February 18, 2019

"Muthana describes her experience with Isis as 'very mind-blowing.' 'It was like a movie. You read one book and think you know everything.'"

"I’m really traumatised by my experience. We starved and we literally ate grass.”

From "Hoda Muthana 'deeply regrets' joining Isis and wants to return home/Exclusive: Muthana is the only American among 1,500 foreign women and children at a Syrian refugee camp" (The Guardian).

ADDED: Books that want to be your only book... You read one book and think you know everything....

Tell me about a book that makes you want to read another book. And not just another book in the same series. What's a book that makes you feel like reading a lot of different books? That would be a great book.

The book that when you read it, you feel you've got all you need from books — it's the lazy student's book. I don't need to read anymore. I've read X, the book that eradicated my desire to read any other book.

99 comments:

Dave Begley said...

How can she be surprised?

Danno said...

I would let her return, but only in a body bag.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Speaking of terrorism:

"When are the jackboots and stormtroopers going to bust into McCabe's house in the dead of night to arrest him? He’s accused of lying to the feds, just like Roger Stone and Paul Manafort. Andrew McCabe, whom you might remember from Strzok/Page text message fame for hosting some sort of meeting to scheme up an insurance policy against Trump winning the presidency, went on 60 Minutes last night to pimp out his new book. Remember as you read about the interview or watch the interview that McCabe was fired for lying to the FBI.

-Liz Sheld, real American

Wince said...

Hell, she should run for congress.

Not Sure said...

Who knew that woman cannot live by beheadings alone?

Big Mike said...

I'm okay with bringing her child into the United States, and put up for adoption by some upstanding Jewish or Christian couple. As for her, sometimes people have to live with their mistakes.

mockturtle said...

Why did The Guardian not use the acronym ISIS? The headline makes it sound like some experience with an Egyptian goddess.

Nonapod said...

“Americans wake up! Men and women altogether. You have much to do while you live under our greatest enemy, enough of your sleeping! Go on drivebys, and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them. Veterans, Patriots, Memorial, etc day … Kill them.”

Yeesh. Cue the line from Gob from Arrested Development: "I've made a huge mistake".

Lucid-Ideas said...

No. Actions have consequences. The closest she can come to the USA should be gitmo.

donald said...

Tough titty.

traditionalguy said...

She wanted to kill all of the the Christians by torture. Now she wants mercy. What say you.

Gahrie said...

This woman is not guilty of treason de jure (there was no declaration of war) but she certainly is de facto.

Gahrie said...

The closest she can come to the USA should be gitmo.

I agree. Perhaps not in a cage, but certainly unable to leave the island.

Leland said...

Well apparently she thinks you can read one book and then know everything. She probably wouldn't get the joke about know-it-alls. To be fair, she at least acted on what she thought she knew, which is more than others. But unless no one warned her that she "didn't know it all"; I see no reason to move "helping her" up on my priority list.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

she should not beheading home

stupidity should be painful

tim in vermont said...

Sure, then hang her.

tim in vermont said...

Obama would have traded the rest of Gitmo to get her back, then give her a full pardon. She is probably praying that Kamala wins.

BarrySanders20 said...

Just make sure you don’t suppress her vote

Mary Beth said...

She regrets being captured.

She describes her family as very conservative. Sending her back home is sending her back to the environment where she was radicalized (even if the radicalization itself was online.)

MadisonMan said...

she should not beheading home

I appreciate that wording.

gspencer said...

She woulda done better to have read Robert Spencer's blog posts.

But then she woulda been Islamophobic.*

*Definition of Islamphobe, someone who knows the history of Islam and its practices

Paul said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fernandinande said...

Hoda Muthana
Oh we don't cry for you,
Don't go home to Alabama with your jahid on your mind.

Fernandinande said...

Sure, then hang her.

You can't hang someone after cutting off their head. Trust me.

Paul said...

Tough nuts Muthana.

You didn't join some little protest group. You joined the murdering terrorist.

Message has to be sent to other idiots like you.. Join them and YOU WILL NEVER EVER COME HOME. But in reality WE SHOULD KILL YOU like the other terrorist.)

Tough nuts.

Lucien said...

“Sorry about that ISIS thing. I guess I must have lost my head.”

traditionalguy said...

