Althouse: "He was very connected to his city and to the antiquities, and he was old. Where would he want to go at that age?"

August 19, 2015

"He was very connected to his city and to the antiquities, and he was old. Where would he want to go at that age?"

"He said that whatever was going to happen to the people would happen to him."

The beheading of "Mr. Palmyra."

45 comments:

Nichevo said...: Sigh. Any possibility of getting Assad to turn US client and mending his ways?; 8/19/15, 3:47 PM
traditionalguy said...: Anybody want to bow down to Sharia law now? Anybody want to see these guys buying weapons and nukes with stolen oil money?

And even if it helps progressive Israel haters' beloved Palestinians to kill the Israeli Jews, will you really do an Obama deal (a/k/a a surrender) rather than fight a WAR there before they come here?

Choices.; 8/19/15, 3:55 PM
ddh said...: Mr. Asaad was beheaded because he refused to cooperate in looting archeological treasures to be sold on the international black market. How is ISIS different from bandits?; 8/19/15, 4:01 PM
Michael K said...: They are just following their religion which bans images. Not enough people understand that.; 8/19/15, 4:16 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: Heck of a job, Barry!; 8/19/15, 4:23 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: Nichevo:

Sigh. Any possibility of getting Assad to turn US client and mending his ways?

Yeah, I think the window for that has closed. Why would he ever trust us now?

In retrospect, all across the Middle East, we've de facto ended up backing the wrong side since the so-called Arab Spring kicked off -- the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, petty warlords in Libya, and ISIS in Syria (our desultory air campaign against them notwithstanding). I was in favour of the Libiyan intervention, but that was a foolish, foolish move on our part. By the time Libya went sour (no later than September 11, 2012, a black day), we should have changed course on Egypt and Syria to back the secular authoritarians who -- however brutal they may be -- are at least capable of coexisting with a US-led world order. But events are passing us by.; 8/19/15, 4:45 PM
Anthony said...: Odd.all my prog anth friends are posting this when they never bothered when hundreds of Christians were having the same thing done to them.; 8/19/15, 4:47 PM
jaydub said...: Khalid al-Asaad should be every Westerner's man of the year.; 8/19/15, 4:52 PM
MAJMike said...: Religion of peace.; 8/19/15, 4:56 PM
YoungHegelian said...: What sort of cowardly slug does this to an unarmed 83 year old man?

On that day when we move to end ISIS (which, like it or not, we will be forced to do): no prisoners. These people have no justification to claim Geneva Convention rights, and what country what's these people back in its civilian population?; 8/19/15, 4:57 PM
Curious George said...: "YoungHegelian said...
What sort of cowardly slug does this to an unarmed 83 year old man?"

The kind that make the JV team.; 8/19/15, 5:16 PM
traditionalguy said...: How is Isis different from bandits?

Of course that is all Islam ever was..bandits. They are professional caravan raiders that kill, rape and steal from isolated rich targets, all under god's blessing. The Jews were offered an alliance so the Christian phenomenon could be exterminated. But the Jews refused to worship Allah. So Mohammed really got mad at them; 8/19/15, 5:27 PM
Etienne said...: It's of no concern to America. We are an oil exporter now.; 8/19/15, 5:32 PM
Gahrie said...: We are an oil exporter now.

It is illegal to export oil produced in the U.S..; 8/19/15, 5:43 PM
Birches said...: Between this story and "aborted" babies being born with their hearts beating for better tissue samples, I'm looking for the proverbial handbasket.; 8/19/15, 5:53 PM
Big Mike said...: Bush's biggest mistake was to proclaim that Islam was "a religion of peace." They're peaceful insofar as beheaded prisoners are very quiet.; 8/19/15, 6:45 PM
Big Mike said...: @Nichevo, not after what happened to Qaddafi, no chance.; 8/19/15, 6:46 PM
Nichevo said...: Yeah, I didn't think so, at least not this president. What a cluster. If you want to say Iraq or Afghanistan were mistakes, I have to see Libya, Egypt, Syria as acts of madness.

Balfegor, you're a clever fellow, how did you get onside for Libya? I will say I was aghast from day one. Qadaffi was a success story. I guess Obama doesn't like Bush success stories.; 8/19/15, 6:54 PM
kcom said...: Tim Blair had had this quote in a recent post of his. It's from a person talking about their prime minister.

