Quick! Avert your eyes. . . nature is happening.

 

 Not a housecat, no matter what some commission may decide.

New York's Commission on Human Rights had determined that its unconstitutional not to serve pregnant women alcohol.

That's stupid.

Nowhere in any constitution, state or Federal, is there a clause that says "When a pregnant boozehound comes into your dram shop, you shall liquor her up".  Nonsense.

But a lot of or cutting edge social law has become quite nonsensical recently.

Truth be known, a lot of the original concepts of rights involve "leave people alone".  They hardly ever involved "you must recognize this".  People had the right to assemble, but you didn't have to credit their assembly as smart, nifty or valuable.  People had the right to be secure in their own homes, which basically meant leaving them alone, at home.  Lots of stuff was that way.

Now, however, there are beginning to be a lot of "you musts".  And the "you musts" are often followed by the social derision of the pop class, who is rarely impacted by anything directly.  And a lot of this is because our country has become almost completely divorced from nature, and seeing a sudden acceleration of "you must" recognize this or that.

Indeed, just yesterday I actually heard a person interviewed who has "changed" their gender (a genetic impossibility) state that he or she should be allowed in a bathroom that comports to his or her gender reassignment, but that those who dressed contrary to their gender were "perverts".  My goodness, how can a person actually make that statement?  Its incredibly biased, and at the same time mind numbingly confusing to the vast majority of people who are comfortable with the gender dictates of their DNA and their clothing.  Can a person actually say that?  I don't think so. They shouldn't say it, and I have to believe that what they meant was actually something else and that htey didn't mean to go after the clothing thing.  After all, how can a person who has had surgery and who is taking chemicals to defeat their DNA say that about somebody who is just wearing a different set of clothes.  Bizarre.

On the bathroom thing, I'm not commenting on where people who have had their genders reassigned should go and I doubt that they or anyone else actually regarded this as a burning issue.  It seems to me that they probably have to go where surgery has now assigned them.  Indeed, I'm amazed that this is now an issue that requires Federal pondering.  I'll say beyond that, however, that at the point at which the Federal government starts issuing guidelines on this, it obviously has too little to actually do. Likewise, when celebrities start spouting on it, it shows how slavish they are to trends.  I don't think any legislature needs to legislate on this at all, and that in the absence of all of the recent legislation, this would never have been an issue, but at the same time what this reflects is a sense in society that something has gone really wrong in what people are being told they must believe.  Gender reassignment is a prime example, as statistically its' a disaster with horrific impacts for a large percentage of the people who undergo it.  In Europe its generally prohibited for minors and its been shown that the majority of minors who claim confusion later resolve it in accordance with their actual DNA.  But here in the US we are actually entering a "you must not question" people who declare that they wish to do this, in spite of the horrible historical track records that actually exist.  We claim to have "freedom of speech", but here we are outright declaring that the speech must be squelched and you must accept this, in spite of the evidence.

This is contributing to the outright revolt in a percentage of the American electorate.  Commenters wonder why a figure like Donald Trump has seized the GOP nomination this year, but stuff like this is why.  When a person can't say "I think this is wrong", about gender reassignment, or "I think this is wrong", about serving a pregnant woman alcohol, they react.  And when they do, it'll be an extreme reaction.

Most of this is, in some way, related to our separation from nature.  We've always been a fallen species, but we now don't seem to know what we are.  As a species, we have the highest degree of morphological and psychological differences between the two genders of any mammal. That's simply a fact.  But in the name if equality we must now pretend that isn't so, and that everything is just the same as everything else. And apparently we must also pretend that a woman who is out to drown her baby in booze before the baby is even born isn't committing child abuse. She is.

No group of people can infinitely ignore nature.  It will not work.  Nature gets even.  And societal movements that don't credit that don't last forever.  Nor should they.

Nature deserves her due.

The ghost of the Crow Treaty of 1868 appears in a Wyoming court.

 

 Crow Indians, 1908. These men may have been living at the time the Ft. Laramie Treaty came into being.

The Casper Star Tribune reported that today the trial of Clayvin Herrera, a game warden on the Crow Reservation in southern Montana, commences today in Sheridan.  Herrera is charged with taking a big game animal in Wyoming out of season in 2014.  In other words, with poaching.  He is not only a game warden on the Crow Reservation, he is also a Crow Indian.

Of interest, he's relying on one of the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1868 as a defense.  The thesis is that the treaty grants the Crows hunting rights in Wyoming, which it did (and not just to the Crows, but to other tribes as well, in related treaties of the same vintage) and therefore hunting in Wyoming out of Wyoming's season isn't necessarily a violation of the law.  It's an attractive and even a romantic legal defense.

It won't work.

Citation to the 1868 treaties (there is more than one) for various things has been made before and the point of the state; that subsequent developments in history and Wyoming's statehood abrogated that part of the treaty, are fairly well established.  A very long time ago, well over two decades now, one of the Federal judges in the state became so irritated by such an attempt that he actually stated that the treaty with the Sioux of the same vintage and location also authorized (which I don't think it did) shooting at tribal members off the reservation and nobody thought that was the case any more, stating that in the form of a question.  Again, I think that remark was not only evidence of frustration, and highly inappropriate, but it was flat out wrong, the treaty never authorized that, but citation to the treaty on dead letters within it is pointless which I suppose was in his inartfully made point.

Which brings us to the actual point.  Ineffectual though they are, and they are, the 1868 treaties really live on as a psychological influence, and that's interesting. Indeed, it's an interesting aspect of the first three of our Laws of History.  After all this time an ineffectual treaty lives on, wounded, but still there, in some odd fashion.  And with it, some old arguments and fights.

The Treaty:

Articles of a treaty made and concluded at Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory, on the seventh day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, by and between the undersigned commissioners on the part of the United States, and the undersigned chiefs and head-men of and representing the Crow Indians, they being duly authorized to act in the premises.

ARTICLE 1.

From this day forward peace between the parties to this treaty shall forever continue. The Government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it. The Indians desire peace, and they hereby pledge their honor to maintain it. If bad men among the whites or among other people, subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will, upon proof made to the agent and forwarded to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington City, proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also re-imburse the injured person for the loss sustained.