Her best bet is to buy a sombreo and come through at the Arizona drug/illegal's corridor and get her an automatic $80,000 per year subsidy as a totally legal REFUGEE. It works everytime.

chickelit said...

You guys think this is funny, but what does her dad think about all this?

#thatsnotfunny

Lyle said...

She has to arrested and then tried for joining ISIS. Back in the day, she'd just have been asked to walk the plank. What a lucky lady.

Ken B said...

Correction :ex-American.

Big Mike said...

Hey! Assholes! Her kid is a US citizen and he hasn't done anything wrong.

A little compassion for the toddler, okay?

chickelit said...

SDNY prosecutors are very skilled at getting people to flip on bigger fish in exchange for immunity. Assuming she is guilty of some crime (or not), perhaps she can be useful.

LYNNDH said...

I'm all out of compassion. Call me a racist, white nationalist, anti Semite, idiot enough and I just call it quits on compassion.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

She named her son Adam?????

Cato Renasci said...

I think Hoda has forfeited any right to sympathy from the United States. Have engaged in war against the US, she is a traitor. I suppose there is an argument to be made in letter her return as part of a plea deal in which she pleads guilty in exchange for life imprisonment without possibility of parole in exchange for not being executed.... but I'm not inclined as a taxpayer to have the United States pay for her upkeep for the next 50-60 years.... Her American citizen children, on the other hand, should be repatriated and put up for adoption - there is no way Hoda's parents are fit to raise American citizens.

chickelit said...

♫ Muthana came from out on the Island
In the backtent she was everybody's darling
But she never lost her head
Even when they was taking head

Hey, Muthana, take a walk on the wild side ♫

SDaly said...

"You read one book and you think you know everything."

Was it Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States."

The Godfather said...

I infer that she’s a US citizen, so of course she has the right to return to the US. Isn’t the real question whether she should be given immunity for whatever crimes she has committed? I say, Let her return to the US and take her chances.

chickelit said...

I am reminded of what became of the Manson girls and their children. Best forgotten.

Robert Cook said...

I'm all out of compassion. Call me a racist, white nationalist, anti Semite, idiot enough and I just call it quits on compassion.”-

Meaning, you never had any to begin with.

chickelit said...

I'll say this and I'll say it just once as a Christian: The problem with compassion is that it appears to spawn people willing to abuse compassion. It's like the admonition not to subsidize something bad because you'll just get more of it.

todd galle said...

How about no. Supporting ISIS should be read as treasonous behavior. Up against the wall or to the scaffold, her choice. No do-overs for those who realize their actions post hoc.

chickelit said...

Hey Robert Cook, your neck looks mighty tempting to an ISIS freedom fighter.

rhhardin said...

She's not into backpacking either, probably.

mockturtle said...

She named her son Adam?????

The sons of Ishmael claim [rightly] the same patriarchs that Jews and Christians do. But while Arabs and other Muslims claim Ishmael [Abraham's son by Hagar] as the chosen, it is Isaac, son of Abraham by Sarah, the child of promise for the Jews and Christians.

In the Bible, Ishmael is described thusly:

Genesis 16:12: "He will be a wild donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone, And everyone's hand will be against him; And he will live to the east of all his brothers."

Genesis 25:18: His [Ishmael's] descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt, as you go toward Ashur. And they lived in hostility toward all the tribes related to them [other descendants of Abraham].

holdfast said...

You know what else she would find "very mind-blowing"? A .45 ACP slug through her terrorist forehead. Then put the kid up for adoption to a nice Christian home.

And if her parents were naturalized citizens, strip them of their citizenship and deport them for creating a WMD at home.

Fernandinande said...

You guys think this is funny, but what does her dad think about all this?

So you think Toyota pickups with machine guns mounted on the bed are funny, chickenlittle? I can't imagine what sort of mind thinks like that because I want one. Sad.

SDaly said...

Alternative books that people read and think they know everything:

Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Put her on the train to GITMO

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Ecclesiastes 8:11

“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.”

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Thank you Mockturtle.

I didn't know that about Islam claiming some of the same patriarchs in the Biblical presentation as do Jews and Christians. Actually, it never crossed my mind. Seems the split and animosity between the sons of Ishmael (Islam) and the rest of the world has been going on for a very long time.

