not meant to grant them legitimacy as much as to not get into any contest about names and the like.
The fundamental question of this post is germane and that is what do we know about the Islamic State?
Lets start with the numbers of men under arms for this wannabe nation.
Supposedly low estimates are about 10,000 to 15,000. In the link above it suggests that as many as 80,000 to 100,000 are under allegiance to the Islamic State.
Now look at the map below.

The red-colored areas are under control of the Islamic State. Most of the land is in Iraq, but the Islamic State began in Syria as a direct result of the civil war and divisions among the opponents of the Syrian dictator, Basaar al-Assad. Once they separated they supposedly had about 4,000 men under their black banner of death. What was once known as ISIS, then ISIL began an invasion of Iraq in June and the Iraqi army in the north fled like chickens with their heads cut off. Supposedly at the point of invasion, the forerunner to the Islamic State only had about 2,000 to 3,000 members.
Really?! An army that at the most only had 3,000 members chased an American-trained army away with little if any resistance? Very doubtful.
The fact that few people agree on the numbers of those under arms in the Islamic State is one of the reasons that we have no real clue in how to deal with these degenerates. One of the reasons that I find the higher figure to be more accurate is the willingness to throw men into battle so freely. Even if one counts religious fervor, there is no way a supposed rag-tag army could have seized so much land so quickly.
So, what is life like under the Islamic State?
Compared to Western life, it is clearly stifling and downright scary.
There is a five-part series on the news website Vice in which they have unprecedented access to life in the Islamic State. Here are links to all five episodes. I find this to be compelling that life in the Islamic State is wonderful if one is a Wahhabi-Sunni Islamic fanatic and male. Everyone else, eh not so much. Watch all five episodes and you will notice something mostly missing. Women. Women are treated not only like property but barely above how one would treat an animal. And male children are being very quickly indoctrinated into the bizarre world of Wahhabi-Sunni Islamic fanaticism.
One thing is very clear is that the Islamic State is a certifiable death cult. There is no doubt about it.
For instance, here are a couple of photos of what they do with captured Iraqi soldiers. This is not for the weak hearted.

 Yes, you are seeing correctly. Islamic State soldiers forcing captured Iraqi soldiers to lie face down in their graves as mostly masked executioners open fire and summarily murder them. No sir, these dudes are not real clued in on the Geneva Convention and the proper way to treat prisoners of war. Nah, why should they? They are infidels and they do not need to be treated as human beings. Animals are put down more humane than what these vermin do.
Pretty gross, wouldn't you say?
But no, my friends. The above is nothing.
Below is some of the Islamic State's real gruesome handiwork. Videotape beheading. I will not show any video but two photos will suffice.

Above is a sword and or a machete being placed on the throat of a victim.

And voila! Off with his head!
I will not show how far gone these degenerates are but these beheadings are not limited to men or soldiers of Iraq or Syria. Men, women and children have been beheaded. The most savageness usually is saved for Christians or other infidels such as the Yazidi. And for good measure, many heads are stuck on pikes or paraded around by children.
And leave it to these guys to bring back an oldie but a goo die.
Crucifixion.
Yes, these vermin are really low. But there is a somewhat decent side to these folks. Most of the crucifixions are done after people are killed. But every now and then, one just gets nailed to a cross and left to die.
As I said, these fanatics are a roving cult of death. And they are teaching a potential whole generation of youth the way of the sword.
So, life in the Islamic State is harsh and very primitive. The only things modern these cretins like are their guns, pickup trucks and video cameras to show the world their handiwork.
But its what we are not being told that should be worrisome.
To this writing, we still do not have a real number of the force that we, the United States, could be dealing with. It can be as low as 10,000 (doubtful) to as much as 100,000 (more probable). We do not really know all the weapons seized in their march through Iraq. If you watch part one of the Vice report from the Islamic State, they paraded at least a large missile, tanks and armored personnel carriers.
And here is something to make you sleep well tonight.
Islamic State forces seized the al-Taqba air base on August 24 and yes, they captured Syrian fighter planes. And today, they showed off their conquered prize: fighter planes.
Now we have been assured that the Islamic State forces are not all that big. That is proving false. We are being assured that they are spread thin and can't keep control of all they have. Again, this is false as they continue to, if nothing else, tighten their grip on what they do control and seem to be fighting hard to gain more land and people. And we are being assured that while they may have these fighter planes, they probably can't fly them. I don't think that is reassuring. Does anyone really think that they do not have at least some men in their ranks that have the capability to fly fighter planes? I am sure that among 10,000 to 100,000 men, at least one can fly a fighter plane. And if one can, surely more can as well.
Keep this in mind.
Tomorrow is the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, Shanksville, Pennsylvania and Washington, D. C.
Does the Islamic State have a special surprise for the United States?
And back to the original question.
With all that we have been wrong about the Islamic State, what do we really know about the Islamic State?

