Ironies abound.
We've recently been hearing how a U.S. presence in Syria isn't necessary anymore (and I'll concede that I both didn't think we should be in Syria in the fist place but, having gone in, we shouldn't leave and abandon the Kurds).
Now we find that Syria is hotter, ISIL wise, than we supposed.
And we've gotten Al Baghdadi, in a joint operation with the Kurds.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the leader of ISIL. Not a huge amount about him is known other than that. He's an Iraqi by birth and had some university education, apparently being a student of Islamic law while attending university.
ISIL started off as the Iraqi component of Al Queda and became active after the U.S. occupation of Iraq. It's early history is murky but Al-Baghdadi quickly became its leader and has been ever since. His death would therefore be roughly equivalent to that of Bin Laden's, which came about in a similar fashion.
He took his group in a highly radical direction, at least as radical as that of Al Queda, if not more so. He proclaimed himself to be the new Caliph, a proposition that's dubious under Islamic law in his case, and found adherents for a brand of Islam that is uniquely severe. Included in its views are the wide scale use of violence against all opponents and the routine use of violence against non Muslims. Moreover, his group revived the line from the Koran allowing men to take concubines with "their strong right hand", although that was interpreted, apparently, to amount to forced marriage.* All sorts of horrors have accordingly resulted.
Al-Baghdadi has an odd connection with the U.S. in that he was the apparent direct detainer of American Christian relief worker Kayla Mueller. Mueller was working with Syrian refugees in Syria but stunned Doctors Without Borders when she showed up with a Syrian boyfriend in Aleppo. They put her on a bus back to Turkey the next day but it was ambushed and she was taken prisoner and forcibly married to Al-Baghdadi who reportedly repeatedly raped her while she was his captive. ISIL attempted to force her to renounce Christianity while she was a captive, which she would not do.** She also reportedly acted as a protector and sympathetic ear for younger captive "brides" of Al-Baghdadi. She was later a casualty of a Coalition air strike.
All of things brings a number of points to the forefront right at the point in which there may still be time to do something about them, even though its highly unlikely the United States under the current administration will.
This raid took place in northwestern Syria, the very region we're currently pulling out of. While ISIL is an opponent of the Syrian regime in Damascus, our withdrawal or quasi withdrawal is to that regime's benefit. What would have occurred if Damascus completely reasserted its sovereignty on the portions of the country not occupied by Turkey and Russia isn't clear.
Murkier yet is what would have happened had this are been occupied by the Turks. The Turks have shown a surprising level of ambivalence recently in regard to Islamic extremist and their occupation of what amounts to an expansion of their border with Syria has resulted in ISIL adherents being freed and the insertion of radical Islamic Syrian militias. If Al-Baghdadi's enclave had been found in their territory, which is admittedly unlikely, what would have we done? This points out that even with the U.S. out, we're much better off with the Turks also not in.
That would raise again my point about UN Peacekeepers. Not that this is going to happen.
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*I'm certain many current Muslims would dispute that the Koran allows the taking of captive sex slaves but the fact of the matter is that it was at one time highly common in Islam and there is in fact a line in the Koran allowing Mohammed's male combatant adherents to have sex with women captives. I'm not a scholar on the topic so what the current counters to that within Islam are, I don't know.
In ISIL's case, however, the practice was widespread and apparently limited in the way it was originally was, i.e., the captives are non Muslims when forced into the relationship. The Koran, however, may sanction taking slaves in that fashion (I don't think it actually requires the captor to marry the slave) but it doesn't appear to actually sanction rape. That may seem like a distinction without a difference, but its noted here anyhow. I.e., a woman forced into captivity in the ancient world in the role of sex slave probably doesn't have a lot of choice in what she does.
ISIL does seem to depart in requiring that there be a "marriage" in these circumstances. However, in the Christian view of marriage, no such marriage would exist as marriage requires consent of both parties and always has.
**The entire Mueller story was an example of monumentally bad reporting by the American press.
Mueller was only in Turkey as she was a Christian. She'd previously gone to Guatemala in the same role. However, Mueller was a Protestant of the supposedly unaffiliated type.
This particular topic is really badly reported in general as "unaffiliated" Christians in fact are affiliated, as they fit into the loose American protestant tradition. This means that they aren't part of one of the "main line" Protestant faiths, but the "unaffiliated" churches are in fact fairly uniform in their theology and are affiliated, even if they don't realize it.
Her Christian status was nearly completely ignored by the Press.
As was the fact that she was naive. Apparently the courage of her convictions really showed while she was a captive, but she never should have been where she was in the first place.
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