Fen said...

Cook: "Meaning, you never had any to begin with."

Hey Robert, Althouse just gave a big speech about HOW BORING the tit for tat back and forth with other commenters is. Assuming Chucky is not a special case and Althouse still believes in concepts like equal protection-

Oh nevermind.

Some pigs are more equal, eh Товарищ?



Gospace said...

Gahrie said...
This woman is not guilty of treason de jure (there was no declaration of war)


There doesn't need to be a declaration of war to meet the the Constitution's definition. "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." An enemy can be an enemy without war. And you can levy war without a declaration. And you can certainly give aid and comfort to the enemy. She's guilty of treason de jure. Whether she'll be tried for it is a whole other question. There is no statute of limitations on treason. Jane Fonda could still be tried.

steve uhr said...

She’ll be fine. I’m sure prison food is more tasty than grass

chickelit said...

Is Trump the whale or Captain Ahab in this saga?

mockturtle said...

DBQ: Indeed it has. Incidentally, my husband's closest friend and colleague was an Egyptian Muslim who would try to convince me that we share a common faith because we share the patriarchs and also the angel Gabriel, etc. And he's right that we share a common history [both Jews and Muslims are descendants of Shem, therefore both are 'Semites']. But the split happened with Ishmael vs. Isaac and never the twain shall meet. Muslims consider Jews and Christians 'People of the Book' so we are not [according to the Quran] to be killed but can be converted or taxed per the jizya and allowed to live. But, historically, many Christians were killed if they refused to convert. While most individual Muslims are nice folk, their ideology is dangerous, as they seek world domination.

William said...

Is excessive stupidity an aggravating or a mitigating factor? When I think of people like Bowie Bergdahl, Jussie Smollett, and her, I am moved to wonder. This is no common kind of stupidity. It's beyond even a Darwinian award. In many ways, her life is its own punishment, but I'm not totally against adding on.

MacMacConnell said...

The old retired guys hanging at the neighborhood bar summed up this whole story, "She is a stupid bitch!".

Crimso said...

Shelby Foote's "The Civil War: A Narrative." All of those battles that Foote spends a handful of pages on each have had volumes written about them and the individuals involved. And if anyone objects to my characterization of Foote's treatment of the battles by noting that his chapter on the Gettysburg campaign was published separately as a book, I'll counter by noting that Harry Pfanz wrote a 600+ page book about the 2nd day of fighting at Gettysburg (and no, it's not the least bit boring).

Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." Physics, chemistry, engineering, politics, war, biographies.

Sebastian said...

"The book that when you read it, you feel you've got all you need from books — it's the lazy student's book."

There's one book that when you read it, you feel you must submit and make others do so too.

buwaya said...

To not read another book - thats an alien concept to me. It may be genetic, as we were all huge readers going back two generations.

The book that started me on "adult" literature was Dodson's "Away all Boats", read in the fourth grade, which is a more or less fictionalized account of the authors own experience in command of an attack transport in the Pacific.

This has everything one could ask for: the nature of duty and authority, the burden of command (the stress and pain), the scope of responsibility (endless and undefinable), the need for technical understanding, and technical ability, the way real teams work in doing real things, not just playing games. The need to understand not just machines but people. And the reality of the world, in that you can do everything right but fortune can turn on you regardless, and then you must do the best you can with what's left.

And, not least, that death is lighter than a feather, duty is heavier than a mountain, no less so for the people at the receiving end of the kamikaze.

This thing is an education. What better guide to education is there, than the true stories of heroes and men discharging their duties?

Ironclad said...

She should be tried as a traitor - she was quite active in "the movement" up until it fell apart. Her kid is young enough that he could be taken and adopted away - never to contact his biological family again. Maybe the poison would abide that way. Guardian was running another US kids story where the mother took them away and is dead now and the father was all "oh, how did this happen"

The UK has another ISIS Honey that wants to come back too. (Guardian story) "Oh, I'm SOOOO Sorry and those mean things I said were just silly me - I've moved on, can I please come back?"

Trump pushed the Europeans lately saying that they need to figure out fast how to treat these savages that now are as repentant as Jussie. I would give them to the Syrians frankly - let them "handle it".

