
Why Palmyra's ruins are so important - pmcpinto
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-five-reasons-why-palmyra-matters-as-archaeological-ruins-site-20150520-column.html
======
turar
There was an interview with a person from Palmyra. He was pretty bitter and
said the world only cares about the ruins. Not much mention of people
currently living in Palmyra in the media, it's all about the ruins.

~~~
aikah
Like it was all about the Buddha statues in Afghanistan... the people living
in these areas and victims of the barbarians have "no face" and "no voice",
and are not considered as worth as a few monuments protected by the UNESCO.
That's the sad reality we're living in.

------
fapjacks
I have been considering going back to help the Kurds fight ISIS for some time
now. I want to say stories like this highlight the urgency of the situation,
but in the face of all the murder happening in areas controlled by the dark
army of Mordor, it would make me appear to have the wrong priorities. ISIS
needs to be destroyed.

~~~
seivan
My father have friends working in the IDP camps. There are plenty of Kurdish
doctors from Sweden going there, doing abortions on 9 year olds. Some don't
survive.

The thing ISIS did to the Yezidis.. the children, the female ones. It would
kill your insides and want to set the world on fire.

In fact, it wasn't just ISIS, but their Sunni muslim neighbours. As soon as
they heard ISIS were nearby, they started killing their Yezidi neighbours,
raping their daughters on the streets. There were mattresses and used condoms
lying on the streets when the HPG (Yezidi militia) came back to Sinjar... grim
scenes.

It wasn't 3 or 4, but systematic abuse on _thousands_.

Christians (Assyrians) weren't spared either, but not as many as 7000 Yezidis
females captive since last summer. The male children are being used as human
shields and sucide bombers. The female (down to the age of 6) are being sold
on sex-slave markets.

Edit:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/22...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/22/islamic-
state-burned-a-woman-alive-for-not-engaging-in-an-extreme-sex-act-u-n-
official-says/)

"They commit rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and other acts of
extreme brutality. We heard one case of a 20-year-old girl who was burned
alive because she refused to perform an extreme sex act. We learned of many
other sadistic sexual acts. We struggled to understand the mentality of people
who commit such crimes."

Set the world on fire.

~~~
ISL
Don't set the world on fire. Be a bastion for good in the world.

~~~
waps
This story is remniscent of the 1948 Israel war of independance which was also
full of stories about neighbours suddenly being given the change to rape,
steal and pillage.

One can only hope it ends in exactly the same way : 5 more Israels in the
middle east. A Yezidi one. An Assyrian one. A Shi'a one.

You can say whatever you want to say but this islam is an ideology which is
centrally focused on it's supposed superiority and the focus is the reason for
this superiority : that allah will guarantee military victory. Walk near any
large station in a large Western European city and you can find out for
yourself (if you look the least bit dark you will find out even if you don't
want to, they'll walk up to you and ask). Paris - Gare du Nord, Brussels
North, Amsterdam, ... you should go to Syria and fight and kill. Feign minimal
intrest and you get to find out more. Why - because allah will make you win
and we'll finally punish the infidels, and everybody you hate. They'll provide
a wife, and openly talk about their "attitude" to captured women - what allah
"allows". The main counterargument you hear on that street - it's not a way to
victory, it's a way to death.

I don't know about if this is similar in America. Does anyone have similar
experiences in, say, New York ? Given where the recruitment happens in Western
Europe and how successful it is in these western states, I find it extremely
difficult to believe that this ISIS will remain confined to the middle east. I
am terrified what will happen in Western Europe in the large cities if ISIS
appears to become more successful.

This ideology needs to die, if we are to have peace.

~~~
selimthegrim
Why are European Muslims (admittedly the sad, hopeless losers) falling into
this trap? Could it be a lack of civic, constitutional nationalism and
Habermassian public civil religion as opposed to bog-standard ethnocracies?

~~~
azth
It goes without saying that what ISIS is doing is against the teachings of
Islam.

What's happening is that they are making propaganda to the uneducated people
who "have nothing to lose". They tell them to go carry weapons, fight for
glory, and they'll be rewarded with Heaven. Pretty good deal to get out of
their circumstances, right?

