dagblog - Comments for "Jordan executes convicted jihadists after pilots death"

NPR - UAE To Resume Anti-ISIS

barefooted — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 23:54:55 +0000

NPR - UAE To Resume Anti-ISIS Airstrikes In Solidarity With Jordan

It's also safe to assume that the US moving search and rescue units to northern Iraq (WSJ) also figured in to their decision.

It's too obviously convenient

barefooted — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 07:15:55 +0000

In reply to If ISIS is making the cause

It's too obviously convenient to be anything but questionable at this point. It also seems rushed - no flashy video, no body, no proof of anything. They have thus far made claims on a site frequented by ISIS and their supporters with a few photos of a bombed out building. They say it's in Raqqa, yet the US and Jordan officials have denied any airstrikes in that location over the timeperiod ISIS noted. Additionally, they claim no militants were injured, so we are left to assume their American hostage was all alone. There are many reasons to suspect their assertions. They're proven liars.

She may very well be dead, and could have been murdered at any time since her capture. They've never put her on camera to this point - what better way to use her death for propaganda purposes than to say Jordan killed her?

If ISIS is making the cause

artappraiser — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 05:38:10 +0000

In reply to Jordan executes convicted jihadists after pilots death

If ISIS is making the cause of death here up:

ISIS Declares Airstrike Killed a U.S. Hostage

Those in charge of the agitprop are cleverer than I thought.

This, from an earlier NYT

artappraiser — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 08:23:26 +0000

In reply to The reaction interests me a

This, from an earlier NYT article, gives background on the legal situation of the executions:

...Jordan has 100 more prisoners on death row, but only three are known to have been convicted of terrorism offenses....

Ms. Rishawi, in 2006, and Mr. Karbouli, in 2007, had been sentenced to death by Jordanian courts and had exhausted all appeals, but were not executed because of a long-term moratorium on the death penalty in Jordan. That moratorium was lifted in December.

The king's signature is required for death warrants, and the executions, which are normally carried out by hanging in Jordan, came while the king’s plane was still in the air from Washington....

And this, from yet another NYT pieces, suggests another way already having been tried in the neighborhood:

...The video, with its references to the Islamic State’s punishment of nations like Jordan that joined the American-led coalition against it, appeared to be an attempt to cow the Arab nations and other countries that have agreed to battle the militants in Syria. So far, it appeared to have had the opposite effect in Jordan, which suggested its resolve had been stiffened. But the capture of the pilot had already hurt the coalition, with the United Arab Emirates suspending its own airstrikes in December and demanding that the group improve its search and rescue efforts for captured members....

The reaction interests me a

artappraiser — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 07:56:14 +0000

In reply to This atrocity appears to be

The reaction interests me a great deal for many reasons. This, from your link, is getting at one of them:

...said Adnan Abu-Odeh, a former head of Jordan’s intelligence service. “Daesh have made a big error. When you are weakened as they have been, you try to make your supporters think you are strong by being more monstrous, but this time they went too far.”...

I have always been against the death penalty in the U.S. not so much on moral grounds, but because I don't think it works as a deterrent to the criminal minds of the extreme kind that it is most often applied to. To them, it's a reinforcement of their belief system, that those with power have the right to kill and they have a will to or desire for power over other humans.

But with terrorism, this gets so much more knotty and complex.. Because the end goal is to terrorize populations or governments into acquiescing to their will. Which is the reason for the whole don't negotiate with terrorists thing, where you've got to draw a line somewhere where it's "no deal, we won't continue to play." So hanging those already convicted, that the terrorists wanted, doesn't strike me as oneupmanship nor any confirmation of their ethos.

First, simplistically, it's not the same as burning someone in a cage, it wasn't meant to terrorize. Instead it's to say: no deal, never like that,our answer is: we are following through with the law. And in comparison, it is civilized.

Second. The alternate I usually support, life in prison, to show that the government doesn't use killing as a power metaphor, that just doesn't seem to work in this terrorism situation. It seems so wimpy, as if saying "we will continue to just put up with what you are trying to do to our civilization until you tire of it." No line in the sand, no point where you won't take it anymore.It's an opening to escalation rather than the retreat from escalation it might usually be.

This atrocity appears to be

barefooted — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 06:09:05 +0000

In reply to Jordan's air strikes on IS

This horrific act appears to be creating some truly strange bedfellows. The NYT reports:

There was one sentiment that many of the Middle East's competing clerics, fractious ethnic groups and warring sects could agree on Wednesday: a shared sense of revulsion at the Islamic State's latest atrocity ...

Jordan's air strikes on IS

artappraiser — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 03:13:07 +0000

In reply to Jordan executes convicted jihadists after pilots death

Jordan's air strikes on IS 'beginning of retaliation'
BBC News, 5 Feb.

Jordanian air strikes on Islamic State (IS) targets are "the beginning of our retaliation" for the killing of a captured Jordanian pilot, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh has said.

He told CNN that Jordan was going after IS "with everything that we have".

Jordan had previously only bombed militant bases in Syria, but Mr Judeh said the raids now expanded into Iraq.....

It Wasn't Their War

Whatever legitimacy the Islamic State had in Jordan was incinerated along with Muath al-Kaseasbeh's body.

By Alice Su, The Atlantic, Feb. 5

...Until recently, Jordanians had shown no more than wavering support for the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS....