A Jordanian pilot was burned alive in a scene filmed by overhead drones. Men accused of being spies were drowned in cages, as underwater cameras captured their last tortured gasp. Others were crushed under the treads of a T-55 tank.
nytimes.com/2019/10/27/wor…
nytimes.com/2019/10/27/wor…
In this fashion, ISIS was responsible for the deaths of thousands around the world. A shooting at an office party in San Bernardino. An attack on a Christmas market in Germany. A truck attack in Nice on Bastille Day. Suicide bombings at churches on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka.
And it controlled area the size of England at its height.
Yet its sudden rise came as a surprise to those who at first saw it as a Junior Varsity team.
Yet its sudden rise came as a surprise to those who at first saw it as a Junior Varsity team.
How could the Western leaders have miscalculated so badly? By commiting the mistake of mirror imaging. They assumed that no one could believe in anything but their triumphant future, their global world.
Historians will have their hands full trying to understand the great blindness of the last decade. Leaders missed the rise of ISIS, China, the turn of Russia, the coming of Brexit and populism. What did these self styled adults in the room see?
An "austere religious scholar" in wire frame glasses.