The Islamic Caliphate Revealed

Today this map of the Middle East, Central and North Africa and a swath of Southern Europe appeared on The Daily Mail Facebook page.
It is a map of the Caliphate of the Islamic State as envisioned by the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq.
In this photo of the Islamic map as envisioned, it is in Arabic. But in this accompanied article, we are treated to the names of regions in English.

The above maps are a restoration of the Sunni Islamic Caliphate of the 7th century.
In the linked article, The Islamic State wants the map to be a reality within the next five years.
I suppose that many if not most of the brain trust in the Western world pretty much dismisses all of this as wishful thinking.
But these are the same people that did not see the rise of ISIS in the first place and how they all but became the dominant force in the Syrian civil war. And with their power expanded that war directly into Northern Iraq with little to any resistance. This is the current area under control of The Islamic State.

I do not know about you, but this is a very wide area under control of what we have been told is but a rag-tag army of maybe 10,000 men. And consider that as the Iraq army in Northern Iraq essentially turned tail and ran, The Islamic State obtained a lot of hardware including many, many American arms including HumVees and tanks and possibly fighter planes, and most important, new recruits.

When one puts all of that together, it does show the above caliphate map to be as The Daily Mail wrote, Chilling.

Maybe The Islamic State picked their battle in the weakest areas of the Middle East and by doing so are stronger than they appear.

But then what about this parade of the spoils of war? Does anyone think that The Islamic State does not have some people knowledgeable enough to use a SCUD missile? And forget that they would only be happy to do what Saddam Hussein did during the First Gulf War and lob some to Israel. They would be more than glad to use them against Shi'a fighters in Iraq. Needless to say that they also are freshly gaining conventional weaponry as well.

Make no mistake about this.

The Islamic State will make trouble around the region beyond what they control. They will try to undermine Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arabian peninsula. They will then try to wrest control of Lebanon from the Shi'a, Syrian and Hezbollah influence. At this writing, Lebanon has the largest Christian population in the region. If The Islamic State takes over, they will flee as fast as the Iraqi Christians are doing today.

But, as is wont of many Americans, there is a substantial minority that would like to bury it's collective head in the sand and retreat to a semi-Fortress America. While most of those who would, essentially, like to do nothing, are on the left, there is a substantial number of libertarians and yes, some conservatives that want us out of the region entirely. Many believe that the United States is simply blindly following an "Israeli" foreign policy. That if the United States was not so enamored with Israel, we might even get some love from those that are now our enemies.

Sadly, this is where they are wrong.

This radical Islamic hate for anything non-Islamic precedes the founding and, before that, settling of the United States. As the United States has developed and became the world's superpower, radical Islam sees the United States as a threat period. The nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson, had the first encounter with Islamics in Tripoli and this quote is worth reading. Pretty current, isn't it?