If bad men among the Indians shall commit a wrong or depredation upon the person or property of any one, white, black, or Indian, subject to the authority of the United States and at peace therewith, the Indians herein named solemnly agree that they will, on proof made to their agent and notice by him, deliver up the wrong-doer to the United States, to be tried and punished according to its laws; and in case they refuse willfully so to do the person injured shall be re-imbursed for his loss from the annuities or other moneys due or to become due to them under this or other treaties made with the United States. And the President, on advising with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, shall prescribe such rules and regulations for ascertaining damages under the provisions of this article as in his judgment may be proper. But no such damages shall be adjusted and paid until thoroughly examined and passed upon by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and no one sustaining loss while violating, or because of his violating, the provisions of this treaty or the laws of the United States shall be re-imbursed therefor.

ARTICLE 2.

The United States agrees that the following district of country, to wit: commencing where the 107th degree of longitude west of Greenwich crosses the south boundary of Montana Territory; thence north along said 107th meridian to the mid-channel of the Yellowstone River; thence up said mid-channel of the Yellowstone to the point where it crosses the said southern boundary of Montana, being the 45th degree of north latitude; and thence east along said parallel of latitude to the place of beginning, shall be, and the same is, set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit amongst them; and the United States now solemnly agrees that no persons, except those herein designated and authorized so to do, and except such officers, agents, and employés of the Government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties enjoined by law, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article for the use of said Indians, and henceforth they will, and do hereby, relinquish all title, claims, or rights in and to any portion of the territory of the United States, except such as is embraced within the limits aforesaid.

ARTICLE 3.

The United States agrees, at its own proper expense, to construct on the south side of the Yellowstone, near Otter Creek, a warehouse or store-room for the use of the agent in storing goods belonging to the Indians, to cost not exceeding twenty-five hundred dollars; an agency-building for the residence of the agent, to cost not exceeding three thousand dollars; a residence for the physician, to cost not more than three thousand dollars; and five other buildings, for a carpenter, farmer, blacksmith, miller, and engineer, each to cost not exceeding two thousand dollars; also a school-house or mission-building, so soon as a sufficient number of children can be induced by the agent to attend school, which shall not cost exceeding twenty-five hundred dolla

The United States agrees further to cause to be erected on said reservation, near the other buildings herein authorized, a good steam circular saw-mill, with a grist-mill and shingle-machine attached, the same to cost not exceeding eight thousand dollars.

ARTICLE 4.

The Indians herein named agree, when the agency-house and other buildings shall be constructed on the reservation named, they will make said reservation their permanent home, and they will make no permanent settlement elsewhere, but they shall have the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found thereon, and as long as peace subsists among the whites and Indians on the borders of the hunting districts.

ARTICLE 5.

The United States agrees that the agent for said Indians shall in the future make his home at the agency-building; that he shall reside among them, and keep an office open at all times for the purpose of prompt and diligent inquiry into such matters of complaint, by and against the Indians, as may be presented for investigation under the provisions of their treaty stipulations, as also for the faithful discharge of other duties enjoined on him by law. In all cases of depredation on person or property, he shall cause the evidence to be taken in writing and forwarded, together with his finding, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, whose decision shall be binding on the parties to this treaty.

ARTICLE 6.

If any individual belonging to said tribes of Indians, or legally incorporated with them, being the head of a family, shall desire to commence farming, he shall have the privilege to select, in the presence and with the assistance of the agent then in charge, a tract of land within said reservation, not exceeding three hundred and twenty acres in extent, which tract, when so selected, certified, and recorded in the “land book,”as herein directed, shall cease to be held in common, but the same may be occupied and held in the exclusive possession of the person selecting it, and of his family, so long as he or they may continue to cultivate it.

Any person over eighteen years of age, not being the head of a family, may in like manner select and cause to be certified to him or her, for purposes of cultivation, a quantity of land not exceeding eighty acres in extent, and thereupon be entitled to the exclusive possession of the same as above directed.

For each tract of land so selected a certificate, containing a description thereof and the name of the person selecting it, with a certificate endorsed thereon that the same has been recorded, shall be delivered to the party entitled to it by the agent, after the same shall have been recorded by him in a book to be kept in his office, subject to inspection, which said book shall be known as the “Crow land book.”

The President may at any time order a survey of the reservation, and, when so surveyed, Congress shall provide for protecting the rights of settlers in their improvements, and may fix the character of the title held by each. The United States may pass such laws on the subject of alienation and descent of property as between Indians, and on all subjects connected with the government of the Indians on said reservations and the internal police thereof, as may be thought proper.

ARTICLE 7.

In order to insure the civilization of the tribe entering into this treaty, the necessity of education is admitted, especially by such of them as are, or may be, settled on said agricultural reservation; and they therefore pledge themselves to compel their children, male and female, between the ages of six and sixteen years, to attend school; and it is hereby made the duty of the agent for said Indians to see that this stipulation is strictly complied with; and the United States agrees that for every thirty children, between said ages, who can be induced or compelled to attend school, a house shall be provided, and a teacher, competent to teach the elementary branches of an English education, shall be furnished, who will reside among said Indians, and faithfully discharge his or her duties as a teacher. The provisions of this article to continue for twenty years.

ARTICLE 8.

When the head of a family or lodge shall have selected lands and received his certificate as above directed, and the agent shall be satisfied that he intends in good faith to commence cultivating the soil for a living, he shall be entitled to receive seed and agricultural implements for the first year in value one hundred dollars, and for each succeeding year he shall continue to farm, for a period of three years more, he shall be entitled to receive seed and implements as aforesaid in value twenty-five dollars per annum.

And it is further stipulated that such persons as commence farming shall receive instructions from the farmer herein provided for, and whenever more than one hundred persons shall enter upon the cultivation of the soil, a second blacksmith shall be provided, with such iron, steel, and other material as may be required.

ARTICLE 9.