The fact remains though that what they preach is not of Islam.

~~~
waps
> It goes without saying that what ISIS is doing is against the teachings of
> Islam.

Yes and so is everything else muslims do. For instance, there is a death
penalty for muslims who choose not to live under islamic rule. And the only
thing that qualifies as islamic rule, of course, is a state ruled by a caliph.
[1] And no, the law does not mention the case that there is no islamic state.
So sharia quite literally states all muslims should kill eachother. For some
reason this is not happening. So every muslim on the planet today has
committed a sin in islam, punishable by death. Or to take another issue. There
is not a single mention of a headscarf anywhere in either the quran or the
hadith. It says to wear loose fitting clothes, the actual word used compares
the clothes to being inside a tent. Now look around, do young muslim girls
wear loose fitting clothes ?

I am making a somewhat disingenuous argument, but the point is that your
argument is disingenuous as well, and for the same reason : when comparing
reality with a set of laws, reality is found lacking. This goes for ISIS and
for every other law, principle, design, guideline, ... on our little blue ball
in the dark.

So your argument is wrong. Of course they don't follow islam perfectly, nobody
does and everybody knows. The real reason is "goes without saying", of course,
means that you're merely pointing out that there is massive social pressure on
this board, and in this country, to agree with that assessment. That I am a
racist if I think otherwise. But this is a bullshit argument. It is true,
because it would be a socially very, VERY uncomfortable situation if it wasn't
true ... which of course doesn't change the fact that it's utterly wrong.

So in short, it doesn't go without saying at all. How much does it really
match the religion's instructions ? I would argue it matches it pretty well.
They've got a caliph and are waging war against anyone and everyone else, just
like their prophet did. That is the basic problem with islamic terrorism : the
terrorists, while not 100% perfectly right about their ideology, have a very
good point. Islamic ideology glorifies this war of the prophet against the
Roman Empire, and the Jewish and other states bordering it, and describes it
as a war that can and should only end with total worldwide victory of the
religion.

This is what muslims are teaching their children (I hope we can at least agree
on those basic facts). And like every other sane person on this planet, their
children don't believe them. I didn't believe my parents when they talked
about this sort of shit, and I've had a few talks with my daughter where she
made it very clear she doesn't believe me either. But when they get excluded
out of our society, hide in their religion for it's the only thing that hasn't
completely rejected them yet (keep in mind that islamic marriages are
arranged. If you have no money, no amount of good looks or talking can help
you). And then these people who look like clerics read to them from the exact
same books their parents are telling them to live by ... and those books say
to fight and kill and you'll be rewarded. Those are the books their parents
talked about when they were toddlers sitting on daddy's knee, when they were
happy and provided for. Now they're criminals who failed with nothing to lose
... and these clerics read from those books, and those books say to fight and
kill ...

The reason this works is the ideology. And I don't care how uncomfortable that
basic piece of information makes anyone. Fighting the people who are already
lost is a loser's game. You must prevent, so to speak, toddlers from being
raised with those books anywhere nearby.

And given how this is escalating, it is a matter of time until we all agree on
that point. The big question is, how many people need to die before we agree ?
As I said, I have kids and find this "let's ignore it and pretend it doesn't
exist" attitude EXTREMELY unacceptable.

And yes, this will cost me a lot of karma on this board. Fuck social pressure.
I hope everyone who lowers the integer next to my name on an internet server
feels really good about themselves and the actions they took.

[1] [https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/hijra-in-
rev...](https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/hijra-in-reverse-the-
muslim-duty-to-emigrate/) talks about this issue

~~~
azth
There are lot of baseless and uncited claims in your post. The blog post you
cited took a few verses from the Quran, and attempted to deduce rulings out of
them, without going back to what scholars know.

> For some reason this is not happening.

Maybe something for you to research and find out why (hint, because Islam
preserves life, and its goal is not to kill left and right, like how you're
trying to make it seem to be). The death penalty in Islam is very, very
strict, applicable to only a couple of situations, and can only be done by the
government. Even then, people are encouraged to forgive if they are in a
position to do that.