The books that changed my view of history were 1491 and 1493 - especially the latter. The book lays bare most of the real reasons things happened in the Americas and undermines the guilt trip explanation of history we hear today with logic and fact.

SDaly said...

Book that made me want to read (or read) other books:

Hellenistic Culture: Fusion and Diffusion by Moses Hadas

Made me want to re-read Plato and The New Testament, works on the various differing schools of Greek philosophy before Christ and the tension between Greek culture and Jewish culture. Also, history books on Greek culture from 500 BC through the end of the Byzantine Empire.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

Allow her to come home, prosecute her, put her child in foster care, not with the conservative parents.

Earnest Prole said...

Just walk across the border, everyone else does.

effinayright said...

The "Flashman" series. Historical and hysterically funny.

buwaya said...

As for this woman - the only reason she can hope for leniency is because she is female. That she exists at all is a sexist curiosity.

A man would have been shot by now, by the Kurds. Indeed it seems there are a few thousand of them in the process of being shot or bombarded to oblivion at the moment. The Iraqi-Kurdish forces, by some accounts, certainly did eliminate a good number of the few ISIS captives they took. It saved many countries such political embarassments as, well, this one.

If it were a man the US would have gone to some lengths to eliminate him, or if captured by its allies, to obtain custody. Not in this case however. Interesting, no?

An example of a male embarassment is John W. Lindh, taken in Afghanistan in 2001. He is serving a 20 year sentence. And he arguably did less against the US than this woman.

Its an interesting case. If women are held to be less responsible for even grave civic crimes, treason and making war against the US, then with what justice can they be considered equal citizens?

Not Sure said...

SDNY prosecutors are very skilled at getting people to flip on bigger fish in exchange for immunity. Assuming she is guilty of some crime (or not), perhaps she can be useful.

The next big story: Trump had plans for a hotel in Hajin!

Gahrie said...

She should be tried as a traitor - she was quite active in "the movement" up until it fell apart

She can't. Treason is the only crime that is described in the Constitution, and not only does it require the U.S. to be in a state of war (and we never declared war on ISIS) it requires two eyewitness to the crime.

Christy said...

Most everything I read makes me want to read more, even silly historical chick lit. The Other Boleyn Girl sent me off to read legit histories of Henry and the Howards. I'm reading the bio of Li Bao now because of Guy Gavriel Kay's fictional look at the An Lushan Rebellion in Tang China. And, of course because Althouse blogged a review of the bio.

I doubt the facts of everything I read, except, of course, Epictetus. :-J

bagoh20 said...

If ISIS was still winning, she'd be all in, and that goes for most all of them that joined.

chickelit said...

Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." Physics, chemistry, engineering, politics, war, biographies.

That is a good one. It's already on the list of favorite books in my profile.

Alex said...

This brings back the idea of battlefield executions. Fuck the Geneva convention! This is about the civilization boys & girls.

Big Mike said...

Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino, a. k. a. “Tokyo Rose,” would seem to be a precedent. Tried and convicted of treason after World War II.

buwaya said...

The Geneva convention is questionably applicable to irregular combatants.
Certainly to ununiformed combatants without a state to answer for them, and to such persons controlled by entities who have made a habit of not observing the convention, or any other. They did shoot down vast numbers of military prisoners and civilians in their power, Iraqi and Syrian. Besides a host of other crimes.

Whether the ISIS/Daesh movement is or was a state is moot of course.

bgates said...

Muthana is the only American

When we're told we have to open/dissolve the southern border, it's because America is a lofty concept that soars above such petty concerns as blood and soil, and is open to all who wish to come and share our values.

When we're told people like this have to be allowed in, it's because she's as American as anybody because she was born here.

Hunter said...

Books that eradicate your desire to read any other book.

Yes, at first I was happy to be learning how to read. It seemed exciting and magical. But then I read this -- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I read every last word of this garbage, and because of this piece of sh*t, I'm never reading again!

funsize said...

Something I see very often in young people (and in my memories of myself in HS/college) is that a little bit of knowledge or assumed information is a very dangerous thing. Dunning-Krueger effect I think its what its called. One of the reasons continued exposure to new and challenging ideas is really important for brains that are still forming.

cubanbob said...

