Monday, September 29, 2014

My letter to the LA Times RE Jonathan Zimmerman's Practice of beheading not limited to Islamic State

Washington DC
RE: Jonathan Zimmerman's Practice of beheading not limited to Islamic State
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-zimmerman-beheading-history-20140929-story.html

Dear Editor,

Zimmerman's "A brief history of decapitation" is not so much an actual history starting with the first known beheadings, which would immediately show how universal primitive ways once were. Nope, he'd rather help arm ISIL propagandists with blame America soundbites.

I think Zimmerman is titillated and entertained by violent you-tube videos, but I am not. I am horrified and disgusted by ISIL and their various apologists.  ISIL criminals are murdering people, raping women and girls, intentionally destroying cultural treasures, and stealing everything they can profit from in order to fund their war on anyone who refuses to worship their way. 

There has never ever been anything as dangerous and demented as ISIL. Hitler only had immediate neighbors to conquer and subjugate. ISIL has modern technology to recruit world wide, convincing vulnerable young men and women to join their ranks.

Ziad Asali of the American Task Force on Palestine wisely points out in his recent Huffington Post op-ed Confronting ISIL: The Day and Decade After that it "is state failure, with its disastrous social and political consequences -- as exemplified today in not only Syria and Iraq, but Libya and potentially some other Arab countries as well -- that lies at the heart of the explosion of violent extremism."

America is not a failed state. We Americans have freedom and justice and job opportunities, to name only a few of the benefits we enjoy.  We  have libraries and museums and national parks and schools and the ability to become elected leaders, or part of the fourth estate, or poets or scientists or whatever we want to work towards. Our founding fathers were most certainly not perfect, but they did set into motion a more real democracy where peace and progress can flourish, benefiting countless people and all our children.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

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