In lieu of all sums of money or other annuities provided to be paid to the Indians herein named, under any and all treaties heretofore made with them, the United States agrees to deliver at the agency house, on the reservation herein provided for, on the first day of September of each year for thirty years, the following articles, to wit:

For each male person, over fourteen years of age, a suit of good substantial woolen clothing, consisting of coat, hat, pantaloons, flannel shirt, and a pair of woolen socks.
For each female, over twelve years of age, a flannel skirt, or the goods necessary to make it, a pair of woolen hose, twelve yards of calico, and twelve yards of cotton domestics.
For the boys and girls under the ages named, such flannel and cotton goods as may be needed to make each a suit as aforesaid, together with a pair of woollen hose for each.
And in order that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs may be able to estimate properly for the articles herein named, it shall be the duty of the agent, each year, to forward to him a full and exact census of the Indians, on which the estimate from year to year can be based.
And, in addition to the clothing herein named, the sum of ten dollars shall be annually appropriated for each Indian roaming, and twenty dollars for each Indian engaged in agriculture, for a period of ten years, to be used by the Secretary of the Interior in the purchase of such articles as, from time to time, the condition and necessities of the Indians may indicate to be proper. And if, at any time within the ten years, it shall appear that the amount of money needed for clothing, under this article, can be appropriated to better uses for the tribe herein named, Congress may, by law, change the appropriation to other purposes; but in no event shall the amount of this appropriation be withdrawn or discontinued for the period named. And the President shall annually detail an officer of the Army to be present and attest the delivery of all the goods herein named to the Indians, and he shall inspect and report on the quantity and quality of the goods and the manner of their delivery; and it is expressly stipulated that each Indian over the age of four years, who shall have removed to and settled permanently upon said reservation, and complied with the stipulations of this treaty, shall be entitled to receive from the United States, for the period of four years after he shall have settled upon said reservation, one pound of meat and one pound of flour per day, provided the Indians cannot furnish their own subsistence at an earlier date. And it is further stipulated that the United States will furnish and deliver to each lodge of Indians, or family of persons legally incorporated with them, who shall remove to the reservation herein described, and commence farming, one good American cow and one good, well-broken pair of American oxen, within sixty days after such lodge or family shall have so settled upon said reservation

ARTICLE 10.

The United States hereby agrees to furnish annually to the Indians the physician, teachers, carpenter, miller, engineer, farmer, and blacksmiths as herein contemplated, and that such appropriations shall be made from time to time, on the estimates of the Secretary of the Interior, as will be sufficient to employ such persons.

ARTICLE 11.

No treaty for the cession of any portion of the reservation herein described, which may be held in common, shall be of any force or validity as against the said Indians unless executed and signed by, at least, a majority of all the adult male Indians occupying or interested in the same, and no cession by the tribe shall be understood or construed in such a manner as to deprive, without his consent, any individual member of the tribe of his right to any tract of land selected by him as provided in Article 6 of this treaty.

ARTICLE 12.

It is agreed that the sum of five hundred dollars annually, for three years from the date when they commence to cultivate a farm, shall be expended in presents to the ten persons of said tribe who, in the judgment of the agent, may grow the most valuable crops for the respective year.

W. T. Sherman,
   Lieutenant-General.

Wm. S. Harney,
   Brevet Major-General and Peace Commissioner.

Alfred H. Terry,
   Brevet Major-General.

C. C. Augur,
   Brevet Major-General.

John B. Sanborn.

S. F. Tappan.

Ashton S. H. White, Secretary.

Che-ra-pee-ish-ka-te, Pretty Bull, his x mark. 

Chat-sta-he, Wolf Bow, his x mark. [SEAL.]

Ah-be-che-se, Mountain Tail, his x mark. 

Kam-ne-but-sa, Black Foot, his x mark. 

De-sal-ze-cho-se, White Horse, his x mark.

Chin-ka-she-arache, Poor Elk, his x mark. 

E-sa-woor, Shot in the Jaw, his x mark.

E-sha-chose, White Forehead, his x mark. 

—Roo-ka, Pounded Meat, his x mark. 

De-ka-ke-up-se, Bird in the Neck, his x mark. 

Me-na-che, The Swan, his x mark. 

Attest:

George B. Wills, phonographer.

John D. Howland.

Alex. Gardner.

David Knox.

Chas. Freeman.

Jas. C. O'Connor.

  

Crow hunters, 1909.

The lingerings of Russian Alaska

One of the maxims of Holscher's Laws of History is that "Everything last occurred more recently than you suppose".  Given that, I should have realized that there's be lingering aspects of Russian culture in Alaska.  Nonetheless, I was surprised to find this true.

The United States bought Alaska from Imperial Russia in 1867.  Quite a long time ago, by how we generally reckon things, but not all that long, really, in cultural terms.  Russia started penetrating into Alaska in the 1740s and things really got rolling in the 1780s, although their numbers were always limited.  Naturally, they brought with them the Russian Orthodox faith.

I guess I hadn't appreciated the extent to which Russian Orthodox missionaries operated in Alaska, but they certainly did, and they were successful.  And, for no real reason, I would have presumed that the influence of Russian Orthodoxy would have dramatically waned after the US purchase of the territory.  I knew that it remained a bit, but I thought just a bit.

 

Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord Church, Ninilchik Alaska. 

Well, I was wrong.

About 12.5% of the population of Alaska is Orthodox.  80% of the population is Christian.  The Orthodox population rivals that of the Catholic population, which is really amazing as the Catholic Church is by far the largest of the apostolic churches in the United States.  That the percentage is this high is all the more amazing as the demographics of Alaska have undoubtedly changed significantly since 1974, when the oil pipeline brought in a large number of out of state workers, which would have increased the Protestant populations significantly and the Catholic population as well.  Therefore, if we look at the pre 1974 demographics, and the long term resident demographics, the percentage of Russian Orthodox would be even higher.

And this would be strongly reflected amongst Alaskan Native populations, who would make up the bulk of the Orthodox in Alaska.

All this goes to show that culture is indeed resilient, as we also previously noted in one of our laws of history.  In some places the Orthodox parishes have declined, but demographically, they're still strong.  I shouldn't have made the assumption that I did.