"He talks of good and evil as a dichotomy. In particular, and most troublingly, he refers to some people – as opposed to their actions – as bad or evil."

Some people are evil. They just are.; 8/19/15, 7:17 PM
Tim said...: Maybe Barry will have some more rap "artists" over to the White House. That will fix 'em.; 8/19/15, 7:29 PM
Etienne said...: Gahrie said...It is illegal to export oil produced in the U.S..

U.S. Can Now Export to Mexico; 8/19/15, 7:38 PM
Pete said...: Hey, don't get on your high horse. You know, Crusades.; 8/19/15, 8:05 PM
Big Mike said...: @Nichevo, you worked it out! One of the fundamental principles of the Democrat Party is that Republican presidents are not to be permitted to win wars or otherwise have successes.; 8/19/15, 8:52 PM
Michael K said...: Bush's biggest mistake was to proclaim that Islam was "a religion of peace."

It might have been. I think his worst mistake was to appoint Bremer as the viceroy of Iraq.

Certainly, lots of western leaders have avoided the reality of Islam. Cameron is still avoiding it. They will be forced to face the fact that Islam is not compatible with civilization.; 8/19/15, 9:27 PM
Drago said...: Now would be a good time for Cookie to lecture all of us about the terrible working conditions at Amazon!

Priorities.; 8/19/15, 10:00 PM
Anga2010 said...: Oh, my! Someone needs to pick up the "white-man's-burden" and take care of the people and antiquities that are currently threatened. Can we have someone do that please? I'm kinda busy typing.; 8/19/15, 10:01 PM
SteveR said...: Coexist!; 8/19/15, 10:06 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: Nichevo:

Balfegor, you're a clever fellow, how did you get onside for Libya? I will say I was aghast from day one. Qadaffi was a success story. I guess Obama doesn't like Bush success stories.

Eh, I thought the "Arab Spring" was real. Tunisia was looking pretty good, and Libya was just next door. In general, I like to be on the side of preserving American honor, but in a situation where the all the old powers are collapsing, we don't want to be Joseon clinging loyally (bitterly?) to the Ming even as Ming crumbles before victorious Qing.

In retrospect, though, that judgment was gravely mistaken. More importantly, I never bothered to think through the implications of the nuclear issue, and Qaddafi's cooperation with the US.; 8/19/15, 10:12 PM
Nichevo said...: Exact thought I had at the time of the Egyptian disturbances was that Vice President Biden should have gone on television and called Mubarak his friend. At that point everybody would have understood. And then call in Mubarak and explain to him what the future is going to hold for him, i.e., a beach chair some place nice. Probably grease skids with some food aid and misc petting. Did that ever happen outside of books? Because that certainly seems like what needs to be happening in the world today. Nobody is calling the shots.

We would be in a much better position to do so, of course, if we had 40000 men in Iraq and 3000 or less in AfPak, instead of the reverse.

Don't feel bad Balfegor, I thought GWB would be on the next Mount Rushmore with Coolidge, Eisenhower and Reagan. The move to remake the Middle East was one of the boldest strokes ever taken, the kind of vision that could have led to world peace; but the loyal opposition defeated him, and thereby America and the West, in this battle, so our interests have not been well served.

Clinton was the fly in the ointment. GHWB needed four more years, then I think the next century would have gotten off on the right foot. The devil is at work.; 8/19/15, 11:26 PM
Nichevo said...: I have always believed that to get a dictator out without fighting you are wise to offer them a soft landing. Qaddafi's son is evidently a genuine western reformist type. If Idi Amin could have a peaceful retirement in Saudi, if even Pol Pots in the jungle can die in their beds, Col. Q could have taken his Robert Palmer video girl bodyguards and set up house on some Elba somewhere. But no.

He was our bitch. We had tamed him, bar a little wiggling which how can you blame him, and he was a success story of the Bush Doctrine as used to express the eternal question: whose side are you on? AKA, shit or get off the pot. Even the Pan Am business was getting settled.

You want to shake down a bunch of punks, you find iron or some works or an attitude on one and slap him down, the others suddenly have a lot of drugs and weps and stinkeye mysteriously fall to the ground at their feet. Even Iran was providing some service. I'd love to bring Iran around.

Bush was too good a man to suppress the opposition. We can't have too much of that goodness in the next guy. Some, but not too much.