And as far as Israel goes, let me point out something that I have said before with this caveat. What I have said is actually happening before my scenario. If tomorrow, Israel ceased to exist for whatever reason, after the two minutes of joy among all of its enemies in the Arab, radical Islamic world, they would turn their guns on each other. That is what we are seeing now in Syria, Northern Iraq and between Sunni and Shi'a and everything else in between. There is even hope against hope among some that current allies of The Islamic State will turn against them because of their strict interpretation of Islam.

This the radical Islamic figures that eventually, they will just wear down those opposed to it. It may be on it's way in Western Europe. However there are people waking up to the real threat. Note that the map of The Islamic State goes to the. . .Gates of Vienna. That is why they fight. That is why they show the brutality. That is why they propagate fear to wear down opposition. Maybe this is why the army in Northern Iraq fled. They just are tired of fighting. Being that the current Iraq army is pretty corrupt (and the biggest mistake Team Bush made, disbanding the Iraqi army after ousting Saddam.)

and they are defending a predominantly Sunni area, many thought better to defend their Shi'a brethren in Baghdad and the south of the country than people in the north.

We in the United States have to take this The Islamic State seriously. The fact that they have such a wide swath of territory and are bold enough to proclaim their new caliphate is a serious matter. If they didn't have advanced weapons of war, they sure as hell do now with the retreat of the Iraqi army and leaving behind advanced American weaponry.

The caliphate has been revealed and the protagonists believe they can fulfill their dream in five years or less. The job of the West is not just to contain that threat but to defeat it.

 

 



 