I actually found this out, I'd note, in a bit of a roundabout way, and I'd guess many who visit Alaska never realize this.  As I find church architecture interesting, and post photos of them to a blog, when I was in Alaska I ran across a reference to an Old Believer church near Homer and then did a short search and ran into a second Russian Orthodox Church.  The Old Believer church, I should note, does not represent an enduring Alaskan cultural feature, as they moved into the region in 1966 (and there are actually several Old Believer communities near Homer).  In looking up a Russian Orthodox Church I photographed in Ninilchik I was surprised to find that there'd been a church I'd missed in Homer itself, and not only there, but darned near everywhere.  There were a lot of them, as indeed there should be, as there are Catholic churches everywhere and nearly as many Alaskans are Russian Orthodox as are Catholic.

Which shows, I suppose, when observing something, a person must be open to observing the unexpected.

Speaking for the people. . . and not.

It's interesting to watch debates and commentary on debates of a big national character.

Without going into specifics, I've been watching one that continually claims to represent a major cultural shift in a certain country.  I'm not so sure.  I think it represents a shift, but the claims are so overdone.

But for that matter, many "shifts" are quite temporary in nature.  The Baby Boom generation of the 60s did shift things, but in the long term they turned out to be more conservative than they started out to be, so the shift wasn't quite as dramatic as it was supposed it would be.  That's pretty common.  Lots of things that seem to have been overthrown, in fact, are just temporarily ignored.

Lex Anteinternet: The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and the Fate of Iraqi Christians

As of today, the situation discussed here has gone from bad to worse.  ISIS, or ISIL, depending upon the term you use, has taken the city of Qaraqoush, which borders Kurdistan.  Indeed, ISIS really took it from Kurdish militia, which was defending it.

Lex Anteinternet: The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and the Fate of Iraqi Christians

The extent of this disaster is vast.  The result means that a city not a town or a village, with a Christian population, is now on the roads, fearing for their lives.  And, to compound the disaster, the Yazidis, an ethnic minority whose religion is related to Zoroastrianism, is trapped on a mountain top without water.

The US is finally pondering intervention, but beyond this, it's finally the point in time at which those who have long held that Islam is a peaceful misunderstood religion to do something to show it.  ISIS claims to represent a Sunni vision of the world.  No doubt, it does not reflect the views of the majority of Sunnis, perhaps, but its claim to represent the hardcore tenants of Islam is not without support.  Without some regional effort on the part of Sunnis to contest it, they'll have claimed center position in this field without debate. It's easy to claim that they are "extremist", but it seems that extremist of similar mind abound in the region, with little to argue against their philosophy from those who hold the same basic foundational tenants.  If they do disagree, they need to now show it.

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Postscript

Tonight President Obama authorized airstrikes under certain conditions:

Today I authorize two operations in Iraq. Targeted air strikes to protect our American personnel and a humanitarian effort to help save thousands of Iraqi civilians who are trapped on a mountain without food and water and facing almost certain death.

Let me explain the actions we are taking and why.

I said in June when the terrorist group ISIL began an advance across Iraq that the United States would be prepared to take targeted military action in Iraq if and when we determine the situation required.

In recent days these terrorists have continued to move across Iraq and have neared the city of Erbil where American diplomats and civilians serve at our consulate and American military personnel advise Iraqi forces.

To stop the advance on Erbil I have directed our military to take targeted strikes against ISIL terrorist convoys should they move toward the city.

We intend to stay vigilant and take action if these terrorist forces threaten our personnel or facilities anywhere in Iraq, including our consulate in Erbil and our embassy in Baghdad.

We are also providing urgent assistance to the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces so they can more effectively wage the fight against ISIL.

At the request of the Iraqi government we began operations to help save Iraqi civilians stranded on the mountain.

As ISIL marches across it has waged a ruthless campaign against innocent Iraqis.

These terrorists have been especially barbaric towards religious minorities including Christians and Yezidis, a small and ancient religious sect.

Countless Iraqis have been displaced and showing reports describe ISIL militants rounding up families, conducting mass executions and enslaving Yezidi women.

In recent days Yezidi men, women are children from the area of Sinjar have fled for their lives in thousands, perhaps tens of thousands and are now hiding on a mountain with little but the clothes on their backs, and without food, without water, people are starving, children are dying of thirst.

Meanwhile ISIL forces below have called for a systematic destruction of the entire Yezidi people, which would constitute genocide.

So these innocent families are faced with a horrible choice. Descend the mountain and be slaughtered or slowly die of thirst and hunger.

I have said before that the United States cannot and should intervene every time there is a crisis in the world, so let me be clear about why we must act and act now. When we face a situation like we face on that mountain with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale, when we have a mandate to help, in this case with request from the Iraqi government and when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States cannot turn a blind eye.

We can act carefully and responsibly to prevent an act of genocide.

______________________________________________________________________________

Postscript II

Those following this story will be aware that the U.S. has engaged in some airstrikes now, and additionally it seems clear that some supplies have been recently provided to the Peshmerga (a collection of Kurdish forces, not one single entity).  Hopefully this is not all too little, too late.

 As a follow up comment, however, I can't help but note how the main part of this tragedy continues to be missed.  Much of the story has focused on the Yazdis, who are indeed presenting with a tragic plight. The tiny Kurdish speaking ethnic minority is in danger of being completely wiped out.

But, at the same time, the Christian Assyrian minority, a minority but a large one, which constitutes the original inhabitants of much of this territory, pre dating the Arab invasion of centuries ago, received comparatively little attention.  Why?  I suspect it's simply because we in the west are so familiar with Christianity that a story about Christians, huge tragedy though it may be, just doesn't seem worth covering.  Even when it involves an ethnic, and from our prospective, exotic, minority.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Postscript III

(Reuters) - Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in northern Iraq, burying some of their victims alive and kidnapping hundreds of women, a Baghdad government minister said on Sunday.

If Islam is a religion of peace, as its apologist claim, or at least ff Sunnism has that attribute, this is sure the time for them to step up and prove it.

Where are the Saudis, upon whose territory Mecca is located?  Where are the Jordanians?  Has any significant  Sunni state done anything?  What about the Turks, a secular state that once ruled this region?

Protests that are meaningful so far have come largely from western countries, and from Shiia Iran, the latter of which has its own religious stake in this fight.