> There is not a single mention of a headscarf anywhere in either the quran or
> the hadith.

If you're looking for the literal word "headscarf" then yes (at least for the
Quran). However, covering up (what is known as the headscarf today) is
required in Islam. There is not enough space here to discuss this issue, it is
sufficient to know that the Muslim women during the time of the Prophet Peace
be upon him, practiced this.

> For instance, there is a death penalty for muslims who choose not to live
> under islamic rule.

I would like to see the source of that claim.

> And no, the law does not mention the case that there is no islamic state.

Just because there is no Caliphite state today, does not mean that there are
no Islamic states. Nowhere in the sources is it stated that a Caliphite system
is the exclusive way to have an Islamic state. In one Hadith, the Prophet
Peace be upon him mentioned that the Caliphite period after him will be 30
years, then it will turn into kingdoms. There are dozens of Hadiths that tell
people to have patience, and not to overthrow their governments, even if those
governments are messing around with some religious rulings (e.g. delaying
prayers until after their time). There are only two cases where it is
permissible to overthrow the ruling government, none of which apply to any of
the countries of the so called Arab Spring today.

We also have Hadiths that describe people with mentalities similar to what we
see in ISIS today. One of these Hadiths calls such people the dogs of Hell
fire.

> That I am a racist if I think otherwise.

I don't see what racism has to do with any of this. You're free to believe
what you want, but it seems that the vast majority of what you believe about
this topic is based on either no evidence at all, or on deliberately
misconstrued "interpretations", which can be easily dismissed by a learned
individual.

> How much does it really match the religion's instructions ?

It goes against it 100%. The Prophet Peace be upon him told us not to
overthrow our rulers, regardless of how bad they get. They have absolutely no
religious basis to their actions; none of the nearby countries recognize them
as a legitimate government; we have Hadiths describing people like them.

> Islamic ideology glorifies this war of the prophet against the Roman Empire,
> and the Jewish and other states bordering it...

He did not wage war for the sake of waging war. This is another misconstrued
view you have of Islamic history. In ALL of the wars that happened during his
time, it was to either fend off an attacking enemy, or it was after a peace
treaty was broken by the other party.

> and describes it as a war that can and should only end with total worldwide
> victory of the religion.

* [http://quran.com/49/13](http://quran.com/49/13)

* [http://quran.com/10/99](http://quran.com/10/99)

> keep in mind that islamic marriages are arranged

Again, more uncited claims. Arranged (i.e. forced) marriages are against
Islamic teachings. Them happening in Muslim countries does not mean these
practices were derived from the religion (basic correlation vs. causation
fallacy).

That being said, I don't disagree that there are many misconceptions that are
spread in the Islamic world, about certain rulings or teachings, that in fact,
are not from Islam. It is important to educate people about what is and isn't
from Islam.

------
dankohn1
My wife and I had the opportunity to travel to Palmyra in 2010, and it was an
extraordinary experience. Not only are they some of the most spectacular ruins
in the world, but while we toured, there was almost no one else there. It's
just crazy to take in vistas like [0] and feel like we're the ones there to
appreciate it.

Nevertheless, the potential damage is insignificant compared to the human
losses under both Assad's regime and ISIS.

[0]
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/mc7jofyfhb36ozb/palmyra.jpg?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/mc7jofyfhb36ozb/palmyra.jpg?dl=0)

------
cV6WB
I visited Palmyra in 2009 - it is truly an amazing place.

Politics aside this would be a devastating cultural loss for all of humanity.

------
11thEarlOfMar
Reading this makes me sick to my stomach.

------
guard-of-terra
Historical ruins is our shared heritage and our countries should take blame
for everything that lead to this situation, should they take harm. And I mean
[almost] every country.

