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The war against Islamic State
The caliphate cracks Though Islamic State is still spreading terror, its weaknesses are becoming apparent Mar 21st 2015 | From the print edition WHEN the jihadists of Islamic State (IS) seized Mosul and the Iraqi army fled last June, they became the world’s most dangerous terrorist organisation. Sweeping out of Syria and north-western Iraq, they stormed southward, and came close to taking Baghdad. They murdered male prisoners in gory videos and enslaved female ones. Groups from Nigeria to Libya and Afghanistan pledged allegiance to them. Devotees attacked innocent civilians in Western cities; this week at least 19 people were killed in an assault on tourists in Tunisia (though the culprits are unknown). The IS threat has pushed together unlikely allies: in Iraq America provides the air power while Iran musters the ground forces. As our briefing explains (see article (http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21646752-sustaining-caliphate-turns-out-be-much-harder-declaring-one-islamic-state-not) ), IS differs from jihadist groups that have gone before, including its parent, al-Qaeda. It is uniquely brutal in its treatment of foes and uniquely competent as a propagandist. But what most sets it apart is its claim to have restored the Islamic caliphate. The revival of a single state to rule over all Muslims, dating to Islam’s earliest days and abolished in 1924 by modern Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman empire, was meant to eradicate decades of supposed humiliation by outsiders and Arab rulers who presided over the decline of flourishing Arab societies. To Western ears, the pretence that IS is a government in office is absurd, a bit of jihadist braggadocio; to many Muslim clerics (and even al-Qaeda) it is heresy. Yet it has stirred a form of messianism. “Rush, O Muslims, to your state,” declared Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, IS’s leader. And thousands have indeed rushed to fight for and build the Islamic Utopia: even schoolgirls have abandoned families and friends in Europe. The call of the caliphate has galvanised zealots. Yet, even as IS launches terrorist attacks, the good news is that cracks in the caliphate are becoming increasingly apparent. IS is losing ground, money and the consent of the people it rules. The state of Islamic State The caliphate has been pushed out of the Syrian town of Kobane by Kurdish fighters, backed by American air power. It is being squeezed in Tikrit (the tribal base of the former dictator, Saddam Hussein) by the Iraqi army and Shia militias co-ordinated by Iran. Compared with the peak, when it was at the gates of Baghdad, its territory has shrunk by about 25%. IS’s funds are dwindling, too. America and its allies have bombed lucrative oil facilities. Most of the hostages have been sold or murdered in video-recorded beheadings. Now that IS’s forces are retreating, the loot of conquest has dried up. Some analysts reckon it may have lost up to 75% of its revenues. That makes it harder for IS to keep fighting and to provide services to the roughly 8m people living under its rule. That may help explain signs of internal tension. The movement has started to kill its own followers, sometimes for fleeing before the enemy and on at least one occasion supposedly for zealously beheading too many people. Residents complain of extortion, violent repression and declining public services. There are reports of tensions between local and foreign members over disparities in pay. Judged by its own standard, then, the caliphate is failing as an all-conquering state and model for society. That matters because a proto-state with a large territory and population to defend is also more vulnerable to setbacks than terrorist groups that are not rooted to a patch of land. Precisely because IS claims to be running a model Islamic state, its visible failure exposes the bankruptcy of its ideology and the hollowness of its claims to would-be recruits. If, as some say, the secret of IS’s success is success itself; then failure will gain momentum, too. Even so, the hardest part of defeating IS still lies ahead, starting with the military campaign in Iraq. In recent days the operation to oust it from Tikrit has been hampered by hidden bombs and snipers. And after Tikrit falls, there is Mosul—bigger and more important, with a population closely associated with IS. The recapture of Mosul is vital to puncturing IS’s claim to be a caliphate. The nature of the campaign matters, too. The Iranian-sponsored Shia militias at the forefront of the fighting in Tikrit are known for having victimised Sunni civilians in earlier fighting nearer Baghdad. The fear is growing that, by depending so heavily on Iran, Iraq is being turned into an Iranian satrapy. If so, Iraq’s disenchanted Sunni population will cleave even more tightly to the IS jihadists as their best and only protectors. It is important, therefore, that the attack on Mosul is led by a professional, non-sectarian Iraqi army. The trouble is that the Iraqi army is demoralised and far from ready. Hardest of all is the insoluble problem of Syria. Even