Bremer is having a tenth circle of hell excavated for him, I hope.; 8/19/15, 11:44 PM
vza said...: Horrifying news. To murder that good man in such a manner is beyond evil. I have feared for the lives of the kind and hard-working people who were our drivers, and the owners of the little hotel where we stayed in Palmyra. Most of the local people were not fanatics about their religion and felt great pride in Syria's archaeological heritage.
Assad's government was most definitely ruthless and authoritarian, but I give it credit for one thing. It tolerated no fanaticism on the part of any religious groups. As a result, before this civil war, Syria was one of the safest places in the Muslim world for the indigenous Christians. We stayed in villages for the traditional Easter celebrations, and it appeared that Muslims and Christians got along quite well. Even attending each others' celebrations. We visited Christian shrines that drew in Christians from around the world, but had many Muslim visitors as well.; 8/20/15, 1:10 AM
tim maguire said...: The important thing is, liberals have found a way to excuse Obama's inaction by blaming Bush.

Mary, what in the world are you talking about? Every democracy has been imposed at gunpoint. Every single one. Iraq was a democracy when Obama took the White House, and this outrage was committed in Syria anyway.

Seriously, there isn't a single word of your post that doesn't reek of blind partisanship. Are you another of Althouse's performance artists?; 8/20/15, 5:07 AM
Brando said...: We ougth to embed double agents into ISIS, and have them systematically capture, skin, and burn alive every damn one of those bastards and leave their horror-stricken heads on stumps as examples for the others, leading each ISIS thug to suspect every other ISIS thug, and kill each other off until every possible recruit decides he'd rather go back to school instead.; 8/20/15, 7:10 AM
Robert Cook said...: "They are just following their religion which bans images. Not enough people understand that."

As does "ours," (the Judeo-Christian religions).

The second of the ten commandmants, (preceding the commandments against murder, lying, stealing, etc.):

"You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments."; 8/20/15, 8:07 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Now would be a good time for Cookie to lecture all of us about the terrible working conditions at Amazon!"

No, as, though it's true that Amazon's working conditions are terrible, it is not pertinent to this particular topic.; 8/20/15, 8:27 AM
Peter said...: ISIS in Palmyra: just how different is that from Mohammad in Mecca?; 8/20/15, 8:30 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Every democracy has been imposed at gunpoint. Every single one."

Democracy can only emerge naturally from within. It cannot be imposed from without.

"Iraq was a democracy when Obama took the White House...."

The Russians were savvy enough not to believe their own country's propaganda. We're still too childish--or hypnotized--to be so discerning.; 8/20/15, 8:38 AM
President-Mom-Jeans said...: "The Russians were savvy enough not to believe their own country's propaganda."

Says the unrepentant Stalin fellator.

It can never be said enough, go fuck yourself Cooktard.; 8/20/15, 10:49 AM
mikee said...: I recall Masterpiece Theater's "I, Claudius" in which a henchman of Nero, or maybe Caligula, has been sent to assassinate a Roman Senator, opponent of the dictator.

The Senator says, "This is how a Roman dies!" as he forces the barbaric assassin to kill him publicly, rather than accepting arrest and secret execution.

Good men die well, but it would be even better for good men to kill well, more often.; 8/20/15, 10:57 AM
Rusty said...: Democracy can only emerge naturally from within. It cannot be imposed from without.

Japan

Germany; 8/20/15, 12:06 PM
furious_a said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 8/20/15, 2:05 PM
furious_a said...: Robert Cook said...

The Russians were savvy enough not to believe their own country's propaganda

"Gorbachev was a visionary like Hirohito was a visionary after Nagasaki." -- PJ O'Rourke; 8/20/15, 2:12 PM
furious_a said...: Robert Cook said...

The Russians were savvy enough not to believe their own country's propaganda

Updating, that would explain Vladimir's approval ratings...; 8/20/15, 2:20 PM
Gahrie said...: I'll see your Japan and Germany, and raise you one Vietnam and Iraq...

Feckless Democratic Congresses lost both of those countries during peace after the war had been won.; 8/20/15, 4:14 PM
Nichevo said...: Actually I was interested in what this fishwife does to justify her existence on this planet. It certainly isn't thinking, and she doesn't sound like much of a lay. Can you cook, acushla?; 8/20/15, 6:45 PM