J. P. Blecksmith Did Not Die To See Iraq End Up Like This

J. P. Blecksmith was the first United States officer killed in the Battle of Fallujah, Iraq in 2004 and his family were members of my church, the Church Of Our Saviour, in San Gabriel, California.
Mr. Blecksmith was a son of the parish and was a marine corp 2nd lieutenant who came from an upper-middle class and long list of warriors family in San Marino, California. Mr. Blecksmith was a volunteer in the marine corps. No, he was not some poor, underprivileged kid from the wrong side of the tracks that joined the armed forces because he had no future, to paraphrase then Democrat presidential candidate and current secretary of state, John Kerry. He was in the marine corps and was doing his duty in Operation Enduring Freedom in liberating Iraq from the clutches of Saddam Hussein.
One does not know how he felt about all of the politics surrounding the whole Iraq theatre in the War Against Islamofacist Terror. He was a soldier. He did his job and his duty. And as all warriors fear, he gave his life for the cause.
And today we read and see that all Mr. Blecksmith and the thousands of brave soldiers, seamen, air force fighters, and marines is falling apart at breakneck speed.
The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Syria) has rearmed and with breakneck speed and has captured huge swaths of Iraqi territory and the major cities of Mosul and Tikrit, the hometown of the dictator, Hussein. And they have effective control of the cities of Rahmadi and yes, Fallujah. And they are setting their sights on Baghdad.
The worst part is that the ISIS has gained all of this land while also being protagonists in the Syria civil war. This timeline explains how this group was defeated and ended up now on the march. It appears that the turning point was in July, 2013 when they were able to seize the infamous Abu Gharib prison and break out 500 fellow militants. That ISIS was able to infiltrate the supposedly toughest of Iraqi prisons inside Baghdad should have been a bad sign.
Now in territory controlled by ISIS, they are imposing the ever so judicious Sharia law in such a way that I am certain the Taliban is taking notes for when they regain power in Afghanistan. As the black flag of radical Islam is planted, such wonderful things as forcing all Islamics to go to the mosque and pray five times a day. Whether they want to or not. Of course no alcohol, no smoking and no drugs. Well, one of the three may not be a bad idea. But not in the radical Islamic way. And no public gatherings that are not approved by the ISIS forces. And in its weird interpretation of Islam, they will destroy all shrines, graveyards and monuments. Remember, that is what the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan did to Buddhist shrines by blowing them up before the 9/11 terror attacks. Of course, the ladies are going to be protected by being forced to dress "modestly", re: burkas or similar restrictive clothing.
One other aspect of all of this is that the ISIS are Sunni Islamics while the government and armed forces are primarily Shia Islamic. And we now read and see that Iran is going to get involved by supporting the corrupt government of al-Maliki going so far as threatening military involvement.
The fundamental reason that this is happening is because it is the fault of the United States and directly the fault of the Dear Leader, President Obama.
Because it has been all about politics.
Remember during the 2008 presidential campaign, then Sen. Messiah Barack kept lying telling potential voters that the Iraq theatre was not one that was necessary in the WAIT. Afghanistan, that was the theatre we should have been in all the way and Iraq should have been left alone. It was kind of cute by a half for he sounded like a hawk in Afghanistan and a dove to his left-wing Democrat base on Iraq. But because the 2008 election was really not about Iraq or the overall WAIT, it sounded pretty good to a war-weary public. The United States would draw down in Iraq and leave a token force and concentrate on vanquishing the enemies in Afghanistan.
Well, negotiations broke down over how many and what the role would be of the token American forces that would remain in Iraq beyond 2011. The breakdown that led to total American military withdrawal was how American forces would or would not be granted immunity from the Iraqi government and be subject to it's laws.
Had we extended negotiations on that, we could have had a force of anywhere from 30,000 to 70,000. The 30,000 would be more than enough to continue to be a presence and train the officer corp and the regular forces.
But for Team Obama, they would rather not have any extended negotiations for if that happened and a deal could have been worked out, there would still be a strong American military presence today.
Basically it would be forces like the forces that we had in West Germany after World War II. Oh, and we still do, even though there is no threat of a Nazi resurgence that was feared in the days after the formal end of hostilities. Or the decades-long threat of communist East Germany and their patrons, the former Soviet Union that is no more.
If there was any military presence in Iraq, Team Obama would have broken a major 2008 campaign foreign policy promise. For they did not close down the Guantanamo prison where many of the worst of the worst terrorists have been and are still being held. They had to get totally out of Iraq. And thus in November, 2011, the last troops came home. And of course Team Obama used it as fulfilling a promise to be out of Iraq. Team Obama rode that to reelection.
Remember, it took years for the United States and its World War II allies to train a purely defense force in West Germany, Italy and Japan but forces did not place any false timeline for it to happen and pull armed forces out of these three nations. Again, United States forces are in all three nations. Yes, the numbers are reduced dramatically, but they are still there.
But Iraq, well when the public, fed by the Democrat party left-wing propaganda, tired of the seemingly endless military action essentially gave up. the Dear Leader, President Obama and his allies wanted to end all military action in the WAIT. They wanted to return to the pre 9/11 mindset that all this terrorism is but a legal issue and all terrorists would be prosecuted in American courts and afforded the same rights and privileges as American citizens. If convicted, they would be jailed in American prisons. Team Obama would address, as they saw it, the root causes of such terror and terrorist groups.
But, as noted, Team Obama ended up keeping Guantanamo open. Yes, they made a grave mistake in trading five former Afghan Taliban for one American soldier, and it is probably using this to empty Guantanamo any way they can. And they did not try the chief architect in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, in a civilian court in New York City as the attorney general, Eric Holder, wanted to. He was tried in a military court.
So in a sense, reality smacked the collective faces of Team Obama.
But in Iraq, that did not happen. And yes, the United States is reaping what it sowed.
And yup, forces of genuine evil are on the march to Baghdad and a goal of radical Islam may come true.
The rebirth of the medieval caliphate.
And it is unfolding right before our collective eyes.
For the most part, thanks to Team Obama and wanting us to ignore the Mideast and the descent to radical Islamic chaos, we in the United States don't seem to care. I mean, if it gets in the way of the latest fauxtrage of the week, we can't be bothered.
Peace at any price is a false peace for eventually those who sue for peace end up having to fight war with enemies that do not value peace.
I don't believe that J. P. Blecksmith or any of the 4,485 other American troops that died in Iraq in Operation Enduring Freedom did so to see what is happening today. The total disintegration of Iraq into a caliphate state.