if Mosul can be retaken, IS or something like it will survive, certainly for as long as it enjoys an unchallenged haven in Syria. For the time being, nobody is even thinking of trying to eject IS from the Syrian city of Raqqa: not the regime in Damascus, which wants to prove that the only alternative to IS is Bashar Assad; not the Kurds, who will not fight far beyond their enclaves; not Jabhat al-Nusra, the most effective rebel force, which remains a franchise of al-Qaeda; and not the rebels being trained by America, who are too few to make a difference. Syria will not be pacified soon—possibly not for many years. Until that moment, IS can lurk there, controlling swathes in the east, destabilising Sunni areas of Iraq and biding its time until it has another chance to rise up. Defeat in Mosul could reduce the caliphate to a rump entity, or could lead it to disintegrate into a patchwork of warring fiefs, like much of the rest of the country. It would still pose a grave threat to the outside world and would need constant watching. But degradation would make it easier to contain than it is today. Always with us Destruction is much further off. As much as Islamic State is a cause of chaos in the Middle East, it is also a symptom. Its ideology feeds off Sunnis’ sense of victimhood. The group has taken root across the region, and especially where the state has collapsed. Defeating it is ultimately a matter of rebuilding governments in the Arab world—a task that will take decades. Cutting back the caliphate is just the vital first step. From the print edition: Leaders |
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RisingSun > mike no • 5 days ago
Japan wasn't simply fighting with the US. The US, UK and Netherland (which had oil fields in Indonesia) was adopting bloc economy to cope with the Great Depressions and the trade embargo, like Glass-Steagall Act, was implemented to segregate Japan from doing business with anyone. Hull Note was issued in 1937, and Roosevelt made the speech to segregate Japan in the same year. The export of Iron and Steel was restricted in July 1940, and oil and oil products in August. The Pearl Harbar wasn't really the begining of the war of Pacific. Chris > RisingSun • 3 days ago Japan invaded China in 1931 and Korea way before that. In 1937 the Nanking massacre had shocked the west. U.S. had every justification to segregate Japan to thwart their invasive actions in Asia and Pacific. RisingSun > Chris • a day ago > Japan invaded China in 1931 Are you talking about Mukden Incident? Manchuria is for Manchu and Japan helped them to be independent. It's a war of security so Soviet and Chinese communists won't keep harassing Manchu. > Korea way before that Are you talking about 1910? Japan had annexed Korea, not invaded. Just like the US annexed Texas or Germany annexed Austria, Korea simply became a part of Japan, legally by the international law. > U.S. had every justification Every justification to "free China and Korea"? Who said that? Did the US invaded Asia to get the invadive Japan off? Funny logic, isn't it? Chris > RisingSun • 13 hours ago I see what you are doing here. Trivializing Japan's War Crime by comparing it to other unrelated historic events, redefining invasive acts by stressing on the Communist Threat. You're using the typical historic revisionist strategies, and they do not get me because I'm smart enough. As long as people don't lose their minds, you are not to implement your twisted ideas on us. You should be ashamed of yourself. Here's some history lesson for you: > Manchuria was not a nation but a region in the Republic of China at the time Japan invaded. 99% of its inhabitants are Han who are the majority of the population at the time or Manchu who ruled China for 300 years before the establishment of POC. Manchu and Han had integrated politically, culturally and economically by sharing the same land. Manchuria did not become independent after the Mukden Incident. It became subject to the Empire of Japan in every which way. Unit 713 of the Imperial Japanese Army which forced civilians to do lethal human experimentation is a classic example or Japan's war crimes in Manchuria. > Korea is not Texas. Korea as a nation had been residing in the Korean Peninsula for ages. Texas was a new establishment that entered the Union willingly, not by force. Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938 has long been deemed as one of the first invasive acts by the Nazis to expand their territory. In fact, it, along with Nazi's invasion of Poland, had sparked the warfare in Europe. Are you suggesting the Nazis were following international law when they did that? You should take some history lessons in Germany, not in Japanese schools which barely taught you anything. > US gave freedom and independence to all the territories they took over from Japan after the WW2. South Korea has enjoyed economic growth and prosperity as a result of being independent from Japan, and The United States which gave Koreans the freedom they deserved. RisingSun > Chris • 6 hours ago > Manchuria was not a nation but a region in the Republic of China at the time Japan invaded. Nope. Japan had acquired the right of