At some point, actions speak louder than words.  We do not seem to be seeing much, outside, admittedly, of Sunni Kurds, who also have a stake in this fight, but who are fighting.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript IV

This is the Arabic letter "nun" which is the equivalent to the letter "n" in our lettering system.

The reason it appears here is that the ISIS has been painting it on buildings associated with Christians in northern Iraq, where it stands for "Nazarene", ie. a follower of Christ.

Shads of Nazi Germany and Kristallnacht at work there, with "N" substituting for the Nazi use of the Star of David to identify Jews in a like manner.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript V

The Pershmerga, aided by the US, UK and France in various ways, has been recapturing the ground it recently lost to ISIS.  The use of US airpower, combined with the provisions of arms and ammunition, appears to have been turning the tide for the Kurds.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript VI

This prayer, authored by Chaldean Catholic Bishop of Iraq, His Beatitude Louis Rafael Sako, has been appearing at least in Catholic circles this past week, providing a poignant plea for simply the ability to live in peace.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript VII

ISIS murdered an American journalist in what it conceives of as a reprisal for US intervention in northern Iraq.

At this point, ISIS has clearly forfeited its only claim to legitimacy, that being that it's acting on behalf of the expansion of Islam.  No interpretation of Islam allows for simple murder of people merely because of their nationhood.  

__________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript VIII

Earlier this week Pope Francis noted that the use of arms to protect the lives of those under threat of violence in the fashion that Iraqi minorities are is legitimate.  This is a statement that is consistent with traditional Christian thought, but one which is rarely expressed as applicable to an ongoing situation.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript  IX

ISIL has executed two American reporters in reprisals, with the executioner in the first example having a British accent, showing the penetration, I suppose, in some form of its views into Europe.

ISIL also executed five female fortune tellers this past week.

The United States is increasing its air activity, and it appears the UK will join in that. Germany has joined the fray through the supplying of a huge number of arms to the Kurds, the first independent direct supply without any supervision by Germany since World War Two.

On Wednesday the President shall address the nation on this topic.  An inevitable topic with be the expansion, or not, of the air effort into Syria, which by this point is regarded as nearly necessary.  Readers here will recall our warnings that Syria was a much more complicated nation than those who were earlier leading the cheers for fighting Assad would have had it.  Events seem to have born that out.

A really good article, btw, on ISIL is in the current issue of the New Republic, detailing what its goals are in terms of a restoration of a Caliphate, which it has in fact already declared.

Additionally, this topic has received some interesting commentary from Catholic clerics, not at the higher level, other than what Pope Francis is noted as having said above, but down at the Priest level.   This is interesting for a couple of reasons, one of which is that the commentary in some cases comes from people who are exceedingly well informed at the street level on one or more aspect of this.  One set of such comments comes from Father Dwight Longnecker, who was an Anglican Priest at one time, and who sees a connection between a rising level of assaults on women in the Islamic sphere and Islamic fundamentalism. He's not the first one by any means, and the connection is that at that level there's a fundamental separation of attitudes on western non Islamic women, who are regarded with contempt and free for the taking, and Islamic women, who are not attacked but whom, it might be noted, tend to be treated by chattel.

This is a complicated topic, and one such commentator, Egyptian born Jesuit Father Samir Khalil Samir makes the tie in, which has been made before (I first read the comment by a Canadian conservative commentator following 9/11) that a perception in  the Islamic world of absolute moral license in the western world fuels Islamic fundamentalism, but it's also been noted that part of the same fear is that the west features a goal of equality for women, which doesn't feature a chattel status, of course, and which also threatens any absolute male dominated society.

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Postscript X

The President addressed the nation regarding ISIL tonight, with it being the case that the US, in concert with other nations, will continue its air operations in Iraq, expand them to Syria, and back the Kurdish and Iraqi forces in Iraq.  We will also apparently be backing the "moderate" rebels in Syria, rather than the Syrian government, with the thesis being that they will fill the vacuum created by efforts against ISIL rather than the Syrian government.

It was emphasized that this will be a protracted struggle to some extent, which is no doubt correct.   There will be no significant deployments of US ground forces (the deployment of some ground troops will be a necessity), with our efforts mostly in the form of air assets and other support.

While I don't fully agree with this approach (I think our ability to pick a "moderate" rebel group in Syria is doubtful at best and probably quite naive) this approach is consistent with President Obama's preference for the use of airborne weapons and the strategy, in so far as Iraq is considered, probably makes sense.

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Postcript XI

Listening to the BBC yesterday, the full horror of ISIL begins to become more and more plain.  It turns out that more is now known of the fate of the Yazidis women who were taken prisoner by ISIL. They are now slaves, with their duties including cooking, cleaning, and being subject to assault.  You can fill in what that means.

Oddly, quite a few of them had cell phones and still do, so the word is getting out.  The reason is speculated to be that given as the Koran sanctions rendering non Islamic captive women the slaves to the desires of their males captors, they're entitled to have some rights.  In other words, that ISIL has returned to a practice that most would have thought part of the distant past, but which remains in the Koran, they're not ashamed of it in any fashion.

There's been a lot of debate here in the US on whether the war against ISIL requires "boots on the ground" with some noting that some Arab states have volunteered to provide those boots (just as Syria actually did when we fought Iraq in the 1990s).  Some have also noted that perhaps the arming of "moderate" Syrian rebel groups (a dicey proposition in my view) may somewhat serve this purpose.  In either event, this group is so hideous that at some time not acting becomes complicit in their crimes based upon establishing a totally male dominated, strictly Islamic, view of the world.

As if this story couldn't get any worse, by the way, there's evidence that it extends to Christian female captives as well, including minors.  And there's at lease some accounts of physical mutilation being performed by ISIL on the same female population.

This group, in its monstrous views, is as bad as the Nazis ever were.  We've sometimes criticized ourselves for not intervening in Europe before Germany declared war in the United States, and we've done that more recently in the case of the Rwandan genocide.  We are intervening here, but the question is will the intervention be quick enough, and complete enough.

Postscript XII

Airstrikes have commenced of ISIL targets in Syria.  Jordan and Saudi Arabia have contributed to the aircraft involved in the strikes.