By playing petty and pointless political games we're about to lose things we
have no hopes to ever have back. Will people learn? These days I think the
only way for humanity to save face is to die off entirely.

~~~
dba7dba
Sorry but I disagree it's fault of everyone else. True Bush invasion started
this. But as far as the collapse of security forces in Iraq (which allowed
ISIS to gain infamy), most of the blame lies with the Iraqi govt.

You can't stop a few hundred (or a thousand) guys with AK47 with pickups when
your solders have M1 tanks?

~~~
jqm
Political game playing by anti-Assad and anti-Iranian powers were also
directly responsible for the rise of ISIS. These share a portion of the blame
for some ISIS's misdeeds.

~~~
Steko
As long as we're assigning blame let's actually blame the people directly
encouraging this, the wahhabist/salafi crusaders that are heavily funded and
protected by the Saudi government and who have been at it long before Isis.

[http://www.cfr.org/world/cultural-terrorism-wahhabi-
islam/p5...](http://www.cfr.org/world/cultural-terrorism-wahhabi-islam/p5234)

~~~
seivan
People keep forgetting that the Muslims all around the world are traveling
there to rape children and murder civilian "apostates".

This isn't some "tiny" minority, they are over 100 of millions of supporters
and people who approve of the doctrine that allows sex-slavery and killing
apostates. In fact, according to Pew Research as of 2013, the numbers reach up
to approx. 800 000 000 muslims who think that honour killings are justified
amongst other things.

As an ex-muslim (much like an ex-smoker) I am rather biased, but here it is
[http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-
religi...](http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-
politics-society-overview/)

~~~
selimthegrim
So your contention is that all these people's families are perfectly fine with
them going to the Levant for a little sun and frolic? If they have such a
support base for all these terrible things then why do they have to hide where
they are going? I'm no friend to organized religion, but I remember enough
about the so-called rules of jihad to remember that you need your father's
permission. When you start going on about "the Muslims" you're the mirror
image of all these assholes like Qaradawi that go on about "one Ummah" and the
"rope of Allah"

~~~
waps
I think the contention is that this does not matter - it is an intolerable
situation. I think the contention is that having a subgroup in society with 1%
of their people willing to kill cannot possibly be contained by a police
force, and cannot possibly peacefully exist alongside other groups.

Add to that the fact that 50% or more of those muslims will protect the 1%
extremists from the police force in all but the most offensive cases.

Let's face facts here : islam is a religion that was created in a massive war,
that is on occasion blamed for starting the dark ages by cutting off all sea
based trade in Western Europe and more than half of land based trade. The
ideology internalized war during it's formation period. Hell, in the hadith
you find plenty of references why the early caliphs "chose" islam, and the
reason was they were at war. The religion survived only because it could
convince large amounts of people to fight anyone else around them. Further in
it's history it spread by war and it is absolutely unique in the sheer amount
of genocides that just happened to take place just at the edge of islam, at
the point where it was spreading. The biggest slaughter in history, the Mongol
conquest of India, with the lower end of death toll estimates at over 3 times
the WWII total death toll (over 30 times bigger than the holocaust), and may
have killed half a billion (close to 100 holocausts), was an islamic expansion
war.

And I wouldn't worry about them going to the middle east - or anywhere -
that's temporary. This will spread, and the time will come when the fight is
simply local.

THAT is the contention.

~~~
rgbrenner
_The biggest slaughter in history, the Mongol conquest of India, ... may have
killed half a billion_

Wow.. That's incredible considering that the WORLD population in 1200-1300 was
only 400m people. In fact, it's so incredible, I think I'm going to need to
see some references.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates)

~~~
waps
It is incredible. The reason they could kill so many is that they were at it
for several hundred years and attacked different regions. So the population
had some time to replenish before the next series of genocides started.
Individual campaigns had death tolls in the 10-50 million range. There were 6
major campaigns. Several had multiple decades of genocide.