Gay-Bashing In Iraq-Is This What We Shed Our Blood For

One of my favorite things about the left is how they use their Christian allies to present moral equivalency between fringe Christians and Islamics.
You see, there are a lot of bad Christians out there. Of course they are plotting and planning for another 9/11 style attack, Christian style.
But in regard to Islamics it is always presented as a very, very small fringe that promotes jihad, subjugation of women, absolute intolerance of homosexuals.
And the latter is what I want to focus on.
This post from Reid Smith at The American Spectator highlights a troubling situation in Iraq that, frankly, I had no idea about.
It is, with tacit if not blatant government approval, going after young, suspected homosexuals and killing them.
And just how is it known if the government and or allies are taking care of the young, homosexual problem?
By going after the Emos.
Emos is a all-inclusive term for mostly teenage and or young men that have a certain look. Like a certain kind of music. It is a to be succinct, a subculture.
Below is what a typical "Emo boy" would look like.

OK, not exactly what your humble blogger looks like. Of course it would be really weird for a 47 year-old to look like him. Note that the boy is androgynous-looking. But for all I know, he is with a different gal every night. 

The second photo above is a less androgynous-looking emo. Again, for all I know, he too can be with a different gal every night.

When your humble blogger came of age in the 1980s, I had very long hair and had a definitely  hard-rocker look. And FTR, I have seen the band Motorhead three times and each in or on the edges of the mosh pit.
Many people could not believe that I liked that kind of music-still do-and be such a conservative.

Too me, this all falls under the adage not to judge a book by its cover.

But, no, not in Iraq.

While in this posting, Ralph Reiland highlights that it is the music that is driving the Iraq morality police, AKA the Interior Ministry, to try to root this eeeeevvvvviiiiilllll.

As Mr. Smith noted last month, it started with homosexuals, but traversed into going after the emos.

And, this is with homosexuality decriminalized in Iraq.

I wonder what it would be like if it was a criminal act?

But my question is this.

Why I am I finding this information out in a conservative publication? Where is the Leftywhore media on this outrage?

Can you hear the crickets chirping?

I mean, normally this would be right up there under other circumstances, right?

But this would shed light on the homophobia that is rampant throughout the Islamic world.

And that blows a hole in the equivalency narrative.

The reality is, save for a few fringe so-called "Christians" like Fred Phelps and his merry band of whack jobs, by and large homosexuals have and have had much more freedom in the United States than almost any nation in the world with an Islamic majority. In nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia, homosexuality is not just banned but of course punishable by death.

No matter how one feels about homosexuality in the United States, the tolerance for them as people is rising. While I do not support same-sex marriage, I don't think I am going to start throwing bricks hoping to kill same-sex couples.

Again, where is the Leftywhore media on top of this?

There should be.

Because one of the problems in trying to impose our values on a nation that has a religion that is not tolerant is that it does not work. Nation building, in this case, is an abject failure.

We should have completed our military mission and at most get the parties together to figure out their own future. Not to try to impose our Western values.

This is a serious situation because once we completed the military mission, we engaged in nation building. We should not have.

But that aside, we can not stand by and look at what is happening in Iraq as some kind of isolated situation. It is not. And it is based on as simple as a look. Well over 100 people have been killed with tacit government approval and yet we Americans are in a tither over the Trayvon Martin killing. The issue I addressed in that is, once again, how he was apparently dressed in a hoodie.

We should be just as outraged at this going on in Iraq in which it is truly a plot to rid the nation of homosexuals and or people that maybe homosexuals. Whether they are or not.

The Leftywhore media will not bring themselves to publicize this situation in Iraq because it will undermine one of its talking points.

That there are more radical Christians than there are radical Islamics.

At least in the Untied States, the radical Christians just protest. In Iraq, they just seem to kill.