Postscript XIII

Showing the full extent of their barbarity, ISIL burned to death a Jordanian pilot it had captured. No matter what a person's view of jihad may be, this is clearly beyond the pale for anyone and I'm quite certain that virtually no observant Moslems support an action such as this.  Indeed, it seems that recent events over the past few years in the Middle East are actually causing a departure in the region from the Islamic religion, as people do not wish to be associated with acts such as this in any form, or even the lesser acts of violence that some do in its name.  Apparently in some regions, while statistics are very hard to come by, the number of people abandoning Islam in the region is not insignificant.

This act already is causing a regional revulsion against ISIL by everyone.  And its resulted in an immediate reprisal, something that Middle Easter states apparently still consider a valid political act, while western nations, and most others, would have moved away from this sort of retaliatory violence many, many years ago.  Jordan, in reprisal, executed two Al Queda prisoners it held, including one woman, a move I don't think anyone saw coming and which no western nation would sanction.  The fact that they took such an act, as a regional power, almost surely suggests a likely move toward increased regional action against ISIL by states in the region.

In other news in the region, it appears the Kurds continue to regain the ground lost earlier to ISIL, although it is taking a long time.

Postscript XIV

And now it seems that ISIL has assaulted Christian towns in Syria, taking about 300 Christians hostage.  It's also turned its ire on objects of art, something the Taliban also did.

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and the Fate of Arab Christians

I've started a couple of threats on the topic of ISIL and what's going on in the Middle East.  In doing that, I wiped one out and decided not to publish it, and another I have still in the draft stage.  Post that appear here are sometimes in the draft stage for a very long time.

But that does no good if the intent is to comment on something topical, which this is.  The Sunni insurgent group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant is acting to bring about the absolute end of Christianity in Iraq, and should it succeed in Syria, it will do the same there.

Christianity is one of the oldest surviving religions in the region, older than Islam in that region we so heavily identify with Islam, and even within relatively recent historical times its been fairly vibrant there, although it's always been repressed since the region came to be dominated by Islam.  In those areas where it remained strong, and they are surprisingly numerous, it was in part because populations of Christians remained relatively numerous.

And by Christians we mean Catholic and Orthodox Christians.  Not necessarily the Latin and Greek branches of those Faiths, but part of them.  Iraq, due to English influence, once had a small population of Anglicans, but by and large Christians in the region are some type of Catholic or some type of Orthodox Christian.

Americans tend to believe that all people are tolerant democrats at heart, which they are not.  One of the things that has been very difficult for Americans to accept is that large patches of the Islamic world are heavily intolerant to any other religion, and always have been. The violent suppression of other religions is a hallmark of Islam since its early days.  Now, it is true, as some will not doubt point out, that this isn't universally true, and there are plenty of contrary examples. Still, the exceptions don't make the rule, and by and large the cradle of Islam has been pretty consistently hostile to other Faiths.

In the Middle East, where this has not been true, it has tended to be the case that there remained reservoirs of significant populations of other peoples.  And where the governments in power have not acted to suppress Christianity in recent decades, its tended to be for this reason, or because the leaders and elites of those countries have been Westernized and tended to adopt some of our values, or because the governments were minority governments which themselves feared the majority.  And, finally, in some instance the governments were, whether we like it or not, secular governments that were heavily influenced by authoritarian philosophies.

This latter example is significant in that Islam really doesn't recognize a distinction between a secular and religious authority, and it its early days the two were the same.  Indeed, the entire concept of a Caliphate, which ISIL states its seeks to restore, is based on that.  For much of its history made no recognized distinction between civil and religious authority, so most early Islamic governments made some claim to having religious authority.  And the religion was spread at sword point early on. And the early part of its history resulted in a vast Islamic empire, whose titular ruler was the Caliph.

The Caliphs claimed authority by virtue of the delegation of that authority from Mohamed, and blood relationship to Mohamed, in some cases. The problem here, from that point of view, is that only two early Caliph are universally recognized by Moslems as a Caliph.  After the first two, the Sunni and Shiia split occurred, and they thereafter have a different view on who was legitimately a Caliph.  Hence the concern that Shiia Arabs in Iraq and Shiia Persians in Iran have over Sunni ISIL.

At any rate, it is definitely the case that for many long decades a Sunni Caliph held a claim of authority over a huge track of the Middle East, and even up into Spain at one point, before the Islamic tide began to recede.  Different dynasties arose and over time the claims to authority became murky.  The last person to claim any such authority was the Ottoman Abdülmecid II, who lost that position as a result of the revolt of the Young Turks and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.  In the 1920s the Turkish parliament abolished the position, and it passed into history.  That established the concept of a secular government in the Islamic world, but one that was a military backed authoritarian one.  For the most part, most governments in that region that haven't somewhat followed that model haven't been successful.  And some of those that didn't follow it, but were still somewhat successful, were based on a quasi fascist model.

The net result of this is that since George Bush II we've been pretty naive about the region and we failed to recognize that if we took the lid off anywhere, the resulting mess would be very bad indeed.  In wiping out Baathist fascism in Iraq, we succeeded in unleashing rural radicalized primitive Sunnism there.

Now, I am not claiming for a second that every Sunni has murder of Christians in his heart.  That was never the case,  and it is less the case now than ever. But its less the case now than ever because the Arab world is slowly entering the globalized western world, and as it does the concept of a global theocracy appeals less and less to its base.  It's just not going to happen.  And most don't want it. For that matter, for much of its history, when there was a Caliphate, its legitimacy was open to question and its actual administration had fallen into the inevitable corruption that such things do.  The Caliphate ISIL imagines is one that didn't exist for a very long time.

But there are still a lot of poorly educated, or just desperate, Sunnis who will and are turning to the root core of their faith, and that root core has always advocated the violent evangelizing of the entire world, and the conversion of it at sword point.  Most of the time, most weren't acting that way, but there are spectacular examples to the contrary.  That's what  they are now trying to do in Iraq.  Christians are being ordered to convert or die.  Churches are being destroyed.  And there's even an order to Christians for them to give up their daughters to Islamist for marriage.

