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I love history, so I had to like this. Lots of great references. Good work by the author. Having said that, there was a certain amount of smugness and hand-wav

I love history, so I had to like this. Lots of great references. Good work by the author. Having said that, there was a certain amount of smugness and hand-waving I have to call out. The thesis appeared to be "ISIS? Nothing new here." which I would mostly agree with. Where we run into problems is when the author tries to address criticisms of the thesis. Was the U.S. on some mission to install democracy? I know Bush said so. But many folks simply wanted people in other lands the opportunity to vote before deciding to initiate overwhelming destructive force on their society, because that was where events were headed. Point being, there are many ways to look at Gulf 1 and 2. (This is why it's best when making historical analyses to stay away from anything in the last 20-30 years. Too many ways to spin things. Too many people invested in various narratives that are still alive -- and it's not necessary to the work of an essay like this.) I was particularly troubled by the author not actually owning up to the one unique feature of ISIS: a trans-national groundswell of people with a violent nihilism. The eschatology was covered, but comparing ISIS to people believing in UFOs? Meh. Not so much. In the latter part of the essay, the weaknesses in the beginning are intensified. We move from the ISIS-not-so-unusual thesis to "Your Pollyanna view of the merits of one civilization over another is what is causing a lot of the chaos". Maybe. Maybe the countries of the west have trapped themselves through the use of free trade and open markets into a situation where some types of societies just can't continue to exist. It's one thing to blame all this military intervention on those simple-minded do-gooders. It's another thing entirely to talk about how the world keeps shrinking, the power of the individual keeps growing, and the rise from poverty for billions of people mean that lots of folks who never had to integrate into a modern world are now stuck doing so. All of that is to say that there is another argument. If the author had honestly acknowledged that argument, I'd rate this a 8 or 9. As it is, looks more like a 5 or 6. Still - well done. You just can't tell one side of the story if you want to do honest analysis. This was much more an opinion piece masquerading as analysis.

return0 11y ago
Agree with you, and to add that i think the author got trapped in trying to find historic analogues, instead of pointing out what is different this time. > "ISIS? Nothing new here." which I would mostly agree with. There is novelty, mainly the wahabbi-funded campaign to recruit immigrants , many of whom second generation, to commit terrorism in their own countries. Also the author falls into the ISIS propaganda itself: despite those heavily publicized acts of gory violence, ISIS is not a threat to the west, but to the people of Syria and other regions. It's false to compare ISIS with the rise of nazism (just look at the fact that half the population of syria has run away from them). It's generally pointless to compare barbarism between different time periods. In general, the author seems to push forward his opinions instead of making a honest effort to understand what's going on.

return0 11y ago

Agree with you, and to add that i think the author got trapped in trying to find historic analogues, instead of pointing out what is different this time. > "ISIS? Nothing new here." which I would mostly agree with. There is novelty, mainly the wahabbi-funded campaign to recruit immigrants , many of whom second generation, to commit terrorism in their own countries. Also the author falls into the ISIS propaganda itself: despite those heavily publicized acts of gory violence, ISIS is not a threat to the west, but to the people of Syria and other regions. It's false to compare ISIS with the rise of nazism (just look at the fact that half the population of syria has run away from them). It's generally pointless to compare barbarism between different time periods. In general, the author seems to push forward his opinions instead of making a honest effort to understand what's going on.