Manchurian Railroad Company from Russia legally under the treaty recognized by the international law, after Japan defeated Russian in 1905. The newly established Republic of China had claimed the territorial succession from Qing after 1912, but the situation was much like northern Iraq today, without the presence or the actual administration. Those terrorists-equivalent warlords were causing havoc everywhere in Manchuria, and Japan was simply defending its own right for the railroad from the invasive warlords. From 1928 to 1931 alone, trains were forcefully stopped 171 times, rubbed 189 times, rail equipment was stolen 92 times, and lines were stolen 26 times. It was a war of security. > Unit 713 of the Imperial Japanese Army which forced civilians to do lethal human experimentation Unit 731 is an unproven myth, and while those myth claims that Japan experimented on captured Chinese and Russian PoWs, Manchurians have nothing to do with. Unit 731’s task was primarily to prevent water based diseases like dysentery, and to research the cure, not the attack, in case Soviet use them. Why would Japan spread uncontrollable diseases to the occupied areas where Japanese citizens were also living? Just think with a common sense. The Clinton administration had conducted a research to find ultimate evidences from the confiscated Japanese documents to prove Japan’s war crimes, and the research was completed in 2007 during the Bush administration. While the working group concluded that Japan was researching for the biochemical war, there is no evidence that Japan had actually used it, or experimented on live human. This research was available publically. http://www.archives.gov/iwg/ja... > Are you suggesting the Nazis were following international law when they did that? Austria was legally annexed by Germany, and no nation had disputed as key players like UK and France had approved at Munich conference took places a few month later. But Germany invaded Poland without the formal declaration of war as the reason to protect German citizens from riots, so that was very suspicious and maybe illegal. Germany official declared the war against UK two days after attacking Poland, and so WW2 had started. Joseon Koreans prime-minister and other political leaders had requested Japan to annexed Korea in 1909, and the annexation was recognized by League of Nations. During the Japanese administration, Korean population had doubled from 13 mil to 25 million, Japan had abolished slavery and freed Korea’s slave class called “Baekchon” which was thought to be 65~85% of the total population, giving them names and basic human rights, like freedom of occupations, lives, religions, movement, or marriage. Japan had also introduced the compulsory education system in the very first time in the Korean history, by building 1 elementary school for every 3 villages/municipal districts, 1 high school for 6 villages/municipal districts. Japan had also built 600 public hospitals and clinics in the first 10 years, built the basic infrastructures like inter-city roads and highways, electricity and phone lines, drinking water and sewage water pipelines in the cities, as well as public transportation that Koreans and Japanese could share to move or to commerce, and introduced the modern banking, agriculture, judicial systems, and leisures like zoo and skate-links. Korea didn’t have none of that before, and in fact, Japan had to supplement the Korean government with 10% of Japan’s National Budget every year. > US gave freedom and independence to all the territories they took over from Japan after the WW2 The US an european imperialists were forced to give up its territories after the WW2. Japan was fighting for the independence of Asia from the Western imperialists. In a sense, the US was driven to give up territories like Phillipines, but still has Hawaii and Guam. |
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December 12, 1999
Apocalypse Now? By Nicholas D. Kristof Destroying the World to Save It Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. By Robert Jay Lifton. 374 pp. New York: Metropolitan Books/ Henry Holt & Company. $26. If all had gone according to plan, November 1995 would have been quite a month. According to Japanese officials and prosecutors, the cult of Aum Shinrikyo was preparing to make tons of sarin nerve gas and release it in major Japanese cities (and possibly American ones as well). Aum is said to have intended to use its Russian-made military helicopter and two smaller crop-dusting helicopters to spread the nerve gas, and security experts estimate that hundreds of thousands could have been killed. Instead, early that same year, Aum murdered one of its enemies in a particularly obvious way, and the police began to close in. The cult's leader, Shoko Asahara, allegedly ordered his aides to release sarin in the Tokyo subway system to distract the authorities, but at the time Aum's best chemist was busy with religious rituals. His substitute was rushed, and turned out low-grade sarin, so when Aum followers released the impure gas in the Tokyo subway system on March 20, 1995, it killed only 11 people and injured only a few thousand. And Asahara is