Never take this crap back. Let the Kurds or Assad deal with them. They are nothing more than pirates and pirates have no rights at all.

holdfast said...

"SDNY prosecutors are very skilled at getting people to flip on bigger fish in exchange for immunity. Assuming she is guilty of some crime (or not), perhaps she can be useful."

She can only be useful as fertilizer. And maybe an involuntary organ donor first?


Michael said...

Althouse wrote "Tell me about a book that makes you want to read another book. And not just another book in the same series. What's a book that makes you feel like reading a lot of different books? That would be a great book. "

Any biography of Churchill will lead the curious to Gibbon and Macaulay. Gibbon will lead to Burke. Burke to the French Revolution. To Napoleon. To Russia. To War and Peace.

Big Mike said...

The case of John Walker Lindh, a. k. a. “The American Taliban,” also seems to set a precedent. His sentence was twenty years.

Freeman Hunt said...

Every book makes me want to read other books. That's why it never ends. There are usually two or more books ordered during and in consequence of reading any one book.

Michael said...

If you find Gibbon daunting: Gibbon sums up the Roman conquest of Britain under Claudius, Nero, and Domitian, in the following sentence: “After a war of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke.” Nice.

madAsHell said...

After hearing recommendations from our hostess, I tried reading David Foster Wallace. It was not to my liking.

Paul said...

Where is Seal Team Six when you need them? They could take care of her with one 5.56mm slug. Worked for Bin Laden!

bagoh20 said...

The Dunning–Kruger effect is an alias for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The hyphen is your clue.

Gabriel said...

@buwaya:The Geneva convention is questionably applicable to irregular combatants.

It's perfectly applicable. The Conventions say they are not "prisoners of war".

What you meant to say is, the Geneva conventions for the treatment of lawful prisoners of war are questionably applicable to irregular combatants.

Irregular combatants who do not themselves obey the laws of war are explicitly excluded from the category "prisoners of war" by Article 4 paragraph 6 of the Third Geneva Convention:

Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory who, on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without
having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided
they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

Sydney said...

I read a Horatio Hornblower book which made we want to read a biography of Nelson, which made we want to read a biography of Napoleon which made me want to read about the Napoleonic wars, which made me want to read about the French Revolution, and lots more. It is usually what happens. One thing leads to another.....

Leora said...

I've been re-reading Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time (12 books) and half way through I've added 8 books to my reading list.

Gk1 said...

O.k, I'll play. Put her kid in a foster home for starters if she wants to come back to jail for a while. I'm guessing her family would just create another Tsarnaev that would come back and try to kill us. Thoroughly check her family out and see if they are also a risk. How did they raise someone to become traitors and throw in their lot with terrorists?

Paddy O said...

I once read the Apostolic Fathers in college, yadda, yadda, yadda... and now I have a PhD.

So that was a pretty good book.

Not a great financial strategy, but certainly an inspiring read.

Tarrou said...

Treason. Give her the firing squad. Put the head on a spike in the national mall.

Michael said...

Leora
Dance is the greatest English novel of the 20 th century in my opinion. Often said to be the equal of Proust.

Matt said...

She just needs to sneak her kid through the southern border and then once they're in they can sponsor her back.

Ken B said...

Lots of such books.
Example: The Lunar Men
Or: In the Shadow of the Sword, by Tom Holland

Andy Krause said...

Bulfinch's Mythology. It was a class requirement that was so much fun reading it led to a journey through the long versions of the stories. I think that was the intention and it worked. Its in the Pubic Domain.

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Robert Cook said...

"Hey Robert Cook, your neck looks mighty tempting to an ISIS freedom fighter."

That may be, but my remark is not so much concerned with the person who is the object of LYNNDH's spleen-venting, but with compassion as such. If one is a compassionate person, if one has compassion for others, isn't that is an fixed aspect of one's personality? Can a truly compassionate person really "be all out of compassion" and say "I call it quits on compassion"? Can a compassionate person pick and choose whom he or she will feel compassion for? It's easy to feel compassion for the innocent, but what about compassion for the sinful? That seems to me like a test of whether one is truly a compassionate person.

I think LYNNDH is simply posturing.