Yesterday I had seen the headlines regarding the murder/execution of ISIS hostages Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad and Fan Jinghui. But I only heard about this detail earlier this morning:
“Our son and my brother was kidnapped and has been held hostage in Syria since January,” Mr. Grimsgaard-Ofstad’s parents and sister said in a statement on Wednesday, describing their hope, despair, and sorrow. “He was maimed twice. Islamic State first removed the thumb on his left hand, then all the fingers of his right hand.”
Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Børge Brende said the mutilation of prisoners to collect ransom was showing the real face of Islamic State. “The abuse Mr. Grimsgaard-Ofstad suffered has put a terrible strain on the family,” Mr. Brende told reporters in Oslo Wednesday. “Videos and images of the abuse were sent to us, along with demands of ransom.”
This kind of depravity and barbarity as far as I know is rivaled only by the Mexican drug cartels.
Don’t expect the Chinese to commit their military might to the fight against the common enemy of the modern, civilized world. Some wishful thinkers believed the Japanese would have their Samurai spirit reawakened in wake of the execution-murder of their citizens, Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa. That didn’t happen. Which is not to say that Japan and Norway aren’t contributing partners to the war against ISIS.
But where is the leadership? Which country is taking the lead and rallying a strong coalition of military action?
It certainly has not been us.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
Although bombing the enemy is NOT the same as torturing and then murdering them, people like lesbian commentator Sally Kohn believe we would be lowering ourselves to ISIS’ level by taking them out.
She is dead wrong.
We would be stopping this unending carnage that ISIS doles out to anyone who falls into their sphere of control.
IF Sally fell into their sphere of control her lesbian days would be over.
But she actually believes we could win their hearts and minds with flowers, love and job opportunities!
We’ve been continuously waging war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq since August, 2014, with steadily increasing intensity. That the GOP refuses to authorize, support, or to acknowledge the results of this totally obvious fact does not mean that it isn’t so. What it means is that they’re living within the confines of their own alternate reality. They’re like the three monkeys, except the one that usually has his mouth covered is shouting through a megaphone.
Hillary said today that the terrorists are NOT Muslim. Obama views 10,000 refugees, in which 2% (200) are military age males here alone… with NO family as “widows and 3 year old children”. I am pretty sure we cannot endure or survive another 4 years with a President that is in ignorant denial.
@Bill, #3:
Was Fred Phelps Christian? She’s making a critical distinction. Such a distinction is essential, if we want to be rid of Islamic extremism. Some people seem hellbent on keeping that distinction from being made.
@Greg: There are more than 204 million Christians in the United States.
Greg, you can point to a ”church” of 9 people.
In Islam, the usual proportion of jihadis to non-jhadis (who support the jihadis with their tithe to their mosques) is said to be 3 out of 100.
If there are a billion Muslims on earth there are 30 MILLION jihadists out there.
Quite a difference.
@Greg: I’m sorry, did Phelps murder some innocent people? Did Phelps blow himself up in a busy market? I guess I missed that.
The distinction is that she is so worried about losing a vote somewhere that she will say anything to pander. How is it a distinction or accurate to say the terrorists and ISIS are not Muslim? ARE they Muslim, Greg?
She is making the distinction between herself and those who say all Muslims are terrorists… which is practically nil. Is that the distinction, Greg?
She is making the distinction between herself and an honest person. That IS a distinct difference.
Islamic extremism feeds on itself. It is because there is a modern western culture and they want that exterminated. You think calling them “radical jihadists” instead of “radical Islamic terrorists” (which is a distinction, by the way) is going to soften their hearts and cause them to offer us the olive branch? If so, you are as corrupt and delusional as she, Obama and Bernie are.
Your determination to make no distinction between the greater Muslim community and Muslim extremists and terrorists is precisely what the extremists and terrorists hope for.
@Greg:
And how do you know what the extremits and terrorists hope for?
Greg- a big fan on yours! I have been coming here for years just to see the wisdom from your post. I do however, have one qustion? When you wake up in the morning, who ties your shoelaces for you?
@Greg: You might need to man-splain that statement to me, I just haven’t read any posts on FA that in any way seem to say all muslims are terrorists, just that all terrorists just happen to have the idea that they are muslim, they hold up the koran in selfies to try to prove it. Do I think they represent every muslim? Nope. Seems the muslim parents of the kids that run off to join the terrorists seem genuinely confused at the kids decision.
I have an issue with the culture, the whole Shariah law stuff that is not compatible with our American values or the constitution. Daddy killing daughter for being too westernized, wow a far cry from you are grounded. Off topic?
@Greg:
You have never answered the question in your pathetic regurgitation of the idiotic “Obama bin bombing!” schtick of why there was anything left for the French to bomb at Raqqa this past week, if Obama’s worthless campaign was doing a damned thing to stop ISIS. The republicans are absolutely correct in refusing to authorize wasting US military power on Obama’s political theater. When hell freezes over and Obama decides on an actual warplan to totally destroy ISIS, only then would the princess-in-chief deserve the nation’s support.
The Department of Defense’s summary of actions taken against ISIL in Iraq and Syria from 2014 through present would seem to suggest that you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Maybe you should have paid attention to something besides the right-wing media’s non-stop coverage of the GOP’s Scandal of the Week.
What do republicans suggest? I haven’t heard any specific suggestions. All I’ve heard from them are moronic attacks on a President who is actually doing something about ISIL and a lot of useless bloviating. Meanwhile, they don’t even tend to the business they were elected to do. The front-running presidential hopeful is flogging hats with his slogan, “Make America great again.” Everybody seems to miss the underlying assumption that’s goes with it: that America isn’t great; that we’ve lost our greatness. It’s like what’s hiding under the claim that the U.S. military campaign against ISIL over the past year has been useless: an assertion that our military is ineffectual.
This is the culmination of 7 straight years of republican negativity. I’m pretty much sick of it.
@Greg:
“I’m pretty much sick of it.”
Boo hoo, Greg. Your discomfort over criticism of a part time President makes the prolonged suffering of the Yazidis seem so petty of them! Why, the suffering you’ve endured while the West has done next to nothing for you is a horror worse than being sold into sexual slavery or genocide.
Greg, if I had a some soldiers, some helicopters, maybe some transport aircraft, I had have them over to your place YESTERDAY with a box of Kleenex. It might not be the leadership you think you have but it’s better than what you’re getting right now.