remembered as only a modest mass murderer, far short of the Hitlerian scale to which he aspired. Robert Jay Lifton, a prominent American psychiatrist and author, warns in ''Destroying the World to Save It'' that other groups may pursue the Aum model: not just predicting an apocalypse but trying to bring it about. ''Asahara and Aum have changed the world, and not for the better,'' Lifton argues, and he explains, ''Its members can claim the distinction of being the first group in history to combine ultimate fanaticism with ultimate weapons in a project to destroy the world.'' Lifton continues, ''The next group of disciples to try might not be quite as small as Aum, or as inept, or as encumbered by its own madness.'' The story of Aum's rise and fall -- replete with sex, drugs and violence, with the guru forcing friend to kill friend, with the cult simmering old women in steaming hot baths, with cult leaders administering LSD and then claiming credit for the visions -- is mind-boggling. But it is already the subject of a fine narrative, David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall's ''Cult at the End of the World.'' The emphasis here is different, neither a simple recounting of Aum's rise nor a detailed exploration of the security issues involved. Instead, Lifton has zeroed in on Aum's theology and on the psychology of the cult's members. This reflects Lifton's own expertise, for he had earlier studied Nazi doctors as well as other cultlike phenomena. Unfortunately, what Asahara thought is rather duller than what he did. Instead of scenes of Aum leaders breaking into the home of an enemy lawyer and killing him and his wife and baby, we get dry theorizing like this: ''This megalomanic guruism, the claim to possess and control immediate and distant reality, was not only wild fantasy but a form of desymbolization -- a loss, that is, of the symbolizing function that characterizes the healthy human mind.'' This focus on the duller side of Aum -- its theology and psychology -- would have worked better if Lifton had had access to Aum leaders. But Lifton acknowledges up front that he spoke in depth to only 10 former cult members, none of whom were high-ranking or involved in illegal behavior. They were simply, like the vast majority of the Aum members in Japan, sincere young people looking for spiritual answers, credulous rather than criminal. Although Lifton never met Asahara, he draws a persuasive portrait of him, working from solid research in press reports and trial statements. Lifton describes the young guru, partly blind but able to see better than the other children at his school for the blind, bullying and dominating his classmates. He also earned a black belt in judo and developed a love of drama. Some commentators have suggested that in Aum Shinrikyo he tried to recreate the environment of his boyhood. Lifton is at his best in explaining the mixed-up feeling of Asahara's disciples, the confusion that led them to obey the guru or rationalize what he did. When Lifton discusses some larger issues, his discussion is invariably thoughtful and informed. Yet I often found his arguments unpersuasive. Most significantly, I am skeptical of the idea that Asahara has carried us across some Rubicon, changing the world in a fundamental way. Millenary cults have been around for millenniums, and it seems unlikely that any new guru will prove as deadly as the man in mid-19th-century China who proclaimed himself the younger brother of Jesus and led the Taiping rebellion. That uprising resulted in the deaths of countless millions of people and contributed to the collapse of imperial China. And it would take quite a remarkable effort to match the biological weapons of the European settlers in America. Their introduction of smallpox -- mainly by accident but also by use of deliberately infected blankets -- helped wipe out much of the native population in the New World. I am also unconvinced that cults are quite as dangerous as Lifton seems to suggest. The main surprise about Aum was that it managed to go on for as long as it did without being stopped. This had to do with an exceptional circumstance: in Japan, police and journalists alike are extremely wary of probing any religious organization for fear of being accused of religious persecution. My guess is that if sarin or similar weapons are used to kill vast numbers of people any time soon, the source will probably be not a cult but North Korea, which Western intelligence experts believe has countless tons of pure sarin and whose artillery can easily reach Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Moreover, Aum demonstrated that biological weapons are hard to get right, more so than chemical weapons. The cult devoted millions of dollars and many years to developing anthrax and other biological weapons, and though it released them, apparently no one was infected. None of this is to minimize the risks, and Lifton is right that a hate group may eventually emerge with chemical or biological weapons whose power matches its rage. But as worries go, he does not demonstrate that this should be near the top of our list of concerns. |
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