And of course, death tolls are a guessing game, as are population figures. So
yes there are legitimate arguments about these figures.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_India](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_India)

~~~
selimthegrim
I don't think "they" and "several hundred years" go together in a coherent
sentence. What are we talking about here, the Borg collective?

------
foxhedgehog
As somebody who used to work on Middle Eastern affairs for the U.S. government
(and, full disclosure, a CSIS alum), I thought that this was a pretty solid op
ed:

[http://csis.org/publication/defeat-ramadi-time-
transparency-...](http://csis.org/publication/defeat-ramadi-time-transparency-
integrity-and-change)

------
anti-shill
it's almost like the media wants ISIS to destroy palmyra

------
comrade1
Iraq is majority Shia. Iran is majority Shia. Isis is Sunni. Saddam was Sunni,
a minority in Iraq, but saddam kept the Sunni in power. When he was deposed
the Sunni were repressed and pushed into a repressed role. However they...
Fuck it. It would take a week of Ivy League lectures to explain what's going
on. My point is that we fucked things up by getting rid of saddam and not
putting a powerful repressive regime in place. But, also, the people of the
region want to live under Isis and if we're not willing to utterly destroy
them (which I don't think we are) then we should just let the people of the
region take care of it.

------
mojo85
Most of the ruins were looted by the Assad regime and its supporters. Leaving
the area to be seized by ISIS on purpose.

------
ddp
Yeah, fine. If we had any decency, we'd deploy the Marines to protect the
ruins, sort of like we deployed the Coast Guard to protect BP's interests in
the Gulf. Not.

~~~
puddlejumper
I checked out your profile and it is apparent you are a smart guy. However, as
a former Marine Science Technician in the USCG, your comment is not only
insulting, but has no basis in reality. Marine Environmental Response actions
are incredibly difficult, complex, and dangerous. I would recommend reading
the Deepwater Horizon ISPR to get a sense of how challenging this incident
was, what was learned, and maybe get a perspective of how serious this kind of
mission is to the men and women of the Coast Guard.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I think you took the comment the wrong way. It wasn't to denigrate the Coast
Guard, but to say we'll clean up BP's mess because we're a corporatocracy, but
not send the Marines in to save something of historical value. It was a knock
at what the US government puts value on.

~~~
puddlejumper
Perhaps, but MER missions have zero to do with protecting corporate interests.
They have everything to do with minimizing impact to the environment, the
marine and coastal ecosystem, and our fisheries. The Coast Guard is also
tasked with protecting the Maritime Economic Defense Zone, so I guess you
could argue that there is a financial motivation to protect our nation's
interests, but I don't like the implication that the CG is a corporate shill.
I lived in that world and I understand the mission and the people. Maybe I'm
just too sensitive...

~~~
ddp
At some level we're probably just going to disagree. There is ample video of
various agencies of the federal government along with local and state law
enforcement being used to prevent news organizations from filming the
environmental impact across the gulf coast, and the Coast Guard was one of
these. I also believe that injecting nearly two million gallons of Corexit was
done without regard for the impact on marine life; it was done to ensure that
the oil would settle on the bottom of the gulf. So less spoiled beaches was
obviously good, but the impact on marine life and ecosystem made the spill
much much worse. Read the Wiki page on Corexit (FWIW, I have a degree in
chemistry from UNC-CH).

And since you mentioned the Marine Economic Defense Zone (otherwise known as
the Exclusive Economic Zone), this is presumably what entitled a Coast Guard
cutter to board my sailboat about 3 NM off the coast of Bimini in
international waters? You all forced me to reduce speed to 3 knots and spent
two hours searching my boat. So long in fact that you made me arrive in Miami
after dark. You all kept telling me that it was a safety search (flares, life
jackets, etc.), but we all know you were looking for illegal immigrants,
drugs, and guns. And you found none. But you did endanger myself and my
girlfriend. And for the record, my girlfriend attended the Coast Guard Academy
in 1984.

I'm glad you were or are in the Coast Guard. I know you would have done your
best to rescue me if I'd triggered my EPIRB. We're not debating that. But I do
believe that the US military was essentially deployed to protect BP's image in
the Gulf although there's an idiom that goes something like, 'never ascribe to
malice that which can otherwise be ascribed to stupidity'. So maybe all that
just happened because of the same incompetence that gave us Michael Brown as
FEMA director for Katrina. It's not like I claim we have a functional federal
government.