I fear that we're going to do nothing about this, even though it was our act in bringing down Saddam Hussein, who as a Baathist was a secularist, that caused this to come about.  And we're likely to watch this story repeat itself in Syria, to our shame.  We're going to ignore the situation as the hard truths of it don't fit the My Pretty Pony world we like to pretend exists.  We don't like to admit that there's a large group of people who are not democrats, and not tolerant.  We don't like to admit that those people will act lethally. And we don't like to admit that we blew it in invading Iraq in the first place, and blew it again by leaving too soon, and blew it further by thinking the the government we left there was going to work.

And we also have a hard time, or at least many Americans do, in appreciating that the Christians in the region are real Christians.  They definitely aren't evangelical protestants.  They trace their communities to the very earliest days of Christianity, and they are Arab Christians.  To many in the west, that seems very foreign and strange.

There are lessons here in great numbers, but I fear that nobody is going to bother learning them.

Understanding Iraq

The first thing a person looking at the civil war in Iraq needs to understand is that it isn't a real country.

 King Faisal of Iraq.  Born in Mecca in 1885, elected to the Ottoman parliament in 1913, practical leader of the Arab Revolt in the field during World War One, King of Syria in 1920 until French interest prevailed, and then King of Iraq.

Iraq is a creation of the British Empire.  That doesn't make it good, or bad, but it isn't a nation state.  A nation state, of course is a country (i.e., "state") where everyone in the country is part of the same nationality.  Not all countries are nation states. The US isn't.  Canada isn't. Australia isn't. But most are.  Germany is, for example, or France, Italy or Spain.

Imperial nations didn't draw borders, usually, based upon nationality, but upon convenience.  And that's how Iraq basically came about.

This is not to say that the region does not have an ancient history.  It certainly does.  It goes back to vast antiquity, and the region has played a part in every major event in the Middle East for all of recorded history.

But modern Iraq came about as a result of World War One.  The British took a region of the fallen Ottoman Empire that fell outside of Syria (which went to France) and outside of Transjordan (now Jordan), and out of that region administered by Saudi Arabia of the Emirs of Kuwait, and made a country out of it, with the capitol of that country being Baghdad. Over it, it placed a Hashamite king, a sort of consolation prize to the Hashamites who came from Mecca, but who lost the Arabian peninsula to the House of Saud, which the British Indian government backed while the British government, operating out of Cairo, backed the Hashamites. The Saudis, who spent most of World War One consolidating their their power, ended up with that instead, while the Hashamites, who were a family that stemmed from Mecca, ended up with what the British would give them, which turned out to be Transjordan and Iraq.  They'd wanted Syria, and briefly had it, but the French took that, based on a historical association with Syria.  The boundaries of the country were mostly unnatural, with perhaps the only natural one being the eastern boundary where the Arab population yielded to the Persian. The Persians and the Arabs generally dislike one another, even though the territory of what is now Iraq had given rise to the Shiite branch of Islam, the branch to which most Iranians adhere, but to which most Arabs do not.

King Faisal on left, dressed in a fashion we do not imagine for him, with his brother, the Emir of Transjordan.  Jordan remains a Hashamite kingdom to this day.

The Hashamite rule of Iraq was not a success, and in no small part this was because the country made little sense.  The north was one of the four countries which the stateless nation of the Kurds fell into. An ancient people with a strong central identity, they wanted no part of any country other than one they hoped to have themselves, a national aspiration opposed by Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Persia.  Shiites, who formed the majority in the Euphrates valley, did not share a religious identity with the Sunnis, who inhabit the desert west, as the two variants of Islam have very deep divides between the two.  The Sunnis inhabited the balance of the country, which just as easily could have been part of Syria, Jordan or Saudi Arabia, with the inhabitants of those regions being no more or less loyal to any of those other regions.  In the north the country also had remaining populations of Assyrians, the founders of Syria who were and are a declining minority everywhere they are found.  An ancient population of Catholic Arabs are also found in the country.

It was British presence in one form or another that kept the country together.  Somewhat independent starting in 1932, the country actually appeared to tilt towards the Axis early in World War Two until the British invaded it.  After the war the monarchy fell to the fascistic Baath party in a coup in 1958.  The British in turn granted Kuwait Independence in 1961, forming a bone of contention with Baathist Iraq.  Kuwait was no more a real nation that Iraq, but it was ethnically homogeneous, making it more stable in any event.

Under the Baath Party regional differences in Iraq were violently suppressed, but as memorialized here as Holscher's Third Law of History, those differences never went away.  Indeed, during Saddam Hussein's reign there were uprising of various groups.  The Kurds never ceased striving for independence.  The "Marsh Arabs", Shiites of the Euphrates valley, also attempted an uprising following our defeat of Iraq in the first Gulf War, when they acted upon the belief, which we did not discourage, that we'd come to their aid against Saddam Hussein.

The lid came off of all of this upon our invasion of Iraq following 9/11. The entire invasion was premised on the thesis that Iraq retained weapons of "mass destruction", a term coined in that era which oddly lumped generally nasty but ineffectual chemical weapons with truly horrific nuclear weapons, but the government was slow to disassociate Iraq with the Al Queda attack on the US, which Iraq was not responsible for..  By WMD, we meant chemical weapons, which Iraq was not to retain after its defeat in the first Guilf War.  It turned out, of course, that they didn't have any, or at least none could be found following our defeat of Iraq in the second Gulf War.  And as an added irony, the Sunni fundamentalist Al Queda regarded Hussein as a Communist, which he was not, and they therefore were opposed to him.

The invasion of Iraq, tremblingly done without an American declaration of war, left us in control of the country just as the internecine feuds were flamed by foreign Jihadist who entered the country to fight the US.  Often confused as one long war, the second Gulf War was actually two wars, a conventional war which we won against the Baathist regime, and a second one against irregular Islamic Jihadist. We won that one too, and then left the country a fragile, Shiite dominated, democracy.  That democracy did not want us there, and now it faces a rebellion it is ill prepared to put down.

Now a civil war has erupted, with the Sunni minority threatening to defeat the government of the Shiite majority.  It has every promise of turning into a true bloodbath as ancient rivalries and fears revive.  Its difficult at best to see how any democratic government can rule the country, and like King Faisal II, the best observation may be that "nobody can govern this country".  But do we dare ignore it?  The Sunni rebellion has close connections to a fanatic Sunni militia fighting in Syria for the recreation of a Sunni Caliphate, a sort of Islamic law empire.  It will not succeed in that goal, but that it's willing to struggle for it is something we cannot ignore.  Nor can we ignore that the present Iraqi government is not unfriendly to Iran, which as its own goals that do not squire with ours.

At the end of the day, we have to wonder if the best solution for Iraq wold be a world were there isn't one.  The country is a legal fiction, and in the north the Kurds are entitled to their own country, a result the Turks, Syrians and Iranians would not like.  In the west, the population would make as much sense being part of Syria, Jordan or Saudi Arabia, if we felt comfortable with that result, which we have good reason not to be.  In the east, the country would likely remain, but how viable it would be is questionable.  And how much we are willing to invest to achieve that result, and how much we have already invested in the country, is a sobering thought.

Related Threads:

Understanding Syria.

The messed up legacy of colonialism.

It's really easy to dump on colonialism from our vantage in 2014, and not really fair either.  Americans in particular like to imagine themselves as an anti colonial power, not without quite a bit of justification, but we had our moments as well, and of course the entire westward expansion of the country was a type of internal colonialism, which we tend to forget.  So, I don't intend this to be one of those snotty "oh, how bad the Europeans were" type of posts.

 Iraqi army officers gathered to celebrate Iraq's entry into the League of Nations in 1932.

And, on that, I frankly don't know that it's possible to envision a world history that doesn't feature colonialism, and European colonialism in particular.  Consider the Scramble for Africa, the last great era of colonialism.  Is it really possible to imagine all the European powers sitting that one out?  And if even one was in it, didn't all the other activity make it inevitable?  So, in short, I don't want to be excessively critical.

I also don't want to be excessively sanctimonious about it either.  Most western nations that have colonial legacies have entered the "oh, how horrible we were" state of mind, but that isn't really a very useful or accurate record.  On the ground, in a lot of former colonial areas the influence of the colonial power is often mixed, and sometimes not really all that badly recalled.  In some very stable areas of the globe areas that were once colonies are now incredibly heavily influenced by lessons learned from the former colonial power and are in some instances better carriers of western values than countries in the west now are.  And in some areas, to our surprise, the former colonial period is looked back as a golden age.  A friend of mine with experience in Morocco once related to me how high in the Atlas mountains he was enthusiastically greeted by villagers who thought he was the advanced guard of a French colonial administration, decades after the French had left, and the French were hoping for their return.  And, as horrific as the early administration of King Leopold was early on, at least one National Geographic expedition in that country found villagers rushing out enthusiastically yelling "The Belgians are back!"  Things can get confusing out there.

What brings this up, however, is the mess sometimes created when former colonial powers tried population transfers (such as the Chinese are still doing now) or drew boundaries very badly.

In recent weeks we've seen the struggle in Ukraine over territory, as Russian ethnics attempt to take parts of that country out of Ukraine and back into Russia. This is all a legacy of the Russians populating some areas of their empire with ethnic Russians and also redrawing the maps after World War Two.  This left a demographic mess that can't get sorted out well. Ukraine has to try to keep what it has, and Russia, never having gotten over its having been an imperial nation, supports its fellow ethnic Russians in their efforts to get out, if indeed it doesn't hope for domination of Ukraine.  The Tartars, in Crimea, find themselves outnumbered by everyone in their native lands.  This can't be sorted out well by any means, other than perhaps telling the ethnic Russians they'll just have to get used to it.  An interesting aspect of this, however, is that there's current combat between two distinct peoples based upon lines drawn in colonial times by one, and by cultural differences that might appear to be slight from the casual observer, but in fact which are very deep.*

Ukranian girl in a former concentration camp, in Austria, May, 1945.

A worse situation is brewing in Iraq, which in the past several days has slipped into a religious and ethnic civil war.  Making the situation all the worse, Iraq isn't a real nation to start with, but  British creation.  In some ways, Iraq was what was left over of the Ottoman Empire after you ran it out to the East.  The deserty part in the west of the country was thinly populated (and still is) and was Sunni, falling into the Bedouin cultural region.  The agricultural part to the East was Shiite, indeed it's critical to the Shiia world view for historical reasons, but still Arab (i.e., not Persian).  The north is Kurdish.

 Youthful Iraqi fascists gather, in 1932, so celebrate Iraq's entry into the League of Nations.  An unfortunate aspect of Middle Eastern history is that secular movements, which have occasionally have been very strong, have also been anti democratic.  Communist and Baathist have both been strong at various points in Iraq's history, making up about the only non religious sectarian political parties in the country, a common feature of politics in the region.

The gulf between the Sunnis and the Shiias is vast, and in terms of religious differences it doesn't do them justice, really, to lump them all in as Moslems.  Their views are considerably different on some critical matters, and it's nearly impossible for them to regard each other charitably.  The northern part of the country isn't culturally Arab at all, a the Kurds are a separate people who really deserve their own country.

Iraq, of course, is disintegrating before our eyes.  As we fought a war to depose a strongman who kept the country together, by suppressing Islam in general and any individual national impulses as well, it's now our responsibility to some degree.  But the country really isn't.  In an ideal world, letting the Kurds set up their own nation, and separating the two competing branches of Islam into separate states, would occur, but that probably can't without dire implications.  Of course, the implications of whatever occurs, at this point, are dire.

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*.Ukraine is a Slavic nation that's traditionally looked west, like Poland to which it has a close ethnic connection.  More European that Russians, they are also grouped into two separate Eastern churches in terms of religion, one being the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the other being the Ukrainian Catholic Church, neither of which, of course, is the Russian Orthodox Church.  World War One presented them with an opportunity to leave Russia, which they did, but resulting strife with Poland and Russian resulted into its reincorporation and a subsequent heavy handed Soviet repressive period which included mass starvation as a tool.  A second chance at independence was seized by some Ukrainians during World War Two during which they viewed the Germans as an ally of convenience.  A guerrilla war that followed the reappearance of the Red Army lasted into the late 1940s.

Iraq